From Brooding Boss to Adoring Dad (9 page)

“Erin, I.I don’t know what to say.”

She shook her head. “There’s really nothing anybody can say. What’s going to happen is going to happen, and we can’t stop it. But I want, so badly, to make it better for him, the way he made it better for me. And your hospital.
when I saw it, that was the first time I ever truly believed I could do this while he still has his sight.” Another tear slid down her cheek and this one she let fall. “He wouldn’t come to Jamaica with me, and it scares me, because this is his home. He loves it here.” She looked up at him, her eyes still glistening. “I’ve got to make it work, Coulson. For my father, but also for me. I want this as much as he does.”

“You know you’ve just made me feel like the biggest cad on the face of the earth, don’t you?”

“Because you wanted your hospital as much as I wanted mine? That doesn’t make you a cad. It makes you … dedicated. That’s a good thing, and I do understand the passion.”

Another tear slipped down her cheek and this time he couldn’t help himself. He pulled Erin into his arms and held her there. Stroked her hair as she laid her head against his chest. It was such an intimate moment. No kiss. No caress. Just Adam holding Erin through a tough moment, and disliking himself for being so rough on her, for hoping she’d fold and go home so he could capitalize on her failure. But now all of that was gone. And Davion was right. It was time he fixed this with Erin, once and for all. Time to move past it. “Know what, Red?”

“What?” she murmured, making no attempt to step away from him.

“Blue’s not such a bad color. Would you mind, though, if I paint the shutters white?”

Davion’s dulcet tones were on the verge of lulling her to sleep. Winding down the evening, sitting off in the corner listening to him sing and going over the budget for the planned renovations, was the perfect ending to a fairly good day. The architects had given her a promising report on how the hospital’s interior refurbishment could be accomplished,
she’d actually put three carpenters to work on the cottages she would use for guests of the hospital, visiting medics, parents … She wanted nice accommodations for everyone. That was all part of her plan. Nice ambiance. Everybody comfortable. Her big concern was the beach. In her estimation, it was essential because it had healing properties for the psyche. She remembered all those times her father would rent a cottage on the beach and take her. In her darkest, sickest hours, the beach had seemed so peaceful to her, and looking out over the vastness of the ocean so encouraging with the occasional ship off on the horizon, making its slow way someplace else. Erin had always wanted to be someplace else in those days—someplace where she wasn’t sick. So she’d imagined herself on those ships, traveling to destinations unknown. When she got there, she’d be better, maybe even be cured.

Which was why she needed this beach for her children, because it offered so much hope. Yet she worried about the fact that it was not able to be attended all the time, which made it a danger. Adam, though, had stepped outside his traditional rut and suggested a fence around the hospital itself. Nothing with wire or cement, nothing that looked like it was meant to keep the children in. Rather something fun, asymmetrical, all the colors of the rainbow, except white. And she could see Coulson’s fence in her mind. Amazing colors, maybe island scenes painted on the various pickets by the children. She could even imagine Coulson painting some of those pickets himself … blue.

“Good evening, ma’am Doc,” a tiny voice from outside the open-air bar called, interrupting her thoughts.

She recognized Tadeo’s voice. Was a little surprised to hear it as it was well after ten. But Coulson had said that Tadeo ran around all hours of the night.

“Ma’am Doc,” he called again.

She glanced over at the bar, where Coulson was deep in a medical consult with an older man who seemed to be showing him a pair of very arthritic hands. It was an odd mixture of worlds, but it was her world now. “Good evening, Tadeo,” she said, slipping out into the night. “Shouldn’t you be home, in bed?”

He shrugged. Didn’t say a word.

“Is something wrong?” Her thoughts went immediately to his heart murmur. “Are you sick?” Instinctively, she reached over, felt his forehead. Instincts of a mother, though, not a doctor.

“No,” he said, reluctantly. “Not sick.”

She pulled back her hand, and the doctor in her wanted to check his pulse. But she didn’t, because this was a little boy who felt very guilty about something. Even in the dark shadows she could see it in his face. Hear it in the quavering of his voice. He wasn’t sick. He was scared to death. “So, what’s wrong?” she asked, trying to stay neutral for fear of scaring him off. They’d worked together earlier today. He’d helped her carry a few things from Trinique’s cottage over to hers. And he was such a sweet boy. Very tentative, though. Afraid to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, take the wrong step. It broke her heart, because he was so eager to please and so afraid at the same time. Made her wonder even more about his treatment from Pabla. “You can tell me about it, Tadeo. I promise, we’ll find a way to make it better.”

