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FOREST VALE MEDICAL
BOOKS 1-4 COLLECTION
EMILY HAYES
CONTENTS
Surgeon
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
The Doctor’s Rival
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Christmas Eve
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
She’s my Patient
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Also by Emily Hayes
SURGEON
PROLOGUE
The hustle and chaos that was the Emergency Room, normally left Dr. Katherine Ross feeling excited and energetic. The E.R had a way of turning someone from being dead tired on their feet to feeling more alive than they had ever been. When she was a surgical intern, she would sit around just waiting for a major car pile up, or a similar crisis, just so she could experience the chaos over and over again. Both Katherine and the other interns used to question what type of people they must be that they would be hoping and praying for a major accident just so they could have the chance to fight to scrub in on a cool surgery.
They would race down the hallways to try and get to the E.R first. To the public, it was the Emergency Room, but to the hospital sta it was the Pit. Why? Because you never knew what could fall into a pit, could be nothing, could be everything. In a pit, things could get swallowed whole.
Throughout her time as a surgical intern, then surgical resident at Forest Vale Hospital, Dr. Katherine Ross had experienced many ups and downs of the career she had chosen. However, one thing became very clear, very quickly, she loved the human heart. There was nothing more satisfying, nothing more powerful, than holding a beating
heart in your hands. Taking something that controls your very life and restoring it. The more complicated a case was, the more dangerous the surgery was, the better it was for her. She loved a challenge. She loved doing what everyone said would be impossible. It didn’t matter to her if the surgery took twenty hours, she was there from the first cut until the last stitch was sewn.
Surgery was her world. She loved it and wouldn’t want to do anything else. She thought her life was complete, she couldn’t imagine how her life could possibly get any better.
All of that changed when she met the most amazing woman one day, years ago, sitting in the Pit.
Melissa Freemond had come in with a broken wrist and had been waiting for an x-ray. Katherine wasn’t sure what it was about her, but she couldn’t help but go to her. Melissa had this vibrant long wild red hair, so vivid across the room.
She was thin, petite, and her hair was a big statement on a small woman. She was drawn to her, as if there was an invisible string attaching her to this beautiful stranger. She had to go over there to speak with her and it had nothing to do with her injury. Her injury was boring, she wouldn't even need surgery. What was interesting, was how she got the injury.
“I’m Doctor Ross,” Katherine said as she arrived and with a clipboard ready for notes. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Melissa looked up from her place on the edge of the bed, wide green eyes more alive than ever and dirt on the side of her face. “I was playing flag football with some of the guys and made a dive for the runner. I totally got the flag though and we won the game!”
Katherine smiled, enjoying Melissa’s animated retelling of the game and examined her wrist carefully.
“Well done for winning the game. Did you happen to put your arm out as you fell do you think?”
“I think I must have, yeah.” Melissa’s legs were tiny in her short shorts and her wrist was delicate in Katherine’s hand.
Katherine had done something then, that she hadn’t done before. She took Melissa down for an x-ray and then she put on the cast herself. It was something a first year intern would do, not a resident, but she wanted to spend more time with Melissa. She wanted to learn everything she could about this tiny woman who plays flag football with men. As it turned out, Melissa was a new teacher at an elementary school. She spent her days teaching and shaping the minds of second graders. To Katherine it sounded like a circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno, but to Melissa there was nothing that made her smile more. She loved what she did and that was something Katherine could understand completely.
Katherine could never have imagined that one day she would meet the woman she would marry, sitting in the Pit with a broken wrist, but it happened. They quickly started to date, then fall in love and within eighteen months they were married. Katherine couldn’t believe it. She swore she would never marry, especially not while she was still in her residency. Her work schedule was insane, she was constantly working and studying. But, they made it work. Melissa knew what it felt like to be busy, she was often busy with her lesson plans and grading tests, getting report cards ready.
She was always trying to help her students and find new ways to teach them in a fun and creative way. They would often spend their nights on the couch or at the dining room table both working, but they shared that time together and it made it better. They were happy. Really really happy.
They spent ten years married and each and every single one of those years Katherine had loved. She loved being able
to wake up in the morning to her beautiful wife and to be able to come home to her arms after a di cult day. As Katherine’s career had progressed, the hours hadn’t really eased. Katherine’s determination to become one of the most renowned cardio thoracic surgeons in the world was all consuming.
Katherine never expected that there would come a time in her life that standing in the Pit would be something that brought crushing pain to her. It started o as a normal day.
She had just finished a successful twelve hour surgery and was on her way home. She never expected to get a call that her lovely wife had been in a severe car accident.
