Amanda's Touch [D.A.R.E.ing Women] (Siren Publishing Allure)

by LeeAnn Masters

  Better late than never, she guessed.

  * * * *

  An hour and a half and many aches and pains later, she was seated in the emergency department of a little country hospital, behind a closed curtain. Zack was down the hall filling out the insurance paperwork. That was one bonus of the boss’s visit. She wouldn’t have to do it herself.

  “Amanda Grace! What brings you to our wonderful establishment?” The gentleman addressed her as if she’d entered a fine dining restaurant.

  She looked up at hearing a very familiar voice and smiled through the pain. “Dr. Lombardi!”

  The doctor gingerly reached out and gave her a careful hug, patting her on the back.

  Zack entered her cubicle just then, laughing. “Amanda Grace?”

  “Seriously? I’d have never guessed!” He dodged her as Amanda tried to punch him in the shoulder with her good hand.

  “Now, now…no need for violence. You should be convalescing!” he mocked. He wasn’t being mean, and they both knew it. He was trying to distract her from the pain.

  “Dr. Lombardi!” Amanda exclaimed again, fondly. “What are you doing out here in the boonies?”

  Zack guessed Lombardi to be in his mid-to-late fifties. His hair was nearly the same shade as Amanda’s but graying at the temples. He was tall, slender, and still well-toned. He had a nice tan that Zack bet came from many rounds of golf at the local country club.

  “Oh, the wife and I retired out here about a year ago. But you know me. I have to keep busy, so here I am slaving away at the local hospital. I come in two or three days a week. But I’ve told you all that before, didn’t I?” He looked a little perplexed, Zack thought.

  Then Amanda answered, “Oh! That’s right! I’m so sorry. I had forgotten you moved out here. Even though I knew you’d retired. I didn’t put two and two together I guess. You never were one to be able to be still for long.”

  His kind green eyes focused on her. “So tell me, Amanda. What happened, and where does it hurt?”

  Amanda regaled him with the tale of her fall, making light of her accident. Zack watched and frowned, filling in parts she missed and things he was concerned about.

  “Oh yes! How rude of me! Dr. Derek Lombardi, meet Dr. Zachary Grayson.” Amanda’s tone was heavily laden with her aggrieved sense of pride that Zack didn’t think she could handle her own exam questions.

  “Why don’t you just tell him the whole story yourself?”

  Amanda’s pique rang through her words and Zack realized his error at once. How many times had he chided family members for answering patients’ questions for them? He watched as Dr. Lombardi shook his head over their wrangling.

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Grayson.”

  The older doctor reached out to shake Zack’s hand and Zack got a reading of the other man’s deep concern and warmth for Amanda. It was so strong it read as paternal.

  “Now, let’s get Amanda to X-ray.” The doctor turned to the orderly who had just entered and handed him her orders.

  As the orderly got Amanda into a wheelchair Zack asked, “Aren’t you going to take a history from her?” He was shocked Amanda was being treated so cavalierly!

  “Oh, I know all about Amanda’s medical history. She and I go way back. Don’t we, darlin’?” Amanda shot Dr. Lombardi a warning look and the man quickly closed his mouth.

  “I’ll check back in with you after the X-ray and then we’ll get that leg stitched up. Sound like a plan?”

  The orderly directed Zack to the waiting room and told him that someone would find him when Amanda was done. Then he wheeled her down the hall to radiology, leaving him to stew in his own juices. He was glad that Amanda seemed comfortable with the doctor, but wondered what history they had he wasn’t aware of. Old family physician, not likely. How would he have come to work the Emergency Department? Finally the name clicked. He’d seen it on one of the bottles of narcotics that had lined the shelves of her medicine cabinet. He must have been one of the physicians in charge of her after the accident. Why wouldn’t Amanda want him to know that?

  Forty-five minutes later Zack began worrying for real when he hadn’t heard about Amanda. There was only one other person in the E.R. surely it wouldn’t take them that long? He decided to go in search of her himself. He found her in a private conference behind a closed curtain with her doctor.

