winced at the bitterness in his voice. “Yes, thank you. You have an excellent cook.”
“Did you enjoy the view?”
“It is spectacular,” she agreed, although she’d actually spent most of the time thinking about him instead of the view. She hadn’t felt this involved with any case in years. But then, she hadn’t nursed anyone directly in years, either.
After her stint in nursing school, and then three years working at a regional hospital, she’d gone back to school and earned her Masters in Business Administration, with an emphasis on Hospital and Medical Administration. After graduating she had immediately found work. So much work she had realized she’d be better off working for herself than anyone else—which was how her small, exclusive First Class Rehab had been born.
But Kristian Koumantaros’s case was special. Kristian Koumantaros hadn’t improved in her company’s care. He’d worsened.
And to Elizabeth it was completely unacceptable.
Locating her notebook on the side-table, where she’d left it earlier, she took a seat on the couch. “Mr. Koumantaros, I know you don’t want a nurse, but you still need one. In fact, you need several.”
“Why not prescribe a fleet?” he asked sarcastically.
“I think I shall.” She flipped open her brown leather portfolio and, scanning her previous notes, began to scribble again. “A live-in nursing assistant to help with bathing, personal hygiene. Male, preferably. Someone strong to lift you in and out of your chair since you’re not disposed to walk.”
“I can’t walk, Mrs.—”
“Ms. Hatchet,” she supplied, before crisply continuing, “And you could walk if you had worked with your last four physical therapists. They all tried, Mr. Koumantaros, but you were more interested in terrifying them than in making progress.”
Elizabeth wrote another couple of notes, then clicked her pen closed. “You also require an occupational therapist, as you desperately need someone to adapt your lifestyle. If you’ve no intention of getting better, your house and habits will need to change. Ramps, a second lift, a properly outfitted bathroom, rails and grabs in the pool—”
“No,” he thundered, face darkening. “No bars, no rails, and no goddamn grabs in this house.”
She clicked her pen open again. “Perhaps its time we called in a psychiatrist—someone to evaluate your depression and recommend a course of therapy. Pills, perhaps, or sessions of counseling.”
“I will never talk—”
“You are now,” she said cheerfully, scribbling yet another note to herself, glancing at Kristian Koumantaros from beneath her lashes. His jaw was thick, and rage was stiffening his spine, improving his posture, curling his hands into fists.
Good, she thought, with a defiant tap of her pen. He hadn’t given up on living, just given up on healing. There was something she—and her agency—could still do.
She watched him for a long dispassionate moment. “Talking—counseling—will help alleviate your depression, and it’s depression that’s keeping you from recovering.”
“I’m not depressed.”
“Then someone to treat your rage. You are raging, Mr. Koumantaros. Are you aware of your tone?”
“My tone?” He threw himself back in his chair, hands flailing against the rims of the wheels, furious skin against steel. “My tone? You come into my house and lecture me about my tone? Who the hell do you think you are?”
The raw savagery in his voice cut her more than his words, and for a moment the library spun. Elizabeth held her breath, silent, stunned.
“You think you’re so good.” Kristian’s voice sounded from behind her, mocking her. “So righteous, so sure of everything. But would you be so sure of yourself if the rug was pulled from beneath your feet? Would you be so callous then?”
Of course he didn’t know the rug had been pulled from beneath her feet. No one got through life unscathed. But her personal tragedies had toughened her, and she thought of the old wounds as scar tissue…something that was just part of her.
Even so, Elizabeth felt a moment of gratitude that Kristian couldn’t see her, or the conflicting emotions flickering over her face. Hers wasn’t a recent loss, hers was seven years ago, and yet if she wasn’t careful to keep up the defenses the loss still felt as though it had happened yesterday.
As the silence stretched Kristian laughed low, harshly. “I got you on that one.” His laughter deepened, and then abruptly ended. “Hard to sit in judgment until you’ve walked a mile in someone else’s shoes.”
Through the open doors Elizabeth could hear the warble of a bird, and she wondered if it was the dark green bird, the one with the lemon-yellow breast, she’d seen while eating on the patio terrace.
“I’m not as callous as you think,” she said, her voice cool enough to contradict her words. “But I’m here to help you, and I’ll do whatever I must to see you move into the next step of recovery.”
“And why should I want to recover?” His head angled, and his expression was ferocious. “And don’t give me some sickly-sweet answer about finding my true love and having a family and all that nonsense.”
Elizabeth’s lips curved in a faint, hard smile. No, she’d never dangle love as a motivational tool, because even that could be taken away. “I wasn’t. You should know by now that’s not my style.”
“So tell me? Give it to me straight? Why should I bother to get better?”
Why bother? Why bother, indeed? Elizabeth felt her heart race—part anger, part sympathy. “Because you’re still alive, that’s why.”
“That’s it?” Kristian laughed bitterly. “Sorry, that’s not much incentive.”
“Too bad,” she answered, thinking she was sorry about his accident, but he wasn’t dead.
Maybe he couldn’t walk easily or see clearly, but he was still intact and he had his life, his heart, his body, his mind. Maybe he wasn’t exactly as he had been before the injury, but that didn’t make him less of a man…not unless he let it. And he was allowing it.
Pressing the tip of her finger against her mouth, she fought to hold back all the angry things she longed to say, knowing she wasn’t here to judge. He was just a patient, and her job was to provide medical care, not morality lessons. But, even acknowledging that it wasn’t her place to criticize, she felt her tension grow.
Despite her best efforts, she resented his poor-me attitude, was irritated that he was so busy looking at the small picture he was missing the big one. Life was so precious. Life was a gift, not a right, and he still possessed the gift.
He could love and be loved. Fall in love, make love, shower someone with affection—hugs, kisses, tender touches. There was no reason he couldn’t make someone feel cherished, important, unforgettable. No reason other than that he didn’t want to, that he’d rather feel sorry for himself than reach out to another.
“Because, for whatever reason, Mr. Koumantaros,
