Читать книгу: «Second Chance With Her Army Doc»

CHAPTER ONE

“SO, AFTER YOU left Sloane, then what?” Matt McClain asked his old Army buddy Carter Holmes.

Carter cringed at the memory of how he’d left her. With a text.

Sorry, I can’t do this any longer. I’ve got to go find myself on my own.

Sloane Manning had done everything in her power to help him. She’d come to Germany for his surgeries and stayed at his bedside for days, until he was well enough to be shipped home. Then, at home, she’d put aside practically every aspect of her own life just to help him through.

She’d found different treatment options for PTSD, and she’d stood by him when her father had hired him back at Manning Hospital, even though he clearly hadn’t been ready for the stress. And she’d stood by him again when her father had suspended him for any number of the little infractions he’d incurred in his first six months back.

He’d done nothing to jeopardize a patient. Quite the opposite. He’d done everything to jeopardize his career. Insubordination. Tardiness. Bad attitude all along.

“I found a program that seemed like it might work for me. Sloane’s idea was something more traditional—like seeing a counselor or group therapy. But, that’s not me. So, I looked for something else.”

“And...?” Matt asked.

“I completed the first part. Did pretty well, all things considered. And my counselor there said there was excellent hope for my future. So now they’ve put me on a waiting list for the next part of the program, and with any luck I’ll be called within the next couple of months. They give you a little time off between parts one and two, to make sure part one has taken. So...that’s why I’m here, asking for a job. I need to keep myself busy until I go back to Tennessee. I need to keep my mind on the things I can control, and not on the things I can’t.”

“Sounds like it’s working,” Matt said.

“It is. It’s a slow process, but little by little it’s helping me define who I am again.”

He and Matt had been trapped in a cave in Afghanistan when, for whatever reason, he’d snapped. Left the cave and run head-first into gunfire. He’d got hit pretty hard. Lost a kidney and a spleen as a result. Damaged his other kidney as well. Matt had risked his life to leave the relative safety of that cave to save him.

“It’s a bear rescue facility. I’ll work with bear cubs—rescue them if they’re abandoned or injured, take care of them and, if they’re able to return to the wild, get them prepared to do that. That’s the hands-on part of the program. The first part was doing pretty much the same thing for myself—retraining for life in the world again. Making sure I have what it will take to work with the bears later on. It’s an amazing program. Gives you a different kind of responsibility and helps you find yourself inside that responsibility.”

Matt whistled. “Bears... I would have never guessed.”

“Just the little black bear variety. Not ready to tackle the grizzlies yet.” Carter chuckled. “And I’m the one who never even had a dog.”

“Well, it seems to be agreeing with you.”

“I hope it is,” Carter said in all seriousness. “I can’t live my life never knowing when something’s going to trigger me. It’s hell. It’s also why I had to leave Sloane. She was always there, ready to help me. Maybe too much. Plus, I was breaking her heart.”

Carter looked over Matt’s shoulder, out the roadhouse window to the vast expanse of desert beyond them. So big, so empty. So—lonely. That was how he’d felt most of the time. Especially in the early days. Now, while he still wasn’t better, he could see clearly enough to make distinctions about the reality of his situation. It wasn’t great, but with another year or so in therapy it would improve. That was what he was aiming for, anyway.

“Anyway, I’m hoping that you can give me something to do for a while.”

They were sitting in a corner booth at the Forgeburn Roadhouse, Matt drinking a beer, Carter drinking fizzy water. Booze had become a real problem in the last year. So had drugs. And while that was part of his past now, since falling off the wagon meant getting kicked out of the program, there’d been a few times he’d come close. But so far he hadn’t indulged in those things since he’d left Sloane.

What was the point? Getting drunk only drove him deeper into depression. And getting high, while it may have caused him to forget momentarily, always sent him crashing back to reality, usually feeling worse than he’d felt before. It was a horrible feeling, always knowing how close to the edge he was and afraid of what might push him over.

“I don’t come with a lot of guarantees these days, but I’m still a damned good doctor. That’s probably the only thing I can count on.”

“It’s what I’m counting on too, Carter.”

“Anyway, if you still think I’m worth taking a chance on, I’m yours until I get the call from The Recovery Project. And, like I mentioned when I called you last week, if I graduate from the program and you want me back, I’ll be here.”

No, it wasn’t general surgery. But he wasn’t up to that yet. Too many things to go wrong. Too many lives depending on his wavy blade. But being a good old country doctor would keep him in the profession and, hopefully, keep him out of trouble.

“Do you really think you can make the transition from being a surgeon to being a GP?”

“There are a lot of things in my life I have to change—including my attitude. And while in the long term I don’t know how well I’ll adjust to life outside the OR, in the short term I know I can’t go back to that right now. Maybe never again. I don’t know yet.”

“You’ve come a long way,” Matt said, tilting his mug back for the last sip of beer. “Last time I saw you, you were yelling at Sloane because you couldn’t find your boots. It was pretty intense.”

“She took a lot of abuse from me.”

