Cari Webb - The Doctor's Recovery

“Not especially.”

Well, he was. Exhausted. Wyatt pressed a kiss against his mom’s pale cheek. “We can talk about this tomorrow. I’m on days this week, and I need to sleep.”

She reached up as if to touch him, but her fingers stirred only the air between them. “My mind is made up.”

He wasn’t sure if it was the bed rail or something else that held her back. Not that it mattered. He’d long ago outgrown his need for motherly affection.

Besides, his mind was made up, too. He might be surrounded by stubborn women, but that wouldn’t stop him from doing what was right.

CHAPTER THREE

MIA TUGGED ON the twin ties on her hospital gown and gritted her teeth. She’d needed only one day to learn to tie her shoes in grade school. No way was a flimsy gown going to beat her. Of course, in elementary school her fingers hadn’t been numb or her arm stiff and sore from even the smallest movement. Still, she’d tie her gown closed as she had nothing else to do until her morning physical therapy in an hour.

This was the perfect catnap opportunity. Yet her mind refused to let her sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, images from her accident bombarded her. She wasn’t certain what was real and what was manufactured by her nightmares. Real or imagined, fear rippled through her like the explosive screech of a frightened red fox and retreated only if she opened her eyes. She’d never considered herself stupid or irrational. Until now. Clearly three days without decent sleep had taken its toll.

At least she had a plan. Because another night of no sleep was unacceptable.

Her fingers trembled, and the thin strap slipped from her grip. Numbness absorbed her arm, and her leg throbbed from Dr. Hensen’s routine exam. Tears pooled in her eyes. She refused to cry, especially over stupid things. Still her chin sagged toward her chest, and her arms drooped to her sides. Everything inside her went limp, and defeat rushed in.

“You better not be crying.” Eddy Fuller’s voice filled her room, the nervous tremor in his tone increasing his volume. His curly hair always reminded her of a cup of coffee sweetened with too many creamers and complemented his usual laid-back style.

“I’m not.” Mia mumbled into her chest and avoided looking at her best friend and her father’s longtime video editor.

“Good. Tears are annoying.” Eddy stopped just inside the room and set the bags he carried on the floor near his feet. “Then what are you doing?”

“Trying to tie my gown.” And squeeze her stupid tears back behind her eyes.

Eddy made quick work of the ties behind her neck before retreating against the wall near the bathroom. His skin looked faded. He pinched his lips together as if struggling not to breathe too deeply. Eddy and hospitals did not play well together.

Mia latched on to her friend’s discomfort like a life preserver, pulling her out of her own self-pity pool. “You watch criminal and medical dramas in marathon sessions every week. How can my cuts bother you?”

“They look worse today.” His gaze lowered from the abstract art hanging on the wall behind her to her face, where it stuck. “You’re pushing too hard.”

She ignored the last part. She wasn’t pushing hard enough to get out. “You didn’t even look at my leg.”

“I don’t need to look at the ooze and pus to know it’s there.” Eddy’s gaze never wavered, unlike the ashen color that rolled over his skin.

“It’s supposed to look like this. It’s healing.” She hoped. The throbbing in her leg had become steady and constant, even before Dr. Hensen took the culture of her wound that morning. “Give me the laptop and I’ll release you from this torture. I really appreciate that you came all the way to my room.”

Eddy pushed away from the wall and kept his focus on Mia. “Will you still appreciate me when I tell you that I called your mom?”

“You talked to my mom?” The back of her head pounded like someone had smashed the abstract art frame against her head.

Eddy squeezed the wedding ring tattooed around his ring finger like he always did whenever doubt seized him. “She needed to know.”

“That I’m fine,” Mia added.

“That you’re in the hospital and working toward being fine,” Eddy clarified.

“You told her everything?” Everything would only make her mom worry. And her mom already made a worrywart sound like an optimist. The throb extended around to Mia’s temples and stabbed.

“I explained that you had a diving accident during a filming session.”

That was more than enough for her mom to book the first flight from New York to San Francisco. Almost seven hours in the plane for her mom to fret about how Mia should live her life with less risk. To strategize about how Mia could still express her passion for saving the wildlife by donating to charities rather than camping out in the wilderness as if she was a native. Seven hours for her mom to torment her already high-strung nerves into a full-blown anxiety attack over Mia’s refusal to make a big difference in the world from behind a nice, secure cherry-stained desk.

Mia grabbed her phone and texted her mom, stalling any flight confirmations and keeping her mom at home, where she’d always been the calmest. Still, Mia had to finish her film and get back to her life before her mom arrived to turn Mia’s world inside out. “I’ll deal with my mom later. I just need the laptop now.”

Eddy tilted his head and studied her, his curls shifting as if to emphasize his internal debate. “You can watch Shane’s footage from Sunday on your phone.”

“I don’t want Shane’s edited version.” Mia motioned toward the laptop bag that sat on the floor. “I want to watch all of it.”

“You need to concentrate on healing, not reliving the accident.” Eddy made no move to pick up the computer bag. “It wasn’t easy for us to review.”

That was Eddy’s sensitivity to blood and hospitals talking. Besides, she already relived the accident every time she closed her eyes. Every time she fell asleep. If she watched the footage, maybe her dreams would find new content, instead of replaying the same thing. “We’re going to need new footage to finish the film.”

Eddy’s gaze skipped away from her, but it wasn’t the pus and ooze chasing off his focus this time. It was doubt. Doubt that Mia could get new footage. She’d never seen Eddy second-guess any of her father’s decisions. He’d never questioned her father’s ability to get even the most difficult shot.

But Mia wasn’t her father, and Eddy made that fact more than clear when he said, “We need to wrap it up with what we have and just be done.”

She wouldn’t just be done until she finished the film to her father’s standards. Nothing else would ensure his legacy. Nothing else would ensure the recognition and accolades her father had always coveted in life. Nothing else would ensure her mother’s lifestyle remained the same just like she’d promised her dad. “We’ll be done when it’s finished like my father expected and it’s worthy of the Fiore name.”

Eddy stiffened. “You sounded like your dad just now.”

“Excellent,” she said. Yet confusion creased into the edges of his eyes and uncertainty tipped his chin down. Her friend still doubted her. So be it. She’d become who her father had planned for her to be and prove Eddy and everyone else wrong. “I’d think the more like him I am, the better for all of us.”

Eddy set the computer bag on the bedside table. “Just be careful you don’t lose yourself in your father’s ghost.”

Her father wouldn’t be a ghost if she’d stepped further out of her comfort zone. Only the lazy and uninspired curl up in their comfort zones, Mia. I raised you to be more than that. Now she had to be more to keep from disappointing anyone else. “I’m upholding the Fiore family legacy.”