already did that.” She curled her fingers into a fist beneath his palm.
“Then let it alone.”
“I can’t.” She stared at their hands. Her fingers twitched beneath his touch.
“There’s no point in reliving it.” If she only released her fist the tiniest bit, he could weave his fingers through hers and draw her focus back to him. He wanted to replace her fear with something better. Something meaningful. Something worth remembering. Like their first and only kiss.
“I relive it every night already,” she whispered.
“Isn’t that enough?” Couldn’t he be enough? No, he didn’t want to be her anything. He straightened and folded his arms over his chest to keep from reaching for her again. Or doing something absurd like giving in to his urge to hold more than her hand.
Mia was his past. Their brief time together nothing more than an inaccurate reading on an otherwise normal EKG. His future involved setting up medical clinics to those in desperate situations, not succumbing to what was nothing more than a chemical reaction in his body. He’d touched Mia and his brain released dopamine and norepinephrine to charge his nerves, trying to enhance his emotions, trying to lead him astray. Yet science was his specialty, and any reaction to Mia, or any woman for that matter, he controlled.
The only heart-related discussions he planned to have involved words like cardiac arrhythmias, coronary thrombosis and myocardial infarction. There were no medical degrees in fairy tales and pipe dreams. Besides, if love truly saved, his brother would be alive today. Love always exacted a price, and that was a price he’d never pay again.
He shoved the clinician inside him forward and eyed her as he would any other irrational patient. “There’s medicine to help you sleep. Nurses right down the hall who can administer the medicine into your IV.”
“Sleep won’t help me.” She latched onto his arm and squeezed as if more pressure would make him understand her better. “Why can’t you get that?”
Wyatt curled his fingers into fists, coiling his arms tighter against his chest like a cornered rattlesnake. Taking her into his arms and kissing her panic away had not been prescribed. Disgusted with his misplaced impulses, he didn’t pause to dilute the acidic bite in his tone. “Why can’t you be reasonable? Take some medicine and forget the accident.”
“There is no forgetting. I almost died.” Her eyes opened like a B-list horror film actress before she slapped her hand over her mouth as if trying to snatch back her confession.
“And that scares you.” As it should. Finally, she recognized the risk she took, and all for a few minutes of footage for a film. No film was worth her life.
“I don’t have time for this.” She waved away his comment. “I just need to get some decent sleep.”
And to let go of her fear. But he wasn’t her psychologist or her doctor or her anything. She didn’t need him. Still, he never moved from the side of her bed. “So what’s your plan?”
“Watch the actual footage. Set my memories straight and fall asleep like usual.” She nodded, quick and bold, as if the lack of hesitation convinced them both.
Wyatt squeezed the back of his neck, trying to pinch his inner commentary back down his throat. She’d only be giving her dreams more footage to twist through her nightmares. “Isn’t there a saying about how ignorance can be bliss?”
“In this case, it’s a nightmare. Literally.”
“May I?” He picked up the laptop and, at her nod, set the computer on the bedside table.
“I still have to watch the video.” Relief softened her warning, and she relaxed into the pillows behind her.
Wyatt still had to walk away. Not look back. Instead he dropped into the chair, propped his feet on the edge of her bed and turned on the TV as if this was exactly where he belonged. He channel-surfed until he found what he wanted. “Let’s try something, and if it doesn’t work, you can grab the laptop and put the video on Replay for the rest of the night.”
“We aren’t seriously going to watch Ruined and Renewed,” she said.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because you live this life every day.” Mia adjusted the covers around her injured leg. “Unless you like to critique the show and point out all the flaws and inconsistencies with the patients’ medical emergencies and the doctors’ surgical treatments.”
“Except I don’t get to see the buildup. What prompted these people to do what they did? Who had the common sense to take the person to the ER?” Wyatt upped the volume, trying to tune out Mia and the alarms warning him that staying any longer in her room was a bad idea. A very bad idea. “It’s always good to have a change in your perspective. To see things from someone else’s point of view, even if it’s an utterly insane viewpoint.”
Two episodes later, after an esophagus repair caused by a knife-swallowing dare and a botched face-lift performed by an unlicensed fraud, Mia slept with her good leg pressed against Wyatt’s feet and her face turned toward him. Wyatt remained wide awake, rooted in the chair like one of his mother’s plants. Unable to move. Or perhaps unwilling to move. He should leave. He had to leave.
Reaching for the laptop, he settled it on his lap, pressed the power button and prayed Mia had finally adopted the habit of password protection. The desktop filled the screen, the movie program already launched and no request for a password. Some things hadn’t changed.
Wyatt hit the mute button on the TV sound, checked on Mia and pressed Play. Twenty too-long minutes later, he closed the laptop and tried to smother the queasiness rolling through his stomach. Resting his elbows on his knees, he inhaled, forcing air deep into his lungs to crowd the panic out of his body. Nothing in the ER or in a medical tent in Africa ever left him this raw, exposed and twitchy. All that from watching a video.
He glanced over at Mia’s bandaged arm resting on top of the covers and winced at the reminder of a disoriented Mia hacking through her wet suit into her flesh with her dive blade as she thrashed around to untangle herself from the kelp and fishing line. All while running out of air. He rubbed his chest, drew another breath. Then another because he needed the reminder: he wasn’t drowning. He wasn’t trapped under the ocean, out of oxygen and time.
He leaned toward the bed and held Mia’s good hand between both of his. The contact satisfied nothing. He wanted a reaction. He wanted her to wake up, squeeze his fingers and reassure him that she really was alive. How pathetic had he become?
Mia Fiore needed a keeper. She needed someone to watch out for her and keep her from putting her life at risk again. She needed someone to show her that she was worth more alive than dead. She needed someone to love her beyond all reason.
Fortunately, that someone wasn’t Wyatt. He lived only within reason. Clearly when he was with Mia, he lost his common sense. He’d suffered a panic attack from simply watching the video of her accident. If he actually witnessed another one of her near-death incidents, he’d probably lose his mind altogether. That was an unacceptable flaw. He’d been trained to be a doctor, not a lovesick fool.
He held on to her hand, reluctant to let go. He’d forgotten how well her hand fit inside his.
Another few minutes wouldn’t matter. It wasn’t as if he needed to touch her to feel better. He just wanted some time to remind his body that his feet were planted on the ground, not the deck of a dive boat.
Besides, he’d be leaving soon to return to Africa. And he had every intention of boarding that plane with a sound mind and his heart intact.
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