The Doctor's Mission

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When they reached his building, Nick parked in front, half on the cobbled sidewalk, as everyone did. He woke Cate, helped her from the car and ushered her inside to the lift that would take them to his second-floor apartment.

His bedroom was the larger of the two, but fronted the street, so he guided her to the guest room. It looked rather spartan, but he figured she was too tired to notice anyway. Tomorrow he would see about fixing it up for her. She collapsed immediately without so much as a good-night.

Too wired to go to bed so early in the evening, he went to the kitchen, heated a can of soup and made himself a ham sandwich.

The two agents Mercier had contacted in Florence came by after darkness fell, supplying the proper password so that Nick could identify them as being who they claimed to be.

One was a portly little guy in his early thirties, sporting a neat moustache and wearing an expensively tailored suit. The other looked slightly older, tall, built like a wrestler and dressed more casually. Both were Italian, probably former military, judging by their bearing.

Their English was fairly fluent, but out of politeness, since this was their country, Nick switched easily to the Italian his grandmother had required that he learn.

Tosseli and Giacomo reassured him they would remain on watch from the rooms they pointed out in the building across the street. Anytime Nick and Cate went out, he was supposed to ring them up and let them know. The telltale bulges beneath Tosseli’s coat and Giacomo’s loose-tailed shirt assured Nick they were loaded for bear.

Despite Nick’s aversion to firearms, these he didn’t mind. If someone did come after Cate, he wanted all the backup he could get.

After their watchdogs left, Nick went to bed. He fought with dreams of Cate all night long, the same dreams he had battled when he had left her to go away to school. Hot dreams. Then there were the nightmares about there being no one to save her from herself. But the hot dreams dominated.

He knew he couldn’t keep dwelling on the past this way or he’d go nuts. Cate had made it perfectly clear she just wanted to be friends now, nothing else. She had even felt easy enough with him to tease him about those early years.

How could they be anything else but friends? He was in no frame of mind to embark on a relationship. He had lost his livelihood and whether he would succeed in his next position was anybody’s guess. There was the fellowship coming up, more training. Analysis. Setting up practice, if that’s what he decided to do in the new specialty. What if he found he hated psychiatry? Yet another field? More training? For the first time in his life, his future was uncertain.

And even if he were already settled into something career-wise, what about Cate? She had some huge life changes down the road whether she accepted that fact or not. He wasn’t sure he could help her much past the immediate recovery phase.

It seemed he needed to work on acceptance as badly as she did because he still wanted her, so badly that he might settle for something as temporary as a one-night stand.

He made up his mind to retreat into doctor mode for the duration. He would not let this get out of hand. It could only hurt both of them.

By morning, he had his resolve firmly in place.

“Breakfast,” Nick announced, placing a tray on the table next to her bed.

Last night she had insisted on using the walker for balance to get herself to the bathroom and back. He knew that changing her clothes must have been difficult, but her determination had won out. The T-shirt she wore to sleep in was on inside out, he noted. Either she hadn’t noticed or hadn’t had the energy left to fix it.

She pushed up in bed, closing her eyes momentarily and swaying a little. He watched her swallow hard several times and take a deep, shuddering breath. It took her nearly a full minute to recover from the sudden movement.

“Take it slowly next time. Give your senses a chance to catch up. Your body’s doing one thing, your brain is registering something else. Disorienting, I know, but you’ll learn to adjust and compensate.”

Cate shot him a nasty look and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m fine. So what’s to eat?”

He took the tray and placed it in her lap. “Egg, toast and coffee. Decaf cappuccino.”

She wrinkled her nose. “You know I hate decaf anything! The least you can do is bring me high-test. I’ll make it myself in the morning.”

“There’s juice, too, if you don’t want cappuccino.” He pulled a chair next to her bed to join her, and reached for his own cup of regular coffee.

She beat him to it, laughing when she tasted it. “I knew you wouldn’t drink the fake stuff. Or the sweet stuff! This one is mine!”

Nick sighed. She was going to be a handful, but he had known that going into this. “Have it your way.” He picked up her juice and took a sip. “Soon as you finish, we’ll get you up and running, so to speak.”

“A jog around the block? Just what the doctor ordered and I see you’re dressed for it. I hope you’ve removed all the local statuary to prevent collision damage.” She winked. “Though I wouldn’t mind running into The David. What a bod!”

“Joke all you want. I know this balance thing is driving you crazy. We’re going to improve that, but don’t expect miracles by this afternoon, okay?”

She nodded, then dug into the egg, making a face as she did it. “It might take a week or so. I’m good with that.”

He remained silent, unwilling to burst her bubble and not even certain he could if he tried. She obviously needed time to come to terms with the truth of her condition.

“Great coffee,” she told him. “I want a refill after my shower.”

Nick took the tray and set it on the nightstand. “You have to let me help you with that, Cate. Can’t have you falling and breaking something.”

“Help with the coffee, yes. With the shower, no,” she declared. “I can do this by myself, Nick.”

