Falling for Her Army Doc Page 10

  “You haven’t been cooperative. So much so, you got kicked out. And now you’re homeless. And, while I’m beginning to see what I believe is the real you, you’re still not trying to get better. There’s outpatient therapy and private counseling available. It’s just a few steps from your door. And yet you’ve never ventured down there to see if there’s anything for you. It’s disappointing, Mateo. It’s like you enjoy being a step out of time.”

  “Lucky you took me in, then, isn’t it?”

  “Is it? I mean, sometimes you act like this is a real relationship. That kiss, for instance. Was it the start of something? Was it meant to be manipulative? What was it, Mateo? I spilled my guts to you about how unsure I am and got nothing back. Why is that?”

  “Did you ever consider that it might have simply been a kiss? That I’m attracted to you and it just happened?”

  “See—that’s the problem. You’re happy taking the easy way out in the things you do, the things you say. When you walked away from your treatment program did you even stop to think what you were doing? I mean, no one wants to stay in hospital, but if you’ve got no place else to go—”

  “When I was in Afghanistan a lot of widowed women with children came to the hospital,” he said, remembering how they would show up out of desperation and hope someone there had a solution for them. “The best we could do was a meal, sometimes a blanket, and the few provisions we could scrounge. It was heartbreaking, seeing all those people with no place to go.”

  “But that’s you,” Lizzie said.

  “That was me before that particular memory returned. If all these images had been coming back, I might have made a different choice. But I didn’t, so here I am. What can I say? I made a mistake. Made several of them. And, at the risk of repeating them, it’s easier just to keep myself...isolated.”

  “Because that’s what you think you deserve?”

  “I can’t answer that because I don’t know what I deserve or don’t deserve.”

  “That’s something best left up to you to figure out. It’s a fine line, Mateo. You’re doing so much better than anyone might have expected, but you’ve still got a long way to go. And I’m not going to be the one to tip you in any direction.”

  “I know. The rest of it’s up to me. But I haven’t quit, Lizzie. I just don’t respond well to pushing.”

  “Because you’ve always been in charge and suddenly you’re not?”

  “That probably explains part of it. But the rest... I know it’s not me. At least, I hope it’s not.” He shrugged. “I’m not very happy with myself, but I need to know why I do and say what I do before I can fix it.”

  “If you’re not sure of the problem, how can you fix it?”

  “Maybe I can’t. I don’t know. But the one thing I do know is that kiss...it was real. As real as any kiss I’ve ever had. And I meant to do it, Lizzie. You know, to seize the moment?”

  “Am I just a moment?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “You’ve never been just a moment since the first time I set eyes on you. Want to know what I thought at the time?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Mateo chuckled. “I’ll tell you anyway. You’d hurried up and down the hall several times that morning, always in a such a rush. But then one time you poked your head in my door and said, ‘Hello.’ Then you were gone. I thought you had the most kissable lips I’d ever seen. You were there maybe two seconds, but in those two seconds I knew you were somebody I wanted to know better. And kiss.”

  “Seriously? You wanted to kiss me?”

  “I’ll swear on a stack of hibiscus seeds that’s what I wanted to do.”

  Lizzie reached up and brushed her fingers lightly over her lips. “I suppose I should be flattered.”

  “Not flattered. But hopefully in the mood for another one someday.”

  “Time will tell,” she said, when she’d really intended to say no. But why limit her options? Especially since she was attracted to him? So, time would tell, wouldn’t it?

  Mateo put his arm around Lizzie’s shoulder and the two of them stood at the water’s edge, looking out on the ocean. It was nearly a perfect night. The skies were clear, the waters calm.

  “When I was a kid, sometimes we’d go to Lake Chapala or even the Manzanillo coastline to swim. I was too young to realize we were too poor to stay in any of the nice hotels or eat in the nice restaurants the way most of the people were. To me, it was a treat just getting to go. So we’d pile in the car—my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, and her sister—take along packed food, and have the best day playing in the water. Then one time one of the kids from a hotel called me a pobre niño. Loosely translated that means poor kid. I didn’t understand what he meant, or what he was implying, but I knew it wasn’t good. After that we quit going and my mother never explained why. But I don’t think she wanted me touched by that kind of ugliness. Then we moved to California and it was all forgotten. But the look of horror on her face that day... It broke my heart and I didn’t even know why.

  “Kids can be cruel,” she said.

  “Not just kids. It’s in all of us, I think. But most people are aware of how their words can hurt and don’t use them maliciously. On nights like this...perfect nights... I think back to how my little piece of perfection was ruined by a couple of words, and I wonder if the kid who used them against me even remembers.”

  “But they made you stronger, didn’t they?”

  “Only because I allowed them to. When you’re five, though, all you see is something that’s been taken away from you when it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Which is why you became a doctor?”

  “Actually, we lived in a small flat behind a doctor’s office. He let me go in and read some of his books. Most of them I didn’t understand, but by the time I was nine I knew that being a doctor was my calling. When he retired he gave me all those medical references, which were horribly outdated, but I loved reading them. I almost got myself kicked out of school for taking one or two of them to class rather than my textbooks. And you?”

