The Doctor's Mission

No doubt they’d be off to the nearest slopes as soon as they could make arrangements. He heard them mention Austria as they turned to leave.

Nick sat in the waiting room. Mercier and Solange, a physician who worked at the hospital in Georgetown, were still in with Cate.

When he saw them exit, he joined them in the hall. “How is she?” he asked.

Solange replied, “Restless. Attempting to cope, mostly with denial. Dr. Ganz said he would release her today, but we didn’t mention that. I wonder if she should stay another day or so.”

There was no reason to prolong the inevitable. “So, she’s aware of Ganz’s prognosis?” Nick asked. They had operated to relieve the pressure on her brain from the bleeding, but the damage had been done. She had hit a rock. In addition to that, she had been deprived of oxygen a few minutes too long before they could dig her out. It was unlikely that Cate would ever fully overcome the results of her injuries. Her vision was impaired. So were her voluntary reflexes and her equilibrium. Her thought processes had been slow at first, but that had improved fairly rapidly. It was a good sign, but not good enough.

“Yes, she has been told,” Solange said with a grimace.

Mercier put an arm around her shoulders as he met Nick’s gaze. “I want to thank you personally for doing this, Sandro. I imagine Cate won’t be easy to live with these next few months.”

“I know.” Boy, did he know it. Cate had not been easy to be with when she was well and happy.

Life around her had been a roller-coaster ride. Cate embraced risk. A thrill a minute and damn the danger. All that energy. That strength. Those mercurial moods and sheer physicality. One thing he had to admit, he had never felt so alive before or since being with Cate. He had tried to hold on to that zest for life she had revealed in him. Secretly, he had envied her natural exuberance and tried to embrace it.

The trick would be to turn the force and strength of Cate’s energy into something that would get her through the worst of this. And to focus whatever drive he had left on her recovery.

“No one knows your address in Florence but your parents, right?”

“I moved to a larger apartment recently, so even they don’t have my exact address,” Nick assured him.

Mercier nodded, obviously satisfied. “We’ll make certain you aren’t followed when you leave here. Two of our Italian assets are already in Florence checking out your apartment and the surrounding area. They’ll identify themselves when you arrive. Here’s the information on them.” He tucked a card into Nick’s breast pocket.

“That’s assuming I can persuade her to go,” Nick said with a wry smile.

“I just told her she has to,” Mercier declared. “Cate’s practical. She understands that.”

Mercier cleared his throat and glanced at the closed door to Cate’s room. “Well, Good luck, Sandro.”

“Thanks.” Nick sighed. He would need it.

Mercier had told him earlier that he had three months, at which time he needed to know whether Cate could function in a training capacity or at a desk job with the agency. That time frame closely coincided with the date Nick had to report for the fellowship he’d decided to take.

Psychiatry was a far cry from neurosurgery, but it was one of the possibilities open to him now that he lacked the strength and fine motor skills necessary for delicate operations. So they had three short months for Cate to reinvent herself.

He took leave of the Merciers and went back in to speak with Cate. She looked exhausted, barely able to stay awake. “Hey, girl. Did they wear you out?”

“God, this is the longest day ever,” she groaned. “What are my chances of getting out of this place so I can get some rest?”

“Pretty good, actually. You’ll be staying with me for a while,” Nick said, reaching for her hand and clasping it with his left. “Don’t you dare say no. I’m looking forward to making you my famous spaghetti.”

“Oh, please,” she groaned, and made a face. “Not with the olives?”

“Black olives now,” he replied with a grin. “I’ve gone exotic.”

She wriggled around, withdrawing her hand from his and pulling up the sheet to cover her breasts, clearly outlined by the soft cotton print.

Her gaze fastened on the window. “They shouldn’t expect you to babysit me, Nick. I told them that.”

“We are doing this,” he declared. “It’s all settled. No arguments.”

She brushed a hand over her face. “Jack made my alternative pretty clear, but it’s so not fair to you. Gives new meaning to the word imposition.”

“Your mom said that, too, but it’s not imposing. I volunteered for it.” He managed another grin to cover the lie and flashed her the Boy Scout pledge.

