Falling For Her Army Doc / Healed By Their Unexpected Family

“Then how about we meet up at The Shack every few days and you can tell me all the gossip?” Lizzie suggested.

“Or maybe you could hang around there by yourself…meet a man…preferably a nice blond surf bum. How long’s it been since…?”

“Too long,” Lizzie said. “For anything. No details necessary.”

“Then definitely find yourself a surf bum. A nice one with an older brother for me.”

Lizzie was thirty-four, and Janis had twenty years on her, but with her blonde hair, and her teeny-bikini-worthy body, Janis was the one the men looked at while Lizzie was hiding in the shadows, taking mental notes on how to be outgoing.

“I thought you liked them younger these days?” Lizzie teased.

“I like them any way I can have them.” She smiled at Lizzie. “Seriously, take care of yourself. And keep in touch.”

“OK and OK,” she said, then waved backward as she walked away, intending to head back to her office, tidy up, then leave.

But before she got there she took a detour and headed down the wrong hall. Or the right one, if her destination was Mateo’s room. Which, this evening, it was.

“Well, the good news is I get to start my holiday early,” she said to Matteo, who was sitting in a chair next to the window, simply looking out over the evening shadows of the garden, and not sound asleep in bed, as she’d expected. “So, this is me telling you goodbye and good luck.”

“What? No more dates at The Shack?”

“First one was a total bust. With me it’s one strike and you’re out.”

“But you haven’t seen the real me. When that Mateo Sanchez emerges, do I get another chance?”

Lizzie laughed. “I’m betting you were a real charmer with the ladies. One look into those dark eyes and…”

“Do you like my eyes?” he interrupted.

She did—more than she should—and she’d almost slipped up there.

“Eyes are eyes. They’re nice to use to get a clear picture of when you’re being played.”

“I’m not playing you, Lizzie.”

“It doesn’t matter if you are or you aren’t. I’m off on holiday now, and once I’m outside the hospital door everything here will be forgotten for two whole weeks.”

“Including me, Lizzie?”

“Especially you, Mateo. So, if you’re not here when I return…have a good life.”

He stood, then crossed the room to her before she could get out the door. He pulled her into his arms. He nudged her chin up with his thumb and simply stared into her eyes for a moment. But then sense and logic overtook him and he broke his hold on her and stepped away.

“We can’t do this,” he whispered. “I want to so badly, but I never should have started this, and I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” she said, backing all the way out through the door, and trying to walk to the hospital exit without showing off her wobbly knees.

Whatever had just happened couldn’t happen again. She wasn’t ready. Her life was in a mess. But it was one more thing to be sorted in her time off.

Was she really beginning to develop feelings for Mateo?

Or was Janis right?

Was he looking for a foothold? Someone to use?

Was he playing her?

She didn’t want to believe that, but the thought was there. And so was the idea that she had to shore up her reserves to resist him, because he wasn’t going to make it easy.

He wasn’t sure what to think. Didn’t even know if he cared. Still, what he’d done was stupid. Going against hospital policy. Drinking a little too much, dancing to prove…well, he wasn’t sure what he had been trying to prove.

Had he been the doctor of a patient like himself he’d have taken it much worse than Janis and Randy had. In fact, all things considered, they’d been very calm. Or was it the calm before the storm?

Lizzie wasn’t here to defend him now, and he missed her. Not just because she’d seemed to take his side, but because he genuinely liked her. Maybe even missed her already. Right now, he didn’t have any friends, and she’d turned out to be not only a friend but someone he trusted.

Except she wasn’t in the picture now. He was on his own and trying to figure out what would come next in his life.

“None of this is what I planned,” he said aloud to himself as he looked out the window.

Five years in the military, then find a good surgical practice somewhere in a mountainous area. Or maybe near canyons or desert. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d wanted, to be honest, but those were the areas that were tugging on his mind, so maybe that was what he’d wanted pre-amnesia. Not that it mattered now.

