a medic. The plan was that after they returned home Freddy would finish medical school and eventually end up as Mateo’s partner.
But tonight, there was no plan, and Freddy was pacing the hall the way he did when he got notice that someone was on their way in. In those tense minutes just before everything changed. Activity doubled. The less injured soldiers stepped aside for the more injured.
Sometimes they lined up in tribute, saluting as the medical team rushed through the door, pushing a gurney carrying the latest casualty.
“Stop it!” Mateo shouted at his friend. “Don’t do that! Because if you do they’ll come. Stop it. Do you hear me? Stop it!”
But Freddy kept on pacing, waiting…
No, not tonight. Mateo wanted to make it three nights in a row without a casualty.
“One more night. Just one more night…”
Outside in the back garden, on her way to take fresh towels and linens to the ohana, Lizzie stood quietly at his door, listening. He’d excused himself to take a nap while she’d stayed on the beach to read. Now this.
It hadn’t happened in the rehab center, but something here was triggering it. Perhaps getting close to someone again? Close to her?
She thought about going in and waking him up. Then decided against it. If he was working out his demons in his sleep, he needed to. Besides, he was here as a friend, not a patient, and she had to take off her doctor persona or this would never work.
But it worried her. Because she knew the end of the story. Mateo’s best friend had been killed in the raid that had injured him. Mateo had been pulled from the carnage and taken to the hospital, resisting help because he’d wanted to go back to save his friend. Except his best friend couldn’t be saved.
While she wasn’t a neurologist, she wondered if some deep, buried grief over that was contributing to his condition. Certainly the head injury was. But not being able to save his friend…? She understood that profoundly. Because in the end she hadn’t been able to save her father. It was a guilt that consumed her every day.
“Sleep well?” she asked, watching Mateo come through the door. Cargo shorts, T-shirt, mussed hair. She liked dark hair. Actually, she had never really thought about what she liked in terms of the physical aspects of a man, but she knew she liked the physical aspects of Mateo. Strong, muscled…
“Bed’s comfortable, but I don’t feel rested. Guess I’ve got more sleep to catch up on than I thought.”
Sleep without nightmares, she thought.
“Well, the folks at Makalapua weren’t happy to find out where you are. Apparently, you got out of their transportation at the end of the circular drive, when the driver stopped to enter the main road, and then disappeared.”
“Transportation? Is that what they call it?”
“Makalapua owns a limo for transporting patients and families when necessary.”
“And it also owns an ambulance, Lizzie. That was my transportation. Ordered by my doctor. They came in with a gurney, strapped me down to it, and shoved me in the back of the ambulance. I was leaving as a patient. Not a guest. And I’m tired of being a patient.”
Lizzie sat down on the rattan armchair in her living room and gripped the armrests. “An ambulance? I don’t believe—”
“I may have amnesia,” he interrupted, “but I still remember what a gurney and an ambulance are. Oh, and in case you didn’t hear, I was to be escorted straight onto a military medical plane and met at the airport in California—probably with a gurney and an ambulance there, too.”
“Did you get violent? Is that why they did it?”
“Mad as hell, but not violent.” He sat down on the two-cushion sofa across from her but kept to the edge of it. “I’m guessing a couple of them are mad as hell right now.”
“They only want to help you, Mateo.”
They only want to help you.
We only want to help you.
I only want to help you.
Words she’d said over and over for years. Before, they’d sounded perfectly fine. Now, they sounded deceitful.
“Well, restraining me rather than giving me a sedative was preferable, but they were sending me to the place I specifically asked not to be sent.”
“You’re still Army, Mateo. On inactive duty. That means your commanders make the call and—”
“It’s out of my hands.” He shook his head in frustration. “I’m theirs until they cut me loose.”
“Something like that. And you knew that’s how it would be when you went in. When the military and veterans’ hospitals didn’t work for you, you were given a chance to recover outside the normal system. So, from what I’m seeing, they really were trying to help.”
And now he was in no system but, instead in her ohana.
“Look, let me see if I can work something out with Janis. Maybe we can get you transferred somewhere else. Maybe another private hospital.”
“Or maybe I should just go grab my things and wander on down the beach. The weather’s nice. A lot of people move from their homes to the beaches during the hottest weather. Maybe someone will take pity on me and give me a meal every now and then.”
“You’re not going to live on the beach, Mateo. And I’m not sending you off on some journey to search for something you might not even remember when you find it.”
Visions of her dad getting out and wandering around alone were the essence of her nightmares. And she’d even had a live-in caregiver who hadn’t always been able to keep track of him.
“So for now you stay here, and we’ll see what we can figure out.”
“But the military…they know where I am?” he asked.
“Of course they do. I called them because you’re not free of your obligation and they had to know. Like I’ve told you before, I play by the rules. But they’re not going to come and take you away from here, Mateo. At least not yet. All they wanted was to know where you were and what you were doing. I told them you were going into outpatient care in a few days.”
“That’s what you think I’m going to do?”
“That’s what I know you’re going to do if you want to stay here. Janis approved it and, for the record, it’s your last chance. After this the Army takes you back, and they’ll be the only ones with a say in what happens.”
Finally, he relaxed back into the sofa. “These last weeks it’s like someone’s always doing something to me, and most of the time not even consulting me before they do it. You’re the first one who’s ever told me beforehand what would happen, and I appreciate that.”
“So…you mentioned your mother doesn’t know about your current condition? Why is that? Is there some way she could take over medical responsibility for you until you’re through this?”
He shook his head adamantly. “She has advanced diabetes. Arthritis. Partially blind. The less she knows, the better off she is. Like I said before, I do call her every day, and as soon as I’m free to travel I’ll go to see her. But I don’t want the stress of knowing what I’m going through anywhere near her. She deserves a better life than she’s ever had before and I’m not going