Falling For Her Army Doc / Healed By Their Unexpected Family

“I saw you staring at me,” he said, as a couple of young women from the bar watched him with obvious open invitation.

Who could blame them? Lizzie thought. He was the best-looking man there.

“Not staring. Just watching to make sure you weren’t doing something that would embarrass you and cost me my job.”

“But you’re off duty.”

“And you’re still a patient of the hospital.”

“But not your patient, Lizzie. And therein lies the distinction.” He grabbed a cold beer from a passing server and handed it to Lizzie. “Do you ever allow yourself to have fun?”

“Do you ever allow yourself to not have fun?” she asked, wondering if, in his previous life, he’d been a party boy.

He held up his bottle to clink with hers, but she stepped back before that could happen.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Lizzie. Prettier than anyone else here. And you’re smart. But if I were your doctor I’d prescribe more fun in your life—because even when you’re standing in the middle of it, you can’t see it.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re not my doctor, isn’t it?”

Mateo reached over and took Lizzie’s beer, then took a swig of it.

“That’s your limit,” she warned him.

“Actually, it’s one over—but who’s counting?”

Lizzie shook her head, caught between smiling and frowning. “I shouldn’t have to count. Somewhere in the manual on being adult there’s a chapter on responsibility. Maybe you should go back and re-read it.”

“You really can’t let go, can you?”

“It’s not about letting go, Mateo. It’s about all the things that are expected of me—not least of which is taking care of you, since I’m the one who brought you here.”

He reached over and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. The feel of his hand was so startling and smooth she caught herself on the verge of recoiling, but stopped when she realized it was an empty gesture. Still, the shivers his touch left behind rattled her.

“I’m not going to let anything hurt you or your reputation,” he said, his voice so low it was almost drowned out by the noise level coming from the rest of the people at The Shack. “I know how hard it is to get what you want and keep it, and I wouldn’t jeopardize that for you, Lizzie.”

This serious side of him…she hadn’t seen it before. But she knew, deep down, this was the real Mateo coming through. Not the one who refused treatment, not even the one who partied hard on the beach. Those might be different sides to his personality, but she’d just been touched by the real Mateo Sanchez, and she liked it. Maybe for the first time liked him. If only she could see more of him, now.

“I appreciate that,” she said.

She toyed with the idea of telling him that her job here might not be everything she wanted, that she was rethinking staying. But he didn’t want to hear that. It was her dilemma to solve.

“Just keep it reasonable and we’ll both be fine.”

“Everything in my life has been reasonable, Lizzie. I may not remember all about that life, but I do recall who I was in the part I remember, and I was you—always too serious, always too involved.”

“And now?” she asked.

“That is the question, isn’t it? I have so many different pieces of me rattling around my brain, and I’m not able to put them in order yet.”

And she suspected he was afraid of what he might find when he did put them into place. She understood that. Understood Mateo more now than she had.

“Sometimes they don’t always come together the way you want or expect.”

“Then I’ll have a lifetime to adjust to what I’m missing, or what got away from me. And that’s not me being pragmatic. That’s me trying to deal with me, and I’m not easy. I know that.”

He reached out and brushed her cheek, this time without the pretense of brushing back her hair. It was simply a stroke of affection or friendship. Maybe an old habit returning. And she didn’t mind so much.

Affection had never really been part of her life. Not from her dad, not from her husband. Even if this little gesture from Mateo meant nothing to him, it meant something to her. But she wouldn’t allow herself to think beyond that. What was the point? He was a man without a memory; she a woman without clear direction. It wasn’t a good combination, no matter how you looked at it.

Still, his touch gave her the shivers again.

“So, moving on to something less philosophical, you wouldn’t happen to know if I can swim, would you? I mean, being in the Army, I’m assuming I have basic skills. But enough to get me out there on one of those surfboards?”

“I could always throw you in to find out.”

“You’re not a very sympathetic doctor, Dr. Peterson.”

She laughed. “Well, you’re finally catching on.”

“What I’m catching on to is that you’re a fraud. I know there’s a side of Lizzie Peterson she doesn’t let out. That’s the side I want to see.”