“You haven’t been to your cognitive therapy group,” Randy Jenkins said from the doorway.

He was a short man with thick glasses, who wore dress pants and a blue shirt, a tie and a white lab coat. He didn’t look like he’d seen the inside of a smile in a decade.

“Haven’t even left your room. You’re way past the point where your meals should be served to you on a tray in your room. But you’re refusing to come to the dining room.”

Because he didn’t want to. Because nothing here was helping him. Because he wanted his old life back, whatever that was, and he was pretty sure it didn’t involve sitting in a group with nine other memory loss patients talking about things they didn’t remember.

“And what, exactly, will those prescribed things do for me?” he asked, turning to face the man.

“Give you a sense of where you are now, since you can’t go back to where you were before.”

“Where I am now is looking out a window at a life that isn’t mine.”

“Do you want to get better, Doctor?”

Mateo shook his head angrily. “What I want is what I can’t have. And that’s something you can’t fix.”

“But there are other things you can do besides be a surgeon.”

“And how do you think I should address the obvious in my curriculum vitae? Unemployed surgeon with amnesia looking for work?”

It wasn’t Randy’s fault. He knew that. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. But he was so empty right now. Empty, and afraid to face the future without all his memories of the past.

“Look, sit in on a therapy session this afternoon. Then come for your private session with me. I’ll have my assistant look for some training programs that might interest you and—”

“Training programs? Don’t you understand? I’m a surgeon.”

“No, you’re not. Not anymore. I’ve had to report you to the medical licensing board and—”

“You couldn’t have waited until we were a little farther along in this?”

“You’re not in this, Mateo. And that’s the problem. Your license as a surgeon will be provisionally suspended, pending review and recommendations if and when you recover. I had to do it or risk my own medical license.”

He’d worked so hard to get that. Spent years and more money than he’d had. Even if he couldn’t operate, at least he had the license that proved he’d achieved his lifelong goal. He’d been somebody. But now he didn’t even have that.

“I guess we all do what we have to do, don’t we?” he said.

“It’s nothing personal. And, for what it’s worth, you’ll probably still have your general license to practice, because at the end of all this there’s every likelihood you’ll be able to find a place in medicine, somewhere. But you’ve got to cooperate now.”

But if he cooperated that meant all this was real. And he wasn’t ready for that yet. Which was why he fought so hard against everything. Once he admitted it was real, he was done. Over. Nothing to hope for. Nothing left to hold on to. Not even that thin scrap of resistance.

Two days had gone by and she was already feeling better. She’d boxed up a few of her dad’s belongings, which she’d been putting off for too long. Read a book on the history of Kamehameha, which had been sitting dusty on her shelf for two years. Done a bit of surfing and swimming.

Even just two days had done her a world of good, and as she headed off to the little stretch of beach at the front of her house, a guava and passionfruit drink in her hand, she was looking forward to more relaxation, more time to figure out if she should stay here or go somewhere else and start over.

Her plan had always been to go back home to upstate New York, but little by little this tiny patch of land she owned on Oahu had drawn her in. Her house was all glass on the side with the ocean view. It was large, but not too large…comfortable. Her dad had planted flowers that still bloomed in the garden and would for years to come, and the thought of leaving those brought a lump to her throat because he’d loved them so much in the last good days of his memory.

Her job… Well, that was one of those things she needed to rethink. It was good, but she wasn’t sure it was where she belonged. She liked working there, loved working with Janis, but the whole fit seemed…off. Maybe because her dad was gone now. Maybe because she was alone. Or maybe those thoughts were simply her fatigue taking over. And, since she wasn’t one to make rash decisions, she was going to let the job situation ride. Work through to the end of her contract, then see how she was feeling.

Stretching out on a lounger, Lizzie sat her drink on a little table topped with a mosaic of beach shells that her dad had collected and let her gaze drift to the waves lapping her small beach. She owned a beach. An honest-to-goodness beach. Even the sound of it impressed her a little, when very little else did these days.

