Falling for Her Army Doc Read online

  But to get involved...? They weren’t friends. Weren’t even doctor-patient. Weren’t anything. But she’d been watching the watcher for weeks now, and since she’d be going on holiday shortly what would it hurt to get involved for once? Or, in this case, to take a simple evening walk?

  Watching Mateo walk toward her now, she thought he struck her as a man who would have taken charge. His gait was strong, purposeful. And he was a large man—massive muscles on a well-defined body. He’d taken care of himself. You didn’t get that physique by chance. Yet now he was stalled, and that didn’t fit. To look at him was to think he had his life together—it was in the way he carried himself. But there was nothing together about him, not one little piece. And he was sabotaging himself by not trying.

  Many of the staff’s morning meetings lately had opened with: “What should we do about Mateo?”

  The majority wanted him out of there. Even his own doctor didn’t care. But Lizzie was his advocate because he deserved this chance. Like her dad had, all those times someone had tried to convince her to put him away. That was exactly what they wanted to do with Mateo, and while neurology wasn’t her specialty, she did know that some types of brain trauma took a long time to sort themselves out.

  But beds here were at a premium. The waiting list was long, and military veterans always went to the top of the list. There was no guarantee they’d stay there, though, especially if they acted the way Mateo did.

  He was never mean. Never outright rude, even though he was always on the edge of it. In fact, he smiled more than anybody she’d ever seen. But he refused to try, and that was ultimately going to get in the way, since there were other veterans who could have his bed and display more cooperation.

  The waiting line for each and every bed was eight deep, Janis always reminded her, when she was so often the only one at the meeting table who defended him. His bed could be filled with the snap of her fingers, and that was what she had to impress upon Mateo or he’d be out.

  Truthfully, Lizzie was worried about Mateo’s progress. Or rather his lack of it. His time was indeed running out, and there was serious talk of transferring him elsewhere. He knew that, and it didn’t faze him. Not one little bit. Or if it did, he hid it well. Making her wonder why she tried so hard to advocate for a man who didn’t advocate for himself.

  “Well, you look good in real clothes,” she said as he walked up to the reception hub where she’d been waiting.

  He spun around the way a model on a runway would, then took a bow as a couple of passing nurses applauded him. “It’s good to feel human again.”

  “You’re allowed out in the garden any time, Mateo. All you have to do is ask and someone will walk along with you.”

  “But today I scored you.” He leaned in toward her and whispered, “Who happens to be the prettiest doctor in this hospital.”

  “Save the flattery for someone else, Mateo. All I’m doing is trying to chart a doctor’s note saying you were cooperative for once. So far there aren’t any of those on record.”

  Staff were tired of sugar-coating what they said about him and had started opting for snarky comments instead. In their defense, they were a highly dedicated lot who were bound to their jobs by the need to make improvements in patients’ lives—physically and emotionally. And, while Mateo might make them smile, he also frustrated them by pushing them to the limit.

  Lizzie nudged a wheelchair in his direction.

  “You know I can walk,” he said.

  “Of course, you can, but...hospital policy. If I take a patient outside, they must go by wheelchair or else I’ll be in trouble. In other words, comply, or give back the clothes and go to bed.”

  * * *

  “Comply? Easier said than done,” he said, not budging from where he was standing at the nurses’ hub. “Especially when you’re treating me like an invalid.”

  In truth, he’d prefer not to step outside—or in his case, be wheeled. There were too many things reminding him of how much he’d forgotten. Most days he wasn’t in the mood to deal with it. Staying in bed, watching TV, playing video games, sleeping...that was about the extent of his life now.

  Except Lizzie. She was the bright spot. And she was asking him out...no way he could turn that down.

  “Isn’t that how you’re treating yourself?” she asked. “We’ve designed a beautiful program for you here—took days going over it and tweaking it. It’s a nice balance for what you’ve got going on, yet have you ever, just once, referred to it? Daily walks in the garden, for instance? It’s on there, Mateo. And workouts in the gym. But I’ll bet you tossed the program in the trash as soon as you received it.

  “Might have. Don’t remember.”

  “Saying you’ve forgotten has become an easy excuse because retrograde amnesia is about forgetting things in the past. Not in the future, or even now. What you’re not retaining right now is left over from your brain surgery, but that will improve in time. With some effort. If you let it. Also, if you don’t care about your past you can walk out of here right now—a new man with a clean slate. You’re healthy, and with some caution you’re basically healed. Your destiny at this point is up to you. You can go, if that’s what you want. But I don’t think it is, because I believe you still want help with your memory loss, as well as trying to recall as much as you can about your life.”

  “Oh, you mean I want to remember things like how to repair a hernia?”

  “It’s all in there,” she said, tapping her own head. “Like you’ve been told. Unless you missed your session that day, procedural things aren’t normally lost. Life things are. And, as you already know, you do still have a little bit of head-banging going on after the surgery. But that’s not even significant at this point. Your attitude is, though.”

  “Head-banging would be your professional diagnosis?”

  Why the hell did he do this? He didn’t like it, but sometimes the belligerence just slipped out anyway. And Lizzie was only trying to help. He’d heard it whispered that she was the only one standing between him and being sent elsewhere.

