New York Doc, Thailand Proposal

by Dianne Drake

  “But it was a wall.”

  “And it brought me to your attention, didn’t it?”

  “Speaking of bringing something to your attention, did you see that the shipment of mosquito netting came in? I didn’t even know it had been ordered.”

  He wiggled his phone at her. “After you offered, I went down the road a bit, placed the order—it’s in your name, by the way. The bill will be forthcoming.”

  “So, who delivered it?”

  “A friend from the regional hospital. I had it sent there and he dropped it by. He’s the nurse who comes out to help when we’re desperate. And, yes, he signed for a shipment of drugs and brought them along as well. Paid for courtesy of the government’s health program.”

  “Do you ever get desperate having to rely on so many people?”

  “Sometimes. But then I get over it because there are a lot of more serious things to worry about.”

  “I don’t suppose I ever realized how resilient you were. I always knew you were a brilliant surgeon, but I think I tried not to picture this part of you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I knew it would eventually come between us.” She pulled her wet T-shirt away from her skin. “Mind if I put on a dry hospital gown?”

  Too bad...he was enjoying the wet look. Enjoyed her with the dry look as well. In fact, there was never a look he didn’t like when it came to Layla. And he’d probably seen all of them. “Help yourself.”

  She returned to the exam room in a thin gown that was a dozen sizes too large for her frame, but this time she sat down on the floor next to him rather than on the table, then cuddled up to him. Something that came so naturally she didn’t even realize she was doing it. But he did. Back then, now. And his natural response would have been to put his arms around her and snuggle in even more, which he wasn’t going to do.

  “I used to enjoy this,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Curling up in front of the fireplace together, even if all we were doing was studying. Too bad we never had much time for it.”

  “We didn’t have much time for anything together, Layla. Too much work, too much study.”

  She laughed. “The life of a doctor. Coming from a long line of them, I’m sure you knew what to expect. But I didn’t. All I saw was the glamorous side—from television and movies. Even from when I fell out of a tree and broke my leg when I was eight and spent a couple of weeks in the hospital, being attended to by the most gorgeous doctor I’d ever seen. At least, gorgeous in the eyes of a child who was totally in love with the image of him, especially the way people looked at him—with so much respect.

  “That’s why I became a doctor, you know. I always remembered how people looked at him and that’s how I wanted them to look at me. Probably also to impress him since I decided, at the tender age of eight, I was going to marry him, despite the fact he was probably forty.” She laughed. “Only in the mind of a child, right?”

  “A child who set her course when she was eight and never left it. So, would you go back and do it again?” he asked, taking care not to touch her in any way, since he knew their history and remembered what a single touch could start. Not that he was a man who wouldn’t want that. But with Layla there were painful aftershocks. Those were what he wanted to avoid as he’d suffered them the first time and had come out unscathed. Well, relatively unscathed. She had made him a much more mindful person in that regard. “Medical school to surgeon. Knowing what you know now, would you still make that choice?”

  “In a heartbeat. My childhood dream doctor became the basis for a lifelong passion and I never wavered in what I wanted after I was eight. So, what about you when you were eight?”

  “When I was eight, I was already a medic of sorts. Fetching supplies my parents needed in the moment, making sure their medical bags were stocked properly. All except for the drugs, of course. Sometimes they’d let me treat minor things like scratches. You know, wash, antiseptic, bandage.”

  “And you never changed either.”

  “It’s what I knew.”

  “No regrets you kept it up?”

  “My only regret was that I didn’t have the opportunity to work with them after I was a real doctor. I wanted that, worked hard to push myself through so I could have it, but it didn’t happen.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching over and taking his hand.

  The muscle in his right forearm twitched under her touch, but he didn’t pull himself away from her because he liked being where he was. Always had with Layla. “So am I. But what I have now...” He shrugged. “Almost all of it’s good.”

  “Me, too,” she said. “I never meant to work for Ollie, given the connection you and I had, but when he made me the offer...”

  “He’s a great judge of talent. To succeed in his world, you have to be.” He smiled. “To my knowledge, he’s never been wrong in the doctors he’s chosen to work in his surgery. You included.”

  “I thought for a while it was his way of trying to get us back together.”

  “Nope. He’s not the type to interfere. My guess is that he assumed you’d come back to Thailand with me and was thrilled when you didn’t because he’d get his shot at you.”

  “Well, he’s been good to me. And I love working where I do.”

  He didn’t want to let go of her hand, didn’t want to get up and walk away. But nothing was stirring at this late hour and they both needed to sleep. She in the relative comfort of the hut and he...someplace where she wasn’t. “Look, we’re in the rare position of no late-night calls to make and unless something comes in, as Homer said in his Odyssey, ‘There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.’ So, on that note, Homer and I bid you goodnight.”

  Unfortunately, what he intended as a dignified exit from the room turned into something much less. As he stood, his back gave out and stopped him halfway to his feet. “So much for the grand departure,” he muttered. Then forced himself upright, inch by inch.

