Falling for Her Army Doc Page 8

  “I didn’t know you’d be stopping by,” Janis said, approaching the entrance to greet Lizzie.

  “In the neighborhood.” She glanced back over her shoulder to make sure Mateo was still there. “Looking for clothes for my...whatever he is.”

  “Speaking of which—how’s he doing? We were worried until you called. But the thing that really concerns me is that he’s living with you, Lizzie. That’s not a good idea. Dependencies form. It may be difficult to get rid of him when the time comes.”

  “It was either that or the beach. And he was totally emphatic about not coming back here or going to the veterans’ facility in California. So...” She shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? He’s not exactly ready to be out in the world on his own, yet.”

  She took another hasty glance and saw Mateo talking to a handful of strangers who were huddled around him. He did have that kind of personality—the kind that drew people in. He was making good use of that now.

  “He’s not supposed to be living with one of his doctors,” Randy Jenkins said, approaching Lizzie and Janis.

  “I’m not his doctor—never have been, never will be. And, not that it’s any of your business, he’s in the ohana, not in the house,” Lizzie said, almost defensively.

  “Do what you want,” Randy said. “He’s not a patient here, and right now he’s on his own. So be his friend. I’m sure he needs that.”

  “Randy’s right. It’s your choice, Lizzie. But don’t get too involved. I don’t want to see you getting hurt.”

  “Hurt?”

  “You know...feelings that aren’t reciprocated. You’re vulnerable right now, just like he is, and I don’t want that playing against you.”

  “He’s not like you think he is,” she insisted.

  “Or maybe he’s not like you think he is,” Janis countered. “Just be careful. That’s all I’m saying. That, and put a leash on his desire to practice medicine. Because if people associate the two of you as medical partners and he makes a mistake, or forgets something...”

  “What?” Lizzie spun around and, sure enough, Mateo was examining the wrist of a young boy who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. “Look, courier those papers over later and I’ll sign them. Right now I think I’ve got to stop a doctor from practicing medicine.”

  “Easier said than done,” Janis warned. “It’s in his blood.”

  That was going to be a huge problem—teaching an old dog new tricks. Or completely rewiring the old dog until he was an entirely new one. Also, staying detached. That, perhaps, was going to be the hardest part, because Mateo was charming and she was not above being charmed, no matter how much she denied it to herself.

  Why? Because she was lonely. Because he was attractive. Especially because he was attractive. Oh, and the charm that just oozed from his pores. She didn’t know if that was really him, or a new Mateo he was trying on for size. But she liked it. Too much.

  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 Mat
eo.

  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?”