“Don’t put yourself out on my account. I’m a big girl. I can take it.” She squared herself up to her full five-foot-six frame and stared him down. “And I think I’ll just stay in the hospital, all things considered.” Narrowing her eyes, she went on, “I hate snoring. And, just for the record, Damien, you’re not going to scare me off. I came here so I could stay better in touch with patient care, and I don’t intend to back out of it, no matter how hard you’re trying to push me away.”
“I’m not trying to push you away,” he defended.
“Sure you are. Don’t know why, don’t particularly care. Just let me do my job here, and we’ll get along. OK?”
Well, she certainly was driven. He liked that. Liked it a lot. “Look, if you want privacy, you can have my hut on the weekends you’re here, and I’ll stay in the hospital.”
“The weekends I’m here will be every weekend.”
“You’re sure of that? Because it’s a long, tough drive to get here, and I don’t have anything to make your life, or your work, easier when you’re here.”
“I’m adaptable, Damien. I’ll make do.”
He wanted to trust that she would. “Look, we can finish talking about your housing options later on, over dinner. But, right now, Señor Mendez is waiting in the clinic. Remember, gout? Oh, and I’m going to go make a house call. I have a patient who’s a week over her due date, and she’s getting pretty anxious to have her baby.”
“Borrow my car. Take her for a ride on that bumpy road into town. That should induce something.”
So she had a sense of humor. Even though she made her offer with a straight face, Damien laughed. “Might work better if I borrow a cart and a donkey from one of the locals.”
“They actually have donkey carts here?” she asked in full amazement.
“It’s called traveling in style. A modern convenience if the cart is fairly new and the donkey is reasonably young.” He stopped himself short of ridiculing the kind of car she probably had back home. A sleek sports model, most likely. Shiny and silver. Convertible. Her hair let down from its ponytail and blowing in the breeze. Nope, he had to stop this. It was going too far, almost daydreaming about her the way he was. “Anyway, I’ll probably be back before you’re done with Señor Mendez’s toe.”
“Will Alegria be able to unlock the medicine cabinet for me?”
Before he answered, he fished through the pocket of his khaki cargo shorts until he found a key. “Here, take mine. Just make sure you give it back before you leave here—when? Sunday night? Monday morning?”
“Haven’t decided yet. I guess it will depend on the workload.”
He dropped the key into her outstretched hand. “Well, next time I get to Cima de la Montaña I’ll have a key made for you.” Provided she lasted that long. In a lot of ways, he hoped she did because, in spite of himself, and especially in spite of all his doubts, he liked her.
“HOW WAS YOUR gout patient?” Damien asked Juliette on his way back into the hospital. She was coming out of the clinic, looking somewhat perplexed. “It was gout, wasn’t it?”
“It was gout,” Juliette confirmed. “I was concerned about his age, though. He seems too young to be afflicted with it.”
“I thought so, too, but the people here live hard lives. They age faster than normal.”
“And he’s had a complete physical?”
“Before he presented with gout symptoms?” Damien shook his head. “Getting people around here to submit to physicals when they don’t have any particular symptoms isn’t easy, but about six months ago Señor Mendez did come in. Nothing out of the ordinary turned up.”
“Well, I gave him aspirin like you told me to. But there was something else going on. I think Señor Mendez was high on some kind of drug. At least, that’s the way he seemed. Slurred speech, slow movements. Do you know if he indulges?”
Damien laughed. “A lot of the locals indulge. I’m surprised Señor Mendez would, though. He’s pretty straight. Doesn’t drink that I know of. Doesn’t do drugs—at least, I didn’t think he did. And, even if he did, it surprises me that he would go out in public that way because he’s a very polite, private, gentle man who spends every last penny he has to support his family. But I guess you never know what goes on behind closed doors, do you?”
“Is it really that common around here?”
“Ganja—marijuana—is cheap, and easily available.”
“So what do you do if they come in here stoned?”
“Treat them for what they came in for, and ignore the rest. I’m just the doctor here. I don’t get involved in anything else.”
“Then you won’t report him?”
“If he’s not bothering me, there’s no reason to. My personal policy is, if someone needs help they get help, in spite of all the external factors that might otherwise cause problems. In other words, if he’s stoned, you treat him, anyway. The rest of it’s none of my business.”
“That’s decent of you.”
“I aim to be decent to my patients. They’ve got enough hardships to face in their daily lives without me adding to them.”
“But do you condone it?”
“Nope. I’m a law-abiding citizen wherever I go, and the Costa Rican law makes ganja illegal, so I respect that.”
“Then you, personally, don’t indulge?”
“Never have, never will. Don’t smoke, either. Drink only in moderation. Work out regularly. Eat a balanced diet. You know, all good things for my body.” A body that seemed to be aging too quickly since he’d come to Costa Rica. Of course, that was about the hard work here. So were the new creases in his face and the pair of glasses he was now forced to wear any time he wanted to read. Most people wouldn’t consider him old, as he overtook his thirty-sixth birthday in a few weeks. But some days he just felt old—older than dirt. “Keeps me in good working condition.”
“Well, I just wanted to let you know the condition of your patient.”
“And I appreciate that. But I’m not really concerned about it. At least, not right now.”
“When does that point change for you, Damien?”
“When I see someone’s drug use as a potential danger to themselves or others. That’s when I’ll step in. But again, only as a doctor.”
“We always had to note it in our chart at the hospital,” she said. “And if it was too bad, we were supposed to alert Security.”
“Did you ever?”
“Once. Then I had regrets, because he really wasn’t that bad. But I was new, still blindly loyal to hospital policy, probably more so than to the patient. Of course, that changed pretty quickly, the more involved I became with my patients.”
“So you were a true, big hospital loyalist?”
“Still am. But I’m more practical about it now. But you’ve got to understand that I was raised by a true hospital loyalist—the chief of staff, and those were the kinds of concerns he always brought home with him. What was best for the hospital was always his main concern, right after the kind of patient care we were giving.”
“So your daddy’s a big shot in a big hospital?” Given her rich girl background, that didn’t surprise him.
“That’s