by Dianne Drake
That conversation with Howard had been so long ago now Solaina was almost ready to pace the floor, she was so edgy over the wait. And even her smiling Buddha wouldn’t budge her mood.
“OK, so I cleaned the wound,” she said, going over Howard’s list for her for the fifth time. “I cleaned it, and I’ve gotten fluids down him.” Even with her doctorate in nursing, all her administrative accolades, this was not her kind of nursing. And all she could think was, What if I made a mistake?
She directed a nursing department. Juggled schedules, met budgets, approved spending. But she didn’t ever practice nursing in any fashion. Not where a patient was concerned. She was, most emphatically, not skilled in it, and she recognized her lack. Anything but the barest of patient care duties simply wasn’t a risk she was willing to take. And, honestly, she didn’t have any grand illusions about overcoming her nursing lot in life. She was brilliant at what she did, and horrible at what she didn’t do.
Poor Jacob Renner had never guessed that, though.
Solaina sighed, and leaned restlessly back in her chair, debating whether to go outside to the veranda in order to pass the next hour with some fresh ocean air and morning light, since it was nearly dawn now, and she did so love watching the start of the new day blossom over the beach. Or simply wait here at David’s bedside until the next time he roused, or she had to rouse him.
This was her favorite time of the day, really. A cabana chair, a cup of hot tea, and the full splendor of the morning stretching out right before her eyes. Pure heaven, and it was another thing she would miss once she left here. Dharavaj mornings were the most spectacular she had ever seen anywhere, and she couldn’t imagine she would find anything to compare to them.
Absently, Solaina pushed herself out of her chair and wandered to the pantry, then opened its mahogany door. She kept little food at the cottage since her time there was so limited and it was easier to take what she needed each time she visited. But there was always a nice array of tea. “Good morning, Earl Grey,” she said. No need to break her morning routine because of David. She glanced over at him, wondering if he would be a tea or coffee man. Coming from Toronto, if that was, indeed, where he hailed from and not a figment of his delusions, he could go either way on his beverage choice. Admittedly, she had a taste for caramel macchiato herself. But to start her day that way? “Glad to see you, Earl,” she whispered to the tea tin as she drew it out of the pantry. Any port of familiarity in this storm was welcome.
As she poured water into the kettle and set it atop the stove, she watched David thrashing about in the bed. He was nice to watch. “So, tea or coffee for you?” she asked, wishing he would wake up for a rational chat on anything, including his morning drink preference. “Or a soda?”
Of course, if he woke up at this very moment, professing his undying love of soda in the morning, what next? He really wasn’t so much of a bother, other than the fact that he took up her bed, when she really wanted to be there herself. Alone! And he was holding his own against the injuries after all, so all she had to do was keep watch over him until Howard arrived. “Why couldn’t you have thrown yourself at another car?” she muttered, striking a match to light the tiny two-burner stove.
Once the water was simmering away, Solaina went to the bed to do another check. Pulse strong, breathing good. “Do you like tea?” she asked, nudging his shoulder to wake him up, just as she’d done every hour. “Because I’m making tea right now, if you’d like some.” No coffee, no soda, no choices. It was her way or none for this interloper, now that she was certain he wasn’t going to die on her.
“How did I get here?” he mumbled, looking up at her.
“One step at a time, with me supporting you.” That’s what she’d told him the last time she’d woken him up and he’d asked. And one other time, a few hours ago.
“Don’t remember,” he muttered. “Don’t remember a damned thing.”
“That’s because I think you have a concussion.” She’d told him that, too, and he’d concurred on a mild one—in a lucid moment, of course. “Which is why I’ve been waking you up every hour. Don’t want you slipping too far in.” Old medical protocol, she knew. A good bonk on the head meant waking them up every hour lest they slipped too deep into that concussion and became totally unconscious, or even comatose. Nowadays, sleep wasn’t considered such an enemy of a mild head-banger like David’s, but she felt better doing it anyway. If nothing else, it gave her something to occupy her time since she couldn’t sleep in one-hour bursts like he was doing.
And tonight her sleeplessness had nothing to do with the haunts of Jacob Renner still tilting about in her mind, and everything to do with brand-new images of David Gentry edging out everything but him.
“You need the bed,” David mumbled, patting the spot on the mattress next to him.
She laughed. “You’re right about that. I do need the bed. Desperately. But my answer is still no. You’re in too bad of a shape for all that nonsense, Casanova.”
“For all what nonsense?” he asked, his words a bit thick.
“If you can’t remember, I’m not going to tell you.” She’d given him some ibuprofen on Howard’s instructions a couple of hours ago, and now his fever was down a little. She brushed his forehead with the back of her hand to make sure. Ibuprofen and cleaning his wound, plus the fluids he’d taken in his more manageable moments, and he was actually doing much better. It wasn’t a fabulous improvement by any means, but enough that she was pleased with his progress. Best of all, she no longer feared, with every breath he drew, that he wouldn’t hang on until Howard turned up.
“Was it good?” he asked. “What I offered you?”
