Falling For Her Army Doc. Dianne Drake

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,