Dreams of a Wild Heart Read online

  Everyone seems happy and satisfied within their own predictably dysfunctional world. Stephanie is close to being married, Cassie is likely on her way to her deathbed—according to her own self-diagnosis using WebsmartMD—and Amanda’s finished her credentialing to teach. She’s looking for a job now. Oh! Your brother went off to complete a sabbatical in some distant corner of the world where he could study the customs of some obscure native tribes. Not sure of the details. Your mom told me the last time I saw her, which was last week, I think, when we ran into each other at the grocery store.

  His smile changed, sort of went heart deep and introspective. He looked down at the ground as though seeing the image within the square pattern blocks of cement. I’ve seen my brother. He’s happy. He’s going to be okay.

  Leaving the park, we walked companionably through a suburban neighborhood, the kind you’d find at the beginning of a Steven Spielberg movie, like E.T. or Poltergeist or something like that. Kids were out playing in the street, adults gardened in fashionably strange, floppy-looking hats, and there was a sense of safety and peacefulness. Of course, if this were a Spielberg movie, in the next scene, the shit would hit the fan.

  This was the nature of our relationship now. I never knew where we would end up when we dreamed together.

  Carlos leaned into me affectionately with a light shoulder-to-shoulder bump. How’s the doctoring?

  I love it. The energy of the trauma ward is like nothing else. It’s always go, go, go. Stay on your toes. Be alert. Take charge. Every day is something new. Someone comes in ready to die, and I can fix them, send them back to their loved ones. Every day, I can see the difference I make in the world. The feeling is amazing. Cars drove by, taking carloads of kids from the soccer field. A few days ago, I actually got to do a heart massage, which is unheard of in the ER

  You had to pump a guy’s heart? His squinty-eyed wince said it all. There was a reason not everyone became a trauma surgeon. Carlos had never liked the sight of blood.

  Yes. It was an amazing moment, having someone’s heart in my hand and pumping it to keep them alive. The remembered excitement of that day had my blood surging with renewed adrenaline, and the story tumbled out. This guy was brought in, barely breathing, and he goes into arrest on my table. So I’m going through the checklist wondering what the hell is wrong with him, right? He looks young and healthy. There was no other sign of major trauma, abdomen was soft, so I could tell he wasn’t bleeding internally, and because he was turning blue, it had to be something with respiration.

  Remembering gave me that wired feeling again. Problem-solving at that level of intensity was the best kind of drug. I figured it must be some kind of pulmonary embolus, some kind of blockage between heart and lungs, which was the only thing making sense. We hit a point where even with heart compressions, we weren’t getting a pulse. By then, I’d called a cardiologist, and it was do-or-die. We decided we had to crack his chest and pump his heart manually, which got a pulse going long enough to get him to the OR, where he had an eight-hour surgery to remove some nasty blockage by his heart.

  When I finished, Carlos had a funny smile on his face.

  What? I asked. Did I lose you in there?

  No, I managed to follow.

  Why the smile?

  You’re living your dreams. I’m proud of you. You kick ass, Ceci. You always have. You’re going to be okay.

  Okay? I guess I was, but it seemed weird for him to say it, again like it was some kind of final proclamation. I could agree for the most part, that I was okay, living out some amazing career dreams. The silence stretched while I studied the handsome face I’d memorized long ago. It was a reminder some things were never going to happen. Not all of my dreams will be lived.

  He shook his head before I could even finish my sentence. I wasn’t a dream. I get that now. We were just kids, Ceci. You have to know that.

  What was this about? We had plans, Carlos, remember?

  He shook his head impatiently. We made childish plans. What were you, sixteen? Seventeen?

  They weren’t childish to me! I was counting on them. I worked my ass off to finish school early so we could go to college together. Remember? Get our degrees, get married... We’d talked about places we were going to visit together, things we wanted to do in life. Take time to travel, maybe go to Costa Rica.

