Authors: Rochelle Alers
“I will wait,” he said quietly, then turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Dr. Leandro Rivera removed his lightweight linen jacket and rolled back the cuffs of his shirt, his gaze fixed on Serena Morris. He picked up a package of sterile, latex gloves and handed them to her before reaching into his large, black bag for another pair.
“Let’s get to work, Señorita Morris.”
She smiled at him, delighting him with the soft crinkling of skin around her large, round eyes. “Please call me Serena.”
He returned her smile. “Only if you’ll call me Leandro.”
There was the familiar resounding snap of latex as they pushed their hands and fitted their fingers into the
gloves. And, as if they had worked together many times in the past, the doctor and nurse shifted the patient until the light coming from the bedside lamp highlighted the left side of his face.
Serena climbed up on the bed, holding David Cole’s head firmly as Leandro prepared to repair his injured face.
S
erena silently admired Dr. Leandro Rivera’s skill as he deftly closed the deep wound. He covered his handiwork with Steri-Strips and large gauze dressing that covered the entire left side of David Cole’s face. Their patient had not stirred throughout the emergency medical procedure, enabling them to work quickly and efficiently. It had been accomplished without a local anaesthetic.
Leandro withdrew several syringes from his bag and handed them to Serena. “I’m going to leave a few vials of antibiotics with you to administer every six hours.”
“I’m going to need a stethoscope and a sphygmomanometer,” she informed him.
He gave her a questioning look, then glanced at the syringes in her hand. “Your father said that you’re a nurse.”
She smiled at the tall, good-looking doctor whose
delicate features were better suited to a woman. Gleaming black hair covered his well-shaped head, and only a deep wave across the crown kept it from being labeled straight. His slanting, dark eyes and rich, golden complexion boasted a blending of Chinese and of the Ticos, who were identified as direct descendants of Spanish settlers.
“I am a nurse. But not here. I received my formal training in the United States,” she explained.
“You are not a Tica?” Leandro questioned, using the self-appointed nickname Costa Ricans called themselves.
“No. I am American. I was born in the States, but I was raised here when my mother married my stepfather.”
So, that explained why he hadn’t heard that Minister Vega claimed a daughter, Leandro mused. “Do you live in the United States?” he questioned as he prepared a syringe filled with a potent antibiotic.
“I’ve lived there for the past twelve years.”
Concentrating on swabbing an area high on David’s bare hip, he continued his questioning. “Do you think you’d ever come back here to live?”
“I don’t know,” she replied as honestly as she could.
There was a time when she thought about returning to Costa Rica—after her marriage ended less than a year after it began—but she didn’t. She hadn’t wanted to begin the practice of running away. In the end she’d remained in New York City, where she saw her ex-husband every day until he left the hospital to set up a practice with another doctor.
Leandro injected David with an antibiotic. Turning back to Serena, he flashed a wide grin. “I set up my
practice three months ago, and I could use an experienced nurse to assist me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She did not say that she would never get involved with, work with, or marry another doctor. Being the wife of Dr. Xavier Osbourne for eight months had changed her forever.
“I’ll leave my stethoscope and sphygmomanometer for you to monitor his blood pressure, and a digital thermometer. I’ll also leave my telephone number. Contact me if his condition worsens before I return tomorrow morning. If he comes to he probably won’t feel like eating, but try to get some liquids into him.”
Serena nodded. “I’ll take good care of him.”
Leandro smiled again. “I’m sure you will. You and David Cole are fellow Americans, and I wouldn’t want his family to think that he received less than adequate medical treatment while in Costa Rica.”
“Why would they think that?”
He stared at her, complete surprise on his face. “You don’t know who David Cole is?”
She shook her head, and auburn-tinged curls danced softly around her neck. “No, I don’t.”
“Then I suggest that you ask your father about him.”
She was left to ponder his cryptic statement as he prepared to take his leave. After placing the medical supplies and equipment in a drawer in a highboy, she returned to her bedroom to retrieve her watch. It was nearly midnight, and in another six hours she would have to give her patient another injection.
Serena walked out of her bedroom at the same time her father made his way toward David Cole’s. “Poppa.”
He stopped and turned to face her. “I need to talk to you.”
Raul waited for Serena’s approach, noting the frown marring her forehead. It was a look he was familiar with. Juanita affected the same expression whenever she was annoyed with something or someone.
“Yes,
Chica
.”
“Just who is David Cole and what is he doing here?”
Raul’s mouth tightened noticeably under his trim white mustache. “I thought I answered those questions.”
“You only answered part of them. Who are the Coles?” she demanded.