That was something he couldn’t forgive in himself. He’d loved that woman more than life itself, but because she’d always been there she’d become the target for all his pent-up emotions. The anger would build up in him, and Sloane would be the one who took the impact of it.

“And it kept on getting worse.”

“Any chance you two could get back together?”

Carter shook his head. “PTSD is a life sentence. I may learn how to cope with it, even divert it, but there’s never going to be a time when it’s not waiting just below the surface. I can’t take the risk of hurting her more than I already have.”

“But you feel confident you can take on the part of my practice we’ve discussed? Because I can’t keep an eye on you all the time. Like I told you before, my practice is growing, and I have a family to take care of. You’re like a brother to me, but I can’t look over your shoulder every minute of every day. So I need to feel good about turning you loose on the tourists, because that whole part of my practice can be a problem. You won’t be treating permanent patients but rather patients who are here for only a few days. You won’t have medical histories on them, and you might run into pre-existing conditions that they haven’t divulged to you. There’ll be all kinds of obstacles in taking on the tourist segment of my practice, and everything’s going to be up to you. I’ll be around if you need me, but for the most part you’ll be on your own. Can you manage that?”

Doctor to the tourists in the many resorts near Forgeburn, Utah. He’d never been a GP, so it was going to be a challenge. But since he never backed down from a challenge this would probably work for him. He hoped so. Because he was ready to turn his life around. This living from moment to moment was killing him.

“My counselors think I can, or they wouldn’t have sent that recommendation to you.”

“But what do you think, Carter?”

“That I’m going to try my damnedest. Like I’ve told you already, I can’t predict anything—can’t even make any solid promises. But I want this to work, Matt. For you, because I owe you my life. And for me, because I want some kind of life back. A lot of people with PTSD don’t get the opportunity you’re giving me, and I don’t want to mess that up.”

“And what about Sloane? I know you two aren’t together now, but have you talked to her about any of this?”

“No. The less involvement she has with me, the better it is for her.”

That was the half-truth he always used to convince himself he’d done the right thing in leaving her. She’d taken care of him in the early days. Or tried, when he’d let her. She’d been patient and kind. But he’d given up. Backed away. He hadn’t left her any choice other than to accept what he’d done—which was to leave.

“After she waited all those years for you, you’re not going to try and get her back? Because, next to my Ellie, Sloane is probably the best woman I’ve ever known. I can’t believe you can simply walk away from her the way you did and never look back.”

“Oh, I look back—but all I can see are regrets. Mine. Hers. I can’t go back, Matt. She deserves better than that. Better than me.”

“And she’s told you that?”

No, she had not. But it was what he’d known almost from his first day home.

“I was beating her down. You could see it in her. Day by day, piece by piece, I was taking everything she had away from her. I mean, she’s a brilliant heart surgeon, and such a good person, but I was sucking the life out of her and I hated that. But for Sloane it was like the poet Poe said in his Annabelle Lee: ‘And this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me.’ That’s all she wanted, Matt. To love me and have me love her back. But it wasn’t in me anymore.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Me too—in more ways than I probably even know.”

And in so many ways that he did know. Ways that kept him awake at night. Ways that reduced him to tears when his thoughts wouldn’t be shut off.

“So, like I said, she’s better off without me.”

“And you? Are you better off without her?”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as she’s not part of my life anymore.”

“What is your life, Carter? Other than the job I’m giving you here, what is your life?”

“Damned if I know. But when I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”

“That bad?” Matt asked.

“That bad,” he said in earnest. “Hopefully getting better, though.”

“Because of your bear rescue program?”

Carter smiled. “Because of what I hope I can do to make my little part of the program successful.”

“Well, that’s the attitude I’m looking for.” Matt extended his hand across the table to Carter. “So, welcome to Forgeburn’s only medical practice.”

Carter took Matt’s hand, wondering if this was too much, too soon. He was still on a high from the success he’d seen in the first part of his recovery program, but would that be enough to the job that needed to be done here?

For a while he’d ridden the crest of the self-confidence wave, but now he was underneath it. That was PTSD, though, wasn’t it? Always trying to rob you of yourself. Always chipping away at the bits and pieces that seemed to be moving forward.

There was a time when his normal reaction would have been to say, I’ve got this. Now, though, he wasn’t sure what he had—and that was what scared him. Before PTSD, nothing ever had. Now, almost everything did.

But this was the opportunity he needed. So it was time to put one foot forward and hope he could stay there for a while.

“When do you want me to start?”

* * *

Sloane Manning looked at the text messages on her phone, then at her phone messages. Still nothing. She’d been trying to call Carter for weeks. At least once a day. Sometimes twice. Not that there was much to say at this point. But she was concerned. Six years of her life had gone into that man—most of it waiting while he was in the military—and it wasn’t easy to detach herself from the life she’d expected to have by now.

After her father had dismissed Carter from his job at the hospital he’d disappeared. Hadn’t packed anything to speak of. Hadn’t said goodbye or even left a note other than a vague text message. The only thing that had told her Carter was gone was that their apartment—her apartment—seemed so hollow and cold now. She hated being there. Hated being by herself there. Because it was their home, not hers.

