The Doctor's Recovery

Wyatt nodded at her and leaned down to press a soft kiss on his mother’s cheek. Mia clenched the chair arms to keep from touching her own cheek. Greetings from her ex-boyfriends had been absentminded and distant at best. Her father’s greetings had included a cold cup of coffee and instructions to keep the day on schedule. Annoyed that he made her miss something insignificant like a simple kiss, she frowned at Wyatt.

“Wyatt, you never mentioned your friend was a patient here, too.” Helen tugged on her robe, adjusting the silk material around her legs. “But then you never mentioned Mia when you met her in Africa either.”

“You never mentioned you’d become the welcoming committee for the third floor.” Disapproval thinned his mouth into a flat line.

Which would’ve been more than acceptable if the urge to make him smile didn’t jolt Mia. Clearly, she needed a cup of her father’s cold coffee and a dose of reality. She stretched both legs out as if she’d just finished an hour of hot yoga, not struggled to walk the length of the hallway without slowing to catch her breath. She needed to concentrate on her recovery, not Wyatt’s lack of humor. “We’re between therapy sessions.”

Helen reached over, patted Mia’s arm. Each tap made Mia’s grin broaden as Wyatt’s frown lengthened. His mom added, “There are no rules against patients visiting with each other.”

But this wasn’t about two patients. This was about a mother and a former something—Mia wasn’t sure how to label what Wyatt and she had been in Africa. Still, she knew that hard gaze, that stiff stance from his taut shoulders to his tense hands on his hips. Wyatt had worn that same look every time Eddy had failed to follow his orders exactly. Now Wyatt leveled his displeasure on Mia and Helen. Except Mia wasn’t sure what Wyatt Reid rule the women had violated.

“Was there a reason you were keeping Mia a secret?” Helen’s voice was mild, as if she didn’t care if she violated a rule or not.

Mia was curious, too. “Maybe he thought we’d plan to escape together.”

Helen laughed. “And fly to Scotland to stroll through the fields of heather that I’ve always wanted to feel under my bare feet.”

Wyatt’s mouth opened, the smallest fraction that betrayed his surprise before he smashed his lips together.

Mia eyed him, enjoying his discomfort. “There’s still more to learn about your mom.”

“Wyatt is content with the mother he knows.” Resignation slipped through Helen’s voice.

“Certainly, your son wouldn’t presume to know everything about you.” Mia kept her gaze fixed on Wyatt and her voice just a notch above scolding. He’d claimed to want to learn everything about Mia one time, too. But only if Mia fit conveniently into his work schedule with little disruption to his life. “People change and grow all the time.”

Wyatt crossed his arms over his chest and kept his gaze fastened on hers, the challenge clear. “People also believe they need the approval of others to feel valuable and waste their entire lives seeking that approval, which they’re never going to get.”

Good thing she never required or needed Wyatt’s approval. She’d be waiting a long time. Maybe forever. “Everyone wants to be accepted and liked for who they are.”

“But sometimes who we are isn’t enough.” His voice was raw, as if bruised. His cheeks pulled in, accenting that grim air around him.

Her mother hadn’t been enough to keep her father home for longer than a weekend. Mia worked every day to prove she was more than enough to step into her father’s illustrious shoes, despite the doubts from the network, the film industry and even her own crew. She’d prove herself, keep her promise to her father, and then she’d be fulfilled. She’d finally be good enough. And that would be enough. Yet her gaze locked with Wyatt’s, and those slate eyes narrowed on her as if he heard the whispered denial coming from deep inside her chest. She slapped her palm over her ribs, blocking out Wyatt and disrupting the rumblings from a heart she had no intention of ever listening to.

“Well, I’ve had enough philosophical chitchat for the day.” Helen pulled her walker in front of her. “I don’t understand why your generation can’t simply say what they mean.”

“We do. Your generation just doesn’t want to hear it.” Wyatt shifted his attention to his mom, releasing Mia from his shrewd focus.

Mia sagged against the chair as if she’d run ten city blocks, not shutting out Wyatt and keeping him from revealing truths she rejected.

“Perhaps because it’s all nonsense.” Helen touched Mia’s arm and grinned. “Mia, I’ll see you when the therapy dogs arrive later.”

“Mom, you don’t like dogs.” Wyatt set his hands on his hips. Surprise jutted his chin forward.

