by Dianne Drake
“You say that like it was a derogatory thing to do.”
“Was it?” he asked her.
Juliette shook her head. “I like to think of Costa Rica as something necessary in my career development. In my personal development, as well. Also, I didn’t feel as though I’d earned the job. I think promoting me was simply my dad’s way of ensuring that I’d stay around for a while. Or forever, if he had his way about it. I mean, my dad always wins. No matter what it is, he finds a way to win, and I was tired of always having my ideas and hopes and desires tossed into that lottery.”
Actually, that was admirable. “So you did want to get away from Daddy.” He liked the kind of spirit it must have taken for her to make that much of a change in her life—a life that was, apparently, very sheltered. Something Nancy would have never done for anyone, for any reason.
“I wanted to get away from all the usual trappings and...”
“Make it on your own merits rather than resting on the laurels your dad created for you?”
“Do you challenge all the women you come into contact with, or is it just me who challenges you?”
He thought about that for a moment, wondering if his leftover resentment of Nancy did, adversely, affect his relationships with women. Certainly, he hadn’t dated since Nancy. Not once. Not even tempted. No one-night stands. No quick meet-ups at the coffee shop. No phone calls, texting or any other sort of personal communications. In fact, if anything, he assiduously avoided everything that came close to putting him into a relationship of any sort with any woman—young, old or somewhere in between.
“Actually, you haven’t challenged me yet. But I’m sure you’re waiting for the right opportunity.”
Juliette laughed. “You won’t see it coming,” she warned him. “And you’ll be caught so far off guard, you won’t know what hit you.”
Now, that was something he could foresee happening. Juliette had a very disarming way about her, and he had every inclination to believe that she was good at the sneak attack. Of course, he was the one who’d placed himself directly in her line of fire, and he still didn’t understand why he’d done that. But he was there, nonetheless, actually looking forward to her first barrage of arrows. “Sounds like the lady has a plan.”
“My only plan is to take the next patient, who’s coming through the door right now.” She gave him a devious smile. “Unless you’re really into doing some stitches today.” A snap diagnosis made with the assumption that underneath the bloody towel the mother was holding over her son’s hand lay something that needed stitching. “You do have a suture kit, don’t you?”
He turned around, also looked at the people coming through the hospital door. Diego Cruz and his mother, Elena. This wasn’t the first time Diego had needed stitches, and it wouldn’t be the last as Diego was an active little boy who was pretty much left to run wild through Bombacopsis while his mother cooked and cleaned and sewed for other villagers.
Elena was one of Damien’s regular hospital volunteers as well, which took even more time away from Diego. “If you mean needles and thread, yep, I’ve got them.” He waved at Diego, who gave him a limp wave in return.
“Regulars?”
Damien chuckled as he bent to greet the little boy. “One of our best. So, Diego. What happened here?”
“I fell,” the child confessed.
“From the top of the gate at the church,” Elena volunteered.
“Were you trying to break in again?” Damien asked him, fighting to keep a straight face.
“Only for a drink of water.”
“You couldn’t go home for that?”
“It was too far.” Diego looked up at Juliette and turned on a rather charming smile. “And the water at the church is holy, which is good for me. It makes me grow stronger.”
“Well, you weren’t strong enough to keep yourself from falling off the gate, were you?” Damien took the towel off the boy’s hand and had a look. It wasn’t a bad cut, not too deep, but deep enough that it would take about four or five stitches. The same number of stitches he’d had in his other hand a month ago, when he’d tried to remove the log bridge that crossed the village creek, and had gotten hung up on it.
“That’s because I didn’t have my drink yet.”
Diego reminded Damien a lot of himself when he’d been that age. He and his twin, Daniel, were always getting into some kind of trouble. Nothing serious, but usually with some consequence like a broken arm, a sprained ankle, multiple areas of stitches. “You seem to have all the answers, Diego,” he said, finally giving way to a laugh.
“I try, el doctor Damien,” Diego responded earnestly.
“Well, here’s the deal. I’m going to go get you that drink of water, from the hospital faucet, not from the church. And, while you’re waiting for me to bring it back to you, el doctor Juliette is going to take care of your hand. Which means you’re going to get stitches like you had last month. Remember?”
Diego nodded his head. “They hurt,” he said, looking up at his mother as if she was going to stop the procedure. “Do I have to?” he asked her.
“You have to do whatever el doctor Damien says,” his mother told him. “He’s the boss.”
For a moment Diego looked defeated. Then he perked right back up. “But el doctor Damien won’t hurt me much. That’s what he promised me last time.”
“Hey, Diego. This one could have hurt a lot more if you’d cut something other than your hand,” Damien said. He raised up and looked at Juliette. “Suture material’s in the third drawer in the clinic cabinet. Oh, and I do have xylocaine to deaden the pain. I keep a fair stock of it on hand, thanks to Diego, here. He’s our main consumer.”
“Sure you don’t want to do this, since you and Diego seemed to have built a rapport?” she asked. “He might trust you more.”