  His look turned stubborn. If you want to go to Costa Rica, you should go.

  That was our plan! My irritation was turning to fear. We were going to be all bohemian, remember? You and me. Together. Why in the hell would I want to do that now?

  He took a deep breath, but his eyes never left mine. You were counting on life happening. So was I. We don’t always get what we want.

  I know it. Every day of my life I know it. I live it! My voice was rising, but I couldn’t help it. The horror of that day came back—the screams, the terror, the sobbing, the sound of the ambulance, the helplessness I swore I would never feel again, the blood so thick and warm, tacky, coating my hands, soaking into my jeans in that deep, deep red arterial color, the color of a deep bleed. There was nothing I could do, and all because of a stupid argument... My eyes burned with shame, but I fought back the moisture. Too hard to think about it. That was the worst day of my life. I’ll never forget.

  You aren’t the only one that lost on that day. A surge of anger flared in his dark brown eyes. It faded quickly, but this time I knew I’d seen it.

  What? What was that for?

  What? He looked off toward the mountains with a neutral expression, not making eye contact.

  The look on your face.

  What look?

  Cut it out. You know what I’m talking about. Stop playing dumb. For the first time ever, I felt a crack in the connection I shared with him. There was distance between us, like he was closed off to me. Like he was pulling away.

  He tried giving me a quick smile, but it wasn’t a real one. I knew what his real smiles looked like, each kind he gave. This one didn’t touch his eyes at all. He gave my hand another quick squeeze and let out a sigh. I’m fine. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Yeah, you do. I couldn’t help the sullen tone of my voice. That was a blow-off response if I’d ever heard one.

  I’m here for a reason, remember? I don’t get much time to do what I need to do. I’ve got something to show you.

  I know, I know. It’s always all business now.

  Something was very wrong. There had never been a time when he hadn’t shared what was on his mind. It got my back up and the stubborn child inside of me decided to pout. If he didn’t want to tell me, then I didn’t want to know. He could sit and stew with it. Jerk. Except who knew when I’d see him again?

  Yeah, fine. Show me. We’d turned a corner and hit a more rundown neighborhood. The houses had bars on the windows, grass grew in the cracked sidewalks, and fewer kids were out. A feeling of oppression seemed to cast a dark shadow over this neighborhood. It was enough to make me want to back the hell out and find that nice Spielberg neighborhood again.

  Look. He gestured to the house in front of us. Somehow, it was even worse than the rest on the block. It was a puke green with falling-down shutters on the front window, a broken screen door that yawned crookedly, and grass so overgrown someone could hide a body in it. It was on a corner, slightly separated from the other homes.

  Carlos turned his soulful eyes on me, and I knew it was going to be bad.

  Tell me. I braced myself.

  She lives here. Our little soccer player.

  Irritation with Carlos forgotten, I looked back at the house. No way was that little girl on her way to pizza.

  A woman’s scream split the air. A crash. A man’s voice yelling. Another crash. The sounds of violence erupted so suddenly my heart jump-started. A child’s cry bled through the walls punctuated with, No, no! L
eave her alone! Don’t touch my mommy! No!

  This was a nightmare. I looked to Carlos. What the hell?

  There’s nothing you can do. They can’t see us.

  The hell there isn’t. I sensed the girl’s desperation and felt a rush of panic. I tried to push through the gate, but I couldn’t grasp it. I had no substance. A frustrated growl came from my throat. I couldn’t even kick that damn fence.

  Soon. He caught my arm and held my gaze.

  Sudden intuition made me pause. She’ll be coming in?

  Yes.

  That can only be bad. There was another sound of crashing, and then quiet weeping punctuated by low moans. To stand there and hear the ugliness was painful.

  It’ll be bad, but you’ll take good care of her. The intensity was back on his face. And one day, she’s going to want to be a doctor just like you.

  I accepted that responsibility with joy in my heart. Part of the girls-kick-ass club. Good.

  What was she going to look like when she came in?