Which was why she was moving back in with her dad when she got back from this two-week vacation. She’d waited long enough for Carter to make a move. But after three months it was clear he wasn’t going to do that. In fact she didn’t even know where he was. He’d been in Vegas for a while, but after that...

So here she was at the airport, ready to board a plane to one of the places she and Carter had always talked about. She was ready to give herself some good, hard physical licks in the canyons and the desert. Ready to start over on her own.

“Dr. Sloane Manning,” the attendant at the desk called over the loudspeaker. “Last call for Dr. Sloane Manning.”

Hearing her name startled her out of her thoughts, and almost in a panic she grabbed up her carry-on bag and ran toward the check-in before the loading gate shut.

“Sorry about that,” she said to the attendant. “I was...”

What? Daydreaming about a romance gone bad? Everybody had one, didn’t they? So why would the gate attendant care about hers?

“I was preoccupied.”

The gate attendant made it clear that she didn’t care, and that all she wanted was to get Sloane on the plane and start focusing on the next group of passengers, already filing in to catch the next flight.

So, Sloane hustled herself through, took her seat in the third row of the first-class section, leaned her head back against the headrest and hoped people would assume her to be asleep and leave her alone. The way Carter had done the last few months of their relationship. She in one bedroom, he in the other. Barely talking when they met in the hall. Barely even acknowledging each other’s existence unless it was absolutely necessary.

With her eyes shut she could visualize everything. The apathy. The temper. The outrage. But most of all the pain. She could still feel it burrowing in, winding its corkscrew tentacles around every fiber of her being.

“Still no luck?” Gemma Hastings, Sloane’s surgical assistant, had asked, when she’d informed her people early that morning that she’d be gone for a couple of weeks.

“It’s done,” she’d told her. “I’ve hung on too long and too hard. It’s time to get myself sorted and start moving in a new direction.”

What that direction was, she didn’t know. But if she didn’t move in some other direction soon, she was afraid she might never move at all. Her friends, even her dad, had been telling her this was what she needed to do. So, after three months she was finally taking their advice. She was taking some me time to readjust.

As for loving Carter—tossing that away wouldn’t be as easy as stepping onto a plane and hiding out for a while. Still, what was the point in worrying about him when he didn’t worry about himself? Or worry about them?

That was the worst of it. He’d given up on them. And quite easily. But here she was, still hanging on. Why? Maybe her feelings for Carter were some sort of remnant, left over from the days when she’d first fallen in love with him, when he had been kind and good, and the best surgeon she’d ever seen. Maybe her love was nothing more than an old habit she didn’t know how to break.

Because she still loved him?

That was the question she didn’t want to answer, because the answer might scare her. Falling in love with one man, then watching him turn into someone else she didn’t even recognize had been tough. Trying to stay in love with the man he’d turned into had been even tougher, because there had still been parts of the Carter she’d known left and she’d been able to see them struggling to get out.

But she’d also been able to see Carter struggling to keep them locked away.

She thought about the day they’d met. She’d already heard about him from her father.

“He’s supposed to be the best of the best,” Harlan Manning had said. “Good at everything he does and full of adventure—which he says keeps him from getting dull.”

“Will he fit in here?” she’d asked her dad. “We’re a conservative little surgery in most regards. Everybody knows everybody else. There’s never any in-fighting, the way I saw it going on during my residency in Boston.”

Generally everybody got along, did their jobs, and walked away contented. But from the description of Carter Holmes she’d had some qualms, because he’d seemed so—out there. He liked big sports—skydiving, mountain-climbing, motorcycling. And he liked the ladies.

That was only his personal reputation—which she totally forgot when she first laid eyes on him. Carter was tall, muscular. Deep, penetrating gray eyes. Dark brown hair, short-cut in a messy, sticking-out style which looked so good on him. Three days’ growth of dark stubble which had made her go weak in the knees, imagining what it would feel like on her skin. And that smile of his...

OMG, it could knock a girl off her feet, it was so sexy.

He’d put all that masculinity to good use, too, asking the hospital owner’s daughter out after only knowing her for five minutes.

Of course she’d said yes. What else could she have done? She’d been smitten at first sight, sexually attracted at second, and in love at third. Well, maybe not real love. But that had come about pretty quickly when, after their first evening together, Carter never went home. Not the next day either, or the day after that. In fact by the third day he had totally moved in to her tiny apartment, making himself right at home as if he’d always been there.

“For what it’s worth, Sloane, Carter was crazy about you,” her assistant had said. “Everybody could see that. So maybe if he gets himself straightened out...”

“If,” she’d responded. “Not going to hold my breath on that one.”

But she was. Every minute of every hour of every day. And it was causing her to be distracted in her operating room. Distraction and heart surgery didn’t mix, and if it continued, she’d either have to step down from her position voluntarily, or her father—in his position as chief—would remove her. He didn’t play favorites when it came to patient care, and she was included in that. So, her distraction could conceivably cost her her job. Which was why she had to get away to sort it out. And maybe Forgeburn, Utah, wasn’t the hub of the universe, but it was beautiful, according to Matt McClain, an old friend.