He thought of not answering her, but realized that she would eventually discover that he intended to hold David hostage until Gabriel was released from his U.S. prison.
“The Coles are one of the wealthiest black families in the United States. Their money comes from the exportation of tropical produce and the sale and rental of private villas and vacation resorts throughout Central America and the Caribbean. I was to meet with David to finalize the sale of his family’s last Costa Rican holding.”
“How was he injured?”
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “You have to ask him when he regains consciousness.”
If he regains consciousness
, she mused. The fact that he had not awakened when the doctor stitched his face alarmed her, and she wondered if David Cole wouldn’t fare better in a hospital, where sophisticated machines could monitor his brain’s activity. She made a mental note to speak to Leandro about moving his patient.
“I’m going to sit up with him until Dr. Rivera returns,” Serena offered.
Raul laid an outstretched hand on the side of her face. “Aren’t you tired from your flight,
Chica
?”
“A little,” she confirmed, “but I’m used to functioning on little or no sleep.” And she was. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had managed to get eight uninterrupted hours of sleep. She worked at a large, urban hospital where cutbacks had caused nurses working double shifts to become the norm rather than the exception.
Raul managed a tired smile. The strain of the past two weeks and now the fact that David Cole appeared more dead than alive had depleted the last of his waning spirit. All he wanted to do was go to sleep and awake to find his son standing at his side and the knowledge that the Coles had completely divested themselves of everything Costa Rican.
“I’m going to sleep in my study. I don’t want to disturb your mother.” He dropped his hand and motioned with his head toward the bed. “I want you to call me if his condition worsens. As long as he resides under my roof I feel responsible for him.”
“Are you going to contact his family?”
“Yes,” he replied honestly. He didn’t think the Coles would be too pleased to hear his demands. “Good night,
Chica
.”
“Good night, Poppa.”
Serena pulled an armchair and matching ottoman close to the bed. Turning off the lamp, she settled down in the chair and raised her bare feet to the ottoman. The fingers of her right hand curled around David Cole’s inert left one, and within minutes she joined him in
sleep. There was only the whisper of her soft breathing keeping perfect rhythm with that of her patient.
David stirred restlessly, his eyelids fluttering uncontrollably. The insufferable heat along with the oppressive weight had returned. He couldn’t move; he couldn’t see or speak. He had not gone to heaven, but Hell!
What had he done to fall from Grace, to spend an eternity in Hell? Had he been too arrogant, too vain? Who had he turned away when they needed his help? What sins had he committed that would not be forgiven?
His head thrashed back and forth on the pillow as pain assaulted the left side of his face. His uninjured eye opened after several attempts, and he encountered a wall of solid blackness. He was in a deep hole in the bowels of the earth, with an unseen raging fire that continually scorched his mind and body.
He heard a long, suffering moan of pain, not realizing that the voice was his own. “Help him, help him,” he pleaded over and over. He wanted someone to help the tormented man so he would stop the heartbreaking moaning.
Serena came awake immediately. Moving from the chair to the bed, she sat down next to David and laid her hand on his forehead. The heat under her fingers disturbed her. His fever had not abated. She reached over and turned on the lamp, a soft glow coming from the three-way bulb. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was only four-ten, and she had to wait another two hours before she administered another dose of the antibiotic.
David’s thrashing had twisted the sheet around his waist, exposing his chest and legs. The tightly wrapped
bandage on his right foot gleamed like a beacon against his dark, muscular, hairy leg.
He continued his pleading for someone to help the man in pain as Serena inserted the thermometer in his right ear. Within seconds she read the findings. His body’s temperature was 102.8.
“I’m going to help you,” she replied softly, realizing that he had spoken English instead of Spanish.
David heard the soothing feminine voice, his brow furrowing in confusion. The voice sounded like that of his oldest brother’s wife. Why wasn’t Parris Cole with her husband and children? What was she doing in Hell with him?
“Parris…” His voice faded as he floated back to a place where he no longer heard the man’s moaning or his sister-in-law talking to him.
Serena filled the large crock pitcher with cold water from the bathroom and emptied it into the matching bowl. Methodically, she dipped a cloth in the water and bathed David’s fevered body with the cooling liquid.
She laid the cloth over the right side of his face, waiting until the moisture was absorbed by the heat of his burning flesh. Repeating the motion, she bathed his throat, chest, and torso.