  “Amanda, how’ve you been doing?” Dr. Lombardi’s voice was soft with true compassion and warmth. “I want you to be truthful with me now. Tell me, and remember I’ll know if you’re lying.”

  Zack paused outside the curtained entrance beyond their seeing, waiting to hear Amanda’s reply. Not surprisingly he heard Amanda try to blow the good doctor off with “I’m doing really well” and other nonsense about keeping busy on the job, etc.

  Her doctor’s voice became belligerent and he scolded her as though she were a child. “Amanda Grace! I don’t want to hear that crap! Be honest with me.”

  Zack could almost imagine the standoff between them as Amanda glared at the poor fellow who was trying to help her out. He could feel her tension, but he was pulling for the doc to win this particular battle.

  “Come on, girl, out with it! After all, you owe me. Who worked over your sorry hide when they brought you in from that mangled mess with less than a twenty percent chance of survival?”

  Zack felt Amanda’s pain at the reminder but also her affection for the doctor. He sucked in his breath, feeling like someone had sucker-punched him in the gut. Less than a twenty percent chance of survival? He could have lost her, never really known her, never have had the chance to hold her. The thought brought a sharp ache to his chest but he’d have to think about that later. He knew the doctor was pushing her buttons to get her to open up to him. Zack thought if she would talk to anyone it would be to her old doc. He stood there, hoping. Then he nearly cried when Amanda finally let down the wall.

  Very softly Amanda began in a shaky voice. “I’m having a hard time,” she finally admitted, almost choking on her words.

  Zack could have cheered, and did silently pump his fist as though he’d won a goal, not because she was hurting so badly, but because she was finally allowing herself to open up. He sent a thankful prayer to Heaven, thinking sometimes accidents aren’t just accidents, they happen for a reason.

  “You can talk to me, Amanda. Tell me everything. It’ll do you good to get it off your chest. I can damn well tell you’re carrying a mighty heavy load.”

  Zack quietly ducked into the next cubicle and listened for the next half hour, from the other side of the curtain, praying no other patient would be brought in. He only very briefly fought a war with his conscience about doing so. Jiminy Cricket did not win this round. He listened and felt everything right along with her while Amanda spoke of her anguish over missing her husband, her sleepless nights due to her nightmares, her lack of appetite, her still ongoing migraines. He’d known all about those, they were hard to miss when she was at work and they hit. Her severe pain was fed directly to him, her all-encompassing guilt that she had lived while David and the baby had died, and then finally her whispered confession that she often wished that the paramedics, and Dr. Lombardi himself, hadn’t been so good at their work in resuscitating her and then keeping her alive.

  Baby? What baby? She’d been pregnant at the time? And more specifically worrisome: an ongoing death wish? Oh Lord in Heaven, the poor girl! Zack felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to stride in and wrap her in his arms, and it nearly killed him that he couldn’t. Amanda would talk to him when she was ready, no sooner. Otherwise, she would have had him called back to her when she’d arrived from radiology. She’d needed that time alone with someone who knew all about what she’d been through.

  “What do you need from me? What can I do to help?” The doctor spoke the same words that Zack had wanted Amanda to answer six weeks ago.

  “Honey, you know there’s no shame in asking for help. It’s the smart thing to do.”

  Zack could hav
e applauded.

  “Would you try therapy? I can hook you up with a great counselor,” he offered. “I am concerned about that last confession. I can’t force you to get help since you aren’t actually trying to hurt yourself, but Amanda, to wish your life hadn’t been saved. That disturbs me to my core.”

  Zack heard and felt the man’s distress as he said the words and felt them echoed in his own heart, though in much greater scale.

  “You don’t seem to have much of a support system right now. I’m worried about you,” Lombardi went on. “Does your boss understand the kind of pressure you’re under? Is he aware of how delicate your emotional state is right now?”

  Amanda didn’t answer for a minute and Zack froze, not even breathing, as he waited to hear what she thought of him. His opinion of himself had plummeted with the older doctor’s questions.