“It’s a nice view,” came a familiar voice from behind her.

“How did you know where to find me?” she asked, turning to see Mateo standing just a few feet away with a duffle bag slung casually over his shoulder.

“Went to The Shack. Asked. They knew you and pointed me in the right direction.”

“So, I’m assuming that since you’ve got your duffel you’re no longer a patient?”

“Randy Jenkins made the recommendation this morning that I be transferred and your friend Janis dropped the axe.” He shrugged. “So here I am.”

“Then you’re on your way to another facility?”

Mateo shook his head. “My transfer is back to California, where I was before I came here. It didn’t do me any good then, and nothing’s changed so it’s not going to do me any good now.”

This wasn’t good. Too many soldiers returned home with PTSD and other problems and ended up on the street. Suddenly, she feared that for Mateo.

“What are your plans?” she asked, not sure she wanted to hear them.

“Don’t have any. When they said they’d arrange a transfer in a couple of days I arranged my own.”

“Meaning you’re homeless? Or do you have a home somewhere?”

She didn’t want to get involved. Shouldn’t get involved. But he didn’t deserve this, and it wasn’t his fault that he’d lost the life he’d known.

“No home. Sold it when I went into the Army and used the proceeds to buy a house for my mother. It’s in Mexico, and I’m not a citizen there. To get my veterans’ medical benefits I have to live in the States. Meaning until I leave Hawaii I’m a beach bum. But before I take off to…let’s call it to ‘discover myself,’ I wanted to thank you for being so kind to me and trying to help. I appreciate your efforts, Dr. Elizabeth Peterson, even if they were wasted.”

“And what now? You walk off into the sunset? Because that’s not where you’re going to find yourself, Mateo.”

He shrugged. “Do you really think I’ll find myself if I’m admitted to an eight-bed ward and assigned to therapy to which I won’t go, until I’m deemed so uncooperative they put me away in a home, give me drugs, and let me spend the rest of my life shuffling through the halls wearing bedroom slippers and existing in some kind of a stupor?”

“It’s not that bad,” she argued, even though she knew that in some cases it could be.

But for Mateo…she didn’t know. He wanted something he wouldn’t get back and he was stuck in the whole denial process. For how long, she had no clue. She was a personal care physician, not a psychiatrist.

“Could you go stay with your mother for a while?”

“I could, but she still doesn’t know what happened to me and I’d rather keep it that way as long as I can.”

“Well, I admire the reason, but how long do you intend on keeping up the charade?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. Haven’t thought it through that far, yet.”

Everything inside Lizzie was screaming not to get involved, that Mateo wasn’t her problem. But she felt involvement creeping up, pulling her toward the edge.

She thought of that day her dad had wandered off, just a year ago. If only someone had found him in time… And while Mateo wasn’t at all in the same condition there could be just as many bad consequences for him as well. So, swallowing hard as she pushed aside all the reasons why she shouldn’t do it, she did it anyway.

“Look, there’s an ohana unit on the other side of the house. It’s small, but no one’s using it, and you’re welcome to stay there a couple of days until you get things sorted.”

“This is where me and my bad attitude would usually take offense or say something to make you angry or hurt your feelings, but I’m not going to do that. I didn’t come here looking for help, but I’m grateful you’re offering. So, yes, I’d appreciate staying in your ohana. Because I don’t want to be out there wandering alone, trying to find something I might not even recognize. I don’t like being this way, Lizzie. Don’t like being uncooperative…don’t like hearing half the things I’m saying. But if I do get to be too much for you to handle, kick me out. You deserve better than what I know I’m capable of doing.”

“I don’t suppose you can cook?” she asked.

He chuckled. “No clue. But if you’re willing to take a chance with an amnesiac surgeon in your kitchen…”

For the past two days there had been nothing incoming, meaning nothing outgoing either. No imposed time limit on life or death. One less death to record, one less chopped-up body to send back was always good.