“You did no such thing and we both know it.” She sighed. “And what if I don’t choose to be your good deed for the day?”

“I’ll carry you off like the caveman I can be when you strip me down to essentials. You know I’ll do it.”

She laughed. “Caveman stripped down, huh?”

Nick didn’t miss that fleeting expression that said she did recall him stripped. Her awareness of him as a man had always made him feel primal. Again, the old guilt over that surfaced, but he dismissed it. He made up his mind to view her as a grown woman from now on, not as the precocious kid who hit on him regularly and delighted in making him uncomfortable.

She had burst into the bathroom and seen him naked in the shower once. And stared, fascinated, amused and aroused, too, if those little breasts of hers had been any indication. It had not been his fault.

Her gaze shifted from heated to frustrated in the space of a heartbeat. “So when do we blow this joint? I’m sick to death of it.”

Nick released the pent-up breath he’d been holding. “This afternoon looks good for me.”

Her blue eyes flew wide. “Seriously? Today?”

She had been here for three weeks, conscious for two of them, ambulatory for one.

“They’ve done about all they can do here. Now comes the real work.” He shot her a warning look. “You know I’ll be a slave driver, don’t you?”

Cate exhaled, looking incredibly weary. All the visitors today hadn’t helped. Maybe she was too tired to make the trip. “If you want to wait until tomorrow, Cate, it’s okay,” he said.

“Not on your life. If I have to sneak out the back door dressed in this backless wonder and mooning the locals, I’ll do it. You said today.”

“Today it is. You take a short nap while I get the paperwork done. Then I’ll send in a nurse to help you dress. I hope your mom brought some clothes for you. If not, I’ll get you a set of scrubs to wear. Nap now,” he ordered, shaking his finger at her.

She clenched her eyes shut and pulled the sheet up under her chin. “Sleeping, see? Go sign me out.”

Nick reached through the railing of her bed and squeezed her foot. “See you in about an hour, twerp.”

He had to get out of here before he made an idiot of himself, kissed her and promised he’d make her well despite the overwhelming odds against it.

Seeing her this way, weak, bedridden and so desperate to escape the hospital she would go with anyone, made Nick worry that maybe this wasn’t going to work. What if he was too personally involved to help Cate do what she needed to do? Could he ignore all the old feelings and be professional enough?

He had left her alone when she was seventeen because he had to, but it hadn’t been easy. He had put her firmly out of his reach. Now she was thirty. And a patient, he reminded himself sternly. Still off-limits. No way would he become involved with a patient. Not even Cate.

“The last time you wore that look I had just laid a wet one on you under the mistletoe,” Cate said, laughing. “Do I still scare you, sweetheart?”

He shook his head in sheer exasperation. What the hell was he going to do with her? That was what scared him.

Chapter 2

Laughter proved the only weapon available as Cate fought tears of frustration and fear. She had to lick this. And who did they send to help? The man she had avoided like the plague for years.

God, why did he have to look so damn good? Who was she kidding? Even if he had gotten bald and fat, he would still be Nick, the only man she had ever pursued. And she had done that with such a wicked vengeance, ignoring his every protest, knowing that her aggressive behavior had actually pushed him away. How embarrassing was that?

What was her family thinking? Unfortunately, she could no longer tell and that was yet another source of frustration. They had always been a snap to read. Now she couldn’t even grasp how they were feeling, much less pick up any of their thoughts.

Both she and Nick had known their parents hoped for an eventual love match and resented that fiercely as most teenagers would. Only she had rebelled by provoking him, daring him, making him miserable. She was sure he had seen her as a pest. She had deliberately acted like one.

Their folks had given up the matchmaking after they saw their children’s lives headed down totally different paths. Nick’s marriage had quelled their hopes completely. And surprisingly, had secretly devastated Cate. She hadn’t even realized how much she really wanted him.

Nothing had cooled as far as she was concerned. And Nick wanted her, but obviously still felt guilty about it. Now it wasn’t her age or their parents’ interference, it was his ethics. It would always be something. They were just too different to get it on. She would have to curb her libido and give him a break.

