Kitabı oku: «Falling For Her Army Doc / Healed By Their Unexpected Family», sayfa 5

CHAPTER FIVE

IT WASN’T LIKE he’d meant to practice medicine on a street corner, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. The memory of the career that had been taken away from him kept poking at him, reminding him of who he’d used to be as opposed to who he was now. Nothing. That was who he was. Nothing. No one. A man without a memory living with a woman he barely knew.

“It’s not broken,” he told the little boy’s mother. “Just sprained. It wouldn’t hurt to go get an X-ray, but you could save yourself time and money by making a sling and keeping it immobile for a couple of weeks.”

He was referring to a child who’d fallen and hurt his wrist. There was enough of the surgeon in him left that he could tell the difference between a sprain and a break. And while he shouldn’t have been making the diagnosis, it had just happened. Child in pain, mother worried sick, him reaching out to help. It was not only the life he wanted, but the life he needed. If he wasn’t a doctor, then who was he?

Someone from his own past, he decided as he rose to greet Lizzie—who, judging by the expression on her face, wasn’t too happy with what he’d just done.

Lizzie.

He liked her.

She leaned a little too heavily toward the no-nonsense side, but he’d caught a few fleeting smiles and laughs, which only emphasized just how much she kept hidden.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me I shouldn’t be practicing medicine,” he said, even before she’d reached him.

“You shouldn’t. And without medical supplies?” she asked.

“With a hospital only a few feet away I assumed I was safe. And you know what they say: once a doctor, always a doctor.”

“Well, don’t tempt Fate, Mateo. You’re standing on hospital property and you’re lucky Janis is feeling tolerant. Just watch where you’re dispensing bandages. OK?”

“Much ado about nothing,” he said, grinning at her as he purposely moved to the middle of the street.

“Why did you join the military?” she asked as they headed down the road to a little shop with a rack of brightly floral shirts on display. Typical casual wear that never failed to draw the tourists.

“Honestly? I don’t know. Something drew me. Just don’t know what it was.” Mateo sighed as they stopped to look through the floral shirts. “Like so many other things. It’s trapped in my mind. I can almost feel it there. But it won’t surface.”

“Give it time,” Lizzie said, pulling out a blue floral print, then holding it up for Mateo.

“Well, time is something I certainly have a lot of, isn’t it?” He shook his head at the print and she put it back. “I think my tastes run more toward T-shirts. At least I can’t picture myself in something like that.”

“How about you try it on, then decide?” Lizzie suggested, pulling down another one. This time it was a seafoam-green with white hibiscus flowers.

This wasn’t working. Whatever the cause, he was getting anxious. Too many colors, too much stimulation. Too many people watching. At least it felt like they were. All eyes on him. Wounds. Blood. Expectations. So many of them. And he was supposed to save them all. But he couldn’t. And they kept coming and coming…

“Mateo?” Lizzie said, giving his arm a gentle shake. “Where did you go?”

He blinked hard, then looked at her, not quite sure at first what was going on. Then it came back to him. It was simply another one of those bad recalls. They happened when he was awake. The nightmares came when he slept.

“To a place I’d rather not visit again.”

He was wiped out. No activity for so long and now even the little things bothered him. Maybe it was emotional fatigue? Whatever the case, he wanted to be left alone. Wanted time to himself to think, to see if he could bring anything back. To forget there were so many things he no longer remembered.

“Do you mind if I go take a walk on the beach?”

“Are you OK going by yourself?” she asked.

“I’m perfectly capable of taking a walk by myself,” he snapped, then instantly regretted it. “Look, things build up in me. Sometimes it feels like I’m a tea kettle just ready to go off. I didn’t mean to…”

She laid a comforting hand on his arm and it sent chills all the way up and down his spine. “Pressure relief,” she said. “It’s common.”

“How do you do it, Lizzie? How do you work with people like me, day in and day out, and not get burned out? Because from what I’m seeing there may never be a satisfying result in my future. Multiply that by all the patients you’ve cared for who are just like me, or worse… I’m surprised you don’t have your own pressure relief to deal with.”

“I do, actually.”

She took hold of his arm and they headed off down the road toward the beach, strolling casually, like longtime lovers who knew each other’s moves intimately.