“Can’t make it better,” he said, then pointed off in a vague direction, motioning for her to follow. No more explanation. He simply turned round and walked away, leaving Erin with no choice but to follow and wonder what was going on. All too soon, though, she knew. It was Adam’s boat. Or what was left of it. More accurately, it was a smoldering pile of ashes, with a few red sparks
still glowing. “What happened?” she asked Tadeo. When he didn’t answer, she looked around, only to discover that he’d slipped away in the night.

Sighing, and suddenly dreading the task ahead of her, Erin turned and trudged back to Trinique’s, where Davion had finished his last set of songs and Adam was sitting at one of the tables, feet propped up, quizzing him on the physiology of the lung. “I, um … I need to talk to you, Coulson.” She glanced at Davion, who took the hint and immediately sprang to his feet.

“Looks serious,” Adam said, not bothering yet to sit up.

“I think it is.”

That caught his attention. He straightened, moved his feet to the floor, scooted to the edge of his chair, getting ready to go. “A patient?”

“Not any more.”

“Someone die?” he asked, standing.

“Not someone.
Something.
It was your boat.”

It took a minute for it to sink in. Then, “My boat?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. But by the time I got there it was too late. It was …”

“My boat?” he sputtered, still not comprehending.
“Stella?”

“Burned up. Nothing to be salvaged, at least as far as I could tell. I didn’t get too close because it was still smoldering, but it looked like a total loss.”

“You’re sure it was
my
boat?”

“Tadeo took me there. So I’m assuming—”

He dashed past her before she could finish. Hung up the Closed sign and ran out the door, then headed to the beach. Loss was loss, and Erin knew the pain of it. She wasn’t sure what his attachment to the boat was, but it was substantial, and she knew she should go after him. But she waited for
a moment to tell Davion, who was standing at the far end of the hut.

“His boat caught fire,” she said. “Total loss.”

“That’s not good. He loves that boat, probably more than he’s ever loved anybody in his life, but his grandpa.”

“It was a connection to his grandfather?”

Davion nodded. “That, and the property here he bought with the inheritance from his grandpa.”

Erin sucked in a sharp breath. “So now …”

“That’s it. Half the property is gone, along with the boat. As long as he had his boat, he was OK. But this.” He shrugged. “It’s going to be hard on him. Probably harder than selling his property.”

Erin swallowed back a hard lump. “I think I’d better go …”

“He’ll want to be alone,” Davion warned.

“Maybe so.” But she still had to go. Because right now Coulson was standing out there on that beach, feeling like he had nothing left in the world. The least she could do was let him know he had a friend.

“I’m really sorry about this, Coulson,” she said, keeping her distance. In the moonlight, she saw his slumped shoulders, saw the defeated stance. “Davion told me what it meant to you, and I’m truly sorry.”

“Me too,” he said, his voice thick.

“I think it might have been Tadeo. He was pretty upset when he came to get me, and—”

Coulson shook his head, extended his hand to wave her off. “He wasn’t hurt, was he?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know. He ran away too fast, and I didn’t think to ask him.”

He turned to face her. “Then I’ll go and find him. He may have suffered some burns, and I doubt if he’d tell me after this.”

“Maybe, in the morning, when you can see the boat better—”

“Gone is gone, Red. You really mess up your head if you hang on to false hope, and
Stella
is a pile of false hope now. But thanks for trying to cheer me up.”

She stepped closer. Close enough that the moon accented the pain on his face. “Look, I’ll go find Tadeo. Right now I doubt if he’d let you get anywhere near him. He’s probably scared to death that …”

“That I’ll be angry?”

“That you’ll hate him, or you’ll never want to see him again. When you think you’re going to be rejected … it’s like all this craziness goes on around you, and everyone you know is in on it. Everything you do causes it. When you’re being rejected by someone you love, that’s all there is in your life and it’s the worst feeling, the worst kind of dread you can imagine. That’s what Tadeo is going through right now. Total loss. I mean, I never burned a boat, but I know how he’s feeling so, please, let me go and find him.”

“Bring him back to the clinic, if you can.”

“Will you talk to him?”

“I have to, don’t I? Don’t know what to say yet.”

She squeezed his arm. “You’ll know what to say when the time comes.”