“Cate…”

“I will be careful,” she promised, giving him her stubborn grin. “No chance in hell you’re gonna see me naked after all these years.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” It was. He had seen her naked once, poised on the pier near his family’s cabin on the Waxahatchee River, about to dive. A nymph at dawn, all golden and surreal, too beautiful for words. The image was branded on his mind forever.

He stood and picked up the breakfast tray, shoving his chair out of the way with one foot. “If you run into trouble, I think I can stand what gravity must have done to you in your old age. Holler if you need me. And take your time. Move very carefully, okay?”

“Aye, sir!” She saluted.

It was all he could do to leave the room. In spite of that, he did feel relieved that she was taking charge of the more intimate tasks necessary. He could only imagine what seeing her naked with warm water sluicing over her would do to his own equilibrium.

Cate managed to make it to the bathroom. The aluminum walker surrounded her on three sides, providing the stability she needed. She slid it carefully forward on the tiled floor, afraid to lift it for fear she would tilt sideways and fall.

The step-in shower was easy to access and operate. She made quick work of it, leaning on the walker to steady herself. Then she grabbed a towel, dried off and pulled Nick’s terry robe off the nearby hook. Snuggled inside it, she raised one lapel to her nose and smiled as she inhaled his scent.

Feeling refreshed and enjoying her successful stab at independence, Cate headed for the sink. She wiped off the steam and took a good look at herself in the mirror. If she stood real still, there was only one of her looking back.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” she asked her reflection. Man, she looked pathetic. No worry that Nick would want to kindle anything with her looking like this. Not that she was even entertaining the thought.

The truth was, she would always love Nick, but she knew love was not enough to surmount all their differences. She could never have been a doctor’s wife with all that entailed, the social obligations, the sacrifice of her own goals. And he could hardly be expected to enjoy life as a husband to someone like her. Not Nick the worrier.

Nope, that would never have worked then and wouldn’t work now. A silly girl’s pipe dreams, that’s all. Time to put them away, file them under misty memories and what-might-have-beens.

She reached up and raked her wet hair back with one hand. Needed lightening, she thought with a sigh. Needed a cut. They had chopped out a chunk, then shaved it down to the scalp around the site of her surgery, a round gap of half-inch stubble that looked horrible unless she did a sort of comb-over. The word made her grin at herself in the mirror.

She plundered shamelessly in the drawers of the bathroom cabinet and came up with a pair of scissors. Maybe she could go punk.

If she couldn’t control anything else in her life right now, at least she could take charge of her appearance.

Confident she could look no worse than she did now, Cate grabbed up a comb, separated a section of hair and began to snip. She could do this.

What was she doing in there? Nick paced the hallway, waiting for her to come out. The water was off, had been for ten minutes. Maybe she was using the bathroom. He wasn’t about to storm in and embarrass her.

“You all right, Cate?” he called.

“No…” He heard her drawn-out moan. Pain? Something clattered to the floor.

“I’m coming in,” he warned.

The moment the door opened, Nick gasped.

She turned to him, tears in her eyes and sobbed. “It…It’s awful!”

He took it in. Long pale hanks of hair littered the sink and floor. The scissors lay open, next to the faucet. His hairbrush and the small hand dryer had tumbled to the floor. Cate was grasping the bars of the walker in a white knuckled grip. Wet hair stood straight out from her head in uneven lengths.

“Oh, Catie,” he groaned.

“Fix it,” she pleaded.

He had never heard her sound so desperate about anything. She certainly had never worried much about her looks. Hadn’t had to. She was a natural beauty.

He went to her and took her in his arms, the bars of the walker between them, a reminder of why she was here. Gently, he patted her shoulders and barely stopped himself from kissing her on the head. “It’ll be okay. Let’s go where you can sit down.”

Patiently, moving at turtle’s speed, he helped her out of the bathroom and into the club chair by the window in the bedroom. Then he retrieved the comb, scissors and dryer.

Good Lord, what had he gotten himself into? Should he call a stylist? Who the heck would make house calls? He didn’t know anyone else who could do this. At least not nearby and not on a Sunday.

Though she wasn’t vain, Cate had always spent a fortune on her haircuts. She had told him once that a good haircut saved money and time because it required so little in-between care. Her straight, part in the middle, all one-length style suited her perfectly and hadn’t changed a bit since she was a kid. Until now.

Well, hell, he was a surgeon. Or had been. Surely he could manage to even up a few strands of hair. Cate was unduly upset by this little tragedy and he couldn’t have that.

“We’ll have this straightened out in no time,” he assured her. “Just sit there, close your eyes and be patient.”

She sniffled. “I thought I could…”

“I know, I know. Actually, it’s not that bad,” he said, hiding a grimace. Actually, it was terrible. She had butchered it. He might not know much about hairstyles, but he could surely make it better than it was now.

