by Dianne Drake
“Well, you can ask me anything you want, professionally. But my personal life is out of it because you’ve prejudged who I am and what I am, and I can’t see you being the type who changes his mind once it’s made up.”
She was right about that. “OK, so let me be honest here. I have a bias against wealthy people. More specifically, spoiled rich girls.” So now she knew. In a way that was good, as it gave them a base to work from. And he really did want a better footing with Juliette, no matter how much he acted toward the contrary.
“You think I’m spoiled?”
“Are you?” he asked.
Juliette huffed out an impatient breath. “I’ve had advantages most other people don’t have, and I’ll admit that. And I’ll also admit that I’ve enjoyed the privilege that comes from my father’s wealth. So to you that may scream spoiled, but to me it says normal. Everything that I’ve achieved or had or done is normal to me. If you think that’s being spoiled, then think it. It’s not worth the effort of trying to change your mind, because I simply don’t care what you think of me personally. Go ahead and label me all you want, if that’s what makes you feel good. But don’t waste my time pointing it out to me, because I’ve got better things to worry about. Like the job I intend to do here, no matter how bad you treat me.”
She was red and fiery when she was angry. And sexy as hell! He liked that. Liked it a lot. “Look, I have these preconceived ideas, right or wrong, and for those, I do apologize. I’m trying to get that under control. But I also have an irascible personality that needs attention, which I haven’t had time to give it.”
“Irascible?”
“You know. Hot-tempered. Irritable.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed. And you freely admit that?”
“I do because, like I said, I’m honest.”
“Do you like being irascible?”
“Not so much.” Especially now. But it overtook him and sometimes he couldn’t control it. Like with Juliette. It was part of his restlessness, he supposed.
“Then stop it. You’re a smart man. You’re capable of getting a grip on yourself, if you want to. So quit acting like you’re so mean because, deep down, I don’t think you really are. It’s only a defense mechanism, Damien. Against what, I don’t know. Don’t want to know. But if you keep putting people off, the way you do, you’re going to wind up in a Costa Rican jungle with no friends, and no place to go. That could turn out to be very sad for you.”
She was softening now, her flare of anger dying down. This smoother side of her was so attractive, all he wanted to do was stay in that place, at that time, and stare at her. But there was a part of Juliette that scared him—the part that was so easily digging beneath his surface to discover who he really was. Most of the time, he kept that face hidden. Didn’t want people getting close because, in his experience, people who could find the vulnerable place had the power to hurt. Nancy had hurt him. In spite of all the things he’d seen in her, and all the qualms he’d had about marrying someone coming from an indulged, wealthy background, he’d still planned a life with her. In fact, he’d tried hard to make the changes she’d needed to see in him, changes he didn’t necessarily want to make but had made, nonetheless, because that was what she’d wanted.
In essence, he’d been true to Nancy but he hadn’t been true to himself. No way was he going to do that again, so it was easier to push people away before they expected something of him. “There could be worse things than ending up here without friends and no place to go,” he said, even though a big chunk of him didn’t believe that.
“Look, Damien. You’re fighting some kind of battle here, and apparently you’ve decided to drag me into it. But I never fight. Not with you, not with anybody. All I want is for you to lay off the snide remarks and let me do my work. You don’t have to like me, I don’t have to like you. And it seems we’re starting out that way, which doesn’t make a working relationship easy, but since I’m only going to be here a couple days a week, our feelings about each other shouldn’t get in the way. If you want to run me off, don’t do it because I rub you the wrong way. Or because I’m wealthy. Do it because my work isn’t good enough. Do it because I have a lousy bedside manner. Do it because I’m not as good of a doctor as you need. But don’t do it because of personal issues. OK? Oh, and don’t cop out to an excuse like your self-admitted irascible nature because, frankly, I don’t care what you are by nature. All I want is a good supervisor. Someone who will help me when I need it, and leave me alone when I don’t. And someone who doesn’t ridicule me because I don’t know how to make a bed.”
Man, oh, man, had he been wrong when he’d compared Juliette to Nancy. Nancy would have never stood up to him like that. She was quiet, always ran to Daddy and Daddy did the talking. And she would have never been as passionate about anything the way Juliette was passionate about working here.
“You know. We’re both tired. We’ve had a long day and we’ve got another long day ahead of us tomorrow. This is new to you, and you’re new to me, both of which are going to take some getting used to. So maybe we should just stop this right here. You can go get some sleep. I’ll hang around for another hour or so, do some final bed checks, turn the rest of the night over to George Perkins and go back to my hut and grab a couple hours of sleep. Then we’ll regroup in the morning and see what we’ve got.”
“Who’s George Perkins?” she asked.
“My other doctor here. Plastic surgeon, good man. A little burned-out on medicine, but working his way back in.”
“Burned-out?”
“He substituted work for life.” The way he did. “Lost his wife over it, but one of the women here—let’s just say that the love of a good woman has worked miracles for him. He’s finding a new purpose.”
