Secrets In Sydney. Emily Forbes

don’t say,’ Finn ground out as he tried again, feeling the sideways glance of his colleague along with the fast-fading power of the heat from the shower. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and one trickled down into his eye. Hell, he was a surgeon. He could sew the finest and smallest stitches so that his patient was left virtually scar-free. He sure as hell could open a bloody lock.

      A registrar rescued you when you couldn’t tie off that bleeder.

      That was once. It hasn’t happened again.

      It’s happening now.

      His fingers on his right hand were doing exactly what they’d done during that operation and he couldn’t control their gross movements let alone make them execute a fine task. He brought his left hand up to the lock, and in what seemed like slow motion he finally got it to open.

      Sam slammed his locker shut. ‘Will I see you in the gym?’

      Finn shook his head. ‘I’m done.’

      ‘Catch you later, then.’

      Finn didn’t reply. With a pounding heart he pulled his clothes on, wrapped a scarf around his neck and with legs that felt weak he sank onto the wooden bench between the lockers, dropping his head in his hands.

      You can’t even open a blasted lock.

      He rubbed his arm and swore at the offending fingers. He couldn’t deny it was happening more often—this loss of sensation that had him dropping things. Hell, he’d already had some time off and rested exactly as Rupert had suggested. He hated following instructions, but he’d done everything the neurosurgeon had suggested. On his return to work he’d cut back his surgery hours so he wasn’t standing for long periods. He’d taken up swimming, he’d even tried Pilates, which galled him, and none of it was working. He was still swallowing analgesia tablets like they were lollies and he refused to think about his Scotch intake.

      He ran his left hand over the back of his neck, locating the offending area between cervical vertebrae five and six. Wasn’t it enough that the bomb had killed Isaac, stealing his only brother from him? Apparently not. Its remnants now lingered with him way beyond the pain of grief. The blast that had knocked him sideways, rendering him unconscious, had jarred his neck so badly that the soft nucleus of the cushioning disc now bulged outwards, putting pressure on the spinal cord. That something so small could cause so much chaos was beyond ironic. It was sadistic and it threatened to steal from him the one thing that kept him getting up in the mornings. His reason for living. The one true thing that defined him.

      Surgery.

      So far he’d been lucky. So far he’d been able to survive without mishap the few times his weak arm and numb fingers had caused him to stumble in surgery. So far his patients hadn’t suffered at his unreliable hand and they wouldn’t because he now made sure he only operated with a registrar present.

      His gut sent up a fire river of acid and his chest constricted as the horrifying thought he’d long tried to keep at bay voiced itself in his head.

       How long can you really keep operating?