LITMIR.BIZ

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him that a doctor would go to pieces the way she was doing? He’d been there, working on the resuscitation, too, yet he was the picture of tranquility, the antithesis of what she was. But he worked with patients, practiced medicine in its purest form, while she performed administrative duties and hadn’t seen a patient, other than in passing on a stroll down one of her hospital’s halls, since she’d left her residency.

      Such a vast difference in the same profession. Part of her longing, and her need of late to rediscover her medical roots.

      Suddenly, redeeming herself in this man’s eyes seemed important. She didn’t want him thinking of her as a total washout, even though that’s how she felt. “I, um…I don’t practice medicine,” she said. “I guess that’s why this hit me so hard. I don’t do patient care at all. Just administrative work.”

      “Well, I do practice patient care, and death always hits me the same way. Especially when it’s so senseless. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about here, Doctor. And nothing to explain. I think the doctors who don’t feel anything are the ones who should explain.”

      She gave him a weak smile. “Maybe I should go lie down for a little while, just to compose myself.” The truth was, her initial reaction was to run away and hide, but now that she’d felt a little of his compassion seep into her, she didn’t want to walk away from it yet. “After I sign the death certificate.”

      “I was there, too. If you’d prefer, I can sign it.”

      Susan nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “And I’m sorry about being so…”

      He held up his hand to stop her apologizing. “Nothing to be sorry about. You did a good job out there, Susan. Fought hard to save him. You have a right to whatever it is you’re feeling.”

      Maybe she had the right to what she was feeling, but that didn’t make her feel any better about it. She appreciated his support though. More than anybody could know.

      The room Grant offered her was small and basic. One bed, one television, one telephone and little else. But it was clean, and the bed, as Susan gave in to the urge to lie down, was comfortable enough.

      “Need anything?” Grant asked from the doorway. He seemed a little hesitant to enter.

      “Maybe prochlorperazine. My stomach’s a little upset.”

      “I’ll have it sent right up,” he said, still lingering there, not making a move one way or another. She watched him with a mixture of mild interest and wariness, waiting for him to leave, yet glad he didn’t. He simply stood there…stood long enough for her to finally have a good look at him. Definitely tall—much more so than she’d thought at first, when she’d all but collapsed in his arms. Broad shoulders. Gorgeous bronze skin, black hair. He wore khaki shorts that hung to his knees and a loose-fitting flowered shirt, typical of what just about all the native islanders wore—and as far as she could tell he was a native islander.

      “I know you’re a doctor, but what kind? Family practitioner? A local, from the area here?” Strained, inept question, but she wanted to make conversation with this man. She wasn’t sure why, though. Could it have had something to do with his good looks, and the fact that she didn’t often have time to make idle chat with the opposite sex any more, and there was something about him that made her want to? Or just to keep him there just a bit longer?

      He nodded. “Yep, a very local family doctor, born and raised right here. General family medicine is about all the clinic is set up to handle, unless it’s an emergency, then we have a small emergency department. Nothing fancy there, though. We send the big cases to Honolulu.”

      “So, do you own the clinic?”

      “No. I just run it.”

      “But you have a full-time staff? Other doctors, nurses…?” she asked, stopping short of requesting a full profile from him. My, wasn’t she just the queen of useless chatter today?

      “I’m the only full-time doctor but, yes, we’re full service here, and we do have others coming and going. All the usual staff needed to run a forty-bed clinic,” he said, looking mildly amused.

      The next questions on the tip of her tongue were about the size of his average patient load, then about the profitability margins here. But she succeeded in stopping herself before she got them out, remembering this was not an interview to ascertain medical feasibility in the likelihood of a buyout. She was a temporary patient here, and he was her temporary doctor. It wasn’t at all about business but, it seemed, that’s all she was about. Even now. “Look, I’m sure you have other patients to see. I don’t want to keep you, so if you could have someone bring me the prochlorperazine, I’ll be out of your way within the hour.”

      He smiled, showing off perfect white teeth. “It could make you groggy. Too groggy to travel.”

      “Or it might not.” He was trying to be nice and she appreciated that. “And I don’t want to be taking up bed space here any longer than is necessary.” She was thinking in terms of dollars and cents again, the corporate side of her ticking away so fast she couldn’t control it. Which got to the heart of the problem she had to figure out. Did she really want to be all about corporate business? Or was there more out there for her? “It’s not efficient, especially when I’m not really ill. You might have other patients…”

      “If that becomes the case, I’ll kick you out. But until then, how about you just relax? I’m getting the sense that it’s something you don’t do very often.”

      He didn’t know the half of it. She never relaxed, and it appeared she didn’t even know how. “How about I’ll promise to try, and we’ll leave it at that?”

      “How about you put your head on the pillow and close your eyes?”

      “And when I do I’ll see that boy on the beach.”

      He finally entered the room in a casual swagger, propped himself on the wide windowsill, then twisted to face her. “For what it’s worth, according to his buddy, Ryan Harris had been out drinking all night with his friends. He was hungover this morning, maybe he was even still a little intoxicated. His friends admitted that. On top of that, I seriously doubt he was all that experienced on the surfboard to begin with, seeing that he was a haole.” Meaning foreigner. “From Chicago. No surfing there. Then when the big wave hit…” Grant swallowed hard, and a look of deep pain flashed across his face for a second, then disappeared. “It happens. A malihini…tourist… comes here for a short holiday, gets the idea that all he needs is a board and a good wave and he’s a surfer.” A sad sigh crept from his lips. “People think they know what they’re doing, or overestimate their abilities, and they get careless. Add something else to the mix, like Ryan’s condition, and it turns into a tragedy that probably could be prevented in most cases, if people acted smarter. But there’s something about coming to Hawaii and losing inhibitions…”

      “You deal with fatalities all the time?” The darker side of paradise, she supposed. The anguish it caused him was obvious. Dr Grant Makela was a man who cared deeply.

      “Not all the time, but it happens often enough. We’re the only medical clinic on this part of the island. There’s no other help for miles, and I’m the only doctor who actually lives here, which makes me the one who gets called in most of the time. To the beach, to the hotels…” He shrugged, but it wasn’t a shrug of indifference. More of acceptance. “There’s more good than bad, though. Most of my encounters have a much better outcome than what you experienced. Like meeting you. That’s definitely good.”

      To avoid his engaging smile and sensual mouth, she focused her gaze on his cheek.

      Then she noticed dimples, and her quick glance froze in place. The man had honest-to-goodness dimples! And the most gorgeous onyx eyes. Grant Makela was a handsome man. Beyond handsome. Breathtaking, rugged, charismatic good looks. Natural charm. Natural ease. Not even one tiny speck of self-consciousness, she thought as she moved her stare down to his half-bare legs—nicely muscled, well bronzed like the rest of him.

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