“Well, here’s to the good women,” she said.
“They are out there, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Did I offend you again?”
“Actually, you didn’t. And you didn’t surprise me, either.”
“Good. Then I don’t have anything else to apologize for.”
“Maybe, before you do, I should just go find myself a bed and stay away from you for a while.”
If there was any way he could make this situation any more tense between them he sure couldn’t come up with what it might be. It was as if to open his mouth was to say something he didn’t intend to say. Hell of it was, he couldn’t seem to stop himself. But tomorrow—ah, yes, the great unknown tomorrow. He wanted to think that come tomorrow he’d do better. Truth was, though, he didn’t know if he could.
“Look, I’ve got a couple of room dividers stashed in the supply closet. Let me go get them and section you off from the rest of the ward. It’s not much in the way of privacy, but it’s the best I’ve got.”
Juliette nodded her agreement and managed a polite smile. “Tomorrow will be better,” she told him.
He hoped that would be true. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
“So what time do you want me on in the morning?”
Damien checked his watch. It was almost midnight now, and breakfast would be served at seven thirty. “I’ll have George wake you up at six. That should give you enough time to shower and get ready.”
“Get ready for what?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Rosalita doesn’t come in until it’s time to cook the noon meal. We all pitch in so I’m putting you in charge of the kitchen for breakfast.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
Damien smiled at her. “It beats bedsheets, doesn’t it?”
CHAPTER FOUR
JULIETTE TOSSED AND turned for almost an hour before she finally dozed off. The bed was lumpy, the sheets scratchy and the patient down the row from her snored like a buzz saw. None of that mattered much, as her mind was focused on Damien. Images of
him popped up behind her eyelids when she closed her eyes, thoughts of him sent her brain into overload, instantly awakening every synapse in her body. But why?
Well, she wasn’t sure. Maybe because he was an enigma of a man. It was as if he ran hot and cold, minute to minute. Nice then cutting, all in a flash. To say the least, it was peculiar behavior. But she wasn’t going to criticize him for it, even though in the span of only one day she’d become the target of his off-and-on belligerence, as if something was boiling just underneath his surface. She didn’t have to look too hard to see it.
“You’re Juliette, aren’t you?” A man with a very thick Boston accent poked his head in around her partition. “Damien told me to wake you up if I needed help.”
“What time is it?” she asked groggily.
“A little after two. And I hate to disturb you like this, but one of us has got to go down the road and deliver a baby while the other one stays here and looks after the hospital.”
“Are you George Perkins?” she asked as she tried to shake her single hour of sleep off her stiff body.
“Yes,” he said. “George Perkins, plastic surgeon in the States, GP in the jungle, at your service. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Juliette. Sorry this comes at such a bad time but, in my experience, most of the babies I’ve delivered here have preferred to make their grand entrance in the middle of the night.”
Juliette switched on her bedside light to have a good look at him. He was a distinguished man with silver hair and a full gray beard. He sported a crisp linen shirt and a neatly pressed pair of khaki trousers, looking very much as if he could have stepped right off the pages of a fashion magazine. All in all, he was a good-looking gent. And he looked...happy. Something she’d never seen in her father, and had never even seen in herself when she looked in the mirror. “Damien didn’t mention that I was to be on call tonight. Is it posted somewhere that I should have noticed?”
“Damien doesn’t mention a lot of things. You’ll get used to that if you stay with us for very long. Also, we don’t post things around here because most of the volunteers barely speak English and they sure as heck can’t read it. So, everything’s passed down directly, from person to person. As for taking calls at night, in my current situation which, in case Damien didn’t tell you, is I’m living with a very lovely village woman and I prefer working nights while Carmelita and her children are sleeping, so no one really has to take calls then, unless I’m taking a night off. I’m just hoping that you’ll stand in as my backup right now because I don’t want to go wake Damien up to help me. He was on thirty-six hours straight before tonight, and he needs his rest.”
Juliette blew out a deep breath and sat up. “So what do you want me to do? Deliver a baby, or watch the hospital?”
“Do you like babies?” he asked her. “Because if you do, I’d rather stay here and attend to a couple of my regulars who like to come see me in the middle of the night.”
“Sure, no problem.” Juliette swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Normally, at home, she’d be wearing pajamas. But here, in the jungle, she’d brought a pair of scrubs along as she didn’t know what she’d be doing and scrubs were good everyday work clothes, as well as stand-in pajamas. “Where can I find the mother-to-be?”
“Down this road until you get to the church. Turn left at that intersection, go another block, then turn right. She’ll be in the third house on the left. The best landmark I can give you is a rusted-out old pickup truck in her front yard, and the house should be well lit, as half the village usually turns out for a birth.” He held out a flashlight. “No streetlights,” he said sheepishly.
House calls by flashlight. Couldn’t say she’d ever done anything like that before, but there was a first time for everything. So she took the light from him and switched it on to make sure the batteries were good. They were. “Any complications? Anything I should know about before I go?”
