The Doctor's Mission

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.