“Some doctors find it in tobacco, drugs or alcohol. But I’m a little more passive. I like to watch the sunset. Or swim. And if I’m really angsty… I surf. I grew up—well…pretty much alone. Had to learn at a very young age to take care of myself. Because if I didn’t, no one else would. Don’t get me wrong. My dad did his best. It’s just that so much of the time there wasn’t enough left of him to be my dad. So my pressure relief? A lot depends on where I am. We lived in a snowy part of Germany for a while and I learned to ski. We spent time in Texas and I learned to ride a horse with the best of them. On Okinawa I learned to cook seafood. It all worked out.”

They stopped just short of the beach, where she let go of him.

“And medical school?” he asked.

“It seemed like a good choice. And I was ready to get out on my own. See a different world than the one he gave me…do something different than what I’d always done, which was to make the best of any situation I landed in.”

“Had to be tough.”

“Not all the time. I like working at Makalapua Pointe Hospital.”

“But you don’t love it?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure what I love. Most days it’s my work, but some days it’s just being lazy on the beach.”

“Am I hearing mixed emotions?”

“Not mixed so much as changing. I love being a doctor. That’s the easy part. But the rest of it… Well, that’s to be determined later.”

“It happens a lot. It’s called career burnout.”

“I’m just tired right now. Once I’ve been away a little while I’ll be anxious to go back.”

“What if you’re not?’ he asked.

“Then I’ll figure it out when the time comes. My dad burned out before his Alzheimer’s. Just decided one day he was done. He’d already served a full career in the Army and he was in general surgical practice. It bothered him for a while, but he was happy in his new life. I’m tired, but not burnt out the way he was.”

“And my being here isn’t helping you rest, is it?”

“Actually, it’s nice having someone around. I’m glad you’re staying with me for a while. It makes my day…interesting.”

Mateo chuckled. “I’ve been told I’ve done a lot of things, but making someone’s day interesting…can’t say I’ve ever heard that one. But seriously, Lizzie. If I get in the way tell me to go, and I will.”

She stepped away from Mateo. “I’ll see you later,” she said, reaching out, giving his hand a squeeze. “Unless you decide to go somewhere else.”

“Why would you say that?” he asked, wondering if she really wanted to get rid of him and if her hospitality had been offered on little more than a frayed thread.

Maybe he should go. Find a little place to call his own. Open a surf shop. Forget that he’d ever been a surgeon and content himself with whatever life brought his way.

Except…that wasn’t him. He wasn’t sure exactly who he was. But he was sure who he wasn’t.

“Do you want me to leave, Lizzie? Be honest with me. Should I go?”

Lizzie shook her head. “When I invited you I meant it. Besides, where would you go?”

“That’s a question for the ages, isn’t it?”

He had enough money to get him through for a while. Or he could strike out on his own and hope that something good came of it. But truth be told the appeal of being alone was overrated—much the way Lizzie had claimed. And facing the world with only part of you intact was a scary proposition. He wasn’t ready to try that. Not just yet.

“One day at a time,” his mother used to tell him, because that was the way they’d been forced to live. If she’d had dreams beyond that he’d never known what they were.

Did he have dreams beyond his stint in the military? Surely he must have. Or maybe he was like his mother—one day at a time. And now one day at a time with Lizzie.

He liked that. Probably more than he should and more than he had a right to. For now, though, it offered him something he no longer had—an identity. From that he would grow.

But in what direction?

It wasn’t like she didn’t trust him to find his way back. That part of Mateo was perfectly fine, and if he wanted to return here he would. Simple as that. She was distracted, though. And worried. It had been several hours and there was still no sign of him. Naturally that had made her think of her dad—that day he’d wandered away and hadn’t been found.

That was the nightmare that still caused her to wake up sweating and shaking, thinking of him out there alone, sitting in the underbrush near Kapu Falls, waiting for death to take him. Maybe it had been his choice—maybe that had simply been the way it ended for him. And now she was worried about Mateo. Probably needlessly. But all the same she couldn’t settle until he was back.

“It’s a nice offer,” she said now to Kahawai, one of the wealthy property owners in the area.

He was a proper old man, with polished manners and a politeness that far exceeded anything she’d ever seen in another person. He’d come over to her house and brought cake. It was the way of the people here when one of their own was in trouble, and somehow he’d found out about Mateo. So they were eating cake and discussing business to keep her distracted—which wasn’t working. Also, Kahawai had been trying to make her a serious offer for weeks.

“But I like where I am, and doing what I’m doing.”

Even to her own ears her words didn’t sound convincing.

Kahawai was offering to set up a small medical clinic for her to run. Something the immediate area lacked.