“Good luck with that,” she said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “Because what you see with me is what you get.”

“Under different circumstances that might not be so bad. But with what I’m going through…” Mateo shrugged. “As they say: timing is everything. Too bad that’s the way it’s working out.”

Which meant what? Was he really interested, or was this only one small aspect of Mateo that had been damaged?

“In my experience, it’s not so much about the timing as it is the luck of the draw. Things happen when they happen, and the only thing dictating that is what you’re doing in the moment. If I’m the one paddling around in the surf after I’ve been warned there’s a rip current, it should come as no surprise to me that I’m also the one who gets carried out to sea. Things happen because we make them happen—or we choose to ignore what could happen in their place.”

“Like my amnesia. It happened because… Well, if I knew the answer to that, I’d tell you. But my doc prefers I make the discovery on my own. ‘Vulnerable mind syndrome,’ he calls it. Which means my mind is open and susceptible to anything.”

“Except doing the things you’re supposed to in order to help yourself improve.”

“Claiming amnesia on that one,” he said, smiling.

“As long as you’re just claiming and not believing. And as for swimming… I don’t know. But at some point, after I return from my holiday, if you’re still here…”

“Ah, the veiled threat.”

“Not a threat. An offer to take you out and see how you do in the water.”

“That could motivate me to be on my best behavior.”

“Or you could motivate yourself. Your choice, Mateo. So, are you up for a wade?” she asked.

“Didn’t you just say something about throwing me in?”

“Maybe I did…maybe I didn’t,” she teased.

Mateo laughed, then suddenly turned serious. “What happens if the real me comes back, Lizzie—all of me—and I don’t like who I am?”

“You haven’t given yourself enough time. And maybe you underestimate yourself. Whatever the case, you’re aware of changes and that’s the first step. Always be mindful of that and you’ll be fine. I mean, we all lose track of ourselves at one time or another, with or without amnesia. I really believe you’re more in touch with who you are than you’re ready to admit. So, like I said, there’s no rush. Now, if you go in the water with me, it’s ankle-deep or nothing.”

“I could have been a Navy SEAL…which means I’m an expert swimmer.” He kicked off his flip-flops and waded out in the water with her.

“Except you were an Army surgeon, stationed in a field hospital in Afghanistan. No swimming there.”

“In my mind I was doing something more glamorous and heroic.”

“You were doing something heroic. Patching, stitching, amputating…” She took hold of his hand, even though he was in perfect physical condition, and they waded in up to their knees. “Might not have been glamorous, but you were saving lives.”

“Only some of which I remember,” he said, taking the lead and then pulling Lizzie along until they were in halfway to their hips.

They stood there together for a few minutes, simply looking out over the water. In the distance, a freighter was making its slow way across the horizon—not destined for Oahu, where they were, but perhaps one of the other islands.

Faraway places, she thought, as she reluctantly turned back toward shore. She’d spent her life in faraway places, but she’d never taken the time to notice as she’d been too young, or too involved in trying to get along in yet another new place.

A big pity, that. So many opportunities wasted. Maybe someday she’d go back and have a do-over. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d put the past behind her, find her roots, and venture out to see if a little happiness might go with that. Right now, she didn’t know what she’d do. Her life was a toss-up.

“You’re drunk,” Lizzie said, not happy about this at all. Well, maybe not downright drunk so much as a little tipsy. But it would be the same once Janis found out.

After their wade in the ocean Mateo had decided to go back and join the partiers.

“That’s why I’m taking you in the back door of Makalapua. Because if we go in the front, I’ll lose my job.”

Actually, she wouldn’t. She was the primary care physician there and that brought some clout with it. And the patients weren’t prisoners. Doing what Mateo had done, while not advisable, wasn’t illegal, and in the hospital not even punishable. His condition wasn’t physical. He was on no medications that had any bearing on the beers he’d consumed. So nothing precluded alcohol.