“Nonsense. I had a German shepherd growing up.” Helen’s smile looked more girlish and young from the memory. Her voice eased into the wistful. “Smokey was my favorite pet.”

“You never mentioned Smokey before.” Wyatt rubbed his chin, his gaze dropping to the floor.

“You never asked,” Helen countered, her voice stiff and starched.

Mia winced from the lack of lightness in Helen’s tone.

Wyatt never flinched from Helen’s barb. Only stuffed his hands into his scrubs pant pockets and tucked his elbows into his sides as if preparing himself to absorb more of his mom’s rebukes. “Trent and I asked for a puppy every year until I left for college. Every year you said no.”

“Your father told you no, not me.” Helen turned to Mia. Her voice lowered, as if they’d stepped into a hushed confessional. “I’d overruled my husband on several things like the tree house, skateboards and video games. Thought I’d let him have his way with the no-dog rule. Good marriages are about knowing when to let the other one win.”

Mia had witnessed only the elements of a bad marriage with her own mother: unrequited love, a stalled life and a husband who paid for the stability his absence couldn’t provide.

“So good marriages are a competition, then, and not about compromise and mutual respect.” The humor in Wyatt’s tone soaked the sarcasm from his words as he stepped to the side of Helen’s chair. He reached out as if anticipating his mom’s next move.

“Good marriages are about real love, knowing what really matters to your spouse and romance.” Helen gripped her walker and stood up, greeting her therapist with a wide smile. “Vicky, you’ve rescued me from explaining the intimate details of a good marriage to my son.”

The older woman laughed and squeezed Wyatt’s shoulder before assisting Helen. “Follow your mother’s example and you’ll have a fulfilling marriage.”

Wyatt stepped back and rubbed his neck as if the idea of marriage misaligned his spine.

Mia cleared her throat, trying to break up her own laughter.

Helen turned toward Wyatt. “You’ll be back for dinner.” It wasn’t a request or suggestion—it was a command from a mother to her son. Disobedience wouldn’t be tolerated. Wyatt had more in common with his mom than Mia had first assumed. The Reid family certainly liked to order others around.

Helen shuffled down the hall, her laughter mixed with the therapist’s. Mia watched Wyatt’s eyebrows draw together as if he suddenly didn’t recognize his own mom.

“Good thing marriage isn’t on either of our to-do lists.” Mia let her amusement disrupt the silence.

Wyatt faced her, his fingers tapping against his bottom lip. “You wouldn’t claim to know everything on my to-do list, would you?”

Mia’s laughter fizzled like a candle in a rainstorm. Wyatt’s slow smile streamed through her, spreading a warmth like the sun’s first appearance after that storm.

Robyn arrived, pushing Mia’s transportation to the hyperbaric chamber between Mia and Wyatt. Mia sighed, relieved she’d get to sit in the wheelchair, instead of relying on her walker and sluggish legs and muddled mind. Robyn couldn’t carry her away from Wyatt fast enough.

CHAPTER FOUR

WYATT STRETCHED HIS neck and rolled his shoulders. He’d been crammed into the too-small recliner in his mother’s room for too long. He should go home and stretch out in a real bed. But there was more comfort in the stiff recliner than at his mom’s house.

His childhood home had been overrun by foliage and greenery, and no matter where he looked he couldn’t find any old childhood memories, good or bad. The cactus terrariums replaced the kid-art shelf of awkward clay pots and smeared-handprint pictures. Oil paintings of roses and orchids displaced family photos across the hallway walls. The scent of earth and soil lingered in every room, where vanilla and fresh-out-of-the-oven sugar cookies used to fill every breath. Even the tree house he’d built with Trent one summer before fifth grade had been overtaken by vines. The house was slowly being eaten by his mother’s plants.

He crumpled up another foundation application and tossed it into the wastebasket. Each scammer application etched his cynicism all that much deeper. “You’ll be lucky to have even ten real applicants to choose from.”

“Now isn’t the time for judgment.” His mom glanced up from her crossword and pointed her pen at him. “Just because these organizations don’t bring medical care to an entire country doesn’t make them less worthy of our support.”

He’d lost her support when his brother had died. He doubted he’d ever get it back. Fanning out several applications, he waved the papers at her. “You should go through these and decide for yourself.”