“Apparently not, since you don’t remember.” It had only been a kiss, and truthfully she thought it had been rather charming of him, since a man in his dotty condition might have been begging for so much more. But a chaste kiss suggested to her that David was a gentleman of sorts, and she liked that. “Go back to sleep, David. Maybe next time you wake up you’ll remember.”
“And will your answer be yes then? Because I’m assuming that up until now it’s been no.”
She laughed. “In your dreams, Casanova. In your dreams.”
“In my dreams, Solaina…”
“How did you know my name?” she asked, as she pulled the bed sheet back up over his shoulders, then adjusted the pillow under his head. She hadn’t told him, had she?
“I’ve always known your name. The lovely Solaina. My pretty lady. How could it be anything else?”
Poor man’s having delusions again, Solaina thought as she watched him drift back to sleep. Or maybe she’d mentioned her name to him earlier, and all this lack of sleep was making her as wonky as he was.
Although she still couldn’t recall that she had.
“Try taking just a few sips, then I promise I’ll leave you alone for a while.” A few sips of tea, a couple of bites of a muffin, an antibiotic, then she’d leave him alone and let him get back to sleep.
He’d been tossing and turning this past hour, and so grumpy throughout this little span of alertness she was just about at her wit’s end to know what to do for him…to him…about him…Whoever had said that doctors were the worst patients must have been well acquainted with David Gentry. “So are you lucid, David? Do you understand how badly you need to get this tea in you? Or would you rather have water?” Water or tea. Her only options.
“Don’t like Earl Grey,” he snapped.
“Did it ever occur to you to tell me that instead of fighting me?”
“Apparently not.” He tried to force a smile, then squeezed his eyes shut. “Headache. Can’t think straight.”
“Concussion. Dehydration. Infection. Take your pick. They’ll all give you a headache.”
“Am I giving you a headache, pretty lady?”
He was much nicer now, she thought. Mellow and charming again. Casanova. The way she liked him. “A great big one. For the last several hours now.” Although it seemed mo
re like several days.
“Don’t mean to be so difficult,” he said. “But you know what they say about doctors…”
“That they make the kindest, sweetest, most co-operative patients ever known to the medical world. That they drink their fluids and eat their food and take their medicine without a word of protest. And they even volunteer to change their own bed sheets when the time comes. That is what you were going to say, isn’t it?”
He chuckled. “And I thought I was the delusional one here.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying, can you?” She hurried over to the faucet for a glass of water, then returned to the bed.
“So, where are you from, Solaina?” he asked, taking hold of the water glass, then studying it rather than drinking it. “I detect the slightest hint of French in your voice, but I do hear American there, too.”
“I’m from all over. Born in Haiti, raised in Kijé and France. Stayed in the United States for all of my higher education and several years after that for my first job. Then I went to Paris to work and Switzerland for a year, and I worked in Tokyo after that. Now I’m in Dharavaj. At the hospital in Chandella.” And in a short while she hoped to be adding a new destination—one yet to be determined—to that travelog. The job offers were coming in, but she hadn’t decided which to take. She hadn’t yet flipped that proverbial coin. “And you, David? Out there on the road you were asking me to take you home.”
“Born, raised and educated in Toronto, and when the time comes I’ll be happy to return. But after Toronto I didn’t get around quite so much as you. It was Cambodia and…” He sighed deeply and tried to raise the glass to his lips, but his hand was wobbly and a little of the water sloshed over the top and onto the sheet. “So, is this where I get to show you what a good patient I am and change the bed sheet?”
“This is where you get to show me what a good patient you are and drink your water, then eat a bite or two of your muffin. After that, for your dessert, I’ve got another dose of amoxicillin for you. You’re not allergic to it, are you? In one of your coherent moments you told me you weren’t.” She’d found part of a prescription of it in her medicine cabinet and Howard had instructed her to start him on it immediately.
“No allergies,” he said, “and amoxicillin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic, so it should work. Good choice.”
“Lucky coincidence. I had some capsules left over from a little lung infection a year ago.”
“Didn’t your doctor tell you to take all your medicine?” he asked, handing the glass back to her without drinking the water.
“Good thing for you I don’t always listen to my doctor.” She broke off a small piece of oatmeal muffin and handed it to him.
He took it, ate it, refused a second piece, then shut his eyes. “I’d think I’d like to sleep now.”
“And I’d rather be outside, lying on my little stretch of beach, but I can’t. Not until you take your pill.” She smiled at him. Now that he was cleaned up she could almost envision him as healthy. He was robust, and she wondered how he kept himself in shape. Cycling? Running? Nobody got in the shape David Gentry was in without working at it, and she suspected his great shape was the reason he’d survived his ordeal. Whatever that had been.
“Why don’t you let me sleep for another hour, then I’ll see what I can do for you…?” David drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly, fighting to drift off. But not this time. Not until she’d got that antibiotic down him. Playing nice nurse wasn’t working, and now it was time to change her game plan. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, shaking him awake. “You can go back to sleep after you’ve done what I’ve asked. Not before. Another sip of water, another bite of muffin, a pill, then you can sleep. Not negotiable, David.” She wasn’t sounding like a sugar-coated angel of mercy here, and that rather pleased her. Especially when the look on David’s face suggested that she was getting through.
