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.