“Just find him. I’m worried.”

“Are you going to be OK, Coulson?” He seemed so. sad. Sad, like her father was, and her heart ached for both her dad and for the man standing in front of her.

“Do you care, Red? After the way I’ve acted, do you really care?”

“Yeah, I suppose I do. Don’t ask me why, but I do.” The truth was, she cared more than she wanted to let on, and she wasn’t even going to bother denying it. To Coulson she would, but to herself … what was the point? She did care
and there was no getting around it. The only thing was, she couldn’t let those feelings get in the way. And that thought was what sent her off into the night, looking for Tadeo. She was there for reasons other than involvement and personal feelings. Her goal was clear, even if the edges were becoming a little fuzzy. As long as fuzzy didn’t turn into fully frayed, she’d be fine. But she had an idea that Coulson could cause a whole lot of fraying. Which was why she was glad to run off into the night … alone. There was no time in her life for fraying of any kind.

“Y
OU
people leave him alone!” Pabla Reyes yelled at Erin.

“I just wanted to make sure he’s not hurt. Is he here?” Judging from the expression on the woman’s face, that was a question she couldn’t answer because she didn’t know. Erin stepped back from the door, expecting a slam in the face, and had moved just in the nick of time, as that’s exactly what the woman did. She slammed the door so hard it rattled the front window. So, the question was, if Tadeo wasn’t home … and Erin was pretty sure he was not … where else would he go at this time of night? It was going on to midnight now, much too late for an eight-year-old to be out alone, running around.

Stepping off the wooden stoop, she stood in the dirt for a moment, listening to the night sounds. Nothing but silence, and the night calls from a few lonely animals seeking companionship. “No sign,” she said to Coulson, who was on his way up the path to the Reyes house. “Pabla wasn’t cooperative, and I don’t think she knows where he is.” She paused, studying his strong physique in the moonlight. Just the sight of him took her breath away, and she was getting used to that. Too used to it, in fact. Enjoying it too much. Honestly, Adam Coulson was the first man she’d ever really noticed in
that
way. Part of the reason had been the fear
of the cancer returning someday, and the other part of the reason … she didn’t trust relationships, except the one with her father. He’d adopted her when she’d been sick, but other than her father nobody else had ever stayed and, early into her disease, she’d learned not to expect them to. Cancer was ugly. It was a harbinger, a reminder, a glimpse nobody wanted to take.

So, no, she didn’t trust relationships, and Adam had given her no real reason to trust him.

Except she did. More than that, her feelings seemed to be straying a little further than trust, and the tingles running up and down her arms right now were the tangible proof of that. Good thing she had the sense to know she couldn’t do anything about it. Not that he’d tried anything. Or so much as hinted at it.

“Well, I went back to Trinique’s, couldn’t find him there. Thought he might be at the clinic, but he wasn’t. Checked back around the boat. No luck there either.”

“Would he have run away?” she asked, trying not to think about Tadeo out there alone in the jungle at that time of night. He was a resourceful little boy, though, well at home in his surroundings. So she shouldn’t be worried. But she couldn’t help herself. She was, and it was growing by the minute.

“He’s independent. I don’t think he realizes that boys his age have limitations so, yes, he could have run. But he’s a good kid. I think he’s more inclined to face me at some point and see if he can make good. Or, at the very least, apologize.”

“But what will he do if he thinks you’ve totally turned against him? He knows you loved that boat, Coulson. And I believe he loved it probably as much as you did. For the same reason you did—it tied him to someone important
to him. Think about it. What would you have done, when you were his age, if you’d destroyed it?”

“Felt like the whole world had turned against me. Been scared to death. Wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere and never come out. Or run away.”

“Exactly. He’s eight, probably a little afraid of the dark, so I don’t think he’s gone too far from his comfort zone,
yet.
But I have an idea that if we don’t find him tonight, he’ll be gone by tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll look until I find him,” Adam said.

“We … we’ll
look until we find him.” She held out her hand to Adam, and he took it.

“You’re too nice to me, Red. I don’t deserve it, after the way I’ve acted.”

“You’re right. I
am
too nice to you, and you don’t deserve it. But we’re neighbors. You’re not going anywhere, I’m not going anywhere, so getting along makes it easier. Otherwise we’d have to build a real fence between our properties, and I like the view on your side.” More than she would admit to him.

He chuckled. “You beat everything. Do you know that?”