“No, I’ll let you do it. Even at the tender age of ten, our man here has an eye for the pretty ladies, and I’m sure he’d much rather have you taking care of him. Isn’t that right, Diego?”
Once again, Diego turned his smile on for Juliette. “Right,” he said, scooting past his mother and stepping closer to Juliette. “El doctor Juliette is very pretty.”
Damien shrugged. “Like I said...”
“OK, Romeo,” Juliette said to Diego, as she took his unwounded hand and led him into the exam room. “Let’s see what we can do about fixing this up.”
“My name is Diego, not Romeo!” he said defiantly.
“Where she comes from, they mean the same thing,” Damien said from the doorway.
Juliette flashed Damien a knowing look. “Where I come from, grown women never have to worry about advances from ten-year-old boys.”
“Almost eleven,” Diego corrected. He closed his eyes while Juliette swabbed his hand clean in order to take a closer look at his cut.
“Does it hurt much?” Juliette asked, accepting a cotton gauze pad Damien had fished out of a drawer for her.
“No,” Diego said. But the slight tentativeness in his voice said otherwise.
“Diego is one tough little kid,” Damien said, on his way to the closet to fetch the xylocaine. “And the shot that el doctor Juliette is about to give him won’t hurt at all, will it, Diego?”
This time his tentativeness was full-blown. “No,” he said, pulling back his hand slightly.
“You going to break into the church again, Diego? Because this is the second time in a month and it’s not going to be too long before Padre Benicio comes after you.”
Diego’s eyes opened wide. “Will he hurt me?” he asked.
“No, he won’t hurt you. But he’ll make you do chores, like washing the windows, or cleaning up the church garden.” Damien recalled how he and Daniel had been the recipient of such chores from time to time. “And if you come in here hurt again because you’ve do
ne something bad, I’m going to make you pay for your medical treatment with some chores here. Like painting the fence outside, or scrubbing the floors.”
“I think he means it, Diego,” Juliette said as she turned to hide the smile crossing her face. “By the way, does he need a tetanus shot? And I’m assuming you do offer that?”
“I do offer that, as a matter of fact. But Diego is up-to-date. I got him a couple of months ago when he got into a fight with a fence of chicken wire.” Damien liked Diego. A lot. He was a smart kid. Resourceful. Bright in school. Knew how to get along in his own little world. But he didn’t have a father, which meant his mother had to work doubly hard to support her small family. That, more than anything else, contributed to the mischief that always seemed to find Diego. The kid simply had too much time on his hands.
“Hey, Diego,” Damien said, suddenly finding a little bit of inspiration, “I have an idea. Are you interested?”
“Maybe,” Diego said, not even noticing that Juliette was preparing the syringe to give him the xylocaine shot.
“OK, well...” Damien blinked, sympathizing with the kid while Juliette stuck the needle into his hand. The hand was sensitive and that shot had to hurt, but Diego merely flinched and bit down on his lower lip. “Want a job?”
“A job, el doctor Damien?”
“Yes, a job. Here, in the hospital.”
“For real money?”
Out of his own pocket, if he had to, Damien decided. This kid needed better direction. That was something he could do, without too much effort. “Real money.”
Juliette threaded the suture needle and turned Diego’s hand at a more convenient angle before she proceeded to start stitching. “You could make beds,” she suggested, smiling over at Damien.
“No, I have something better than that in mind,” Damien responded, smiling back.
“Could I be el doctor Diego?” Diego asked.
“Not until you’re older, and have had more schooling. But you could be the person in charge of el doctor Damien’s files.”
Juliette raised amused eyebrows. “Now, that seems like a fitting job. And a very important one.”
Damien nodded his agreement. “I can teach Diego how to alphabetize, then he can keep things filed away in proper order. I mean, we do it the old-fashioned way here. Paper notes put into folders, sorted and put away in the file cabinet. Everything completely organized.”
“I can organize,” Diego said.
“Do you even know what organized means?” Juliette asked him.
“No, but el doctor Damien will teach me.”
She looked at Damien. “He has a lot of confidence in you.”
Truth was, Damien had a lot of confidence in Diego. He wanted to be a good kid, and he tried hard to do it, but too many times his circumstances simply got in his way. Damien’s own father had been the influence that had kept him from becoming too out of control, and Damien hoped he could be that same influence for Diego.
“Elena,” he directed at Diego’s mother. “Is it all right that Diego works for me?”
“That would be very good,” she said, excitement registering on her face. “He responds very well to you and maybe this will help keep him out of trouble.”
“Good, then I’ll make out a schedule in a little while, and maybe Diego could start working tomorrow. OK with you, Diego?” he asked, shifting his attention back to the boy.
“For real money!” Diego exclaimed, as Juliette sank her first stitch.
Damien gave him a thumbs-up.
“Maybe I’ll buy a car!” Diego exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.
* * *
“You have real money to give him?” Juliette asked Damien, after Diego had gone skipping out of the hospital, bragging to one of the volunteers on the way that he was going to have a real job here, at the hospital.