Passing the time playing cards with his best buddy Freddy wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to be doing, but there wasn’t anything else. And it was always interesting to see the many ways Freddy cheated at cards. Some Mateo caught. Many he did not. He could see it—Freddy palming one card and trading it for another.

“Cheat,” he accused his friend. All in fun, though.

“Prove it,” Freddy always said. “Prove it, and when we get back I’ll buy you the best steak dinner you’ll ever eat.”

Problem was Mateo couldn’t prove it. Freddy was just as slick in his card-playing skills as he was at being a medic. The plan was that after they returned home Freddy would finish medical school and eventually end up as Mateo’s partner.

But tonight, there was no plan, and Freddy was pacing the hall the way he did when he got notice that someone was on their way in. In those tense minutes just before everything changed. Activity doubled. The less injured soldiers stepped aside for the more injured.

Sometimes they lined up in tribute, saluting as the medical team rushed through the door, pushing a gurney carrying the latest casualty.

“Stop it!” Mateo shouted at his friend. “Don’t do that! Because if you do they’ll come. Stop it. Do you hear me? Stop it!”

But Freddy kept on pacing, waiting…

No, not tonight. Mateo wanted to make it three nights in a row without a casualty.

“One more night. Just one more night…”

Outside in the back garden, on her way to take fresh towels and linens to the ohana, Lizzie stood quietly at his door, listening. He’d excused himself to take a nap while she’d stayed on the beach to read. Now this.

It hadn’t happened in the rehab center, but something here was triggering it. Perhaps getting close to someone again? Close to her?

She thought about going in and waking him up. Then decided against it. If he was working out his demons in his sleep, he needed to. Besides, he was here as a friend, not a patient, and she had to take off her doctor persona or this would never work.

But it worried her. Because she knew the end of the story. Mateo’s best friend had been killed in the raid that had injured him. Mateo had been pulled from the carnage and taken to the hospital, resisting help because he’d wanted to go back to save his friend. Except his best friend couldn’t be saved.

While she wasn’t a neurologist, she wondered if some deep, buried grief over that was contributing to his condition. Certainly the head injury was. But not being able to save his friend…? She understood that profoundly. Because in the end she hadn’t been able to save her father. It was a guilt that consumed her every day.

“Sleep well?” she asked, watching Mateo come through the door. Cargo shorts, T-shirt, mussed hair. She liked dark hair. Actually, she had never really thought about what she liked in terms of the physical aspects of a man, but she knew she liked the physical aspects of Mateo. Strong, muscled…

“Bed’s comfortable, but I don’t feel rested. Guess I’ve got more sleep to catch up on than I thought.”

Sleep without nightmares, she thought.

“Well, the folks at Makalapua weren’t happy to find out where you are. Apparently, you got out of their transportation at the end of the circular drive, when the driver stopped to enter the main road, and then disappeared.”

“Transportation? Is that what they call it?”

“Makalapua owns a limo for transporting patients and families when necessary.”

“And it also owns an ambulance, Lizzie. That was my transportation. Ordered by my doctor. They came in with a gurney, strapped me down to it, and shoved me in the back of the ambulance. I was leaving as a patient. Not a guest. And I’m tired of being a patient.”

Lizzie sat down on the rattan armchair in her living room and gripped the armrests. “An ambulance? I don’t believe—”

“I may have amnesia,” he interrupted, “but I still remember what a gurney and an ambulance are. Oh, and in case you didn’t hear, I was to be escorted straight onto a military medical plane and met at the airport in California—probably with a gurney and an ambulance there, too.”

“Did you get violent? Is that why they did it?”

“Mad as hell, but not violent.” He sat down on the two-cushion sofa across from her but kept to the edge of it. “I’m guessing a couple of them are mad as hell right now.”

“They only want to help you, Mateo.”

They only want to help you.

We only want to help you.

I only want to help you.