  “It would be the way you described your headaches when you were first admitted. But you remember that, Mateo. Which means you’re in one of your moods now. You think you can smile your way through it and maybe the staff won’t notice that you’re not working toward a better recovery? Well, I notice. Every little detail.” She smiled back at him. “I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t.”

  “So, I’m part of your duty?”

  “You’re one of the patients here. That’s all. Whatever I choose to do, like go for a walk with you, is because I understand where you are right now.”

  “Do you, Lizzie?” he asked, his voice turning dark. “Do you really? I mean, even if I do retain knowledge of the procedural side of the surgeries I used to perform, would you honestly want a surgeon who comes to do your appendectomy and doesn’t even remember what kind of suture he prefers?”

  Lizzie laughed, giving the wheelchair one more push toward him. This time it bumped his knees, so he could no longer ignore it.

  “Sometimes I wonder if someone should change your diagnosis to retrograde amnesia with a secondary symptom of being overly dramatic. You’re a challenge, Mateo, that’s for sure. And, just between us, an open appendectomy skin closure works best with an absorbable intradermic stitch. Although if you’re doing the procedure laparoscopically, all it takes is a couple of dissolvable stitches on the inside and skin glue on the outside.”

  “And you know this because...?”

  “I’ve done a few stitches in my time. That’s part of being a PCP. So quit being so dramatic. It doesn’t score points with me, if that’s what you’re trying to do.”

  Well, he might have gaps in his memory, including the kind of women he’d been drawn to, but Lizzie certainly held his attention now. Petite, bouncy. Smart. Serious as hell. And that was the part that didn
’t escape him. Lizzie Peterson was a great big bundle of formidable perfection all tied up in a small package.

  Maybe that was what intrigued him the most. He couldn’t picture himself with someone like her. Of course, in his recent spotty memory he couldn’t picture himself with anybody, including his former fiancée.

  “Not overly dramatic. I’m allergic to flowers, which is why I don’t want to go to the garden.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says me.”

  “Then why, just a few minutes ago, did you want to go out?”

  “Maybe I wasn’t allergic a few minutes ago. Maybe it was a sudden onset aversion.”

  “Well, it’s your choice, Mateo. Your life is out there somewhere. Maybe it’s not the one you want, but it’s the one you’re going to be stuck with. You can make your own choices with it, but what you do now will affect what you do later on. And there is a ‘later on’ coming up. You can’t keep postponing it indefinitely.”

  She started to walk away but turned back for a final word. She smiled when she saw that he was in the wheelchair, ready to go. Why not? he thought. Nothing else was happening in his life. So why not take a stroll in the garden? Or, in his case, a roll.

  He gave Lizzie a deliberate scowl, which turned so quickly into a smile it almost caught her off-guard. “Is there any way I can talk you out of the wheelchair?”

  “Nope. I play by the hospital rules and you play by my rules. So, here’s the deal. You cooperate.”

  “Or what?”

  “That’s all there is to it. You cooperate.”

  “Isn’t a deal supposed to be two-sided?”

  “Maybe your deals are, but mine aren’t. I like getting my way, Mateo. And when I don’t, I’m the one who gets grumpy. Trust me—my grumpy out-grumpys yours any day of the week, so don’t try me.”

  He liked Lizzie. Trusted her. Wanted to impress her even though that was a long way from happening. “OK. Well...if that’s all you’re offering.”

  “A walk is a walk, Mateo. Nothing else. So don’t go getting ideas.”

  “You mean this is a pity walk?”

  “Something like that. You cooperate and I’ll do my best to help you. If you don’t cooperate...” She smiled. “I’m sure you can guess the rest.”

  He could, and he didn’t like it. This was a good facility, and as a doctor he recognized that. But as a patient he didn’t even recognize himself—and that was the problem. When he looked in the mirror, he didn’t know the face that looked back. The eyes, nose and mouth were the same, but there was nothing in his eyes. No sign of who he was or used to be.

  And he was just plain scared.

  * * *

  “Big date? You wish,” she said on her way out through the door, pushing Mateo in front of her.

  Today was Lizzie’s thirteenth day on without a break. But she had her nights to herself and found that if she worked hard enough during the day she could sleep through her nighttime demons. So, she worked until she was ready to drop, often stopped by The Shack for something tall and tropical, then went home and slept. So far it was working. Thoughts of her dad’s death weren’t invading every empty moment as much as they’d used to.

  Leaning back to the wall, just outside the door, Mateo extricated himself from his wheelchair—which was totally against the rules.

  “Is he getting to you?” Janis Lawton asked, stopping to hand Lizzie a bottle of water.

  Janis was chief of surgery at Makalapua Pointe Hospital. The one in charge. The one who made the rules and made sure they weren’t broken. And the one who was about to send Mateo to another facility on the mainland if he wasn’t careful.

  “I know the nurses are having problems with him.” Janis leaned against the wall next to Lizzie and fixed her attention on Mateo, who’d rolled his chair off the walkway and seemed to be heading for the reflecting pond. “But the thing is, he’s so darned engaging and nice most of the time. Then when he’s not cooperative, or when he’s refusing therapy... It’s hard justifying why he’s here when my waiting list is so long.”