“I have a little bit of money put away. And it won’t take much to keep Diego happy. Five hundred colónes a week come to little less than a dollar, and that’s not going to break my bank.”
Juliette was impressed. More than impressed; she was touched by the way he’d handled Diego. He was a natural with children. And his love of children shone through so brilliantly it almost surprised her, as she hadn’t expected to see that from him. “Do you have kids of your own?” she asked him.
“Never married, never had children.”
“Is that your avowed way of life, or just something that has occurred because of your restless lifestyle? Because, if you ever truly settled down, I think you’d make a wonderful dad.”
“Not a wonderful husband, too?” he asked, grinning at her.
He did have his good qualities. Juliette was beginning to see that. But did he have enough to make him good husband material? For her, the answer was no. For someone else—it all depended on what they wanted, or didn’t want, in a husband. “Since you’ve never been married, there’s no way to tell. And, personally, I’d never get that involved with you to find out.”
“Never?” he asked.
“Outside of a professional relationship, never.”
“That’s harsh.”
“But honest.” She knew he was teasing her now, and that was a side of him she quite liked. Apart from his ability with children, maybe there were some other redeemable qualities in him after all.
“Said by a lady who, if I’m not mistaken, has never been married herself.”
“Never married. No regrets about it, either.”
“For now,” he countered.
“For now, maybe for the rest of my life.” She didn’t think about it much, to be honest. What was the point? If it happened, it happened. If didn’t, it didn’t. Dwelling on the what ifs didn’t get her anywhere.
“Because you want more than any man could possibly give you?”
“Because I want what I want, and I haven’t found it yet.” It was a simple statement, but oh, so true. She hadn’t come close to finding what she wanted. Funny thing was, she couldn’t exactly define what it was. Couldn’t put it into a mental checklist, couldn’t even put it down on paper it was so vague to her. Yet she truly believed that if the man who fit her undefined list came into her life, everything would become crystal clear to her. She’d know him. She’d see the qualities that, until that very moment, had been nothing but a nebulous notion.
* * *
The day passed fairly quickly, and Damien was glad to see that it was finally turning into night. People had wandered in and out all day long, none of them with serious complaints, but now he expected they would stay home, coming to the hospital only if it was an emergency. Kicking back in a chair in the hospital waiting room, he put his feet up on a small side table, clasped his hands behind his neck and stretched back, sighing. “We don’t usually see too much action at night. The people here like to eat a good dinner and go to bed early.”
“The arroz con pollo certainly qualifies as a good dinner,” Juliette commented, taking a seat across from Damien. “I love chicken and rice. Probably could eat it every few days.”
“Which is how often you’re going to get it here. The hospital is pretty limited in its culinary offerings, and we rely mostly on what the locals donate to us. They all raise chickens, rice is cheap, so—arroz con pollo happens a lot.”
“Maybe I can get Rosalita’s recipe for it. My roommate and I trade off on the cooking chores, and most of the time I just fix sandwiches and salads. She might enjoy something different from me, for a change.”
“Do you like to cook?”
Juliette shook her head. “I’ve always had someone to do the cooking for me. Or I ate out. But now I work such crazy hours, it’s easier to stay in to eat, because when I finally do get home I’m not inclined to go back out just for food.”
“So you had a maid to change your bed, and a coo
k to fix your meals. Any other servants?”
“They weren’t servants, Damien. Nobody calls them that! They were just employees. People who worked for us.”
“Then I stand corrected. Did you have other people who worked for you?”
“Just a gardener, and he was only part-time.”
“And someone to tend your pool?”
“We had a pool,” she admitted. “And someone did tend to it.”
“So we’re up to four people who worked for you. Anybody else? Maybe a tailor for your dad, or a personal assistant to keep your calendar organized.”
“OK, so we hired people to work for us. What of it?”
“Nothing, really. I’m just trying to determine the extent of your wealth.” It was late, he was tired, yet here he was, baiting her again. Something about Juliette brought that out in him; he didn’t want to be intentionally cruel to her, but his need to raise her hackles just seemed to ooze out of him, no matter how hard he tried to stop.
“And here I thought you were trying to be civil with me.” Juliette pushed herself up out of the chair. “Look, I’m not in the mood to go another round with you tonight. So, I’m just going out to the ward, find myself an empty bed and go to sleep. If you need me—You know what? I don’t want you coming to get me. Send one of the volunteers to do it.”
“It was an honest question, Juliette. I was simply trying to find out more about you.” Yeah, right. More like he was just trying to find out how far he could push her before she pushed back. In a sense, it was vital to her work here and how much he could throw at her before she resisted him. Of course, it was also about taunting her, which was something he was going to have to quit doing. If he wanted her to come back, and he did, he needed to be nicer to her. Needed to quit testing her. Most of all, he needed to stop comparing her to Nancy because she definitely wasn’t anything like Nancy.
“Well, I’m not in the mood for your honesty.”
Damien did like the way she stood up for herself. “But honesty is one of my best virtues. I don’t lie. Not about anything. And if I want to know something, I ask.”