  Layla laughed. “Off with the shirt, Arlo. This is ridiculous, especially when I can help you.” To prove her point, she cracked her knuckles, then patted the exam table. “Face down, get comfortable.”

  “Don’t do this, Layla,” he moaned, knowing that so much of her touch would drive him insane.

  “Doctor’s orders, or I might have to declare you unfit for duty.”

  “I’m the boss here. Remember?”

  “And I’m the one with the magic fingers. Remember?”

  He moaned again. “I’ll be fine.”

  “After I’m done with you.” She pushed away from him, went to the supply cabinet, pulled out a bottle of jasmine oil, a gift from a patient, and returned to the exam table.

  “I’m not going to smell like flowers,” he protested.

  “What? Not manly enough to be secure in wearing a delicate scent?” She rubbed some on her hands, then bent down and waved them at him. “Tempted?”

  “Not yet,” he said, enjoying the flirt. He used to enjoy their lighter moments, the teasing, the playfulness. It was one of the things he’d missed most after they’d broken up. “What else have you got?”

  She pulled down the neck of his T-shirt just a little and rubbed some of the oil across his chest. “That?”

  He chuckled. “How is it that you’re the only woman I’ve ever known who could get away with making me smell like jasmine?”

  “Just one of my many charms,” she said, patting the exam table again. “So, like I said, shirt off...”

  Naturally, he gave in. He always had, because his little pretenses of resistance had never gone very far with her. All she had to do was—

  “Let me help you out of your shirt,” she said, grabbing hold of the bottom of it and slowly lifting it over his stomach.

  Yes, that was always the start of it.

  Then her journey went to his
chest and it was agonizingly slow. On purpose? Was she taking this so slowly to torture him? Or was he simply primed to be tortured by any intimacy from her? And this was so tactile, so intimate. The chills her fingers were causing attested to that.

  “Are you able to get it over your head on your own, or do you need help?”

  Another time, he would have taken the help, prolonged it, begged for more. But not now. So, rather than answering, he tugged his shirt over his head and lay on the exam table as quickly as possible, hoping that the thoughts in his head would turn clinical rather than stirring. “This isn’t going to take long, is it?” he asked, trying to dispel the mood sliding down over him.

  “As long as it needs to take,” she said, taking her place at the side of the table then applying pressure to his lower back.

  “In case you were wondering, it’s my serratus posterior inferior. It lies...”

  Layla laughed. “I showed up to class that day, Arlo. I know where it is.” Lower back, and in his case the right side. Which was where she positioned her hands and began a light rub, which elicited an immediate moan. “You’re lucky all you did was pull some muscles. Next time you’re up on a roof look where you’re stepping or you might injure something more important than your serratus posterior inferior.”

  “Ah, yes, lovely bedside manner. Lecture the patient who’s in excruciating pain.” He moaned again, and this time sucked in a sharp breath. “Nice hands,” he said on exhalation. “I think they’ve improved with age.”

  “What? You didn’t like my massages back then?”

  “Different kind of massages. Those were meant to lead to other things. This one is meant to cure me.” It had been so long since he’d experienced a woman’s touch in any meaningful way he’d almost forgotten what pure pleasure felt like. But this was it—Layla’s touch. Always had been. And as far as he was concerned, this was a massage that could last for hours, or forever, and he wouldn’t get tired of it.

  * * *

  “Sounds like the rain’s letting up,” she said, after he’d been dead silent, except for an occasional moan, for the past five minutes. She hadn’t intended this massage to turn into a flirt, but something had grabbed hold of her, and she was fully involved in it long before she realized what she was doing. So many things just seemed to come naturally with Arlo, things she’d taken for granted when they’d been together. And now they were reminders of what she’d let go.

  “Then maybe you should go back to the hut and try to get some sleep.”

  “Are you sure? Because I could keep doing this for a while longer.”

  “But I can’t, Layla. It’s—it’s making me think things I shouldn’t be thinking.”

  She understood that as she was probably thinking many of the same thoughts. Maybe she was trying to go too far based on something that was no longer there. Or simply getting caught up in the past. Whatever the case, Arlo was right. So she stepped back from the table and picked up a towel to wipe her hands. “Then you’ll stay here?” Honestly, she hoped he would because she didn’t want to face him for a while. Not until she’d better sorted out her intentions.

  “I’ve got insulin rounds in a couple of hours, and I do want to check my patients here when they wake up, so yes. I’ll stay here.”

  And that was all they said. Layla took the hint to leave and did. Trudged across the muddy road as fast as she could to get away from him, only to find Chauncy, who’d decided not to be a night prowler in the rain, curled up on her cot. “It was a huge mistake,” she told the cat as she sat down beside him. “All mine.” And one she wouldn’t make again.

  * * *

  He’d already checked and released his two late-night admissions and made three house calls by the time Layla wandered into the hospital the next morning. “Sleep well?” he asked, hoping she didn’t feel as awkward as he did. And drained because every time he’d tried shutting his eyes her image had been there. Followed by memories, and images of things in the past. Meaning he’d had no sleep whatsoever.

  “Well enough. So, how’s your back this morning?”