  Zack realized another mistake right then. In trying to help Amanda, by getting her out of her emotionally stifling environment, he’d inadvertently hindered her progress by removing her from her friends’ support. Amanda needed Diane, and he had forced her to leave the only good friend she had. He lifted his hand to his head and smacked himself. He was an imbecile. What could he do to make this right? No wonder Amanda didn’t want him around, all he did was force her to do things she didn’t want or wasn’t ready to do! He’d thought he’d been so wise. Now he found out he was a fool.

  Very much to Zack’s surprise he heard Amanda chuckle softly. “What is it about all the men in my life that makes them think, just because I’m grieving, I can’t take care of myself and make my own decisions?”

  He knew she was referring to him as clearly as if she had opened the curtain and pointed at him.

  “Could I do better? Yes, I could, and I’m trying!”

  He, for once, agreed with her statement—it seemed she now was trying.

  “Do I appreciate everyone’s help? Yes, I do…but sometimes people need to back off a bit and let me breathe. I can’t heal on other people’s time tables!”

  Zack cringed at that, was he pushing too hard?

  She took a deep, shaky breath. “Am I alone out here. But, without a support system? Well, no. To be honest, I don’t really feel that way, though when I’m stressed out about being away from home I throw all my anger at my boss’s feet.”

  He could hear the humor in her voice.

  “He’s tough enough to handle it, and something tells me he doesn’t really mind.”

  She was right, he didn’t.

  “Yes, I miss my friend at home, but she’s only two hours away, and we talk almost every night and email back and forth. I was actually going to drive into Pittsburgh tomorrow and spend the weekend at home. Well, now I’m not so sure about that.”

  Zack could tell she was referring to her injuries.

  “Regardless, I also keep in contact with my grandparents via email and phone calls. I have ears to listen, and hands to help, when I need them. The guys on site are wonderful, and the crew boss’s wife has made me feel comfortable, and we’re becoming friends too.”

  Zack was glad to hear that, he’d pushed Tom to introduce the women so Amanda would have another female around her.

  “Though I like to pretend I was forced to take this project, because then I don’t have to feel accountable for the decision. I think Zack was right in approaching me to take it. I didn’t appreciate the way in which he did it, and I don’t want to talk about that part of it because it’s humiliating for me. But, I really think he does want what’s best for me, and it was the only way he could see to help me right then.”

  Amanda’s voice became strident. “Now, don’t you go telling him that! His head is already swelled enough!”

  She was right there too, though it was the lower extremity he was having the problem with, not the upper, every time he was near to her.

  She went on as though in deep thought. “My only problem with him is that my feelings are always out of whack when I’m around him. It really is the strangest thing! I never feel like I expect to. My emotions can change on a dime, or become fuzzy and unclear, as though I’m looking in a fogged up mirror. Sometimes I feel like I’m bipolar. Does that make any sense?”

  She stopped, he thought, to seek an answer from Lombardi.

  “It makes me nervous that I can’t specifically tell how I really feel around him.”

  Holy shit! If she wasn’t on to him already she would be very soon and he’d had no idea he was actually muddying the waters for her. Another mistake with her, he really was a total screw-up. But, he’d never encountered someone who responded to him like that before, what was up with that?

  “I’m betting, from the way Dr. Grayson was watching you, he’d do anything you needed him to. Why don’t you talk to him about how you feel?”

  His tone implied more than doctoring and carried a sexual connotation. He was probably giving Amanda a very knowing look. Zack grinned. Oh yeah! He’d give Amanda anything she wanted all right, and much more! Down boy! he chided himself.

  Amanda laughed reluctantly. “I know, I’ve got someone else telling me the same thing.”

  He’d bet she was gesturing toward him thinking he was down the hall.

  “I just don’t like leaning on people, needing them.” Her voice had an uncomfortable edge to it. “I don’t want to get that close to anyone else and lose them, too. I couldn’t bear it.” Her voice dropped to a pained whisper and then she seemed to shake it off.

  “Zack’s a great guy, when he’s not being a domineering ass.”

