Free The Accidental Romeo by Carol Marinelli

as he put in the nerve block that would ensure Ronan couldn’t feel anything during surgery. ‘Your accent isn’t as strong as Marnie’s. Though I guess you were much younger when you came to Melbourne.’
    ‘We came to Perth first,’ Ronan told him, and it wasn’t, Harry noted, just Ronan’s hands that were similar to Marnie’s—he could talk for Ireland too. ‘But Dad got transferred to Melbourne a couple of years later. I don’t really remember Perth. I think I remember more about Ireland, though I’m not sure if it’s from going back or Mum talking about it. I’ve been back twice now, though Marnie goes back far more often. She misses it like crazy.’
    Harry looked up. ‘Didn’t she want to emigrate?’
    ‘No,’ Roman said. ‘Though she didn’t want to leave Perth either. She always said the moment she turned eighteen and she had her own passport she’d be straight back to Ireland, but she got into nursing...’ Ronan didn’t continue.
    He didn’t have to.
    Harry pretty much knew what had happened from there. As he waited for the block to take effect, he spent a moment thinking about Marnie.
    Harry’s heart seemed to constrict for a moment.
    No wonder she was so tough, she’d had to learn how to be.
    He checked each finger in turn, making sure that the anaesthetic had taken full effect before starting.
    It was a very intricate operation, which required Harry to wear magnifying glasses and to focus extremely hard, but every now and then Kelly would take his glasses off and he would sit up straight for a moment and take a very brief break. Sometimes he found himself listening to Ronan and Kelly talking, mostly about music and computers, but now and then the conversation drifted to Marnie.
    ‘I fight all the time with my sister,’ Kelly was saying.
    ‘It’s not worth fighting with Marnie,’ Ronan said. ‘It’s her way or the highway.’
    Ten years older than Ronan, Marnie had, it would seem, been a second mum more than a sister to him.
    Funny that he found out more about Marnie during a sixty-minute operation than he had in all the time he’d worked alongside her.
    ‘You’re done,’ Harry said, finishing off the splint. ‘For tonight you’ll stay in and we’ll keep it elevated. You’ll be given analgesics as it’s going to be painful as sensation starts to return and I want to start you on antibiotics. The last thing we want is an infection.’
    ‘Harry will come in and see you tomorrow,’ Kelly said, ‘and then you’ll probably be discharged home.’
    ‘Actually, I’m off tomorrow,’ Harry said. ‘It will be Dr Vermont and then there will be follow-ups in the hand clinic and a referral to the hand therapist.’ He really couldn’t tell Kelly and Ronan his news before he’d told Dr Vermont.
    And Marnie too.
    ‘Take care,’ Harry settled for instead.
    He had a drink before heading into Marnie’s office, and when he got there she was sitting with her head in her hands, just as he had in the car earlier, as if bracing herself for the news that her brother had died!
    ‘It’s a tendon!’ Harry said.
    ‘I know.’ Marnie looked up and there was a grimace on her face as she tried to force a smile. ‘I just came off the phone to my mother—you wouldn’t believe me if I told you how difficult that conversation was. She actually rang me and I caved and told her about Ronan’s accident.’
    ‘Oh.’ Harry was surprised. He’d got the impression they barely spoke. ‘I thought you didn’t...’ Harry halted. It was none of his business.
    ‘We may not talk about certain things,’ Marnie said, ‘but, as difficult as they can be, I love my parents very much.’ Marnie lifted her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Ronan’s accident is all my fault.’
    ‘Of course it is,’ Harry said calmly.
    ‘If she woke up tomorrow and the sky was purple, she’d be on the phone, blaming me.’
    ‘Well, if you’d just kept the tin-opener in the second drawer, all this could have been