  “Because he needs help. Think about what you’d do if you suddenly couldn’t be a surgeon anymore.”

  “I do, Lizzie. All the time. And that’s why Mateo keeps getting the benefit of the doubt. I understand exactly what’s happening. The rug is being pulled out from under him.” She held up her right hand, showing Lizzie a massive scar. “That was almost me. It took me a year of rehab to get back to operating and in the early days... Let’s just say that I was more like Mateo than anyone could probably imagine. But as director of the hospital I have some lines I must draw. And Mateo isn’t taking that seriously. Maybe you could...?”

  Lizzie held up her hand to stop the older woman. “It’s an evening walk. That’s all. No agenda. No hospital talk, if I can avoid it.”

  Like the walks she used to take with her dad, even in the days when he hadn’t remembered who she was. It had been cathartic anyway. Had let her breathe all the way down to her soul.

  “The way Mateo is happens when you don’t know who you are.” The way her dad had gotten. The less he’d remembered, the more uncooperative he’d become—and, while Alzheimer’s was nothing like amnesia, she was reminded of the look she’d seen so often on her dad’s face when she looked at Mateo. The look that said lost. And for Mateo, such an esteemed surgeon, to have this happen to him...

  “You’re not getting him mixed up with your dad, are you?” Janis asked.

  Lizzie laughed outright at the suggestion. “No transference going on here! My dad was who he was, Mateo is who he is. And I do know the difference. My dad was lost in his mind. Mateo is lost in his world.” She looked out at Mateo, who was now sitting on the stone wall, waiting for her.

  “You do realize he’s supposed to be in a wheelchair, don’t you?” said Janis.

  “But do you realize how much he doesn’t like being treated like an invalid? Why force him across that line with something so trivial as a wheelchair?”

  “Well, just so you know, your friend isn’t on steady footing and he might be best served in another facility.”

  “This is his fourth facility, Janis. He’s running out of options.”

  “So am I,” she said, pushing herself off the wall, her eyes still fixed on Mateo, whose eyes were fixed right back on Janis. “And with you about to take leave for a while...”

  That was a problem. She’d signed herself off duty for a couple of weeks. There were things in her own life she needed to figure out.

  Was this where she wanted to stay, with so many sad memories still fighting their way through? And hospital work—it wasn’t what she’d planned to do. She liked the idea of a small local clinic somewhere. Treating patients who might not have the best medical services available to them. Could she actually have something like that? Or was she already where she was meant to be?

  Sure, it was an identity crisis mixed in with a professional crisis, but working herself as hard as she did there was no time left to weigh both sides—stay or go? In these two weeks of vacation there would be plenty of time for that—time to clear her mind, time to relax, time to be objective about her own life. It was a lot to sort out, but she was looking forward to it.

  Everybody had choices to make, and so far, all her choices had been about other people. What did her husband want? What did her dad need? But the question was: What did Elizabeth Peterson want and need? And what would have happened if she’d chosen differently a year ago?

  Well, for starters, her dad might still be alive. That was the obstacle she could never get past. But maybe now, after the tide had washed it all out to sea, that was something she could work on, too. Guilt—the big flashing light that always shone on the fact that her life wasn’t in balance. And she had no idea how to restore that balance.

  “I thought we were going to walk?” Mateo said, approaching her after J
anis had gone inside.

  “Did you have to break the rule about the wheelchair in front of Janis?” Lizzie asked, taking the hand Mateo offered her when she started to stand up.

  “Does it matter? I’m already branded, so does it matter what I do when decisions are being made without my input?”

  The soft skin of his hand against hers... It was enough to cause a slight shiver up her spine—and, worse, the realization that maybe she was ready for that aspect of her life to resume. The attraction. The shivers. Everything that came after.

  She’d never had that with Brad. Their marriage had turned cold within the first month. Making love in the five spare minutes he had every other Thursday night and no PDA—even though she would have loved holding hands with him in public. Separate bedrooms half the time, because he’d said her sleeping distracted him from working in bed.

  But here was Mateo, drop-dead gorgeous, kind, and friendly, even though he tried to hide it. All in all, he was very distracting. How would he be in a relationship? Not like Brad, she supposed. Brad was always in his own space, doing everything on his own terms, and she had become his afterthought. There was certainly no happily-ever-after in being overlooked by the man who was supposed to love you.

  Not that it had made much of a difference, as by the time she’d discovered her place in their marriage she’d already been part-way out the door, vowing never to make that mistake again.

  But was that what she really wanted? To spend her life alone? Devote herself to her work? Why was it that one mistake should dictate the rest of her life?

  This was another thing to think about during her time off. The unexpected question. Could she do it again if the right man came along? And how could she tell who was right?

  Perhaps by trusting her heart? With Brad, it had been more of a practical matter. But now maybe it was time to rethink what she really wanted and how to open herself up to it if it happened along.

  Shutting her eyes and rubbing her forehead against the dull headache setting in, it wasn’t blackness Lizzie saw. It was Mateo. Which made her head throb a little harder. But also caused her heart to beat a little faster.