His mom removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “I’m too worn out tonight.”

“Spent too much time greeting new patients and playing with the dogs.” His mom was a closet dog lover. Nothing about that made sense. Nothing. Surely he should’ve known such a small personal detail about his own mother. He could recite the medical histories from his great-grandparents to his parents. Knew the family suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes and fraternal twins peppered the family tree on his mother’s side. He knew the vital information and important facts. That he’d only just learned about his mom’s dog history shouldn’t matter. The small dose of worry stuck in the back of his throat like a partially dissolved pill that should’ve been easy to wash down. After all, he knew everything that he needed to about his mom, didn’t he?

The click of her pen on the bedside table pulled Wyatt’s attention back to his mom.

She tossed her crossword book on top of the pen. “I only met one patient, and the dog visits are good for my health. They lower blood pressure, alleviate stress and anxiety.”

Maybe he should thank the therapy dogs for pulling his mom out of her death-is-coming-for-me phase and stop worrying about the things that didn’t matter, like her childhood pets. “You seem more relaxed tonight.”

“I owe that to Mia.” The pleasure in her smile brightened her voice in the dim room.

The words on the application in Wyatt’s hand blurred until all he saw was Mia’s wide copper-tinted eyes and even wider smile from earlier. A smile that punched him in the gut, deep enough to leave a permanent imprint and rattle his resolve to think of her as just another patient. Now Mia made his mother happy, too. That was unacceptable. His gut twisted around that punch. “Did Mia distract you with stories of her filmmaking adventures?”

“No, she was rather closed off about her life.” Helen frowned. “I’ll have to talk to her more about that tomorrow.”

Wyatt could hardly describe his relationship with Mia. Except from the moment he’d seen her in mud-coated hiking boots, a T-shirt splattered with blood and a fierceness in her attitude, he’d been drawn to her. Even when she’d demanded that he save her friend’s life. Even when she’d defied his orders to leave the surgery area and instead positioned herself at the door like a guardian angel ready to swoop in if he failed her friend.

He wondered how Mia would describe their time in the village. He crumpled up another scam application, shooting it into the trash can, along with his wayward thoughts. Mia’s version didn’t matter. Nothing good came from dissecting the past. Lessons had already been learned, and he prided himself on not being a repeat offender. “Don’t pry where you’re not invited, Mom.”

“Mia supports my desire to return home.” Helen took off her glasses and folded the arms together. “I’ll only be reciprocating the concern.”

“She told you to move home?” No wonder she’d made his mom giddy, telling her exactly what she wanted to hear. Wyatt struggled to keep his face impassive. How dare Mia put such impossible ideas into his mom’s head. His mom already had too many impractical plans on her agenda.

“The idea that you were forcing me to give up my gardening appalled her.” Helen’s glass case closed with the same snap that punctuated her voice. “Mia believes a life not spent doing what you love is a life wasted.”

Mia needed to analyze her own life and leave his mom’s alone. Besides, one stroll through his mother’s house proved his mom might’ve escalated her passion to an obsession. Something her new friend could surely understand after chasing her own father around the globe. The drive for the perfect film footage had consumed Carlo Fiore so fully, he had nothing else to give his only daughter. Mia wanted a father, Carlo wanted a legacy. And it looked like Carlo had won. Mia had almost died for her film. That was passion in the Fiore family and stupidity in Wyatt’s mind. Still, Mia embraced her father’s life just as he’d trained her to. Just as Carlo Fiore had expected. Yet Wyatt wondered how much Mia loved the reality of her life now. “You can still garden and grow your plants.”

“There’s hardly room for more than two plants in the single window in those places.” Her frown joined the distaste in her voice. “Never mind the sunlight required for an herb garden.”

“If you looked at the floor plan, there’s more than one window.” Wyatt crammed the stack of applications into his backpack, ramming his frustration inside, too. “It isn’t a prison.”

“Mia suggested that my therapists do a home visit to assess the dangers before I move back.” Helen adjusted her covers, tugging the blankets up to her chin. “I spoke to both of my therapists this afternoon and offered to give them my set of keys if you’re schedule is too full to accommodate such a small request.”

Wyatt tapped his fist against his mouth, knocking his retort back behind his teeth. He really must thank Mia for her abundant help.