“It would be a good opportunity,” he said, slicing her a second, huge piece of cake. “For the community and for you.”

They were sipping banana coladas on her lanai—non-alcoholic drinks made from bananas, pineapples, and a splash of Hawaiian fruit syrup. She’d done this with her dad in the beginning, until being sedentary had made him nervous. Then they’d strolled the beach, gone wading, or picked up seashells.

“But I’ve never practiced general medicine in a small clinic,” she said. “I’ve always had a hospital and hospital resources to fall back on.”

That was her excuse for turning down his offer, her reason for not moving on. And, while this was something she and her dad had talked about doing someday, the thought of doing it on her own was daunting. She wasn’t sure she trusted herself enough. Not now, anyway.

“Well, I’d never been a property owner,” said Kahawai. “But look at what I have now. Good fortune and my uncle’s wealth smiled on me.”

Lizzie glanced down the beach to see if she could spot Mateo, but it was practically deserted, as it always was at this time of the day. The locals had all gone home, and tourists tended not to know about this spot. That and the fact that it was all privately owned, which meant no trespassing.

“He’ll be back in his own time,” Kahawai said. “Maybe he wanders the beach like you do, night after night, trying to find yourself. This doctor with no memory…does he mean something to you?”

“He has a memory,” she defended, almost too quickly. “He just doesn’t have… Let’s just say that he’s suffered some trauma and now he’s trying to come to terms with it.”

“And he’s living with you until he’s cured?”

“He’s staying in my ohana until he knows what he wants to do. Big difference.”

Kahawai grinned as he stood, preparing to leave. “Well, whatever the case. My offer stands. And if your roommate would like to work with you I’ll have a place for him as well. I understand he was a great surgeon in his day.”

“Good news travels fast around here, doesn’t it?” Lizzie said, trying not to give in to the anxiousness awakening in her.

“We’re like family, Lizzie. When you decide you want to be part of that family there’ll be a place for you.”

He carried his glass into the kitchen and exited through the front door, leaving Lizzie alone on the lanai, watching for Mateo.

What if he had decided to move on? Had he taken his things? What few things he had?

Suddenly the impulse hit her to head off to the beach and look for him. But, racing past the ohana, she found him standing on the doorstep, simply watching the night drop down on the beach.

“Looks like you’re in a hurry to get somewhere,” he commented, moving over to allow her room enough to stand there with him.

She squeezed in next to him, determined not to tell him what she was up to. She was his landlord, not his keeper, and she had to keep reminding herself of that.

“Just out for a walk,” she said, enjoying the feel of being pressed next to him.

“A walk with a vengeance. You looked like a lady with a purpose.” He slid his arm around her waist, and she readjusted to allow it.

“Just in a hurry.”

“You and nobody else. That’s what I’ve been observing—the way people take things at their own pace. They don’t seem so caught up in modern life here.”

“That’s all I’m ever caught up in,” she said.

“Did you learn that from your dad?”

“Maybe. I was always trying to keep up with him.”

“Did you ever succeed…before his illness?”

Lizzie shook her head. “He was a tough man. When he had time for me, if I didn’t take it he’d move on in the blink of an eye.”

“And that’s how you want to be? Like your dad?”

Lizzie laughed. “To be honest, I want to be just the opposite of what he was. I want to have a life around my work. He wanted nothing but work. Sometimes, if I catch myself doing or saying something he might have, I pull back…do just the opposite.”

“And that’s your problem now. You want to walk totally away from him and you don’t know how.”

“You should have been a shrink, Mateo.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “You have…depth.”

“That surprises you?”

“Well, you haven’t exactly been forthcoming about who you really are, have you?”

“It’s easier to stay safe that way. I learned that when I was young, trying to make it through school with good grades rather than a bad reputation. Then again in medical school, where brown skin wasn’t exactly the norm.”

“Did that bother you much?” she asked.

“When I was young, yes. But most kids suffer at the hands of other kids one way or another. When I started discovering who I was…” He chuckled. “Well, let’s just say that I know who I am, but in totally different terms now.”

“It’s almost funny how a man with amnesia may know more about himself than I know about myself.”

She should leave now. Get away from him while she could. Because as intimacy wove around them she was becoming fully aware that Mateo was the man who might make a difference in her life—if she allowed it. But her legs were too weak to support her body and too shaky to move her away from there. And the humid night, even with the cool spritz coming from the air-conditioning in the ohana, surrounded her, held her in place…which allowed his kiss in.