“Her name is Maria Salas, and this is her third child so it should be a fairly easy birth. She hasn’t been in labor long, according to her husband, but he thinks the baby is coming quickly. Apparently, she has a history of fast births.”
“Then I should get going,” Juliette said, bending down to pull on her sneakers. “Do you have a medical kit with maternity supplies I can take along with me?”
“I put it by the front door before I came to get you. It should have everything you need for a straightforward birth. But if you run into any complications, have one of Maria’s family members run and fetch Damien.”
“Will do.” Juliette pushed herself off the bed and headed immediately toward the door. She was finally awake, still feeling a little sluggish, though, as one hour hadn’t been enough to shake off her tiredness. “Should we try to get her into the hospital for this? Because I’m not sure a home delivery is the safest thing to do.” Also, as director of a clinic, she’d never made a house call in her life, flashlight or not, and, while she was looking forward to the experience, it also made her a little nervous going so far outside of what she’d ever done. But that was what they did here, and she was part of it now. So it was what she did, too.
“Sure. Bring her in, if she can make it. But I doubt that’s going to work out for you because most of the women here prefer home births. You know, have the baby then getting back onto whatever they were doing before it came.”
That was a stamina Juliette admired. As for her, though, if she ever had a baby, she wanted it in a modern hospital with all the latest equipment. Wanted an anesthesiologist on hand to give her an epidural for the pain. Wanted fetal monitors, and heart monitors, and blood pressure monitors. Soft lights and soft music in the delivery room.
“Well, whatever happens, if she’s as fast about it as you’ve been led to believe, maybe I’ll be able to get back here in time to grab another couple hours of sleep.”
“Or you can sleep in the morning, when Damien comes on.”
Right. And listen to Damien taunt her about that for the next several weeks. What did you do? Come to the jungle just to sleep?
Juliette grabbed the rucksack by the door and fairly ran out and on down the street, flashing her light along the path, making the proper turns where she needed and continuing on until she came to the rusty old truck standing in Maria’s front yard. It was surrounded by several people, who were all talking quite loudly, as if they were having a party. Indeed, half the village seemed to be there, as George had said.
“The baby’s coming out now,” one of the men told her. “My new grandchild.”
“And it’s going to be a big baby. Maria always has big babies,” an older woman added.
Juliette’s first thought was gestational diabetes. It was a condition that put the mother and child at some degree of risk, and usually resulted in larger than the average baby. But hadn’t Damien been seeing Maria? Surely, he would have noticed such a condition and prepared for it. Also, George would have mentioned it to her. So Juliette put that notion out of her head, preferring to think that Maria had received excellent prenatal care from Damien. In spite of his attitude, everything she’d seen and read about him told her he was a good doctor. “Thank you,” she said, scooting past all the gathered people and hurrying through Maria’s open front door.
The lights were bright inside, revealing a clean but cluttered little house. Judging from the knickknacks, toys, books, small appliances and clothing strewn everywhere, the Salas family never came across an object of any sort that they couldn’t collect. “Where is she?” she asked one of the five people huddled among the clutter.
“Back bedroom, left side of the hall. Go through the kitchen.” The man pointed to a narrow pathway winding its way through a corridor of old chairs, tables and lamps.
Juliette squeezed through the maze and stopped just short of entering the kitchen. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
Damien, who w
as sitting in an old chrome chair at the kitchen table, smiled up at her. “Same thing you are, I guess.”
“They came and got you, too?”
He shrugged. “I’m her doctor. Who else would they call?”
“Me.”
“Not sure why they’d do that, seeing as how you’ve never even met Maria.”
“George Perkins woke me up. Told me to get down here.”
“George overreacts sometimes.”
“Like sending me here in the middle of the night when I could be back at the hospital, sleeping?”
“I could be saying the same thing. But I started to realize, probably in my first couple of days here, that people’s needs were always going to supersede my sleep. Comes with the territory.”
“Well, that’s too bad for you, I suppose.”
“I’m used to it.” He stretched back in his chair. “Anyway, Maria’s fully dilated, fully effaced. Pushing it out as we speak.”
“Then shouldn’t you be in there, delivering the baby instead of sitting here, casually talking about it?” Frankly, she was shocked that he wasn’t more involved at this stage.
“I’d like to be, but Maria’s mother and grandmother are in there, along with her two sisters, a couple of cousins and an aunt. There’s really no room for anyone else.”
“You mean no room for a doctor?”
“She’s already got plenty of help standing by. She doesn’t need a doctor.”
He was being so blithely unconcerned about this, it surprised her. “But haven’t you been seeing her all along?”
“I was here earlier today, as a matter of fact. Kind of thought the baby would be coming in the next day or so.”
“And yet you’re sitting here, doing nothing.”
“Actually, I’m sitting here, waiting to take over if she starts having problems. That’s the only reason they called us in—as backups. Luckily, though, she’s progressing through a normal delivery quite nicely. Oh, and I do poke my head in the door every few minutes to check on how things are going.”
