The morning was unusually cold. Somewhere in the wee hours a storm system moved in over the ocean. Heavy clouds billowed over the waves, giving the ocean a grey look that was at once wild and unpredictable. There was a brittleness to the morning, like a sheet of ice easily shattered. Brant shuddered, half convinced that he’d fallen through into the dark waters underneath.

He got up and closed the door to the balcony, receiving a face full of ice-cold spray and mist for his troubles. Tendrils of fog tried to follow him back into the room. He looked down at the bed he’d just left. She was under all the covers in a fetal position, warm and cozy. He wanted nothing more than to join her, wrap his body around her again. Sleep until tomorrow.

Instead, he scratched and fumbled his way into the bathroom. The man looking back at him from the mirror looked like he’d been through the mill and back. He almost felt sorry for the poor sap.

Still, last night made everything worth it. Mel had been… strange lately, unpredictable and edgy. The why was obvious, as she’d said it over and over and over: she wasn’t happy in his world. He flushed, washed his hands, and looked at the time. 8:00. Check out was noon. If he left an hour to shower… he could have two to sleep and get warm next to a beautiful naked woman. It wasn’t a hard decision to make.

He smiled and slipped back into the bed, digging under the blankets and reaching for her. She protested in her sleep, but he managed to curl up beside her. He could feel her heartbeat. Under his palm, her chest rose and fell with each breath

In the jungles of Belize, she’d captivated him. He’d never known anyone like her. Was it any wonder that he’d fallen for her hard, and in short order?

But she’d been different in his world. Where was the confident, funny woman he’d dreamed about every night since he’d come home? Granted, when she’d come to L.A., Maria had been with her. It was hard to get away, hard to have time for themselves, especially when that horror of a CEO Kenneth aimed the press at them. He thought that once Maria was safely home, and the press was on to other fresh meat, they would be the same people they were in the jungle, but Mel was… changeable. One moment she was loving and passionate and playful, the next moment she was in tears and explaining why his life made her miserable.

That was fine. He’d fix that, too. He would do anything for her, but some things took time. If she wanted to live in Antarctica and be a doctor to penguins, he’d buy parkas and a space heater. He’d even face spiders the size of dinner plates—she’d been kidding, right?—if that’s where she wanted to be.

He sighed. It had been a long time since he’d seen a patient. The desire to get back into work that felt worthwhile was as strong to him as it was to her. He understood that ache. He knew she needed to work as much as he did. He was still puzzling through that particular problem. Regardless of what she thought he wanted, he didn’t like his mother’s social circle any more than she did. But he did see the value in it.

Then, last night, for the first time in a long time, that old spark was there. The burning need to be with her, to be in her was echoed in her touch and in her desperation for him. It felt like coming home. It was over, whatever it was, and Brant prayed it meant they could get on with things.

The only thing he was sure of, completely sure of, was that he wanted to marry this woman. He wanted to wake up beside her every morning, her body pressed against his, her breath on his chest, his arm under her head.

So, there’s a transition period. She needs time to adapt. I needed time to get used to the jungle.

He smiled and stretched his arm over her sleeping form, drawing her close. He buried his face in her hair, smelling the faint aroma of the flowery shampoo she used. The sun tried to slip in past the blackout curtains. He faintly heard the roar of the surf outside. He pulled the covers up over his head and wrapped himself around her.

It felt right. Natural. Like the worst was over and he had her back at long last. This was the best thing that they could have done, running away for a night, just the two of them. It was something they needed and now… now it all made sense again. He touched his lips to her shoulder.

She stiffened under his touch.

“Awake?” he whispered in case she wasn’t.

“Yep.”

“We have a couple more hours.” His fingers tangled in her hair, brushing the strands out of her eyes. “You can sleep in.”

“All right.”

She didn’t unclench. Her body stayed stiff, curled in a tight little ball. She might as well have posted a sign that said, ‘don’t touch.’ Brant sighed and let her go, rolling on to his back. So much for being back. He stared a long time at the ceiling, wondering just where he was going wrong. He was almost asleep when she rolled over, laying her head on his chest and draping a leg over his waist.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She lay curled up next to him, but her eyes remained open.

When Brant was a boy, he’d spent time on some of his mother’s sets. On one movie Bride of the Gun, there was a trained dog who was taught to sit perfectly still, balancing a book on its head. The dog’s eyes were haunted, like he wasn’t sure why he was supposed to stay still, or if he was in trouble or not, but too afraid to disobey.

It was the same look.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, trying to look at her from an awkward angle.

“I didn’t sleep much,” she said, her hand playing lightly over the hair on his chest.