His mom lowered the head of her bed, signaling her desire to sleep and the end of their conversation.

Mia needed to stop making suggestions. Now. His mother needed to stop acting as if she came last in his life. He’d come home, hadn’t he? He swung the backpack on his shoulder and kissed his mom’s cheek. “I’ll talk to your therapists tomorrow.”

Right after he set Mia straight before things went too far and she’d written his mother’s discharge and home care orders herself.

Wyatt strode down the hall and noticed the light streaming from Mia’s room, not the soft night setting that allowed patients to see their way to the bathroom. But the full daylight setting that lit up the room like the noon sun across the desert. She knew the importance of sleep. A hospital room wasn’t a home office, and pulling an all-night work session would set back her recovery.

She had to be awake. No one could sleep in that flood of light. After he yelled at her for working all night, he’d order her to stay away from his mother. And if he sounded like a father warning a detention-stricken boy away from his honors-achieving daughter, maybe she’d listen and get in line.

“It’s lights out, Mia.” Wyatt tugged on the curtain shielding Mia’s bed. “As in stop working and go to...” Whatever else Wyatt might’ve said drained from his voice.

Several pillows propped Mia upright as if to better support her work session. Except her hands clenched the laptop like metal clamps. The deep, dark pockets under her eyes cast shadows down her cheeks. Strands of her chestnut hair poked out from her braid, stiff and crinkled, not soft and silky. Her right leg rested on top of the covers, but her foot, encased in a Bay Water Hospital sock, remained flexed, her knee locked and toes rigid as if she prepared herself to absorb the impact of ramming into the wall feetfirst.

“Working all night isn’t part of your treatment plan.” Wyatt reached for her laptop.

“I’m not.” Her grip on the computer tightened as if someone secured those clamps. “I have to.”

Wyatt checked her IVs, wondering if some sort of night terror was being caused by the pain meds. “It can wait.”

“I just need to watch.” Her hold never loosened. Only her wide gaze lifted to collide with his, her words toppling over each other. “If I just watch, everything will be fine again.”

The terror that burned the edges of her amber eyes seared through him, spiking his own blood pressure. He hadn’t ever witnessed her fear. As far as he knew, Mia dared fear to try to scare her. But in this moment, he couldn’t deny that fright engulfed her like uncontained wildfire.

“You can watch tomorrow.” He soothed his voice into the placating style of those hostage negotiators he’d seen on TV and tugged on the laptop, gaining some traction. She certainly hadn’t slacked off with her fitness in the past two years. Of course, all those adventure and wilderness shoots didn’t happen from the comfort of a jeep.

“Wyatt, press Play.” Mia’s gaze locked on the computer screen. Her cheeks paled as if she’d whitened her warm beige skin with bleach. “Just press Play, please.”

The shiver of dread leaking through her voice crept up his spine. Time to end this and regain control. He sat on the side of the bed and shifted into her view, replacing the computer screen with his face in her line of sight. “Mia, inhale now. Breathe in until I tell you to stop.” He cupped her cold cheeks in both of his hands. “Good. Exhale.”

He mimicked her breathing, matching his inhales and exhales to hers. The hitch in her breath stopped after the fifth exhale. She blinked after five more inhales. Another set of five and the warmth returned to her skin beneath his palms.

“You can let go.” Mia blinked, the movement slow and exaggerated, as if her eyelashes cleared the lingering fear from her gaze.

He rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks. “I’ll let go when I want.”

“Really, I’m fine now.” Still she leaned into his touch.

The shadows finally settled back into the bruises beneath her eyes. She was better, but far from fine. “You need to get some sleep.”

“I was trying to do that,” she argued.

“With your laptop.”

She pushed his arms away and grasped the computer as if he’d caused the crisis. “I’m being stupid. I already survived. It’s not like I’ll die from watching the footage.”

He flattened his palm against the laptop, keeping her from lifting the screen. “What footage?”

“There’s video from my accident. I need to watch it.” Confidence coated her voice, yet the tremor in her fingers as she tried to open the computer gave her away.

He set his hand over hers as if he had every right. As if she was more than just another patient. “Eddy and Shane can pull out any useful footage.”

“Shane already did that.” She curled her fingers into a fist beneath his palm.

“Then let it alone.”