Words she’d said over and over for years. Before, they’d sounded perfectly fine. Now, they sounded deceitful.

“Well, restraining me rather than giving me a sedative was preferable, but they were sending me to the place I specifically asked not to be sent.”

“You’re still Army, Mateo. On inactive duty. That means your commanders make the call and—”

“It’s out of my hands.” He shook his head in frustration. “I’m theirs until they cut me loose.”

“Something like that. And you knew that’s how it would be when you went in. When the military and veterans’ hospitals didn’t work for you, you were given a chance to recover outside the normal system. So, from what I’m seeing, they really were trying to help.”

And now he was in no system but, instead in her ohana.

“Look, let me see if I can work something out with Janis. Maybe we can get you transferred somewhere else. Maybe another private hospital.”

“Or maybe I should just go grab my things and wander on down the beach. The weather’s nice. A lot of people move from their homes to the beaches during the hottest weather. Maybe someone will take pity on me and give me a meal every now and then.”

“You’re not going to live on the beach, Mateo. And I’m not sending you off on some journey to search for something you might not even remember when you find it.”

Visions of her dad getting out and wandering around alone were the essence of her nightmares. And she’d even had a live-in caregiver who hadn’t always been able to keep track of him.

“So for now you stay here, and we’ll see what we can figure out.”

“But the military…they know where I am?” he asked.

“Of course they do. I called them because you’re not free of your obligation and they had to know. Like I’ve told you before, I play by the rules. But they’re not going to come and take you away from here, Mateo. At least not yet. All they wanted was to know where you were and what you were doing. I told them you were going into outpatient care in a few days.”

“That’s what you think I’m going to do?”

“That’s what I know you’re going to do if you want to stay here. Janis approved it and, for the record, it’s your last chance. After this the Army takes you back, and they’ll be the only ones with a say in what happens.”

Finally, he relaxed back into the sofa. “These last weeks it’s like someone’s always doing something to me, and most of the time not even consulting me before they do it. You’re the first one who’s ever told me beforehand what would happen, and I appreciate that.”

“So…you mentioned your mother doesn’t know about your current condition? Why is that? Is there some way she could take over medical responsibility for you until you’re through this?”

He shook his head adamantly. “She has advanced diabetes. Arthritis. Partially blind. The less she knows, the better off she is. Like I said before, I do call her every day, and as soon as I’m free to travel I’ll go to see her. But I don’t want the stress of knowing what I’m going through anywhere near her. She deserves a better life than she’s ever had before and I’m not going to deprive her of that.”

“Which makes you a very good son.”

She recalled how, in her dad’s decline, she’d tried to keep so many things away from him—things that would cause him stress. So she certainly understood what Mateo was doing, and even admired him for that. It wasn’t easy. She knew that.

“I remember when my mother became a citizen in the US. She’d studied for weeks, worked hard to learn the history, the language, and I think the day she was sworn in was one of the proudest days of her life. Making a new life isn’t easy, and she did it for me.”

“And you?”

“I was too young to realize all the sacrifices she was making to give me a better life. I don’t think I appreciated it the way I should. And my mother… I don’t want her worrying about me. It’s the least I can do. And she’s happy back in Mexico, living near her sister, proud of her son the…the doctor.” He nearly choked on the words.

She thought about the life her dad had made for her. That had never been easy either, but it had always been good. And he’d put aside many opportunities because he’d chosen to be a father first.

“Anyway, what’s next, Mateo? What do you want to happen or expect to happen?”

He chuckled, but bitterly. “Look, Lizzie. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m sure that’s obvious. But I’m not going to impose, and I’m not going to expect you to be my doctor while I’m here.”

“Like I could be your doctor,” she said. “That would require ethical considerations I don’t want to think about. Doctor brings patient home for special treatment? Nope, not me. I can be your friend, even a medical colleague, but not your doctor. So, my friend, I want to take a walk down to The Shack and ask them why they thought it was appropriate to tell someone where I live.”