She turned and drove straight back to Forest Vale. She ran into the ER and stood there, for a second she was frozen to the spot. The place that used to bring her such joy, such a rush, only filled her with dread and she made her way through the chaos to where her wife was being treated. She followed the pull of that invisible string right to her wife. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Lying in an ER bed, covered in b
ruising and blood, was her wife. The woman that had changed her life. The woman that she had fallen so deeply in love with, almost instantly.
The woman who was her soulmate was currently lying in a hospital with machines hooked up to her and a swarm of doctors around her. Katherine’s eyes immediately started to read the monitors to gauge just how bad her injuries were.
She could tell that there was an issue with her breathing and her heart rate was too low. Something was wrong.
“We need to get her to surgery immediately. Page Cardio and tell them we have a hot one coming in.” The lead Doctor, Mark White, said.
“She’s my wife.” Katherine suddenly came back to life.
“Mark, she’s my wife. What are her scans coming back as?”
Katherine demanded, finding her voice finally.
Everyone in the room turned, recognising Doctor Ross’s voice straight away. They were so busy trying to keep their patient alive, they didn’t even notice that they had company.
Dr. White stepped forward and spoke.
“Katherine, I am so sorry. You aren’t a doctor right now.
You are patient’s family. We will do the absolute best we can for her.”
“What are her scans? I demand to know!” Katherine demanded again.
“Get her to the O.R right now.” Dr. White ordered before he turned back to Katherine. “Scans are indicating that there is a tear in her left subclavian artery. Jackson will do the surgery.”
“He isn’t good enough.” Katherine said, as she watched them wheel out her wife and take her away. She wished with everything in her to be able to have a moment with her to tell her how much she loved her, but she knew she couldn’t.
With her type of injury every single second counted, stopping to tell her she loved her could cost her life.
“I’ll do it. Let me scrub in.” Katherine snapped straight back to professional mode.
“Katherine, please, you know you can’t do this. You cannot operate on a loved one, it’s a rule for a reason. I’m sorry, but all you can do right now is wait.”
“Jackson isn’t good enough. He will kill her. We need a di erent surgeon.”
“Katherine,” Dr. White took her hand and looked at her kindly. She was a surgeon, she didn’t need his pity. “You know as well as I do that there is no time to get anyone else in. You know we cannot let you anywhere near the O.R. for her surgery. Jackson is her best chance right now. You have to wait.”
And with that Dr. White was gone and Katherine was left standing there in the E.R. Sta she knew and sta she didn’t
know were staring at her. Jackson Myers was not a good enough surgeon for this, she knew he wasn’t. He was old, he had never been the best and he was always resistant to new techniques, new equipment. She made a conscious e ort not to work with Jackson where she could, hence why he was often on opposite shifts to her. She knew they would never let her do the surgery herself, they were married and it went against the rules. You couldn’t treat a family member and you most definitely couldn't operate on one. It was set that way to ensure the surgeon’s mind was clear. If a surgeon’s mind was compromised and their judgment was questionable they could make mistakes. Some of them rookie mistakes and others devastating. A surgeon could go too far, push the surgery on too long because they feared their loved one dying on their table. Doing more harm than good. She couldn’t stop going through the surgery in her head. She could do it. She was the best. She could save Melissa. She took a deep breath. She couldn’t believe her wife’s life was literally in Jackson Myers’s hands.
Katherine let out a shaky breath as Ellen Lau came over to her. Ellen was a kind and e cient E.R. nurse that she had always got on well with.
“Dr. Ross. I am so so sorry. Let me come and wait with you.” She took Katherine’s hand and walked with her towards to O.R. waiting room. “Do you want me to get someone for you?” Katherine thought for a moment. There was nobody she was really close to at work. She had always kept a professional distance. She was so career focussed.
“I need to call my sister.” Katherine’s mind was going a mile a minute. Thinking about what the surgery would be and how di cult it could be if the tear was large in size. She could bleed out almost instantly when they opened her chest.
Even if she did make it, Katherine knew her beautiful wife had a long road ahead of her. Having open heart surgery was
not an easy thing to recover from. Her chest plate would have been cracked open and closed with wires to hold it in place while the bones healed. She would need to have the wires then removed later on once the bones started to heal.
She could have lasting damage from the surgery and that was if everything went right. There was no telling what could happen if complications came up.
Katherine sat in the waiting room with Ellen, just hoping to hear anything on Melissa. She had called her sister when she arrived in the sad room and Aimee quickly arrived to meet her and replace Ellen. All they had were each other, after their mother who had raised them on her own died when Katherine was at medical school. She had quickly explained what she knew and that they could be in for a long wait, assuming everything went well. Katherine knew she didn’t want to see Jackson any time soon. If the surgical team were still in the O.R., that meant her wife was still alive.