“Fine,” he snapped. “Whatever you want!”
Grumpy again. Well, so be it. “What I want is for you to take a drink.” Instead of letting his hands take hold of the glass, Solaina moved the glass to his lips and held it there as he drank. It was an effort for him, and after mere seconds he was exhausted. Dropping his head back to his pillow, he shut his eyes and fought to control his breathing.
“Out of shape,” he whispered.
“I think that if you were out of shape you wouldn’t have survived this long,” she replied, setting the glass aside and picking up the muffin. “So, are you ready for another bite or two?”
“You don’t give up on a man, do you?”
“When a man sleeps in my bed, I get to do whatever I wish. And you, Doctor, are sleeping in my bed, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Jasmine. The sheets smell of jasmine. I did notice.”
“Not another botanical dissertation,” she said, breaking off another bite for him. “You have a flora fixation, David. Did you know that?”
“Right now, I don’t know much of anything other than the fact that the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen is sitting on the side of the bed, popping muffin bits into my mouth, which should be a very erotic experience, and I’m too damned tired to even chew. Believe me, in my dreams that’s not what you were doing. And I was doing a hell of a lot more than fighting my way through a bite of muffin.”
“Two bites. You’ll be fighting your way through two bites. And, my, aren’t you a ruttish one? Even in your condition…”
“I’d have to be dead not to notice you.” He reached over and took the muffin from her.
“Three bites, and if you argue that goes up to four. And the last time I tried to feed you I believe the term you used for me was a fat old kouprey.”
“And you intend to hold that lapse into insanity against me?”
“Three bites and I won’t hold it against you.” She smiled at him. “Four bites and it’s entirely forgotten.”
“There never was a mention of a kouprey, was there?” he asked, before he succumbed to the muffin. “Even in my delirium I would know better than to say something like that about you.”
“Four bites,” Solaina countered, handing him the first.
“You win,” he said, taking it. However, he was able to manage only two bites before fatigue overcame him. “Thank you,” he said quietly, as he took the antibiotic pill from her. “And in case I haven’t said it…and I really don’t remember all I’ve said, except the kouprey part which I never said…thank you for stopping out there on the road and rescuing me. That was brave of you.” He raised up, popped the pill into his mouth and washed it down with another drink of water, then collapsed back onto the bed and shut his eyes. “Got to go to sleep now, pretty lady. And dream about…”
Solaina bent over him to feel his forehead. Still feverish, but a little better, owing to the second good cleaning she’d done to his wound and the additional fluids he was getting in him. Soon the antibiotic would kick in fully but, still, David needed so much more than this patch-up job she was doing for him. Surgery to remove the bullet, for starters. Painkillers. X-rays. And here she was equipped with a drink of water, a muffin and a pill. Not enough. She was getting frantic for Howard.
It was daylight now, and warm outside. Not too warm yet, although the hot, moist air would stir later on and chase all but the hearty back inside to sit underneath their overhead fans or in front of their air-conditioning vents.
Solaina liked this time of the day, though. Looked forward to it, actually. Her morning necessities—a pot of tea, a nice muffin, a good book. She glanced through the glass door at the book sitting on the table next to the cabana chair. Another by Marion Lennox—medicine, intrigue, romance all rolled into one. Solaina chuckled. Almost her own life at the moment, minus the part about romance. He had called her a fat old kouprey after all. In truth. And that didn’t inspire many thoughts of romance.
Besides, she didn’t do romance now…didn’t get involved. There was no reason to since she didn’t commit to staying any plac
e or with anyone for more than the blink of an eye. She was there, then she was gone. No friends, no messy entanglements to untangle. It wasn’t the life of her dreams, but it was the life of her choosing, and it worked out well enough. Not brilliantly. But adequately, which was all she expected.
Solaina glanced at the Lennox book again and knew that somewhere within those pages, someone would end up entangled, and happy about it. A brilliant ending, a brilliant life. So much better than her own little slice of adequate.
“I’ll read it later,” she murmured, sighing, as she carried her own tea and muffin outside to her cabana chair and sat down to contemplate the sand and surf. And David—who was fast turning into both a contemplation and an entanglement. “So, what do I do about David?” she asked herself, settling back into her red and yellow canvas sling and shutting her eyes.
The only answer came in the form of the fresh images of him fighting for his life along the side of a dark, deserted highway. Had the timing of the matter been off one way or another—her meeting in Chandella ending on time, or her meeting going even longer, or her choosing to go back to her little flat instead of heading for her cottage, which was what she’d almost done…There were so many variables in all this, and any one of them coming off differently would have meant that instead of lying in her bed, causing her huge problems in logistics, proximity and, worst of all, medical capability, David Gentry might be…
No, he would be dead. She may not be the queen of clinical practice when it came to performing any nursing skills, but it didn’t take much in the way of actual patient skill to make that diagnosis. David would have died of exposure some time last night.