“I can’t.” She stared at their hands. Her fingers twitched beneath his touch.

“There’s no point in reliving it.” If she only released her fist the tiniest bit, he could weave his fingers through hers and draw her focus back to him. He wanted to replace her fear with something better. Something meaningful. Something worth remembering. Like their first and only kiss.

“I relive it every night already,” she whispered.

“Isn’t that enough?” Couldn’t he be enough? No, he didn’t want to be her anything. He straightened and folded his arms over his chest to keep from reaching for her again. Or doing something absurd like giving in to his urge to hold more than her hand.

Mia was his past. Their brief time together nothing more than an inaccurate reading on an otherwise normal EKG. His future involved setting up medical clinics to those in desperate situations, not succumbing to what was nothing more than a chemical reaction in his body. He’d touched Mia and his brain released dopamine and norepinephrine to charge his nerves, trying to enhance his emotions, trying to lead him astray. Yet science was his specialty, and any reaction to Mia, or any woman for that matter, he controlled.

The only heart-related discussions he planned to have involved words like cardiac arrhythmias, coronary thrombosis and myocardial infarction. There were no medical degrees in fairy tales and pipe dreams. Besides, if love truly saved, his brother would be alive today. Love always exacted a price, and that was a price he’d never pay again.

He shoved the clinician inside him forward and eyed her as he would any other irrational patient. “There’s medicine to help you sleep. Nurses right down the hall who can administer the medicine into your IV.”

“Sleep won’t help me.” She latched onto his arm and squeezed as if more pressure would make him understand her better. “Why can’t you get that?”

Wyatt curled his fingers into fists, coiling his arms tighter against his chest like a cornered rattlesnake. Taking her into his arms and kissing her panic away had not been prescribed. Disgusted with his misplaced impulses, he didn’t pause to dilute the acidic bite in his tone. “Why can’t you be reasonable? Take some medicine and forget the accident.”

“There is no forgetting. I almost died.” Her eyes opened like a B-list horror film actress before she slapped her hand over her mouth as if trying to snatch back her confession.

“And that scares you.” As it should. Finally, she recognized the risk she took, and all for a few minutes of footage for a film. No film was worth her life.

“I don’t have time for this.” She waved away his comment. “I just need to get some decent sleep.”

And to let go of her fear. But he wasn’t her psychologist or her doctor or her anything. She didn’t need him. Still, he never moved from the side of her bed. “So what’s your plan?”

“Watch the actual footage. Set my memories straight and fall asleep like usual.” She nodded, quick and bold, as if the lack of hesitation convinced them both.

Wyatt squeezed the back of his neck, trying to pinch his inner commentary back down his throat. She’d only be giving her dreams more footage to twist through her nightmares. “Isn’t there a saying about how ignorance can be bliss?”

“In this case, it’s a nightmare. Literally.”

“May I?” He picked up the laptop and, at her nod, set the computer on the bedside table.

“I still have to watch the video.” Relief softened her warning, and she relaxed into the pillows behind her.

Wyatt still had to walk away. Not look back. Instead he dropped into the chair, propped his feet on the edge of her bed and turned on the TV as if this was exactly where he belonged. He channel-surfed until he found what he wanted. “Let’s try something, and if it doesn’t work, you can grab the laptop and put the video on Replay for the rest of the night.”

“We aren’t seriously going to watch Ruined and Renewed,” she said.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because you live this life every day.” Mia adjusted the covers around her injured leg. “Unless you like to critique the show and point out all the flaws and inconsistencies with the patients’ medical emergencies and the doctors’ surgical treatments.”

“Except I don’t get to see the buildup. What prompted these people to do what they did? Who had the common sense to take the person to the ER?” Wyatt upped the volume, trying to tune out Mia and the alarms warning him that staying any longer in her room was a bad idea. A very bad idea. “It’s always good to have a change in your perspective. To see things from someone else’s point of view, even if it’s an utterly insane viewpoint.”

Two episodes later, after an esophagus repair caused by a knife-swallowing dare and a botched face-lift performed by an unlicensed fraud, Mia slept with her good leg pressed against Wyatt’s feet and her face turned toward him. Wyatt remained wide awake, rooted in the chair like one of his mother’s plants. Unable to move. Or perhaps unwilling to move. He should leave. He had to leave.