It was hours later when Jackson walked into the waiting room. He was dressed in blue scrubs with his surgeon’s cap on, he looked exhausted. Katherine and Aimee both stood waiting to hear the news. Katherine was a little worried that he was out here already.
“Dr. Ross, I’m so sorry. There was too much bleeding, we couldn't get it under control. The tear in her artery was as extensive as any I have seen. I couldn’t save her. I am sorry for your loss.”
Katherine couldn’t hear anything. She was numb. All she could hear was I’m sorry for your loss. She had said the words herself plenty of times. During your intern year you are taught how to say it, you get to say it all the time when a patient dies on the table, even if it wasn't your fault. Your teachers get you to say it over and over again so you can learn how to do it properly and how to become numb to the endless reactions that could come from a family member.
Never in a million years did she think she would be the one standing in a hospital and hearing those words and feeling nothing. Jackson’s voice was calm and controlled, she knew the tone, she used it herself plenty of times. But she realised just now how little it did for the one hearing it. It did nothing to stop the pain that exploded in her chest. It did nothing to ease the sudden loss of her wife. And it certainly did nothing to ease the guilt that was tearing away at her very soul at knowing her wife was dead, and convincing herself that if it had been her hands working on her wife’s heart, maybe she would have survived. Maybe she wouldn’t be standing here feeling like there was a gaping hole in her chest.
She had lost the woman she loved. She had lost her soulmate. The only woman to ever truly make her smile. The only woman to ever make her feel alive and special. She had lost her heart and she was never going to get it back.
1
Five Years Later…
Katherine sat in a co ee shop with her sister just around the corner from the hospital. She was on a quick lunch break and Aimee wanted to catch up with her.
Katherine had been pretty busy the last few months with her department. She was the Head of Cardio Thoracic Surgery at Forest Vale Hospital now. She had been promoted three years ago and as a result she had plenty of work to handle both with patients and on the administrative side. Over the past five years since she had lost her wife, Katherine had thrown everything she had into her work. She refused to date, not even thinking about being with anyone other than Melissa.
To Katherine, there was no one in this world that could ever compare to her.
“So, have you given it a try yet?” Aimee asked.
She had been trying to get Katherine to date for the past year. She knew her sister was grieving the loss of her wife, but after fou
r years she thought it was time for her to get back out there. She didn’t want her to be alone for the rest of her life. She knew she would never find anyone like Melissa again and chances were she would never get married again, but she wanted her sister to not be alone for the rest of her
life. She needed to remember how good it felt to be with someone. To have someone there in her life that she could talk to and have some fun with. Aimee knew without a doubt that Melissa wouldn’t want her wife to be alone and miserable for the rest of her life. She needed to find some joy again and she needed to get away from the o ce. It wasn’t healthy for her to spend every waking hour working, she needed to get a life again.
“Yes, I joined the app. And no, I haven't met anyone o it yet!”
Katherine had joined the dating app six months ago when her sister refused to stop talking about it. It was an app where she could set her profile to ‘interested in women’ so she wouldn’t have to deal with every guy hitting on her and trying to convince her she wasn’t truly gay. She had lost count in her life how many times she had been told by men,
“You aren’t really gay, you just haven’t met the right man yet.” The arrogance of the average straight, white guy never ceased to amaze her.
She had been messaged by a few women, and matched with a great deal of them. She hadn’t messaged any back, but then one woman caught her eye. Sophia. Sophia was a lot younger than her, only twenty-four, but she she had these enchanting blue eyes that drew Katherine in. Enchanting blue eyes and dark hair. Instead of the other messages that she received that all either said some version of hey to let’s hook up, Sophia had welcomed her to the app and told her some great spots to visit in town, because Katherine had said she was new to town, and o ered to show her around as a friend.
It was di erent and came across very friendly. They had started to text each other after that, never meeting in person.
Katherine hadn’t listed her job on the app, because she didn’t want to be hit on for her prestige and her salary. If she
was going to entertain dating someone, it would be because they liked her for who she was and not what she had to o er.
Sophia hadn’t mentioned what her job was either and Katherine didn’t ask. The one thing she did like about Sophia, she had made it very clear she wasn’t looking for commitment. She was only interested in a friends with benefits type of arrangement. Nothing but fun without any responsibility. She was very confident in herself and what she wanted or was capable of and Katherine could understand that. She realised suddenly that she was looking for the same thing. The thought of having someone to be close to, but none of the pressure that came with dating seemed like just what she needed.