  “Much better.” That was true. Even just those few minutes under her fingertips had produced more relief than he’d expected. “I think you could have a future as a massage therapist, if that’s what you wanted.” The air between them was heavy with trepidation and watchfulness. There was no way to get around it other than avoid it. And the best avoidance was work, which he was anxious to get back to. “The patient list is on the desk,” he said. “I didn’t sleep well so I worked.”

  “Because of your back?”

  He shook his head. “There were too many things rattling around in my brain.”

  “You used to do that. Get so caught up in your responsibilities you couldn’t sleep. Wish I could do something to help. Maybe chamomile tea? Maybe I can order you some when we get to the elephant rescue?”

  He nodded and smiled. What was wrong with him wouldn’t be fixed by any kind of tea, but he appreciated her gesture. That was always one of Layla’s best points—her tenderness. “I’m not used to having anybody take care of me anymore. At least, not the way you used to.”

  “Sometimes it was the only way we could find time together.” She laughed. “You didn’t know, but because you were always so busy going one way while I was going another, I actually created a list of things I could do for you—other than the obvious—that would slow you down and allow me some time with you.”

  He arched surprised eyebrows. “Seriously?”

  She nodded. “You couldn’t resist homemade chocolate cookies, but when you knew I was baking them, you’d hang around for as long as it took for the first batch to come out of the oven. Most of the time I was very slow getting that first batch done.”

  “I never knew.”

  “I had my ways.”

  “Please tell me that walking up the five flights of stairs to our apartment was for health reasons like you said, and not just a way to have a little more time together. Because you know how I hated those stairs.”

  “Almost as much as I enjoyed the view walking behind you.”

  “You little minx,” he said, laughing out loud. “I never had a clue.”

  “You weren’t meant to. But it was all fun and games, Arlo. We always knew that’s what it was between us. And now?”

  “I work. And there’s no one here to bake chocolate-chip cookies. Sometimes I wish there was.”

  “It’s got to be a lonely life for you out here. I can’t even begin to imagine how you get by.”

  “One day at a time. Or sometimes hour by hour.”

  Finally, they were back on track and she liked that. Liked the good things they’d been through together—moments like this one. Wished there’d been more back then. Even wished there could be more now. “After we were done, and after you got here, did you ever wish you’d chosen a different life? Or redesigned the one you had?”

  “Not after I got back, but I did have this brief time after we split when I thought I didn’t want to come back. A lot of that was tied to you. And Ollie. He’d paid my tuition, as you knew, and he pressured me for about a year to come in with him because he honestly didn’t realize that I loved what I was doing here. When he figured it out, that’s when he stopped.”

  “And when he came after me.”

  “Score one for Ollie. He’s always had an eye for pretty girls and an instinct for getting the best doctors. With you, he got both.”

  “And you got?”

  “Everything here. The village. The jungle. The people. Home is home, and this is mine. In the end, it’s what I wanted more than anything else.”

  “Including me.”

  “Maybe the biggest regret of my life. But it was always a losing cause. This is where I was meant to be.”

  “Here. In this village. This is what cost me...you. I didn’t like it, Arlo, but over time I acc
epted it. Oh, and how do you pronounce the village’s name? Since I lost you to it I should, at least, know how to call it out by name.”

  He laughed then said something she would never come close to pronouncing. Not unless she was much further along in her Thai language skills, which wouldn’t be happening in her two-month stay. “The meaning is village by the big fig tree.”

  “The tree you see just at the entrance to the village?”

  He nodded. “It’s a symbol of enlightenment, believed to bring good fortune.”

  “Well, if you’re happy, it’s brought you good fortune. So, let me grab that patient list and get started because—” Because almost having him was worse than not having him at all. And sometimes, even now, her heart just hurt. “Because don’t we have an afternoon appointment with the elephants?”

  * * *

  Arlo hid himself in the bushes near the elephant reserve and watched Layla playing with the baby assigned to her care. She looked so happy, playing and splashing. He hadn’t often seen her abandon herself this way, and he truly wished she could find more joy in her life. But she went about her life so methodically, like she was laboring under the biggest weight in the world.

  Emerging from the bushes after watching her for a while, Arlo waved at Layla as he passed near her, and found himself totally drawn into her smile as she waved back. He’d always enjoyed finding those things that caused her to smile like that or gave her an unexpected thrill or happiness she hadn’t expected. She could be like a child on Christmas, excited to open all her presents. And he’d been lucky enough to be part of that occasionally. “Care for a mango?” he called across the compound. “Your baby might love them.”

  Layla turned to look at him, which was her first mistake. Her second was allowing the hose to point away from the baby. In that split second of distraction the baby grabbed the hose from her hand and started to run off with it, as any toddler, elephant, human or otherwise, might do. And in doing that the baby, named Tika, bumped into Layla, sending her sprawling into the big, orange plastic tub filled with muddy water where Tika had been playing. Seeing that as an opportunity to play, Tika slid into the tub with Layla, pinning Layla to the side at first, then trying to crawl onto her lap as she struggled to pull herself up.