*
Leia stepped out on her deck, as she studied her patient standing outside the small outhouse. He looked weak but actually quite improved over how she’d seen him for the last few weeks. The fact that he had made it to the facilities on his own was huge. She had plumbing up here, but it was still very primitive. She lived on an island completely away from the rest of the world, and that was how she liked it.
When she had finally managed to drag her sorry butt here, she’d been a broken piece of humanity and had desperately needed the solace that a place like this could bring. When she’d found him in the water, while she was out fishing, she knew exactly what he needed. She was a surgeon and had been a damn good one. Right up until a series of unfortunate events had cost her everything—her job, her self-confidence, and all the people she’d spent so much time trying to help. Now that all seemed like a long time ago. It wasn’t so far removed from the present, but still it was a lifetime away.
She wouldn’t ever return to that kind of workforce environment again. She’d spent her life helping people, but, when it turned out badly, it seemed like everyone in her world had turned on her. As for her current patient, she didn’t know what his story was, but something was there. Something terribly dark. She’d been there beside him through all his nightmares, hearing the fear and the night terrors that ripped through him. She didn’t know what had happened in his world, but it was still happening, of that she had no doubt. She’d heard through the grapevine that people were looking for him, but, so far, they hadn’t found her patient or Leia.
She kept in touch with the outside world but didn’t know who to trust on this. She had no idea who was the right person to inform. She had done as much surgery on him as she could, trying to repair the injuries and to keep his body as functional as possible. Considering her island ER setup, she had done a hell of a job, if she did say so herself. This Terkel person though, that was a different story entirely. The old medicine woman on the other side of the island said that Terkel kept contacting her with a message to tell her patient that Terkel was looking for him, and now he’d found him. Bullard.
She half expected that her idyllic island life would get completely disrupted by the arrival of foreigners in connection with Bullard. What would she do then?
Her heart ached at the thought of him leaving, but of course he would. This wasn’t his world or where he’d chosen to spend his life. He’d gotten here by chance. Something had happened that had put him on this pathway, and she’d done her best to rescue him, then to get him healthy and able to go home. He was far from 100 percent, but every day he made visible improvements. As he gradually regained his strength, she had begun to see the powerhouse of the man that he was. And she knew that, as soon as he fully understood what was going on, he would be chomping at the bit to head back to his real life.
She would miss him terribly.
She wasn’t sure who this Ice person was or several other people Bullard kept calling out for. The names didn’t mean anything to her, and Leia had no way of knowing whether they did to him or not. She’d written them down but was still uncertain at what point in time she should ask him about it. She didn’t want to set him back any further. And he had already proven to be wily and difficult to handle when he had his mind set on a particular course. She figured that, once he approached anything near his full strength, he would be almost impossible to keep down.
At that point she would have lost control over his care. She knew that time was coming, but it would still be hard to let go. She didn’t want to admit it, but she had become more than attached. He was a special patient, perhaps because he was the first one she’d looked after in all these years, but he’d also been so broken and so desperately in need that it was a true challenge for her talents. For the longest time she’d had nobody for that part of her psyche to deal with, then suddenly ended up with somebody who needed her desperately, and she’d given him her all. Was it enough? She didn’t know, especially considering she had no idea what was going on in his world, including how he had ended up in the ocean and so terribly injured.
Was he in danger? She suspected as much, since the medicine woman had warned Leia that Bullard had bad enemies and needed help. Well, the help part she understood; it was just a matter of what she was supposed to do at this point, recognizing her options were limited. He was a good man, at least what she had seen of him. Her heart told her that he was a very strong and a very tough man, but he was also a man of honor.
Maybe that was just wishful thinking because she needed something to believe in, and he was it. She nodded, as she stepped back inside her cabin, knowing that he’d seen the movement. He’d been completely cooped up in that small space down there for too long. It started out as basically her writing space, a little gazebo without walls that she had erected for her own purpose. A place slightly separate from her home that she needed for working out, writing, and yoga, just to release the strain and the stress inside her own system. As soon as the food was ready, she loaded up his and her platters, then carried them carefully to where he rested on the bed once again.
“You have your own space,” he growled.
She nodded. “Of course.”
“There’s no of course about it,” he said.
He sounded aggrieved, as if she’d kept something important from him. She just smiled. “You’re being foolish,” she said. “My life has been here for a long time, so obviously this little hut isn’t where I made my home.”
“I know,” he said, suddenly sounding bashful.
She chuckled. “You can’t seem to decide whether you’ll behave as a little boy or as a man.”
“Because, for the first time, it feels like the little boy in me is being allowed to come out,” he confessed.
Chapter 2
Leia looked at him, then chuckled. “Nothing wrong with that,” she murmured. “We all need moments of peace and quiet to let out our inner child.”
“If you say so.” He looked at the food and grinned. “Did you catch the fish today?”
“Not today,” she said easily. “I’m still not the fisherman others on the island are.”
“I imagine it’s a lifestyle for them,” he said.
“I guess so,” she said. “Still I get a little bit every time I go out. It’s just not quite enough.”
“Looks like you get everything you need here though.”
“To a certain extent I do. Yes.”
“And do you want to stay here?”
The question threw her. She lifted her dark gaze to his and studied him, wondering what was behind the question. “I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t been here all my life, so I do know what the rest of the world looks like. I can’t say that I’m in great favor of what the world has to offer sometimes.”
He nodded in understanding. “You’ve seen some of the worst of it, haven’t you?”
“I don’t know that I would say that,” she said gently. “I think a lot of the worst of it out there is the people themselves.”
“Always is,” he said.
She gave him his plate, a towel for his fingers, and a fork. He dove in with an appetite that surprised her. “You really are feeling better, aren’t you?” she said, with a pleased grin.