Just like the way Lizzie felt, Mateo’s kiss was unsteady at first. Tentative, with a masterful edge just waiting to break through. But he held back. Allowed time to pull her into his arms, tight enough so he could smell the faint scent of gardenias in her hair but loose enough to let her respond to his touch. Her arm, caressed by his, burned, and yet she shivered.

“Are you cold?” he asked, his breath warm on her neck.

Lizzie instinctively tilted her head to look up at him. He was tall, much taller than her, and his shoulders were broad…something she’d tried hard not to observe at the hospital in anything other than a professional way. But now her profession didn’t stand between them, and she admired what she saw the way any woman would admire a beautiful man.

“Just…unaccustomed…” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

She thought briefly about the colors of the evening sky—the golds and oranges, all the colors that took on a different meaning tonight, other than simply being the colors of another night alone on the beach. Stars by the thousands were twinkling. And she was gazing out on the empty sea, her empty life, her empty world.

All full now—if only for a moment.

Mateo shifted just enough to catch her off-balance and push her against the door frame. In a heartbeat he grabbed her and held her tighter, his dark eyes staring intently into hers. Just a breath between them with no place to hide.

“To what?” he asked. “What are you unaccustomed to?”

“You…me…us. All of this. I’ve held myself back from it.”

“Why?”

“Because there was nothing I wanted to become accustomed to. Nothing…no one who mattered. And being like that has become a habit. I’m always too tied up with…other things.”

“Maybe this will break your habit,” he said.

His voice was deep and intense. So much so, his meaning was clear. And when their lips met his hold on her tightened even more. He was pulling her into him, pressing himself into her.

It wasn’t like she wanted to be somewhere else. She didn’t. This moment—right here, right now—that was all there was. Her moment. And as her eager mouth fused to his she forgot who they were, where they were, or why they were. None of that mattered now. Nothing mattered but the tip of his tongue brushing her lips and the way she welcomed the urgent thrusting that sent even more shivers racing through her body.

Mateo had expected some heat just from being so close to her. Something mildly pleasant from almost touching. Then actually touching. But the sizzle, the pure magnetic draw of her—that was what caught him off guard. And not just the way she responded to him, but the way he responded to her. Like he’d never kissed a woman before.

The moment his lips touched hers, ever so briefly, and he cupped her neck with his hand, she arched backward, allowing him more of her. And as his thumb caressed the silken flesh of her throat, and she quivered hard against him, he pulled her even tighter to him, to close the gap, to feel the contours of her.

Damn, but her lips were soft. Too soft. And he fought to call back every bit of reason that was escaping him.

But before reason took over, he pressed his lips hard to hers, and felt the twining of her leg with his calf. A tiny, pleading sound was liberated from her throat—and that was when he lost his control. His cool. His will to keep this impersonal. That was when Mateo bent his head and seized that sound, drawing it between his lips and holding it there, for fear that once he backed away it would be gone, and they would return to normal.

His emotions were too close to the surface now. Too naked. Too close to revealing parts of him he didn’t even know in himself. Which scared him.

So rather than thinking about it, rather than letting his pure, raw emotions take over, he kissed her with everything inside him—fear for the future, desire for someone he didn’t know, desperation for what would become of him once Lizzie was out of his life.

Because she would be out of his life. There may have been mere millimeters between them now, but those millimeters would soon turn into worlds. And those different worlds would separate them.

The thought of that pulled him back.

“Well, that’s one thing you certainly haven’t forgotten,” Lizzie said, brushing her fingers across her red swollen lips.

“It’s a natural response to you, Lizzie. Surely you’ve seen it building?”

“Sometimes I miss the obvious. Partly because I want to and partly because I don’t put myself out there.”

“How is it with me?”

She raised her fingertips to her lips. “Nice. Very, very nice.”

He’d almost hoped she would say something like they couldn’t do it again, or it had been terrible. But the smile on her face told him otherwise. Which wasn’t good because already he wanted more, when there was no more to give. Or to have.

He was sitting on the lanai, sipping a fruit juice, watching the darkness surround him. It was a good place for him to be, because she was too confused to make much sense of their situation. In fact, broiling a mahi-mahi, a simple task, was proving to be almost more than she could handle right now.

“So, reason it out,” she said aloud as she chopped the mangoes, cilantro, green onions, and bell peppers to top the fish. “He kissed you, or you kissed him. Either way, it was a kiss.”