Lizzie recalled the evenings when her dad had been a patient here, and she’d taken him to The Shack for tropical drink. He’d loved that. When he was lucid, he’d claimed it made him feel normal. But he hadn’t been on the verge of being sent elsewhere, the way Mateo was.

Still, there was no reason for Mateo to make a spectacle of himself—which he had done after three craft beers. He’d danced. On a table. With a waitress.

She’d turned her back to order herself another lemonade, and when she’d turned around there he’d been, doing everything a head trauma patient shouldn’t do. And he’d refused to stop when she’d asked him to get off the table. It was almost like he was trying to get himself kicked out of his spot at the hospital.

It had taken two strong wahines he’e nalu—surfer women—to pull him down for her, and by that time he’d been so unsteady he hadn’t even been able to take ten steps back without zigging and zagging. And there she’d been, looking like a total idiot, trying to get the man who’d become the life of the party to quit.

Well, in another day she’d have two whole weeks to sleep, swim, and forget about her patients, her obligations…and Mateo. Except he worried her. After having such a nice chat with him… Well, she wasn’t sure what she’d hoped for, but this wasn’t it.

“Not drunk. Just pleasantly mellow. And I’ll take responsibility for my actions,” he said, slumping in the wheelchair one of The Shack patrons had run back to the hospital and retrieved for her.

“You bet you will—because what you did is way out of line and I’m not going to get myself into trouble because you can’t control yourself.”

“Meaning you’re going to report me?

“Meaning I’m going to make a note in your chart. You’re already close to the edge, Mateo, and you know that. Depending on what kind of mood Janis is in when she reads what I’m about to write, there’s a strong likelihood she’ll have you transferred. You know the policy.”

“Yeah…one month to show I’m working, eight weeks to show progress. Well, isn’t dancing progress?”

“I was trying to be nice by giving you a little time away from the hospital, but you turned it into a mess. And while dancing may show some sort of progress…on a table? With a waitress?”

“You’re sounding a little jealous, Lizzie. I’d have asked you to dance, but, well…all work, no play. You’d have turned me down.”

Yes, she would have. But was he right about her jealousy? Not over the other woman, but over taking the chance to have a little fun. She was all work, wasn’t she? Maybe all these years of no play had caught up to her and she didn’t know how to have fun. Or maybe “Daddy’s little soldier,” as he’d used to call her, had never known what fun was.

Lizzie pushed Mateo’s wheelchair up a side hall, through the corridor behind the kitchen, then through the physical therapy storage area. Finally, when they came to the hall that led to his room, Lizzie stopped, looked around, then gave his chair a shove and stood there watching him roll away while she did nothing to stop him.

It took Mateo several seconds to realize she wasn’t controlling him, and by the time he’d taken hold of the chair wheels he was sitting in the middle of the hall, too woozy to push himself past the two rooms before his.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked, managing to move himself along, but very slowly.

“That’s the same question I was asking just a little while ago,” she said, walking behind him. “Why are you putting me in this position?”

“Maybe there’s something wrong with my amygdala or even my anterior cingulate cortex. You know—the areas that affect impulse control and decision-making.”

“Your brain is fine. I’ve seen enough CTs of it to know there’s nothing wrong. The blood clot was removed successfully. No other bruising or swelling present. No tumors. No unexplained shadows. So you’ve got no physical excuse for the way you act.”

When they came to the door to his room Mateo maneuvered to turn in, didn’t make it, backed away, and tried again, this time scraping the frame as he entered.

“I wasn’t aware I was putting you in any kind of bad position,” he said, stopping short of the bed and not trying to get out of his chair.

“Seriously? You don’t work, you don’t cooperate with the nurses, you refuse to go to your cognitive therapy sessions most of the time, and when you do go you don’t stay long. You’ve recovered from a traumatic brain injury and you’re battling retrograde amnesia, Mateo, in case you’ve forgotten. Then you get drunk and dance on a table. All that puts me in a very difficult position.”

She had no idea if he was even listening to her. His eyes were staring out of the window and there was no expression on his face to tell her anything.

“Look, I like you. And I know you’re in a tough spot—you look normal, but you’re not normal enough to get back to your old life.”