“Is that a compliment?”

“It just might be.”

Hand in hand, they walked down the dark path, looking for Tadeo, calling his name. Occasionally they separated, went off in different directions to search. But always came back together in a matter of a minute or two. And each time the way her hand slipped so naturally into his … it felt right to him. Such a simple thing, yet such a significant one. She was definitely getting to him. And as Davion had suggested, that’s why he’d been grumpy so much lately. Fundamentally, he didn’t want to be gotten. But Erin was so … good. Sexy as hell, a genuine femme fatale the way
she attracted him, and he didn’t think she even knew she had it in her. She did, though. More than that, she had such strength, such a sense of purpose, which he found almost as sexy as the rest of her.

He’d given up, a long time ago, thinking there could be a complete package. Every woman fell short in some way. Then there was Erin, who totally wiped that idea out of his mind. And, damn, he wished he could do something about it, more than hold her hand. But they were going to spend a long time here together, living next door to each other, working, maybe not together but in parallel, so what if he did advance, and she retreated? Or what would happen if they got together in some way other than professional, and it didn’t work out?

He wasn’t inclined to take the risk because he knew how those risks turned out. He’d done it before. Married the person he’d thought would share his dream, even though, when he looked back on those days, he truly hadn’t seen any evidence of that in Janice. Not a speck. Maybe he had seen only what he’d wanted to see. Who knew? But he’d taken that risk anyway and had ended up down and almost out. So, not this time. No more risks. He’d come here for a reason, stayed here for a reason, forfeited his marriage for that very same reason, and he didn’t want that boat rocked in any way. Of course, a superstitious man might have read something into that boat actually burning. But he wasn’t a superstitious man. Wasn’t a risk-taking man either.

So, for Erin and him it had to be friendship. That’s all there was to it. To maintain their relationship in the long-term, the only thing it could be was camaraderie based on professional respect. Something he truly regretted, though, because the thoughts in his mind … Anyway, they both had goals, and that’s what he had to remember,
all the time.
He wanted to succeed in his own goals but, as much as he
wanted what he wanted, he also wanted Erin to have success in her goals, too.

“Look,” he said, reluctantly dropping her hand and stepping away from her. “He might have gotten into one of your buildings. It’s not where he would have normally gone, but these aren’t normal circumstances.”

“Nothing is locked up,” she said. “It would be easy for him to hide there.”

“Then why don’t you take the main building and I’ll go look in the outbuildings? If we don’t find him in any of those … I think we’re going to have to wake Davion and a few of the locals and start a real search.” He held out a flashlight to her. “It’s not much, but it will help. You take the shorter way and I’ll take the other path around, and unless he’s actually gone off into the trees somewhere, that will cover us between here and the hospital compound.”

Erin nodded then, without another word, turned and ran in the direction of her hospital. In the dim light coming from the Reyes cottage, he watched her on the path until she was gone then took the alternate route, glad he didn’t have to watch her run … watch her crazy, wild hair fly in the breeze, watch legs he wanted wrapped around him moving gracefully in long strides, watch her hips swaying.

Definitely he needed a different path. In more ways than one.

“Tadeo,” she called into the darkness. She hadn’t been here at night and, on entering the main ward after a quick check of the private rooms, she was attacked by a galloping case of goosebumps. It wasn’t that she was frightened by the dark, because she wasn’t. But this room.it seemed so large, so empty, and the purpose of everything she wanted to accomplish here suddenly came alive. During the day, this was a hospital. It looked like one, would function as
one. But now, at night … when she’d been young, nights had always been the worst. Dark, barren hours with nothing to do but think, or be afraid. The nights had terrified her, not the darkness so much as the emptiness, especially when she’d been in one of her sicker cycles. Daylight always made things better, though. It brought new hope and that’s what she wanted here. New hope.

Her kids weren’t ever going to be in the dark, Erin decided. After the large ward was turned into separate rooms, she would paint luminescent stars on all the ceilings, make sure there were night-lights everywhere. No total darkness. Not for her kids. “Are you in here, Tadeo? You’re not in trouble, Adam’s not angry about his boat, but he’s very worried about you. We’re both worried. Afraid you may have gotten hurt … or burned. Tadeo?”

