“THAT WAS AN excellent session, Giuliana. Are you pleased with your progress?”
Luca took a seat beside the girl as she wheeled her chair into the shade of the pergola after Dr. Torino had headed back to the gym.
“Si.” Her eyes glistened with pride. “All the therapists and doctors here have been amazing. I can’t believe how quickly I’ve gained in strength. Don’t let Fran go back to America.”
The smile dropped from his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t have much control over that.”
“I’m sure if you asked her...”
Luca tsk-tsked and shook his head. “We’re not talking about Fran right now—we’re talking about you and your progress.”
He didn’t want Fran to go. But he was hardly going to beg her to stay on a sinking ship.
“Dai. Facci vedere i muscoli.”
Despite his grim mood, Luca smiled as Giuliana pushed back her T-shirt and flexed her slender bicep.
He gave it an appreciative squeeze. “Va bene, Giuliana. You’ll be winning arm wrestling matches soon.”
This was the fun part. The satisfying part of being a doctor. Happy patients. Positive results.
“You’re not finding the full days of rehab too tiring?”
Giuliana gave the exasperated sigh of a teenager. “No more than I’m supposed to!”
“Excellent. You’re a star patient.”
Giuliana giggled, waving away his praise. “That’s not hard when there’s only five of us. Besides—” she fixed Luca with a narrow-eyed gaze “—I have it on good authority you say that to everyone.”
“Guilty.” Luca shot her an apologetic grin. “You’re all making me—the clinic—look really good.”
“Ciao, Pia!”
Luca turned in the direction Giuliana was waving—something she hadn’t been able to do when she’d arrived here—the smile dropping from his lips again when he saw Fran corralling his niece and her dogs into the large courtyard. Giuliana called out a greeting again, and Pia quickly changed course toward them.
Fran’s eyes caught his but she didn’t cross over. Not that he blamed her.
“Scusi, Dr. Montovano, Pia is going to show me some things with the dogs.”
“No problem.” Luca grinned—not that Giuliana was hanging around to see if he wanted her to stay.
“Dr. Montovano?” His administrative assistant appeared by his side with a note in her hand.
“Si, Rosa?”
“We’ve got a patient who would like to be transferred here. His parents, actually. They say their son has lost hope.”
“We don’t have room,” he said by rote, giving his head a shake, though his mind was already spinning with ways to make it possible. It wasn’t the money—though that would help. It was the hope part. When a patient had lost hope...
“They’re asking for intensive. Maybe a month.”
We may not have a month.
“Perhaps if he came for a day. A chance to see the other patients so he doesn’t feel so alone,” Rosa persisted.
“What’s his case history?”
He shouldn’t ask. Knowing more about the patient would make him want to help.
A shard of frustration tugged his brows together. His gut was telling him to say yes. The staff had already made it clear they would be fine working with more patients. It was simply a question of finding the room. He and Pia could move out of their house, but after so much disruption he hated to move her again.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Fran approaching the pergola as the girls and the dogs disappeared, leaving gales of laughter in their wake. Fran’s cottage was wheelchair friendly. Close enough to the clinic’s hub to access all the facilities easily.
“It’s just the three of them, you say?”
“Three of who?” Fran asked.
“A new patient and his parents,” Rosa jumped in.
“No. Not a new patient. I’m afraid it won’t work,” Luca interjected. “There’s nowhere for him to stay.”
“How about my cottage?”
Fran looked between the two of them, as if they were both ridiculous for not thinking of it in the first place.
“You would give up your cottage?” Rosa’s eyes lit with relief.
“Of course I would. Anything! I’d leave right now if that helped.”
“And abandon Pia?” Luca shook his head. “Leave her with the job half-done—not to mention the other patients you’ve taken on—before your contract is up?”
Fran’s eyes shot to his, striking him like a viper. Neither of them was talking about Pia and he knew it.
“I’m hardly abandoning anything. I only have a few days left anyway.”
Of course she would leave. What had he thought would happen after last night? Had he really thought ripping his heart open and letting his whole sorry story pour out would keep her here? No. Quite the opposite. He hadn’t thought at all. He most likely repulsed her now.
“I would never let my patients down,” Fran shot back before he could get a word in. “I’m talking about the cottage. I can stay anywhere. The patients can’t.”
He waited for her to state the obvious. That he needed the money. He needed her.
“Rosa.” He forced himself to speak calmly. “Would you please give us a moment to discuss Miss Martinelli’s housing arrangements?”
“Of course, Dr. Montovano.”
If he wasn’t mistaken, Rosa gave the tiniest hint of a smile before she reluctantly headed back to the office. Italians loved a passionate fight, and from the speed of the blood coursing through his veins this was set to be explosive.
“So, what’s your big plan? To camp out on one of the sun loungers? Or are you going to whip one of the cottages into shape with one of your feel-good projects?”
Luca knew he was being unreasonable. Knew there was bite in his bark.
“I’ll stay in town. Commute in like the other doctors. Besides, with my father coming—”
“What?”
“My father. You know he’s coming.”
Luca shook his head. He remembered her mentioning something about a visit, but it hadn’t really registered. He couldn’t believe Fran would humiliate him like this. Show a half-finished clinic to a man renowned for his exacting attention to detail. A man who with a few swift strokes of his keyboard could save the clinic from oblivion. Fran’s father was the last person on earth he wanted crossing the entryway to Mont di Mare.
“Why would you do that? Why would you invite him here?”
Fran took a step away from Luca, as if the question had physically repelled her.
“He’s my father. He wants to see the clinic. Meet the people I’ve been talking about all summer. You of all people should know how important family is.”
* * *
Luca looked at her as if she’d slapped him. Her remorse was instant, but it was too late to make apologies. The warmth she had once seen in Luca’s eyes turned into inaccessible black, his pupils meshing with his irises as if there would never be enough light for him to see any good in the world. Any hope.
His lip curled in disgust, as if by inviting her father here she had betrayed him. “What’s the point in bringing him here if all you’re going to do is leave? Showing Daddy what a good little girl he’s raised?”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, I do, chiara.” He closed the gap between them with one long-legged stride. “Has this been fun for you? Playing at a mountainside clinic while the rest of us are struggling to survive?”
Fran opened her mouth to answer, then thought better of it. Her heart ached for Luca. Ached to tell him everything—but not in the state he was in now. Unbending. Proud. Hurt. There was hurt coursing around that bloodstream of his—she knew it—but it didn’t change the facts. She loved him, but if inviting her father here meant losing Luca but saving the clinic, then so be it. Her father was coming whether Luca liked it or not.
“Tell the new patient to come.” She forced her voice to sound steady.
“For how long, Francesca? Where’s your crystal ball? A day? A week? How many days do you foresee here before I have to tell this miserable wheelchair-bound boy and everyone else here that they will all have to go?”
“Whatever you feel is best. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a patient appointment to keep.”
Fran forced herself to turn away and walk calmly toward the clinic, trying her very best not to let Luca see that her knees were about to give way beneath her.
She knew anger and fear were fueling Luca’s hateful comments. Of course she wanted the clinic to flourish. She wanted everything in the world for him. She wanted him!
Couldn’t he see it in her eyes? In her heart?
Leaving wasn’t the plan. Staying was the plan. The dream.
But her father was a facts man. He needed to see things for himself. Touch the stone. Scour the books. Observe the work. He’d never invest in a dream he didn’t think could become a reality. And for the first time since she’d rung her father and asked him to jump on a plane as soon as possible, she felt a tremor of fear begin to shake inside her, forcing her to ask herself the same question again and again.
What have I done?