“My old life?” he said finally, and his voice was starting to fill with anger. “You mean the one where I was a surgeon one minute and then, in the blink of an eye, a surgeon’s patient? Is that what you’re calling ‘a tough spot?’ And don’t tell me how I’m working my way through the five stages of grief and I’m stuck on anger, because I damn well know that. What I don’t know is what happened to me, or why, or what I was doing prior to the accident, or anything I did last year. And I’d say that’s a hell of a lot more than a tough spot.”

He shook his head, but still didn’t turn to face her.

“I’m sorry if I got you in trouble. That wasn’t my intention. Being a bad patient isn’t my intention either. But when you don’t know…” He swallowed hard. “When you don’t know who you are anymore, strange things happen in your mind. Maybe you were this…maybe you were that. Maybe you’re not even close to who you were. I have a lot of memories, Lizzie, and I’m thankful for that. But sometimes, when I’m confronted with something I should know, and it’s not there…”

“It scares you?”

“To death.”

“My dad… I lived for three years with him, watching him go through that same tough spot and never returning from it. His life was taken from him in bits and pieces until there were more gaps than memories—and he knew that. At least until he didn’t know anything anymore. He didn’t have the option of moving on, starting over in a life that, while it wasn’t his, was still a good life. There’s going to come a time when you must move on with whatever you have left and be glad you have that option. Some people don’t.”

She walked over to him, laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and gave him a squeeze.

“You’ve got to cooperate with your doctors, Mateo, instead of working against them. Right now, working against them is all you do, and I’m willing to bet that’s not the way you were before the accident.”

“I’d tell you if I knew,” he said, his voice more sad now than angry. “I’m sorry about your dad, Lizzie. He deserved better. Anyway, my head is spinning and all I want to do is sleep. But I think I’ll need some help out of the chair.”

Immediately alert, Lizzie pulled a penlight from her pocket and bent over him to look into his eyes, in case there was something else going on with him other than the beginnings of a hangover.

“Look up,” she said. “Now, down…to the right…to the left.”

When she saw nothing of note, she tucked away her light, then offered Mateo a hand to help him get up. Which he did—but too fast. He wavered for a moment, then pitched forward into Lizzie’s arms.

“Care to dance now?” he asked, not even trying to push himself away.

Admittedly, he felt good. And she could smell a faint trace of aftershave, even though he typically sported a three-day-old stubble. Had he splashed on a dash of scent for their walk?

“I think you’ve already done enough of that,” she said, guiding him to the bed.

Once he was sitting, she helped him lift his legs, then removed his flip-flops when he was stretched out on the bed.

“I’ll have one of the nurses come in and help you change into your…”

There was no point in continuing. Mateo was already out. Dead to the world. Sleeping like a baby.

And she—well…time to face Janis.

This wasn’t how this part of her day was supposed to have gone. Taking a patient out for a walk…him getting drunk…

Thank heavens she had two blissful weeks of sitting on the beach, reading, and swimming coming up. She needed the rest. Needed to be away from her responsibilities. Needed to put her own life in order in so many ways.

CHAPTER THREE

“NO, IT’S NOT your fault,” Janis said, handing Lizzie a tiki cup filled with a Hawaiian Twist—a drink made of banana, pineapple, and coconut milk. And, yes, she’d even put a paper umbrella in it—not that Lizzie needed a tiki cup, a paper umbrella, or even a Hawaiian Twist. But Janis loved to make island favorites for anybody who came to her office, and today this was the favorite.

So Lizzie took a drink and, amazingly, it made her feel a little bit better. It didn’t ease the headache, but it gave her a mental boost.

“It’s not like I haven’t taken a patient out for a walk before.”

“Well, that’s why we built the hospital here,” Janis said, sitting down in a wicker chair across from Lizzie.

They were on the lanai outside Janis’s office, as a perfect tropical breeze swept in around them.

“I know—to take advantage of the location. And the gardens. Because we want our patients to experience paradise. And I do truly believe there are curative powers in simply sitting and enjoying the view. And, in the case of some of our patients, when the memory is gone, they can still find beauty in the moment.”