Her touch was professional, although as a woman she could not help but admire the perfection of his conditioned male body. Her fingertips traced the defined muscles over his flat belly and along his thighs and legs. His uninjured foot was narrow and arched, yet large enough to support his impressive bulk. The fact that his hands and feet were professionally groomed was testimony that David Cole was fastidious about his appearance. He had every right to be, she thought, because he truly was a magnificent male. What intrigued her
were the calluses on the palms of his hands and fingers. Businessmen usually did not claim callused hands, and she wondered if he perhaps were skilled in the martial arts.
She had noticed that there was no telltale band of lighter flesh around the third finger of his left hand, indicating he hadn’t worn a ring on that finger. Something unknown told her, too, that David Cole was not married, and probably would never marry.
Finishing her ministrations, she covered his body once again with the sheet. This time, instead of sitting on the chair she lay down beside him. Turning on her side, she curved an arm over his flat middle and slept until the silvery light of the full moon was overshadowed by the brighter rays of the rising sun.
June 15
D
avid woke up, the haze lifting and his mind clear for the first time in twelve hours. He opened and closed his right eye several times before he was able to focus on the face looming above his. He saw hair—lots of reddish-brown, Chaka Khan type curls.
“Ouch,” he gasped, feeling a sharp prick in his buttocks.
“It’s over,” Serena said, smiling at her patient. “How are you feeling?”
“Like someone kicked my head in.” His voice was ragged and sounded unfamiliar to his ears.
Her smile vanished when she wondered if someone had indeed assaulted him. Answers to questions that nagged at her about David Cole would have to wait, because the injuries he had sustained were more critical than any question she had.
She took his temperature, aware that his uninjured eye followed her every move. She had an answer to one of her questions—his eyes were dark—very dark.
“I think you’re going to make it, Señor Cole. Your temperature is down a full degree.” Sponging his body with the cool water had helped lower his fever.
Leaning over, she curved an arm under his head, lifting it gently while she held a glass with a straw to his parched lips. “It’s water,” she informed him when he compressed his mouth in a tight line. “You have to take some liquids or else you’re going to become dehydrated.”
David felt a wave of dizziness and thought he was going to throw up. “I can’t,” he mumbled, pushing her hand away.
The glass fell to the bed, the water wetting the sheet and pasting it to his groin. The wet fabric clearly outlined the shape of his maleness, and Serena felt a wave of heat steal into her cheeks. She had bathed every inch of his body, seeing him as a male patient; but observing him in the full daylight, awake, she realized she now saw him as a
man
. A very handsome man.
She released his head, a frown forming between her eyes. “I’m going to get another glass of water and you’re going to drink it, or else I’ll have the doctor hook up an IV for you. The choice is yours.”
David’s respiration quickened as his head rolled back and forth on the pillow. “I don’t like needles,” he moaned.
Leaning over his prone figure, she patted his stubbly cheek. “I suppose that means you’ll drink from the glass.”
“
Sí
,” he answered in Spanish even though she had spoken to him in English.
Serena worked quickly as she refilled the glass, realizing that he was slipping back to a state where he shut out his pain and everything going on around him. She managed to get David to swallow a half dozen sips of water before he retreated to a place of painless comfort.
There was no doubt that Spanish was his first language and English second. She spoke English the first two years of her life. She’d learned Spanish after she and her mother had moved from Columbus, Ohio, to San José, Costa Rica.
He slept soundly as she changed the bedding, rolling him over on his side as she stripped the bed, and put on a set of clean linen. She was breathing heavily when she finished. As a nursing student she had been trained to change a bed without removing the patient, but shifting David Cole was like moving a boulder uphill with a pencil. He was lean, but she estimated his weight to be close to two hundred pounds.
Retreating to her own bathroom to shower and change her clothes, she heard doors on the lower level opening and closing. It was six o’clock and the household was beginning to stir.
She adjusted the water in the shower stall until it was lukewarm, reveling in the sensation of the rejuvenating waters flowing over her body. The healing moisture washed away her fatigue and tension.
Serena lingered in the shower beyond her normally allotted time. If she had been back in the States, she would have showered in three minutes after a strenuous jogging workout in New York City’s Central Park before heading off to work.
Shampooing her hair twice, she applied a conditioner/detangler, then lathered her body with a scented
bath gel and rinsed her hair and body. The seductive aroma of flowers and musk lingered on her sleek, moist form.
She turned off the water and stepped out of the shower stall. Reaching for a towel, she folded it expertly around her head, turban-style. A second towel blotted the droplets of water from her body as she bent and stretched, using isometric maneuvers.
