Because his mother asked you to. It was pointless to argue the obvious, so I kept my mouth shut. None of this was any of my business. Captain Ravenel was a patient of mine. A patient whose leg had been saved and who would be out of my life forever in a few short weeks.
We’d reached the front of the hospital again and stopped. I quickly slipped my arm from hers. “Why are you telling me all this?”
She smiled like a patient mother with a wayward child. “Because I don’t want you to be hurt. I see the way you look at Cooper and I just want to make sure you understand that you’re not his kind. He’s grateful to you for helping to save his leg, and might even think he’s a little in love with you because of it, but that won’t last. As soon as he is back in Charleston, everything will return to normal and he’ll forget all about you. I just wanted you to know that.”
I felt the blood rush to my face. “I think you’ve misunderstood, Miss Middleton.”
“Have I?” She smiled brightly, and I noticed that she had a small chip in her front teeth. I was relieved, somehow, as if this slight imperfection were like a chink in her armor. As if any of this really mattered at all.
“I’m late,” I said, moving past her.
She caught my sleeve. “We’re getting married on November tenth, and I’ll be wearing his mother’s wedding veil. The engraved invitations have already been ordered.”
I pulled my arm away and hurriedly jerked the door open. I’d wanted to turn around and ask her why she hadn’t said that she loved him and that he loved her, but I hadn’t. I hadn’t because I was afraid that the emotion coursing through me wasn’t disbelief, but hope.
I sat at Dr. Greeley’s desk with bleary eyes, my cravings for a cigarette reaching mythic proportions. My father had been a heavy smoker, and although nobody had ever said it was linked to his death from lung cancer, I wasn’t completely convinced it hadn’t been. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t crave them.
Dr. Greeley was, presumably, at home in his comfortable bed, finally giving me an entire evening where I didn’t have to creep around corners or tiptoe down hallways. He’d left a stack of charts and reports for me, enough to ensure that I wouldn’t get any sleep. I rubbed my face, eyeing the full ashtray on the corner of the desk, then picked it up and dumped it into the trashcan.
My head had been throbbing ever since my confrontation with Caroline Middleton. It had taken nearly an hour before my shock and embarrassment had turned into righteous anger. How dare she? How presumptuous of her. I was a doctor. It was expected that a certain level of intimacy would form between a doctor and a patient. It was unavoidable. But I was always a professional first. A healer. Not a woman so desperate for a husband that I would steal another woman’s fiancé. I certainly hadn’t gone to medical school to find a husband. I ground the heels of my hands into my throbbing temples, wishing I’d thought to grab a couple of aspirin before holing myself up in the airless office.
I stacked another folder on the edge of the desk and had just decided to take a break and find aspirin when Nurse Hathaway knocked on the door. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Doctor, but Captain Ravenel is having another one of his nightmares.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, smoothing my skirt as I stood. After that horrible conversation with Caroline Middleton, I’d sworn to myself that I wouldn’t see Captain Ravenel again, to prove to her that I could stay away. And, if I were to be honest, to prove to myself that I could. But I was the doctor on duty, and he was a patient. I couldn’t very well say no.
“I won’t be too long,” I said, walking past her. “If anybody needs me and it’s not an emergency, tell them I’ll be back shortly.”
I could hear Cooper’s shouts as I reached the top landing and hurried toward his room. The sickly scent of fear assailed my nostrils as soon as I entered, emanating from the thrashing form on the bed. The bedside light was on, its bulb flickering like a movie projector. Most of the bedclothes had slid to the floor, revealing a bare-chested captain clad only in what appeared to be light blue pajama bottoms. A gift from his fiancée, no doubt.
He was glowing with sweat, his head moving back and forth on the pillow, his arms lashing out at an unseen enemy. “Get down, goddammit, get down!” His voice was raw, as if he’d been in the thick of battle for hours.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Captain Ravenel?”
He continued to thrash, making me stand again to avoid his flailing limbs. “No, no, no, no.” His voice weakened as his shoulders hunched forward, and for a moment I was with him on the beachhead, half-immersed in salt-flavored water, the waves tinted red with the blood of my fellow soldiers.
“Cooper?” I said softly, desperate to bring him back from the dark places his nightmares brought him.
“Victorine?”
I took one of his hands in mine. “Yes. It’s me. Victorine. You’re safe now. You can stop fighting.”