mother? Joyce?”
“Oh, I talked to Joyce earlier. She couldn’t get off work at the software company to come and wait for you to come out of surgery. I told her no worries, that I’d be here for you. She was relieved. She’ll be here tonight after work to see you.”
Dan grimaced. “Just as well.” Worried, he asked, “Did she yell at you?”
After years of abuse by her alcoholic husband, Joyce had become a testy and defensive woman. Soon after they’d moved from Rush City, Texas, to Honolulu, his father had died. It had been his dream to move. His father had sold their small cattle ranch and dragged them to Hawaii in order to fulfill his wish. His mother hadn’t wanted to leave her extensive family in Texas. And Dan had been in the Army six months later when his father died of a massive heart attack here in Honolulu while out on a golf course. Dan had come home on emergency medical leave to bury his father and listen to his angry, bitter mother curse her husband at his graveside.
Now, Dan worried that Joyce had taken out her bile on Cait.
“She was upset, which is understandable, Dan. She wanted to be here.” Patting his hand gently, Cait said, “Joyce is worried about you.”
Biting back a curse, he growled, “Just as well she’s not here, Cait. I’m not up to dealing with her. All she can do is say the sky is falling, that life sucks. She’s like a toxic black cloud that overshadows everyone within five minutes.”
Dan knew Cait was more than aware of Joyce’s depression and mood swings. She had tried to get her some help, but his mother was stubborn and angry. She was in control of her life, finally, and that was that.
Cait give him a doleful look and a tremulous half smile.
“She’s been abused, Dan. But let’s not talk about that right now. I know Dr. Allison Barker, your ortho surgeon, is going on rounds right now.” She looked at her watch. “It’s 0800. She should be here any moment now. She’ll tell you about the state of your leg.”
Dan had lost track of time and days. His whole world centered on Cait. She wore an ID badge clipped to her left pocket, indicating she was hospital staff. “Okay,” he said. “Are you on duty?”
“Yes, beginning at 0900. I asked Dr. Barker if I could come and stay with you until you became conscious. She said yes.”
“Nice waking up to an angel,” he said thickly. Her eyes sparkled.
“I’m glad you think of me as your angel,” Cait teased, smiling.
Her smile went straight to his grieving heart, lifting him, making him feel hope. The love he held for Cait wanted to be known. Dan quickly squelched the urge to tell her how he felt. “Yeah, I’ve always thought of you that way, Cait. I know some of the soldiers you’ve helped, talked with them, and they say the same thing about you—that you’re an angel. You’ve helped so many people.”
“And now, I get to help you.” Cait caressed his shaven cheek, holding his cloudy gray gaze.
A doctor in her early forties quietly entered the ward. She was a brunette with blue eyes and she wore a white lab coat. The talk among some of the other men in other beds farther down the line stopped.
“Oh, here’s Dr. Barker,” Cait said, standing. She smiled down at Dan. “She’s the best.”
The tall, spare woman approached his bed. She offered her lean hand and Dan weakly raised his.
“You’re looking awfully good, Sergeant Taylor. I’m Dr. Barker. I was your ortho surgeon for your injured leg. Are you up to a little talk about the surgery I performed?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Dan liked her warmth. She wasn’t like so many doctors—cold and robotic. Her alto voice conveyed her concern for him.
Opening his chart, Barker said, “You were hit with a bullet in the right femur, Sergeant. You’d lost nearly four pints of blood. They took you to the hospital in Bagram, where they stabilized you. The next day, you were taken on a C-5 flight to Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. I have a good friend there—Dr. Travis. He’s an ortho surgeon like myself. He called me because he said your broken femur was so bad that he thought he needed to amputate it.”
Dan scowled, sudden shock hitting him. He couldn’t lift the tent to see if his leg was still attached or not.
“Oh,” Barker said, following his gaze, “your leg is still there. I told the ortho to stabilize you, do what he could, and bring you here where I’d do the final operation on you and determine whether or not we could save your leg.” She smiled a little. “And we did save it. Me and my team. But Dr. Travis is a brilliant ortho surgeon and he helped make my job possible.”
“I still have my leg?”
“Sure do, Sergeant. And you’re going to keep it.” Her brows went down. “But because you’ve got a lot of screws in the bones, holding the femur together so it can knit and grow strong once more, you’re in for a lot of bed time.”
“How long?” Dan tried to steel himself, watching Cait who had stood back, her hands at her sides, her expression open and vulnerable.
“Two months minimum, Sergeant. It’s a very difficult recovery and that’s why so many surgeons amputate. Your recovery time is going to be a lot longer, a lot more painful, but I have a great PT here.” She motioned toward Cait. “And she felt saving your leg was a viable option. So did I. Cait will be your PT specialist, Sergeant. I know you know one another, so that’s a plus. Cait said you are fast friends.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dan said. “We’ve known each other for eleven years.” And I’ve loved her all that time. He glanced over at Cait, whose eyes glimmered with unspoken joy, and he managed to lift one corner of his mouth to show he was glad, too.
“These first two months are going to be a special hell, Sergeant,” Barker warned him. “You’re lucky—I understand Cait plays a mean game of Monopoly. You play Monopoly, Sergeant?”
Dan grinned a little, trading a glance with Cait. Her cheeks were flushed now. “Yes, ma’am. She usually beats the pants off me.”
“Well,” Barker said, smiling a little, “be prepared to play a lot of Monopoly these next two months. You’re bed bound for the first six weeks, and you’re going to be bored out of your skull. Miss Moore can’t begin PT until we can get you ambulatory, and that won’t happen until the six-week mark. So get your mind wrapped around that, Sergeant Taylor, for the long haul. Okay?”
“Anything to keep my leg, ma’am.” Dan held the surgeon’s gaze. “Thank you for saving it...”
Giving a curt nod, Barker said, “It was my pleasure. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” She moved on to the soldier in the next bed.
* * *
Cait tried to get a hold of her emotions. She walked from the swimming pool area at five o’clock, finished with her last soldier of the day. Wanting to see how Dan was, she’d promised to have dinner with him tonight. How she looked forward to seeing him! She hurried through the massive medical center and made it up to the third-floor Ortho. When she entered the ward, she saw Dan had been placed in Fowler’s position, and he looked sad but alert.
“Hey,”