The image of her ex-husband came to mind, eliciting a smile. The best thing to have come from being married to Xavier was his emphasis on body conditioning. A number one draft pick by the National Football League’s New York Giants, Xavier was able to combine his two passions: football and medicine. He attended medical school in the off-season, choosing sports medicine as a specialty.
She met Xavier when he was a resident at the hospital. She had been the head nurse in the operating room, and the attraction between them was spontaneous.
They dated for four months, then married. Serena realized their marriage was in trouble before their honeymoon ended. Xavier had managed to camouflage his explosive displays of jealousy while they had dated, but the second day into their honeymoon he verbally abused a man whom he thought had made a pass at her. The only thing that prevented a violent confrontation was that the man did not understand English. What should have been an exciting and romantic interlude in France became a suffocating prison when she refused to leave their hotel room until the day of their scheduled departure.
Xavier tried curbing his unfounded bouts of jealousy, but it all ended for Serena when he confronted her and the hospital orderly who had walked with her to hail a
taxi in a blinding, late spring snowstorm, brandishing a scalpel while threatening to cut the man into tiny pieces.
Her marriage ended that night after she checked into a hotel instead of returning to their apartment. A week later, with two New York City police officers in attendance, she moved her personal belongings out of the spacious Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking Central Park, and six weeks later Xavier was served with certain documents. She hadn’t asked him for anything from the union except that he agree to an annulment. He did not contest her demands. And she took her maiden name.
Her exercise regimen increased her stamina, and her jogging endurance resulted in her entering the annual New York City Marathon. It had taken three years, but she now could guarantee that she would cross the finish line with the first fifty entrants. She didn’t have the Central Park jogging trails in Limón, but there was always the beach. She decided to wait another day before beginning her jogging regimen. The lingering effects of jet lag continued to disrupt her body’s circadian rhythms.
Her motions were mechanical as she smoothed a scented moisturizer over her body, walked into the adjoining bedroom, slipped into a pair of floral print panties, and covered them with a loose, flowing, cotton tank dress. Poppy-red mules matched the airy cotton fabric.
There was a light knock on her bedroom door moments before her mother’s head emerged. A bright smile softened the noticeable strain on Juanita’s face.
“I knew you’d be up, Sweetheart,” she said, walking into the room. “No matter how tired you are, you never can sleep beyond sunrise.”
Serena returned the smile. “Good morning, Mother. You look wonderful this morning.”
“Makeup does wonders,” Juanita replied.
Relieved that her mother had left the sanctuary of her bedroom, she curved an arm around Juanita’s slim waist and kissed her cheek. Her clear gaze swept over the older woman’s neatly coiffed, short hair and her petite body swathed in a crisp, white linen sheath.
“Makeup cannot improve on perfection.”
Juanita’s smile was radiant. “You’re the best daughter a woman could ever have.
When
I have you,” she added.
“Mother, please. Don’t start in on me. Not now.”
Seeing the anguish on Serena’s face, she nodded. “You’re right—not now.”
Over an early breakfast she’d shared with her husband, after he’d awakened her with the encouraging news of their president’s intervention regarding Gabriel, they’d discussed their daughter.
Raul voiced concern that Serena had not let go of the pain from her short-lived marriage, recognizing there was an obvious hardness about her that wasn’t there before she married Xavier Osbourne. He’d also revealed that David Cole lay under their roof, recuperating from injuries he had sustained somewhere in Costa Rica.
“I want to tell you that your father and I will be leaving within half an hour,” Juanita continued in a soft tone.
“Where are you going?”
“We’re flying back to San José. President Montalvo wants to talk to Raul about Gabriel. He’s set up a meeting with the American ambassador. Hopefully he can work out a deal where Gabriel will be granted bail, and
when he returns to Costa Rica he will be placed under house arrest until his trial.”
A powerful relief filled Serena with her mother’s statement. She wanted to see Gabe, hold him close, and reinforce the bond that had developed the moment she held him in her arms twenty-six yeas ago. Closing her eyes, she mumbled a silent prayer.
Seeing the gesture, Juanita smiled, and it was her turn to kiss her daughter’s cheek. “I’d better go now. Try to make David Cole as comfortable as possible. Even though he and Raul have never gotten along, I like the young man. The problem may be that they are too much alike to recognize their own negative traits.”
Serena pondered her mother’s assessment of David Cole after she and Raul left
La Montaña
for the short flight to the capital city. If David and her stepfather shared the most obvious negative trait, then it would have to be arrogance.
She looked in on David and found him asleep and resting comfortably. His skin was noticeably cooler, indicating that the antibiotic had begun working against the infections invading his body. Sighing in relief, she went downstairs to see after her own breakfast.