  “It was all I knew. I was talking serious medicine with my dad when I wasn’t much more than a toddler, and by the time I was old enough to choose a career path medicine seemed like the logical choice. I knew it, I loved it, and most of all I knew what was involved. So there was never any doubt.”

  “Well, I went through the fireman, cowboy, and astronaut phases, but somehow I always tied them into medicine.” He chuckled. “For a while I pictured myself making house calls on horseback.”

  “I have a friend—a nurse practitioner—who makes calls in the mountains in the east, where it’s totally underdeveloped. She goes by horse because the roads are impassable.”

  “Well, then, bring on the cowboy hat and turn me loose.”

  Mateo looked out on the ocean again and watched a small child who was trying to swim toward the shore. She seemed to be alone, fighting the water, and his instinct kicked in.

  Without a word, he suddenly dashed out, dived beneath the waves, and got to the child just as she was about to go under. Pulling her close to his chest, he held her for a moment until her cries quieted and the realization that she was safe set in, then he brought her back to shore, where several people had gathered, watching the rescue.

  Lizzie spread out a blanket for the little girl, but stepped back when Mateo laid her there and did a quick check to make sure she wasn’t injured. By the time he was finished the beach patrol had pulled up with the girl’s mother, who was crying as she dropped to her knees next to her daughter.

  “She’s fine,” Mateo assured the woman, who’d bundled her daughter into her arms. “I’m a doctor and I did a quick check. She’s more shaken than anything. But you’re free to take her to the hospital...”

  The woman wiped away her tears and looked at Mateo. “No, I believe you.”

  “What hap
pened?” he asked gently.

  “She wandered off. I think she loses track of where she is and just...” The woman batted back tears. “Susie is autistic. She’s smart. But sometimes she doesn’t pay attention. And if I turn my back...”

  “I understand,” he said, laying a reassuring hand on the woman’s arm.

  “Sometimes she just gets away from me. She’s full of life and thinks she can do anything, but...” The woman scooped up her daughter and followed the beach patrol officer back to his car. Before she left, she turned back to Mateo. “So many people are critical when something like this happens. I appreciate your kindness, Doctor. More than you know.”

  Mateo stood there for a moment after they drove off, then turned to face Lizzie, who’d come up behind him and now stood there quietly, holding on to his arm.

  “Just when you think your problem is the worst in the world, you run into someone who has something going on that’s far worse. I used to see that in surgery. Back when I was a resident, sometimes I’d get a little depressed that I wasn’t assigned to one of the bright, shiny new medical hospitals—and then I’d get this patient whose life was hanging by a thread. It always made me realize how lucky my lot in life really was.”

  “I didn’t even see her, Mateo. We were looking at the very same thing and I didn’t see her.”

  “I wasn’t sure I did, either. It was a gut reaction.”

  Lizzie blew out a long sigh. “Well, whatever it was, I think I just saw a miracle happen.”

  He chuckled. “Not a miracle, Lizzie. That was me in my element. Me the way I was and the way I want to be again.”

  “Do you ever wonder what your life might have been like if you’d chosen to do something different?” she asked. “Like me. I had a music scholarship—I could be playing in some world-class symphony orchestra now. But here I am, and I’m not always happy about it.”

  “Because...?”

  Lizzie shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s the thing. I always wanted to be like my dad, but in the end he wasn’t the man I knew. Of course I wasn’t the woman I knew by then, either.”

  “As far as I know I always wanted to do what I do...did. My mother worked hard to get me through school. She even gave up living near her family to relocate to another country, so I’d have a better chance at achieving my dream. But there was that summer I worked on a ranch in Arizona. I was twelve, maybe thirteen. My mother took a job feeding the ranch hands while the real cook was off on maternity leave. By the end of the summer I was convinced my destiny was to be a cowboy, not a doctor. But then, on my very last day, I fell off a horse, broke my arm, and went back to my original plan. I think my mother was glad of that, because she hadn’t worked so hard only to see her son herding cattle and mending fences. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it’s not me. Of course, being a surgeon isn’t me anymore, either.”

  “But there’s a place for you, Mateo. I’m not sure where it is, or what it is, but skills like yours would be wasted mending fences. Maybe I can help? As a friend?”

  “Well, if you find that place, let me know. I’m getting tired trying to figure it out. And so far the road just keeps getting longer and longer, with no guarantees at the end of it. I mean, what’s the point of involving you, or anybody else, when nothing about my outcome can be predicted? What could you do to help me, Lizzie? Be specific. What can really be done to help me? Especially when I’m still in a place where when I wake up half the time I have to re-orient myself? What day is it? What time? Where am I?”

  “What I can do is make sure you’re not going wherever it is you’re going alone. The choices must be yours, Mateo. But I can be the support you need.”

  “Why would you want to tie your life to mine that way? You’ve already been through something similar once. Why go back for more?”

  To give herself another chance?

  To go back and find an outcome that wasn’t like her dad’s?