  The worry fled as soon as it arrived. Carlos was fading on me, about to become one with the ether. He pulled me in for one more tight hug, and the pain of separation hit me as it always did when the blackness smothered us and pulled us apart.

  Traveling back through the layers of consciousness, I wondered when I would be able to dream him again. The feel of him faded until I was alone, waking up with the early morning gray and a sense of loss that was always a part of me.

  Chapter One

  “My pee smells like buttered popcorn. I. Kid. You. Not.”

  “The nurse will be back with you soon. My suggestion? Less reefer and more studying. Don’t waste your parents’ money.”

  After the gruesome scene of the last twelve hours, it was the best line I’d heard from a patient all night. High as a kite, he’d been a welcome comic relief. Limbs were all intact, and he wasn’t bleeding out on my floor, so other than a bump on the head from a broken sidewalk that jumped out at him while he was trying to get his dingdongs open, he was A-OK. I chuckled, exhaustion making me punchy as I stepped back through the curtain. I’d been up for a good eighteen hours straight and was starving. Food, a nap and coffee. In that order. That was what the doctor ordered—and I was the doctor.

  “Buttered popcorn.” Bree, my friend and invaluable nurse colleague, shook her sassy bob of brown curls and laughed. She’d worked hard to maintain a professional demeanor for the whole exam, having experienced the same entertainment that was Chris Sharpe, nineteen, and a student at the nearby University of Pomona campus. “I’m surprised he didn’t start singing the theme song ‘Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale...’ after giving us a five-point lecture on what was wrong with the show.”

  “I think he was about to.”

  “I almost lost it when he asked if we had donuts.” Bree took the file from me when we reached the nurse’s station.

  “The munchies strike again,” I offered lightly, but I couldn’t help thinking about the long night I’d just had, and a dark cloud drifted overhead.

  It had been pretty bloody. A mental snapshot of the young woman whose husband had been coming home from work on his motorcycle hit me. He hadn’t made it. The haunting look of comprehension in her eyes, more than just knowing her husband had died—knowing the future had suddenly opened itself to her and allowed her to see the emptiness of space by her side, in her bed, on the couch, at the beach, on the trip of a lifetime, the nursery that would remain empty, the basic evacuation of all dreams. The knowledge that she was absolutely alone reflected there. She would be leaving the hospital with the name of a mortuary in her purse. Her eyes were dry, but only because the pain hadn’t had time to catch up with the shock. She’d just stared at me, not speaking, almost accusingly, like we’d played a role in his death.

  I wanted to offer advice, what had worked for me. Stay busy. All the time. Take classes. Do things. Listen to music. Don’t give your mind time to think on it. I couldn’t say those things, because it would have been inappropriate. She and I weren’t friends. All I could do was tell her how sorry we all were, and that we did everything we could to save him. The problem was, he’d come in brain dead. His injury had been fatal from the moment it happened.

  Her eyes would stay with me for a while. Eyes were so articulate. They had trouble lying.

  “I come bearing gifts.” Dr. Kevin Carson joined us at the nurse’s station, his usual smirk in place. He’d worked alongside me from the moment the very first patients arrived from the previous night’s tragedy. Except he now looked rested. The evidence was written all over his face.

  “You got a nap.” It came out sounding like an accusation.

  “Ooooh, you’re busted.” Bree’s playful tone drifted on the air as she moved on with her usual whirlwind efficiency to her next task.

  His eyes rounded innocently, his tone placating, he said, “I did, but before you say anything else, I have something for you.”

  “Explain.”

  “Food.”

  “Okay. You get points for that.”

  Movie-star handsome with overly long blond hair and a natural tan, he looked like he belonged to a country club where people were named Biff and Buffy. He was from that kind of family, not that he talked about any of them, and while he was many other things, I could definitely say he wasn’t a snob. He was down-to-earth and funny as hell. Women were always throwing themselves at him. He referred to them as nothing more than a fun time, which seemingly gave him further ammunition against the world at large. Catch-22. Bottom line, and most importantly, he was an amazing doctor, even if he was a bit arrogant.