He tried to remember what he’d seen the stylists do to women’s hair in the shop where he had his cut. It bothered him that he wasn’t nearly as observant as he’d always thought. His right hand worked better at this than he had imagined it would, but little strength was required to separate sections of hair and hold it for cutting. The movements of his left were as precise as ever.

After about ten minutes, he laid the scissors down, fluffed what was left of Cate’s hair out with his fingers and plugged in the hair dryer. He sort of rolled the brush at the crown of her head, giving her hair some puff. Unfortunately, that was about all he could recall a stylist doing. He smoothed down the rest around her face.

She sat stiffly, eyes tightly shut, her breathing sounding about as ragged as her hair had looked.

The result was a fringed pixie cut that looked oddly endearing on Cate, at least to Nick. He missed the silken flow that used to entice him to stroke it. Good. Now he’d no longer have to deal with that particular temptation. Besides, this new wash-and-go hairdo would be much more practical for her right now.

He gave her shorn hair a final ruffle. “Finished! Girl, I think I missed my calling. You are gorgeous.”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “I over-reacted, didn’t I? Crying over my hair is not rational behavior. I’m much worse off than I thought.”

Nick tweaked her chin. “Give yourself a break, would you? Women obsess over their looks all the time.” He leaned closer and winked. “Want to hear a secret? Men do it, too. It’s allowed. Now, you want to see?”

She braced her hands on the arms of the chair and got to her feet. Nick led her back into the bathroom, anxious to see whether his efforts would rouse a new spate of tears. Or maybe outright hysteria.

Cate was kind. She smiled, reaching up to flick the bangs, then tug them into some sort of order only she could see. “Not too bad. Now what can you do about these dark circles under my eyes?”

Nick’s breath gusted out in a wave of relief. “Feed you regularly and see that you get enough sleep and exercise.”

Her direct gaze met his in the mirror’s reflection. “Thanks, Nicky,” she whispered. “For everything. You didn’t have to do…all this. Take me in, feed me, do my hair…”

“Sure I did,” he said, hoping she never learned how he had argued against taking her on. “You’d do as much for me, wouldn’t you?”

She nodded. “Could…could we get on with whatever you do have in mind for rehab?”

Nick shrugged. “Don’t you want a day to rest up before we start, maybe tour the apartment, sit outside on the balcony and watch the tourists? Not many come this way, but the locals are interesting. Most are attending church at this hour, but later it gets pretty lively out there.”

She clicked her tongue, impatient. “I don’t have time to watch people!”

He laughed, relieved that her mood had switched. “Then get your britches on and let’s go to work.”

“Where?” she asked, looking altogether too excited, probably expecting a full-scale workout, complete with hand-to-hand combat. Unless she had acquired some patience in the intervening years, he had his work cut out for him.

“I’ve set up in the lounge. I want to do some basic evaluation, then start with hand-eye coordination exercises and build from there. I know they did tests in the hospital, but I need to judge the extent of the injury for myself. And for you, of course. First, we’ll define exactly which parts of your brain are affected, then construct the actual therapy so that other parts can take over and learn new tricks.”

“Got it,” she said with apparent enthusiasm. “So get out of here and let me get dressed.” Her blue eyes twinkled with mischief. “Unless you want to observe me and see how my coordination works with that.”

“Don’t think I’m not tempted.” He teased her back with a fake leer. It felt a little too real.

She gave him a push. “Get out of here!”

Her moods were very pronounced and changed too rapidly with too little cause, he noted. Similar to bipolar symptoms. Could be that she was merely nervous about being with him in a doctor/patient situation. That couldn’t be any easier for her than it was for him. Something to watch, at any rate.

Cate examined the navy sweats he’d left for her to wear, the matching hoodie, white T-shirt and a pair of his sneakers. Those would be too big for her, but not by much and he’d provided thick socks. Walking would be easier with shoes. She had the changes of clothing that her mother had bought, but they were dressy outfits, as useless as the fancy low-heeled pumps and slick-soled flats.

Cate wondered what had happened to the bag she had with her at the ski resort. They would have to shop for clothes for her, but not today.

He came back fifteen minutes later. She was dressed, but exhausted now and lying on her back across the bed. He sat in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Tire out real easily, huh?”

She groaned. “Weak as a kitten! Couldn’t even manage the socks and shoes. Tell me this is temporary.”

“It is, but you can’t rush it too much.”

“Funny, you never realize how wonderful it is to be normal until you’re not.”

He picked up one of the socks and Cate lifted her foot. “You were actually normal? When was that?” he asked, joking as he slid the sock on.

Years worth of adrenaline-powered action scenes and arduous training ops flashed through her mind like a high-speed slide show. “When I was with you. When you told me what to do. How to be,” she answered without thinking.

Their eyes met. He drew a finger down the side of her ankle, then held her foot flat against his chest, caressing it.

Her breath caught in her throat as the warmth of his gaze registered fully. She clenched her eyes shut against the heat in his.

He gently lowered her foot, then released it. When she opened her eyes, the heat was gone and so was Nick. He had closed the door between them. Or maybe she had done that with her response.