  She hadn’t told him the full story yet, but he’d gathered enough to know that she blamed herself for his death. So was this Lizzie’s need to find another path the way he was trying to do?

  “Because I can,” she said simply.

  He tilted her chin up and stared into her eyes. So much beauty there, yet so much sadness. Would it even be fair of him, pulling her into his problems when what he could see told him she had enough of her own?

  “My previous doctors didn’t get me. They were excited when they discovered I still knew how to peel a banana, when what I really wanted to know was how to perform a carotid endarterectomy. You know, the big things—like how to clear the carotid artery of a blockage, how large an incision I should make in the sternocleidomastoid muscle. I know the result could be a stroke, depending on the percentage of blockage, but I can’t run through the procedure in my mind without stumbling. What kind of scalpel did I prefer? Or clamp? What kind of impact would the procedure have on my patient’s quality of life? It’s all there...” He tapped his head. “But not in the way it’s supposed to be—which makes me doubt so many other things in my life, including my decision to leave the veterans’ facility and come here, only to be so uncooperative that I get kicked out. That’s not me. I know that. And yet when I see what I do...”

  He shook his head.

  “And then to draw you into the middle of it just because you’re willing to be there with me... So much of me wants that, Lizzie. But I don’t have the right to take over your life that way. I know I’m a problem. I know I do exactly the opposite of what I need to be doing. And to put all that stress on your shoulders, just because I want you at my side...”

  “We all hobble through life with one problem or another, Mateo. I think there’s something here for you. Not me, per se. But something else. I’d like to be like you are—the one who spots the little girl in the water and saves her before anybody else even knows she’s there. And I can help you because what you’re going through is impossible to face alone. I’m sure of that. And I do like you, in spite of yourself.”

  She expected a kiss, and maybe he did too, but instead he reached up, ran his thumb down the side of her cheek to her neck, and then placed the first of his kisses. Butterfly kisses that made her toes curl.

  Everything inside her told her to back away, but she was fighting all that was feminine inside her that compelled her harder into his arms, revealing more of her neck to him. And as he took what she was offering her lips parted with a sharp intake of breath.

  The sound of her shallow, rapid breathing as he kissed her caused her to desire more. And as if he’d read her mind, he cupped the back of her neck and kissed her deeply, gently, and so quietly she had to open her eyes to make sure he was still there.

  He was, and the look in his eyes told Lizzie that he was desperate to explore. As desperate as she was. Which for the first time didn’t scare her. Nothing about Mateo did. And that was the problem. The barriers keeping her away from this man had failed, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to put them back in place.

  No, that was wrong. She was sure she didn’t want to put them back in place. And again, in another first, she didn’t really care.

  * * *

  “You won’t get anyplace close to where you want to be if you’re alone.”

  “I’ve always been alone.”

  “Not really. You have a mother. I do understand why you don’t want to burden her with this. But she knows things you want to know, and maybe reaching out would be good for both of you.”

  It was breakfast time again, and she was sitting on the beach, eating a bowl of fruit. She’d spent the night in her room; he’d stayed in the ohana. But whose choice had it been to remain circumspect? She wasn’t sure, to be honest. Maybe it had been mutual. A natural pulling back of feelings for fear they were getting in too deep too quickly.

  Well, it sounded good, anyway. But waking up alone hadn’t felt so good. So ma
ybe they were just about the moment and nothing else. All she knew was that she’d felt a cold, hard lump in her stomach when he’d walked her to her door and then, without so much as a kiss to the cheek, gone around to the ohana.

  He shook his head. “I don’t want people that close to me.”

  “Even me?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. When I’m with you, that’s all I want. When I’m not, I’m cursing myself for being so stupid letting you in.”

  “You sure do know how to flatter a girl,” she said, trying not to sound as grumpy as she felt.

  “No offense intended.”

  “As I’m beginning to learn. But here’s the thing, Mateo. There’s an offer on the table from last night and the answer is simple. Yes or no? Do you want me standing with you? And this time, please don’t dodge the question.”

  He searched her face for his answer, and all he saw was genuine honesty. This was a big step, though. He’d been wandering alone for a long time, and to invite somebody in scared and excited him at the same time. Because he didn’t want to walk away from Lizzie. She made him feel...hopeful.

  Swallowing hard, Mateo said, “Yes,” in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

  “Then that’s where I’ll stand.”

  “Until you get too involved for your own good.”

  Lizzie bent over and brushed the sand off her legs. “That’s for you to figure out, Mateo, if and when it happens. Anyway, I’m going down to The Shack to have some juice and forget everything else for a while. You’re invited to join me, or you can stay here and eat whatever you care to fix. Your choice.”

  “Well, with such a gracious invitation on the table how could I refuse?”

  * * *

  He wasn’t in the mood for crowds this early in the day. In fact, he’d hoped to spend some quiet time on the beach with Lizzie, listening to the far-off strains of the waves lapping the shore and watching a ship make its lazy way through one of the channels.

  There was so much clutter in his head. So many things darting in and out. And he didn’t know which were real and which were not.