She held still, listened. Didn’t hear so much as a scrape on the wooden floor or the rustle of someone shifting positions nearby. Or the sound of panicked little breaths either. But the obvious lack of anybody there didn’t stop her from looking, from walking up the center aisle and shining the wavering beam from the light on each and every bed, then down underneath. Sixteen beds examined, and no Tadeo. He wasn’t in the tiny exam room at the end, not in the room set aside for staff, or even the room she’d designated to be her surgery. Not in the supply closet either. Nowhere.

On that discouraging note, she headed back to the front door, keeping her fingers crossed that Coulson was having better luck. Just at the front, though, in the tiny reception area, she flashed her light on a built-in closet, meant for hanging jackets, maybe lab coats. It was barely more than the size of a modest locker, but she opened the door anyway and there, huddled in a ball at the bottom, was Tadeo. His big brown eyes wide, he simply stared up at her, didn’t say a word.

“We all make mistakes,” she said, holding out her hand to him. “I’m sure you were only trying to help Adam with his boat, and you didn’t mean for the fire to happen. He knows it was an accident, Tadeo.”

“It was dark,” he sniffled, not taking her hand, not making a move to come out. “I was trying to get ready to varnish. Doing some more sanding.”

“And you lit a fire to see by? Is that what happened?”

He nodded. “In the lantern.”

“Then accidentally knocked it over.”

“I tried to stop it,” he said, as the tears started to slide down his face. “Tried hitting it with some of the rags and stomping on it. But the fire got so big.”

“Where were you burned, Tadeo?” she asked gently, instinctively knowing that he had been.

He shrugged.

“Can I see where you were burned? It’s got to hurt awfully bad, doesn’t it? Maybe I can find something to make it feel better.”

Finally, he nodded, and held out both hands. The insides were burned, from his palms to his fingers. Red, splotchy, already blistering in places. The poor child had been too frightened to get help and the pain had to be terrible for him.

“Look, Tadeo, I need you to come out of the closet so I can help you.”

“He’s going to hate me,” Tadeo whispered, still resisting her.

“He doesn’t hate you. In fact, he’s out looking for you right now because he was afraid you might have got burned, and he wants to take care of you.” She thought that might draw him out when, in fact, it caused him to draw in on himself even more. “How about if I take you over to the
clinic and take care of your burns myself, then we don’t even tell him about it? Would that be OK?”

A tentative nod was all that Tadeo mustered, but it was enough to cause Erin to bend down and gently tug Tadeo from the floor of the closet then bundle him up in her arms and head for the door. “You’re almost as tall as I am,” she said, struggling not so much from Tadeo’s weight but from the awkwardness of carrying a larger child without hurting him any further than he was already. At the front door, she simply kicked it open then descended the two steps—steps she was going to turn into a ramp soon. Halfway across the compound’s central yard, she saw Coulson step out of one of the cabins and shine his light directly on her. She shook her head at him when he started to run toward her then shook her head more vigorously as he continued his approach. The second warning stopped him, but not for long as he fell into step quite a way behind her, and followed her to his clinic. Once there, he ran to the back door, opened it and went immediately to open the front door for her. But he stepped behind the door as she entered carrying Tadeo, so Tadeo wouldn’t see him there.

He was a man who truly loved this child. There was no hiding it. And there was no hiding his anguish. The kind of man she could love, if she was willing to take that step. someday.

“It’s going to hurt a little bit,” she explained to the boy, who was nestled against her so tightly it made walking difficult. The easiest thing would have been to hand the boy over to Coulson, but Tadeo wasn’t ready for that yet. Wasn’t ready to face the person she believed he cared about more than anybody in the world. “But I’m going to give you something that will make you feel better.”

In the first tiny exam she came to, Erin laid Tadeo on the table, turned on the light then took a good look at the burns
for the first time. Second degree, but not as bad as they could have been. “I need to go and get some bandages,” she told him. “You stay here, don’t move around too much, OK?”

Tadeo nodded bravely, but the quiver to his bottom lip told her his bravery had just about run out.

One step into the hall and Coulson pulled her all the way across, into the other exam room. “How is he?” he choked, his voice so low she could barely hear him.

“Scared to death. With second-degree burns on both his hands.”

“Does he need to go to the hospital?”

“No. I can take care of it here. And he’s not ready to face you yet, Coulson. I’m sorry. He’s really frightened, and I tried reassuring him that you’re not angry, but he’s a stubborn little boy and he doesn’t want to see you … right now.” She gave his arm a supportive squeeze. “But he will when he’s feeling better. Just give it some time.”