foam tickling her ankles, she couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his mind. “You’re lucky to have a condo with a balcony facing the ocean,” she said.
“It’s not my condo. It belongs to a buddy of mine.”
“Wow. Everyone should have buddies like that.”
He shrugged. “He thinks I …”
When he didn’t continue, she glanced over and studied him. His jaw hitched to the left just a fraction. He’d done that last night when he seemed to be wrestling with himself over something.
“I haven’t been sleeping very well lately.”
That did explain his presence on the beach at 2:00 a.m. Why did she suspect that was an understatement? “Has staying on a picturesque tropical island helped?”
He grimaced. “Not so far.”
Her mind was churning with ideas. “How long do you have before you go back?”
“Three weeks.”
“What all have you tried?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
She clasped his arm and came to a halt. “I assume you’ve already talked to a psychotherapist, but, what about massage therapy? Aromatherapy? Hypnosis? Um … What else … Oh! Yoga!”
He got that deer in the headlights look again. “I—I work out.”
“Or what about hiking? Have you been to see the Alelele Falls? They’re my favor—” She noticed his hardened expression. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m not some head case you have to fix.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean—”
His eyes narrowed. “Did John put you up to this?”
“John?”
He stared at her a moment longer and then turned away. “Never mind,” he said over his shoulder and headed back in the direction they’d come from. “Guess I can add paranoid to my list of symptoms,” he muttered under his breath.
What had she done? Her stomach sank like her diving weight belt. Kristen jogged to catch up to him. “Luke.” She caught his arm again. “I’m so sorry I butted in. I tend to get overenthusiastic sometimes. It’s a bad habit of mine.”
He let her stop him and turned to face her, his eyes closed, his expression pained. “No.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “I should be the one apologizing. I was right the first time. I’m just not good company right now. Forgive me, Kristen. It’s not you, okay?”
“Hey, I know things started out kind of rocky, but—”
“Have a great time the rest of your stay here, and good luck winning that contest.”
“Luke, please.”
“I’ll walk you back to our building.” He put his hand at the small of her back and gestured for her to accompany him.
Reluctantly, Kristen headed toward the condo. She tightened her lips, determined not to utter one more word to the stupid man.
No. He wasn’t stupid. It was her fault. She’d jumped in as usual and blabbered on without thinking. It was just something about coming so close to death that made her not want to waste time on small talk and second-guessing herself. She’d tried, but …
Now she’d ruined it with him. The best she could hope for was that it wouldn’t be awkward to run into him around the condominium. But it’s not as if they’d had any real future together. A hot vacation fling for a few weeks had been the most it ever could’ve been. And even that was a glass-half-full assumption.
Oh, but what a fling it might have been.
3
THE SOLDIER LOOKED UP at Luke with big, dark eyes full of confidence. Confidence Luke didn’t deserve.
“You can fix me, can’t ya, Doc?” The private couldn’t have been twenty. His young body was shivering, bloodied, full of shrapnel. But Luke probably could’ve dealt with that. It was the gaping hole in the kid’s chest cavity Luke couldn’t repair.
The trauma room was a cacophony of dreadful sounds. Agonized screams, mortar rounds blasting outside and doctors and nurses yelling orders and information.
He avoided the soldier’s gaze and ordered a morphine drip to manage the worst of the kid’s pain. That’s all he could do. There were dozens more he could help. Ones who had a chance. He started to leave but the private grabbed his wrist and Luke forced himself to meet the soldier’s eyes.
“My pocket,” he said in a strangled voice. “Make sure the letter gets to my mom, okay?”
Luke set his jaw, emotion tightening his throat, threatening to overcome him. Swallowing back his howling grief, he reached into the private’s blood-soaked shirt pocket, pulled out a dripping folded piece of notepaper and slid it into the pants pocket of his scrubs. Then he looked back at the private to reassure him. But the boy was gone.
Luke gently closed the kid’s eyes.
Then the lights flickered and Luke felt hands clutching at him and bodies crushing him in. They tugged at him, pulling him in all directions. An Afghani National, a little Afghan boy, a burned woman and dozens of American soldiers, all dead, all blaming him.
LUKE AWOKE ON A STRANGLED cry. Breathing hard, he rolled off the bed, paced to the living room and stood at the balcony doors until the last vestiges of the dream faded.
He couldn’t stop shivering, so he trudged to the bathroom, splashed water on his face. He wasn’t getting better. He stared at his shaking hands and willed them to still. The tremors seemed to worsen. How could he suture a patient with these hands? My God. What if he couldn’t? How could he return to his unit if he couldn’t get himself under control? He’d be a disgrace to his colleagues, his superiors. “Coward.”
Spinning on his heel he punched the wall. The dog jumped and whimpered. Terrific. He’d dented the Sheetrock in John’s condo. Wow, he really was losing it. He’d be sure to remember to fix that wall before he left.
He hadn’t been out of the condo the past couple of days except to let the dog out into the back courtyard. Maybe he’d better get out of here before he did any more damage. He checked the clock. One forty-five. He could go down and be back before Kristen got home. After their first meeting, he’d bought a collar and leash for the mutt.
Running into her shouldn’t matter.
But it did.
He found himself on the beach, thankfully deserted this time of night, striding down the coast. Details of the nightmare came back to him, as real as if that private had died tonight. Why did these deaths haunt him? Even if Luke wasn’t serving in Afghanistan, fatalities were always a risk for a surgeon. What the hell was wrong with him?
A