“Sometimes you’re too soft,” Janis said. “It’s not necessarily a bad thing, considering most of the patients we treat, but for Mateo I’m not sure it’s a good thing. He’s a strong man, with a strong will, and right now that will isn’t working to his advantage. I think he’s trying to find his way around it. Get a foothold somewhere. Honestly, there’s something in Mateo that just isn’t clicking.”

“Do you think he’s trying to take advantage of me? Hoping I can do something for him?”

“He could be. It’s always a consideration with some of our patients.”

“Well, he seems harmless enough to me. And it’s not like anything is going to happen between us.”

“Just be careful of Mateo. I haven’t figured him out yet.”

“Nothing’s going on,” Lizzie stated. “We’ve crossed paths for weeks, and this evening I just… It was a walk, Janis. That’s all. Except for the drinking, everything was fine.”

“Everything except you gave in to your sentimental side and he used it against you. Be careful, Lizzie. I’ve seen it happen before and it never turns out well. And you’re better than that.”

Janis was right. She was better than that. But it wasn’t showing right now. Yet she wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t take another walk with Mateo if he suggested it. Why? Because he was attractive? Because when the real man shone through she liked him? Because she was in the middle of her own crisis and Mateo was a distraction?

“Why don’t you go ahead and start your holiday early? Get away from here. Forget us, forget your patients, and most of all, forget Mateo.”

“There’s no one to cover for me.”

“The locum arrives in the morning. We’ll put him straight to work while you sleep in or sip a mimosa on your lanai. However you choose to spend your days off, Lizzie, they start tomorrow. I need you back at your best and, while I have no complaints about your work, you seem so distant lately. Take the time…get it sorted.”

Forget Mateo? Easier said than done. But with any luck, and two weeks of rest ahead of her, she’d get much more sorted than Mateo. Her dad. Her life. Putting things into perspective.

Now, that was something she was looking forward to.

In her life she worked, she slept, and every Saturday morning she went surfing, if conditions were right. That was it. All of it. And even though she owned her house she’d never really settled in, because she had been so up in the air about her dad.

Was this the place for him? Did he have the best caregiver? Did he need more? Should she enroll him in a day program a few times a week even though he wouldn’t have a clue what it was about?

She’d taken care of her dad for five years before he died, and all her energies outside work had been devoted to him.

Of course, she’d been contacted about great facilities all over the country that would have taken him in and made his last days meaningful. But what would have been “meaningful” to him? Her voice? The familiarity of his old trinkets and clothes? The chicken and rice she’d fixed him every Saturday night that he’d seemed to enjoy, when his enjoyment of other foods had gone away?

He’d had so little left, and there had been nothing any of these facilities could have done to make him better, so why deprive him of things he might remember?

Which was why she was here. He’d always wanted to retire to Hawaii and spend his days sitting on the beach, or planting flowers. That was what she’d given him when they’d moved here…the last thing she could recall that he’d ever asked for.

Now, here she still was, not sure whether to stay and live with the memories or go and start over someplace else. She really didn’t have a life here. All her time had been taken up by work or her dad. Then, after he’d died, she’d filled in the empty hours with more work. Now it was all she could see for herself, and she wasn’t sure she liked what she saw.

So maybe it was finally time to settle down, turn her house into a home, and start working on some of those plans she’d made when she’d moved here.

“I’ll call you in a few days and let you know how it’s going,” she said to Janis as she headed out the door. “And maybe I’ll have a party. A vegetarian luau.”

“With lots of rum punch, since they won’t be getting roast pig?”

Lizzie laughed. “Sounds like a plan. And if you get swamped, let me know. I’ll come back.”

“I know you will—which is why I’m going to ban you from the hospital until you’re back to work full-time. Understand?”

Janis could be hard. In her position she had to be. But, as her former med school professor, and now her friend, she was the best. In fact, she’d been the one who’d offered to take her dad, when his Alzheimer’s had been on the verge of becoming unmanageable at home. She’d even come to the mainland to help her make the move.