Maybe he could help her recover from this injury. Not that further surgery ever could, so her neurologist had said, but if anyone could work a miracle, it would be Nick.

Couldn’t he see they were all using him? That she would feel she was, too, if she let him look after her? He’d insist on it anyway, though. Nick was like that, a born healer, Dr. Responsibility. And stubborn as the day was long. Worse than she was, if that was possible.

God, she did not want to go to Italy with him.

Cate wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t. This would pass, this weakness, this dizzy feeling, the horrendous headaches, nausea and rapid mood swings. Nick would know how to fix it all. He always knew how to fix things. Leaky faucets, faulty spark plugs, people’s brains. He was her best chance to beat this.

Surely she could stand the embarrassment of being with him if he could teach her how to overcome her injuries. He didn’t seem to be holding a grudge after all this time. He hadn’t ever, bless his heart.

Their paths had crossed occasionally when she had gone home to Elizabethtown, New York, for a visit and he happened to be there, too. It was impossible to avoid one another in a town that size. Their brief greetings had been understandably cool. Barely polite, but never hostile. It was just that she hadn’t wanted to set off any errant sparks and knew he had felt the same.

They wouldn’t do any sparking this time, either, and in spite of her teasing just now, she would see to that. Except for her age, all the old reasons they shouldn’t act on what they felt were still alive and kicking, magnified now by the intervening years and added to by the present situation. He had been right then and he was right now.

Her ruminations went on and on, preventing sleep. Before she knew it the nurse had come to help her dress. That proved no small feat since it involved sitting up, then trying to stand while the room spun. Not fun. She managed to get her clothes on before the nausea overcame her and she had to throw up. After that, she settled in the wheelchair to wait.

“Ready to go?” Nick asked as he breezed in, still looking like a cool million. She closed her eyes against the sight, but the image stuck. Oh, man, what eye candy!

He had always turned her on, even as a kid. As a fully mature man, he set her hormones bouncing big-time.

He had this intense look about him, riveting brown eyes and a strong jaw that gave him a determined, capable-of-anything appearance. His body had filled out, grown more muscular and less rangy. She tried not to imagine what it would feel like to have him hold her, to have him love her like no one else ever would.

He approached and she caught a whiff of his aftershave. Smelled like heaven must, she thought, realizing that part of the essence was Nick himself. Good ol’ pheromones.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said to the nurse who was about to wheel her out.

They left by a little-used exit. Cate noted a gray Volvo parked right behind the dark blue Audi Nick guided her to. She recognized Danielle Michaels, one of her fellow agents, in the Volvo’s driver’s seat and another, Vanessa Senate, riding shotgun.

“Hi, guys!” she called. Danielle waved at her and gave her a thumbs-up. Van smiled, too. They had been in for brief visits, along with her other teammates. God, she missed them. She missed work.

“What are they doing here?” she asked Nick as he helped her out of the wheelchair and into the comfy passenger seat of his Audi.

“Escorting us out of town,” Nick said. “Sort of like an honor guard.”

Cate fastened her seat belt. “Trust them to make a big deal out of nothing.”

“Hey, it’s a big day for you. They wanted to throw a keg party, but I declined on your behalf.”

“Meanie.”

“Yeah, well, I recall your fondness for suds and I don’t think you’re quite up to a hangover.” He pushed a lever and reclined her seat. “Just relax and don’t try to view the passing scenery. Might make you carsick. Try to sleep if you can. Want something to help?”

“Nope. No more pills. If I get the urge to upchuck, I’ll let you know so you can pull over.” She did as he instructed, well aware of the effect visual motion had on her even when she was sitting still.

They rode for a while with only the soft music from the radio filling the silence. Cate couldn’t sleep.

She kept stealing glances at Nick through her lowered lashes. “Better get this out of the way now, I guess. Do you forgive me?” she asked, unable to stand the question foremost on her mind.

“For what?” he asked.

Cate chuckled. “Hitting on you when you couldn’t hit back. I knew you wanted to.”

“Shut up,” he said playfully. “You did drive me crazy.”

