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“A small village near Guadalajara, originally. Then wherever my mother could get work after we came to the States.”
“Is she...?”
“She’s got some health problems...can’t travel anymore. But we chat almost every day, and someone at the facility is helping her learn how to video chat.”
“Does she know about your injury?”
Mateo shook his head. “Her life was hard enough because of me. Why add to it if I don’t have to?”
“After what my dad went through with his Alzheimer’s, I think you’re doing the right thing.”
“Now, about that walk...”
He would have been good doctor. She was sure of that. And she was touched by his caring attitude toward his mother. Even toward her. This wasn’t the Mateo who refused his treatments or walled himself into his room like a recluse. This was someone entirely different. Someone she hadn’t expected but was glad she’d found.
“Well, if we go one way we’ll run into a shaved ice concession, and if we go the other way it’s The Shack.”
“And The Shack is...?”
“Fun, loud, dancing, music, watered-down drinks for the tourists... Pretty much a place I shouldn’t be taking you.”
“Which is exactly why I’m taking you.”
“Two-drink limit, Mateo. Beer, preferably. You’re not on any prohibitive meds, but...”
“I was wondering when the doctor would return.”
“The doctor never left.”
“Oh, yes, she did,” he said, smiling. “And I was the one who got to see it happen.”
It was well into the evening—“her time,” as she called it. She really needed to go home and rest. But now that he was out here, she wanted to keep him here. Because while he was here he wasn’t inside the hospital, getting into trouble. Even his good looks—which everybody noticed—weren’t enough to change their minds, and right now the mindset was not in Mateo’s favor. Presently she was too exhausted to deal with it, so this little time out was badly needed. Probably for both of them.
Lizzie took a quick appraisal, even though she knew what he looked like. But she liked his dark look. The muscles. The smooth chest. And his hands...large, but gentle—the hands of a surgeon. How would they be as the hands of a lover? she wondered, as he spotted her amongst the crowd, then came her direction.
“I saw you staring at me,” he said, as a couple of young women from the bar watched him with obvious open invitation.
Who could blame them? Lizzie thought. He was the best-looking man there.
“Not staring. Just watching to make sure you weren’t doing something that would embarrass you and cost me my job.”
“But you’re off duty.”
“And you’re still a patient of the hospital.”
“But not your patient, Lizzie. And therein lies the distinction.” He grabbed a cold beer from a passing server and handed it to Lizzie. “Do you ever allow yourself to have fun?”
“Do you ever allow yourself to not have fun?” she asked, wondering if, in his previous life, he’d been a party boy.
He held up his bottle to clink with hers, but she stepped back before that could happen.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Lizzie. Prettier than anyone else here. And you’re smart. But if I were your doctor I’d prescribe more fun in your life—because even when you’re standing in the middle of it, you can’t see it.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not my doctor, isn’t it?”
Mateo reached over and took Lizzie’s beer, then took a swig of it.
“That’s your limit,” she warned him.
“Actually, it’s one over—but who’s counting?”
Lizzie shook her head, caught between smiling and frowning. “I shouldn’t have to count. Somewhere in the manual on being adult there’s a chapter on responsibility. Maybe you should go back and re-read it.”
“You really can’t let go, can you?”
“It’s not about letting go, Mateo. It’s about all the things that are expected of me—not least of which is taking care of you, since I’m the one who brought you here.”
He reached over and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. The feel of his hand was so startling and smooth she caught herself on the verge of recoiling, but stopped when she realized it was an empty gesture. Still, the shivers his touch left behind rattled her.
“I’m not going to let anything hurt you or your reputation,” he said, his voice so low it was almost drowned out by the noise level coming from the rest of the people at The Shack. “I know how hard it is to get what you want and keep it, and I wouldn’t jeopardize that for you, Lizzie.”
This serious side of him...she hadn’t seen it before. But she knew, deep down, this was the real Mateo coming through. Not the one who refused treatment, not even the one who partied hard on the beach. Those might be different sides to his personality, but she’d just been touched by the real Mateo Sanchez, and she liked it. Maybe for the first time liked him. If only she could see more of him, now.
“I appreciate that,” she said.
She toyed with the idea of telling him that her job here might not be everything she wanted, that she was rethinking staying. But he didn’t want to hear that. It was her dilemma to solve.
“Just keep it reasonable and we’ll both be fine.”
“Everything in my life has been reasonable, Lizzie. I may not remember all about that life, but I do recall who I was in the part I remember, and I was you—always too serious, always too involved.”
“And now?” she asked.
“That is the question, isn’t it? I have so many different pieces of me rattling around my brain, and I’m not able to put them in order yet.”
And she suspected he was afraid of what he might find when he did put them into place. She understood that. Understood Mateo more now than she had.
“Sometimes they don’t always come together the way you want or expect.”
“Then I’ll have a lifetime to adjust to what I’m missing, or what got away from me. And that’s not me being pragmatic. That’s me trying to deal with me, and I’m not easy. I know that.”
He reached out and brushed her cheek, this time without the pretense of brushing back her hair. It was simply a stroke of affection or friendship. Maybe an old habit returning. And she didn’t mind so much.
Affection had never really been part of her life. Not from her dad, not from her husband. Even if this little gesture from Mateo meant nothing to him, it meant something to her. But she wouldn’t allow herself to think beyond that. What was the point? He was a man without a memory; she a woman without clear direction. It wasn’t a good combination, no matter how you looked at it.
Still, his touch gave her the shivers again.
“So, moving on to something less philosophical, you wouldn’t happen to know if I can swim, would you? I mean, being in the Army, I’m assuming I have basic skills. But enough to get me out there on one of those surfboards?”
“I could always throw you in to find out.”
“You’re not a very sympathetic doctor,