  He heard the smile in her voice and agreed with her assessment. He had been a domineering ass, indeed.

  Her next statement threw him for a loop. “And, I can see a future with him, though I’m not ready to cross that stream just yet.”

  She said it with such certainty that Zack was nonplussed. He was very pleased, but still very bewildered.

  “But, I’m not certain he can see one with me, if you get my drift? I don’t think he’d understand it. It would probably scare him off. You know how people usually respond, once they get to know me.”

  She sighed. “I didn’t anticipate coming back with all this extra baggage. It sometimes drives me bat-shit crazy. I can’t control it yet. The old baggage was bad enough, you know?”

  Her voice had gone sad and he felt her emotions turn to downright hopelessness.

  The way she said it made Zack wonder. It didn’t sound like she meant emotional baggage. Why the hell was she talking in code? Coming back from where? And how do you control baggage anyway? Why would he be scared off, and who didn’t love Amanda the instant they met her? None of this made sense and his aggravation was fast becoming frustrated anger at being left out. He wanted to go over and shake Amanda, make her tell him what he wanted to know. Zack had never been so puzzled in all his life. There was a double entendre to her words and he felt like he was missing out on an inside joke as the doctor laughed, apparently understanding her very well.

  “I believe there may be more than meets the eye to young Dr. Grayson, too,” responded the older man.

  What did he mean by too?

  “Give him a chance, why don’t you? I know you miss David terribly, but it’s all right to explore your feelings with someone new.”

  Why, the old buzzard was matchmaking! He was also worrying Zack with the strong focus he kept making on the word feeling.

  “Amanda, don’t lose sight of what’s right in front of you by looking behind. I think that pretty soon your feelings will clear up enough for you to be able to trust them, and yourself.”

  “May I go bring the man in? He’s probably beside himself wondering where you’ve gone to.”

  Zack made tracks back in the direction of the waiting room next door before the doctor left the curtained area and found him eavesdropping outside of it. He heard Amanda’s admonishment to the doctor about patient confidentiality and a reminder about HIPPA rules before he left.

  Lombardi only laughed at her and said “Okay,
let me go get him then. I’ll be back in a minute. Lay back and get as comfortable as you can. I’m going to stitch that leg and then we’ll talk about what to do with your wrist.”

  A moment later Zack looked up from a magazine he’d quickly grabbed off one of the end tables as he’d flung himself into a chair. Pretending he’d been caught up in whatever the hell it was he’d chosen, he looked up to find Lombardi studying him with amusement. Zack looked back down to see that he’d chosen Vogue, and if that hadn’t been bad enough, he was holding the magazine upside down, too. He gave the other doctor a sheepish grin.

  Lombardi shook his head and smiled. “Come on, Zack, you’ve got a hand to hold.”

  The way he said it told Zack that somehow he knew exactly what Zack had been doing.

  Zack went completely still and Lombardi leaned in and murmured quietly to him so Amanda wouldn’t hear. “Now, don’t go thinking that you’re the only one who has talents. Sometimes, talents can overlap and inadvertently cause problems.” Lombardi quirked one brow, pointed at Zack and then hitched a thumb toward Amanda. He then also cocked a thumb at himself.

  Zack’s eyes widened as he tried to take in the implications and he swore he almost had a panic attack as the doctor’s words registered. Talents? Amanda, too? He began running scenarios in his head automatically searching for a clue. He’d already known she was special but clearly she had much more going on than he’d thought.

  He allowed Amanda’s old doc to lead him into the cubicle. He sat him next to Amanda and then he very deliberately placed Amanda’s hand in Zack’s.

  Oh hell!

  Chapter 6:

  What She Might Have Done

  Two hours later Amanda blearily reentered Zack’s truck. She’d been wheeled out of the emergency department, but Zack had carried her back to his truck, which he’d parked just three spaces from the entrance. She’d vehemently protested that she could manage on her “own damn feet” but, of course, he’d had his own way, and she really wasn’t in any mood, or condition, to argue.