“I know. Actually, I read your mind. Knew exactly what you were thinking. I told you so then, but you didn’t believe me.”

He smiled. “Yeah, well, you were definitely a little witch.”

“You still don’t believe it, do you?”

He shook his head. “You might have Mercier and the government snowed with that psychic claptrap, but I know how you do it.”

“Do you really?” She would never convince him. She hadn’t exactly kept her ability a secret from him, but hadn’t offered any proof of it, either. She had welcomed his skepticism. Not fair, maybe, but a girl had to use everything available to get things going. Or end it when it was time.

But what did that matter now? She couldn’t do it anymore. Her “gift” had always been there and very early on she had found it proved much more useful if she kept it to herself. Nobody had believed her anyway unless she demonstrated it and then it seemed to scare them off.

Only after she heard about the COMPASS team and applied for it had she been totally upfront about what she could do. Telepathy had become a large part of her job, maybe the most important skill she had. Was that why Mercier no longer wanted her as a field agent? Did he realize she had lost it? And if he did, how could he know it wasn’t a temporary loss? How could she?

Somehow, though, she needed Nick to know she had been inside his head, to believe it now. Maybe she just needed to convince herself it had been real and that it could be again. “You had some serious stuff going on in that mind of yours.”

“Like worrying about a jail term if I let you have your way with me,” he said lightly. “Did that register at all?”

“Yeah, I got that, and I’m apologizing for it, okay? Can we be friends again, Nick? Can we put all that behind us and just…get on with this?” God, could she sound more needy?

“Good friends, always,” he agreed with an emphatic nod. “We’ve never been other than that, Catie. Just relax and don’t worry about a thing.”

Cate couldn’t let it go. It sounded too pat, too easy. “So you’re not still mad about it, even a little?”

“Of course not. Can’t you read my mind and tell?” he teased.

No, not even a little bit. She’d get it back, though. She had to. God, it was like a giant hole in her awareness, that missing ability. Yet another handicap she had to overcome. She missed it as much as she would any of her other five senses. But Nick couldn’t help her with this.

She needed to understand precisely what her other handicaps were. “Nick, could you explain it to me and dumb it down to layman’s terms? Dr. Ganz told me everything, but I didn’t get much after his initial message of doom and gloom.”

Nick sighed and renewed his grip on the steering wheel as if bracing himself for something unpleasant.

“All right. Hitting that rock caused bruising and trauma to your brain. When there’s a sharp blow to the head like that, the bruising and the damage to the internal tissue and blood vessels is due to a something we call coup-countercoup.”

“Sounds like a double whammy,” she said, trying to conceal her fear.

“Exactly. The bruise directly related to trauma at the site of the injury is the coup. When the brain jolts backward, it can hit the skull on the opposite side and cause a bruise called the countercoup. The impact of the brain against the sides of the skull can cause a sort of tearing of the lining, tissues and vessels. The result of that can be bruising or swelling of the brain and internal bleeding. That’s why Ganz did the surgery, to relieve the pressure from the bleed.”

“I see.” Cate ran a finger over the healing scar and the stubble of hair growing in around it.

Nick continued. “Some injuries aren’t so bad and the symptoms and disabilities disappear over time, while some are severe and may result in permanent impairment.”

“So how severe is mine?” she asked, hating how scared she sounded. But she had to know. “It must be pretty bad.”

He glanced at her and tried to smile. “Well, certainly not minor, but you’re still very lucky. All your motor functions seem to be working, if a little slowly. They will get better, though.”

So maybe she’d get her extra faculty back in time, she thought, hanging on to the hope.

“What’s your main concern here, Cate?” he asked.

“Going back to work. Why is Mercier so dead set against that?”

He shrugged. “The seizures would be my guess. You had several immediately after they brought you in. Grand mal type.” He hesitated for a few seconds. “Those could happen again at any time in the future with little or no warning. You can see how that would hamper you as a field agent and put others at risk.”

“Ah. Well, suppose I took antiseizure meds?”

“Could impair cognitive functions you’d need to have sharp on the job.”

