Falling For Her Army Doc / Healed By Their Unexpected Family

“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 Janis 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.

CHAPTER TWO

“I’D CLAIM AMNESIA, but I really don’t know the names of most flowers. The purple and white ones…

“Orchids,” Lizzie filled in.

“I know what orchids are.” Mateo reached over the stone wall and picked one, then handed it to Lizzie. “There’s probably a rule against picking the flowers, but you need an…orchid in your hair.”

She took it and tucked it behind her right ear. “Right ear means you’re available. Left means you’re taken.”

“How could someone like you not be taken?” he asked, sitting down next to her on the stone wall surrounding the garden.

Behind them were beautiful flowers in every color imaginable, with a long reflecting pond in the background. One that stretched toward the ocean.

“Because I don’t want to be taken. It’s one of those been-there-done-that situations, and I can still feel the sting from it, so I don’t want to make the wound any worse.

“That bad?”

“Let’s just say that on a rating of one through ten, I’d need a few more numbers to describe it. So, you haven’t been…?”

“I was engaged briefly—apparently. Don’t really have any memory of it other than a few flashes, and those aren’t very flattering. Definitely not my type, from the little I recall.”

“Maybe with your head injury your type changed. That can happen with brain damage. People are known to come out the other side very different from what they were when they went in. Could be the Fates giving you a second chance.”

“You can’t just have a normal conversation, can you? You turn everything into work.”

“Because that’s what I do.”

“That’s all you do, Lizzie. You come in early, leave late, and probably sandwich some sleep in there somewhere. I lived that schedule in Afghanistan too often, and it catches up to you.”

“But this isn’t about me, Mateo.”

“First-year Med School. ‘Treating a patient is as much about you as it is the patient.’ Even though some of my patients came in and out so fast they never even saw me, I worked hard to make every one of them feel that they were in good hands, even if those hands were exhausted. But you… There’s a deep-down tiredness behind the facade you put on, and it shows in your eyes. And I don’t think it’s physical so much as something else.”

“It’s just an accumulation of things. Tough decisions. My dad’s death. Things I’ve wanted I haven’t had. Things I’ve had I haven’t wanted.” She gave him a weak smile. “You’re very perceptive for a man who claims amnesia at the drop of a hat.”

“Straightforward talk, honesty…that’s what I was all about, Lizzie. Have to be when you’re out on the battlefield making quick decisions and performing life-changing procedures.” He sighed. “In the end, when you’re all they’ve got, the only real thing that counts is your word.”

“Was it difficult…practicing like that?”

“Isn’t it what your dad did?”

She shook her head. “He had rank, which got him assigned to a base hospital. He was the one who took the casualties that people like you had fixed after you sent them on.”

“Wouldn’t it be crazy if our paths had crossed somewhere? Yours and mine?”

“He kept me pretty isolated from that part of his life. If our paths had crossed it would have been somewhere like that little bäckerei on Robsonstrasse in Rhineland-Palatinate. We lived in a little flat about a block from there, and I loved getting up early and going for a Danish, or even a raspberry-filled braid.”

“The plum cake there was always my favorite. A little bit sweet, a little bit tart.”

“So, you’ve been there?” Lizzie asked, smiling over the shared memory.

“When I had time. My trips in and out were pretty quick, but I started getting a taste for the plum cake about the same time I stepped on the plane to go there, so that was always my first stop.”

“Small world,” Lizzie said. “Almost like a fairy tale…where the Princess meets the Prince in the most improbable way, then they have battles to fight to get to each other. You know—the love-conquers-all thing, starting with a fruit Danish and plum cake.”

“And the rest of the story in your little world?” he asked. “Do they ever get to their happily-ever-after, or do they eat their cakes alone forever?”

“Let’s see…” she said. “So, their paths crossed at the bakery… His eyes met hers—love at first sight, of course. It always happens that way in a nice romantic story. But since the hero of my story was a soldier prince, their time was fleeting. Passionate, but brief. And the kisses…?”

“Were they good?”

“The best she’d ever known. But she was young, and very inexperienced. Oh, and she’d never kissed a real man before. He was her first. Her other kisses had come from boys in the village…no comparison to the kisses of a man.”

It was nice, putting herself in the place of a young village maiden. Yes, Mateo’s kisses would definitely be those of a real man. She could almost imagine how they would taste on her own lips.

“Was he her first true love?”

Lizzie nodded. “Of course he was. But, the way as many war stories end, they were separated. He was sent somewhere else and her heart was broken.”

“Badly, or would she eventually heal?”

“I don’t think you ever heal when you’ve lost the love of your life. But she went after him. She was strong that way.”

“Then true love prevailed?”

“In my story, yes.”

“And they lived happily ever after?”

“As happily-ever-after as any two lovers could with six children. A house in the country. Maybe a few dairy cows.”

“Or just a couple of children, a house on a beach in Hawaii, no cows allowed?”

“Nice dream,” she said on a sigh. “And I’d kill for a blueberry Danish right now.”

Mateo started to slide his hand across the ledge on which they were seated—not so much to hold her hand, but just to brush against it. But either she saw it coming and didn’t want it, or she was still caught up in her fairy tale, because just as he made his approach she stood, then turned toward the beach.

“We used to come here when I was a child. It’s grown up a lot. Not much tourism back then.”

“Is there any one place you call home, Lizzie?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Home was where we were or where we were going. And you?”

“A small village near Guadalajara, originally. Then wherever my mother could get work after we came to the States.”

“Is she…?”

“She’s got some health problems…can’t travel anymore. But we chat almost every day, and someone at the facility is helping her learn how to video chat.”

“Does she know about your injury?”

Mateo shook his head. “Her life was hard enough because of me. Why add to it if I don’t have to?”

“After what my dad went through with his Alzheimer’s, I think you’re doing the right thing.”

“Now, about that walk…”

He would have been good doctor. She was sure of that. And she was touched by his caring attitude toward his mother. Even toward her. This wasn’t the Mateo who refused his treatments or walled himself into his room like a recluse. This was someone entirely different. Someone she hadn’t expected but was glad she’d found.

“Well, if we go one way we’ll run into a shaved ice concession, and if we go the other way it’s The Shack.”

“And The Shack is…?”

“Fun, loud, dancing, music, watered-down drinks for the tourists… Pretty much a place I shouldn’t be taking you.”

“Which is exactly why I’m taking you.”

“Two-drink limit, Mateo. Beer, preferably. You’re not on any prohibitive meds, but…”

“I was wondering when the doctor would return.”

“The doctor never left.”

“Oh, yes, she did,” he said, smiling. “And I was the one who got to see it happen.”

It was well into the evening—“her time,” as she called it. She really needed to go home and rest. But now that he was out here, she wanted to keep him here. Because while he was here he wasn’t inside the hospital, getting into trouble. Even his good looks—which everybody noticed—weren’t enough to change their minds, and right now the mindset was not in Mateo’s favor. Presently she was too exhausted to deal with it, so this little time out was badly needed. Probably for both of them.

Lizzie took a quick appraisal, even though she knew what he looked like. But she liked his dark look. The muscles. The smooth chest. And his hands…large, but gentle—the hands of a surgeon. How would they be as the hands of a lover? she wondered, as he spotted her amongst the crowd, then came her direction.