A Doctor's Watch

He threw a glance at Nurse Renee. “Let’s go.”

His heart sank when they walked into the kitchen. A couple of cooks in grease-stained white aprons shuffled about, clanging pots and pans. Mia couldn’t be here; she would have been spotted. Maybe she really had left the building, in which case she was out in the snow, coatless and shoeless somewhere. He’d seen stranger things as a psychiatrist, but none had given him quite the same feeling of dread as picturing Mia shivering and alone did now.

“Mia?” he called out, helplessness loud and clear in his voice.

The cooks stopped and stared at him.

He walked down the aisle between stoves and sinks, looking left and right, studying. Ahead, the kitchen bent around in a narrow L shape. A row of stainless-steel cutting tables and cabinets lined one side of the room.

From beneath one of the tables, five bare toes wiggled against the tile floor.

“Mia?” Barely aware of the nurse jogging behind him, Ty hurried to where Mia sat huddled on the floor, but made himself slow down before he squatted next to her. He didn’t want to startle her.

When he did lower himself to her level, he was the one who startled.

Both hands wrapped around the handle, she clasped a butcher knife against her chest.

Though his heart thundered in his chest, he forced a professional calm into his voice. “Hey, what’cha doing down here?”

She blinked, her eyes vacant.

“Mia? Are you okay?”

This time he got a twitch out of her. A tiny sign of recognition.

“Can you tell me what you’re doing here?” He made no move toward her. Not with that knife so close to her heart.

Her lips trembled. “There was a…There was a man.”

“A man where?”

“In my room.”

“In your hospital room? Upstairs?”

She nodded, the movement jerky. At least he could see her breathing now, and a spot of color had returned to her cheeks.

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. He was dressed all in black. He had a hood.” Her gaze jumped up to his, suddenly electric. “He was going to hurt me.”

Damn. How could he have been so wrong about her? She’d seemed so stable yesterday, despite her confusion about being pushed down the bluff. That could be written off as a normal defensive mechanism. He wanted to write it off.

He wanted her to be normal.

But the paranoid delusion she described was anything but normal. Hiding beneath a stainless-steel counter with a butcher knife before dawn was anything but normal.

A knot tightened in his chest as he realized how long and painful the road to recovery would be for a person with an illness like this. And not just for her, but for her family, too. She had a son, she’d said.

“Mia, why don’t you put down the knife and we can talk about it, okay?”

Confusion clouded her green eyes. She glanced down, and looked at the weapon she held as if she’d never seen it before, hadn’t realized she held it. Her eyes went wide. The blade clattered to the floor.

Moving slowly, Nurse Renee leaned in and slid it away.

“There, that’s better.” Ty slowly raised his hand toward Mia. She hesitated to take his hand, to trust him, but he waited out her reluctance. Her shock.

What he wouldn’t give for a shower and a clean shirt. Yesterday’s clothes were getting a little ripe. He wouldn’t be leaving here for some time, though. When he did go, Mia Serrat would be going back to the Massachusetts Hospital of Mental Health with him—as a patient.

And she knew it—her green eyes had gone so dark they were almost black. He steeled himself against the urge to comfort her, to tell her everything would be all right. She had to face her illness, and he had to help her do it.

This was why he’d gotten into medicine. Into psychiatry. Because of people like Mia. People like his mother. Good people who needed help.

He just hadn’t known how it would eat his gut.

“Come on,” he urged. “Why don’t we go somewhere a little more comfortable and you can tell me what happened?”

Ten minutes later, Mia was tucked back between her covers with a mug of steaming tea and Dr. Handsome was perched on a stool next to the bed.

“You don’t believe me,” she said flatly.

“I’m just trying to understand—”

“Huh.” She gulped a mouthful of air. “Don’t give me the psychobabble. I’ve heard it all before.”

He raked a hand through his hair and stretched his back. “Okay, why do you think someone would want to hurt you?”

She cut him a sideways glance. “Oh, now you believe there is a man?”

“Just go with me here.”

She sighed, a wistful breath of air that rippled the tea. The steam above the mug swirled. “I don’t know.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No. He didn’t see me. Not at first.”

“How could he not see you?”

“I wasn’t in my room. I was in the hall…. Oh, what’s the use.”

“No, go ahead. You were in the hall.”

She blew on her tea and took a sip. “He stopped outside my door and looked around like, to see if anyone was watching.”

The doctor scrubbed his hands over his face. He looked tired, and he was wearing the same clothes he’d had on yesterday. “Are you sure it wasn’t a doctor? You were tired and had hit your head. Maybe you just thought—”

“How many doctors do you know that wear black hoodies pulled way up over their faces when they’re making rounds?”