“Space me out you mean?” She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “Okay, that’s enough. I get the picture, though I don’t necessarily agree that I’m a lost cause.”

Somehow she’d think of something to get around Mercier’s main objection. Maybe have a number of EEG’s over the next few months and prove there was no longer a threat of seizures. She hadn’t had a single seizure since she woke up. Mercier would be convinced eventually.

She could hear just fine, no numbness, her taste and smell seemed okay. But occasional double vision and the loss of her sixth sense worried her. She felt lost without the telepathy.

She couldn’t talk to Nick about the absence of that skill if he didn’t even believe she had it to begin with, so she deliberately changed the subject.

“My moving in with you won’t mess up anything you’ve got going, will it? With someone else, I mean.”

“No, I’m not involved at the moment. How about you?”

“No. There’s no one,” she answered, even as she suddenly realized there probably never would be—nothing serious anyway. She compared every man she met to Nick. Why hadn’t she noticed before that she was automatically doing that?

She ran her thumb beneath the seat belt where it pressed against her chest. “So this Boy-Scout deed of yours. It wasn’t really your choice, was it?”

He hesitated just a beat too long. “I care about you, Cate. I want you to recover to the maximum extent and also make sure you can deal with whatever is not possible.”

She sat up straight and glared at him. “Well, that sounds depressing as hell and pretty damned pessimistic. What do you mean?”

He punched off the radio. “You do understand that full recovery is probably out of the question? I know Ganz told you that. Solange Mercier affirmed it and I have to agree.”

“Bull, you don’t have to,” she scoffed, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t care what any of you say, I can whip this, Nick. If you’re giving up before we get started, I don’t need your so-called help!”

Rising fury had her close to hyperventilating. Her face felt hot as hell and her nails bit into her palms. She recognized the unwarranted anger and knew the heightened emotion was a product of her injury. She deliberately tamped it down. It was a good sign that she could control it, Cate decided with a firm nod. Progress already.

“I’m not giving up, Cate,” Nick told her, shaking his head. “Only trying to prepare you.”

“I am prepared,” she said, biting off the words, determined not to unleash her feelings and give him the notion that they were uncontrollable. “I’m fully prepared to do whatever is necessary and then some. I will get back to top speed and I’ll do it in three months. You watch me.”

He shot her a look that contained no sympathy whatsoever. She hadn’t expected that. She had thought he would cajole, maybe tease or argue just to strengthen her determination. Instead, he focused again on the highway. “I see we’ll have to work on your acceptance of limitations.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “That will be your greatest challenge.”

He turned the radio on again. Cate watched him for a few minutes, wondering what was going on in that mind of his right now. God, she wished she could read him the way she used to. But the gift was gone, buried under the snow in the Bernese Alps, along with her balance and depth perception. Maybe forever.

What if he was right? She would be so screwed.

No. She could not let herself think that way, even for a second. With enough hard work and dedication, Cate knew she would come out of this whole. She would do anything, go to any lengths, to make that happen.

For now, she was determined to enjoy the moment. Or rather the hours it would take to reach Florence. She had traveled very little in Europe when she hadn’t been in a hurry to get where she was going. She decided to stay awake as Nick drove over the Simplon Pass from Switzerland into Italy. When traveling by train or air there was little to see but the insides of enormously long tunnels or the topside of clouds. So this scenery was new to her and distracting, thank goodness.

The snow-capped peaks were nothing new, but the sight of them, up close or at a distance, always filled her with awe. Even the memory of being trapped beneath all that snow so recently didn’t cause the view to pale. “I love it over here,” she muttered. “So beautiful.”

“You should be sleeping,” Nick replied. “Are the curves getting to you? I figured this would be better than the tunnel.”

“Claustrophobic, are we?” she asked with a grin.

“No, actually it’s the lack of lines on the road that separate the traffic going in opposite directions. A little unnerving.” He paused. “You feeling okay?”

“Not as bad as you’d think. And I don’t want to miss all this.” She fluttered her fingers against the car window. “Fantastic.”

The faint threat of nausea and the constant blurring bothered her, but she found she could take brief looks, close her eyes for a while and then open them to something totally new.