  I noticed the clear plastic takeout container at the same time the smell wafted up to me. Ambrosia. He pushed it across the counter to me, and I didn’t hesitate. Burger and fries. I cracked the container open and snatched up a fry. Heavenly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “Someone’s got to take care of you.”

  “You’re not hitting on me, are you?” I asked suspiciously.

  That startled a laugh out of him. “No. I learned that lesson.”

  There’d been a time Kevin had shown interest, not that I took that personally. He liked women, period. He also knew I wasn’t interested in that way, which was a shame because it would make my life so much easier if we could get together. He had a great athletic build because he worked out during his free time, and we had a lot in common, including our demanding schedules. He was hot, clever and funny. No connection between us, though. Zilch. He was a really good friend, a buddy in the trenches. Nothing more.

  I just couldn’t seem to feel strongly about any man. Of course, I loved dressing up and going out with Bree for a girls’ night every now and then. I enjoyed the game of flirtation, got a hit off the way men’s eyes would follow me when I was in a room, but when it came to taking the next step, going from just dating to an actual relationship, my body went cold. No one felt...right. Not since Carlos.

  “I hear you’re taking a couple of weeks off. What are your plans?”

  We fell into our comfortable repartee. “I decided to go down to Ecuador.”

  His smirk turned into a scowl. “Ecuador? What the hell is there to do in Ecuador?”

  Picking at another fry gave me a moment to consider how much to share. I’d always given shelter to this idea, wrapping protective layering around it, so to say this aloud felt strange. Oh well. Down the hatch. If I couldn’t talk about it, how was I ever going to do it?

  “Actually, it’s always been a dream of mine to set up a clinic somewhere it could really make a difference.” The restlessness was hitting me again. I needed something new, a challenge to keep my brain happy and thoroughly occupied. Over the years, I’d become quite proficient at kickboxing and Brazilian jujitsu, rock climbing and Latin dance. But those had all been superficial k
inds of challenges, offering little real change. What my brain seemed to be demanding was bigger, and since I didn’t know what else I could conquer in my current neighborhood, I’d decided to look farther out. I wanted to take some time to research possibilities. Kevin was the first person I’d told.

  He seemed slightly pissed off. “First Sandburg, now you.”

  “Sandburg?” The name was familiar. I rifled through my mental files for a face to go with it.

  “He up and walked out about two years ago, remember? Maybe you were too new to remember him. It might have been around when you first started.”

  “I remember now. You guys were good friends. You both look like Ken dolls.”

  Kevin gave me an arch look and moved on without comment. “There comes a times when you need to take your foot off the accelerator and park the damn car, Ceci.”

  “I could say the same about you.” Like he had moral high ground.

  “How?”

  “Mr. Romeo.”

  “Don’t be a hater.” He said this without heat, and actually looked a little sad.

  “What?”

  “I think you’re the first woman...” He paused and shook his head. “You’re the first person I’ve really considered a true friend. You’re my no-bullshit friend. I count on that. This is a buzzkill.”

  Wow. That was kind of sweet. It didn’t change anything. “Maybe you need to do some stretching, too. I challenge you to find a woman who is not your usual dessert cake. Find your meat-and-potatoes kind of woman.”

  “Yeah, you make that sound so sexy. I’ll get right on that.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I saw it was a text from my cousin Henry.

  Do not wear scrubs. It starts at seven. Did you remember to bring clothes? When are you off? Do not punk out on me! I will come and get you. Tell me when.

  “Oh, damn. I’ve got this family thing to go to tonight. I completely forgot. My parent’s thirtieth anniversary party.” I felt a boost of excitement about seeing my family at the same time as the groan rose from my throat. With my busy schedule, I missed too many birthdays and holidays, but it had already been such a long day...