“How come?”

“Wasn’t tired.”

Oh.

“Well, we have a couple of hours; try to get some more rest. For that matter, I can see if we can get the room another night.”

“No,” Mel said flatly. “We don’t have a change of clothing or toiletries other than those little samples they have. And your mother and mine have had enough time to conspire against us… me.”

Brant nodded. He brought his hand up, the one attached to the shoulder she was pinning to the bed. He stroked her back, but he didn’t miss the way she twitched away from him as he touched her.

He blinked. What the hell did I do? Here he had advanced degrees, had even taken courses in communication and psychology as part of his studies. And he couldn’t figure Mel out for the life of him. I thought we had this. He sighed and finally went with the last recourse. Asking. “What?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re upset.”

“I’m tired,” she corrected, rather tersely it seemed. “That’s all.”

Brant stroked her back despite the awkwardness. She closed her eyes and lay still, and eventually he drifted slowly back to sleep, warmed by her body heat and the thought that whatever it was, they’d work through it when they were more awake.

As it turned out, she was the one who woke him.

“Brant. It’s 10:30. If you want to shower, you need to get up.”

He tore his eyelids apart against the sleep that welded them shut. It took a minute to register what he was seeing. She was dressed. Her hair was still wet.

“You showered?”

She nodded.

Brant waited for her to say something more, but she only pointed at the clock and turned away, rubbing at her wet head with a towel.

I shouldn’t have gone back to bed. The man in the mirror didn’t look any better for the extra hour or so of sleep. He looked a bit worse, in fact.

Brant showered and dressed, wishing he had a razor to shave with, and spent the time going over every day since Mel had arrived with Maria trying to pinpoint the one where the woman he’d met in Belize had been replaced with this one.

He came up empty.

All he could do was give her space.

There were no bags to pack, as they’d brought nothing but the clothing on their backs, but she still needed to visually sweep the room twice before they left. He stood by the door and waited, humoring her, and trying hard to look like he wasn’t. Heaven only knew what kind of argument that would start.

“There’s a free breakfast that comes with the room,” he suggested finally, with a glance at his watch. He had no idea if they were still even offering it. “I could use some coffee and juice before the drive home. I used a lot of energy last night.” The last he said with a hint of a smile, inviting her to play. To be again the woman he’d taken to bed only a few short hours before.

Mel only nodded.

The ‘breakfast’ consisted of small pre-packaged Danishes, tiny single-serving cereal boxes, and milk. No eggs or bacon or waffles in sight. All the good stuff had been cleared away ages ago. But at least the coffee was hot, and even a brand that he liked.

Brant tore into a box of Coco Puffs, eyeing Mel as she sipped a cup of coffee. She stared out the window, as though waiting for someone.

When she spoke, her voice seemed to be coming from somewhere very far away. “Brant,” she said quietly, “Who’s Lisa?”

Brant looked up from the cereal just as Mel’s phone rang. With a sound born of frustration and anger, she pulled it out and looked at the number.

The blood drained from her face.

 

* * *  

 

“They’re closing the clinic.”

She barely got the words out. Maybe she hadn’t. Who knew? Her mouth had gone dry. Her hands shook as she set the phone done with infinite care on the linen tablecloth. She stared out at the waves beating relentlessly on the shore below the veranda where they sat.

It’s been a long time coming. What did you expect? With Doctors International having been discredited and donations drying up, it had to happen sometime. But to hear Carmen actually state the death of her… of the clinic was almost too much to wrap her head around.

Carmen had called in desperation. If Mel hadn’t worked with her for so many years, she could’ve easily mistaken Carmen for a newsreader for all the emotion she added. Yet, it was emotional. More like pure panic, which was the only reason Carman had called.

Mel was suddenly a thousand miles away in Belize.

It didn’t escape her attention that, despite having been replaced and out of the country for weeks, and the reason that Doctors International no longer existed, it was her they called for help. She wished she could give them some.

DI had given them unofficial warning. Carmen had some friends who could help, so they would be funded until the end of the month.

“I’m so sorry, Carmen.” Mel didn’t know what else to say.

“Doctor,” Carmen chided, “you realize that this isn’t your problem anymore, right.”

“Then why did you call me?”

There was no answer to that, and Mel sighed. Really? Carmen was silenced? Carmen?

“I’ll keep in touch, Carmen. I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll try to think of something.” She barely heard Carmen say goodbye.

She had no idea what Brant saw in her expression, but she couldn’t have been feeling that much raw fear and despair without it showing in her eyes. Her focus was on the phone, on the handful of words that Carmen had spoken, and just like that knocked the supports out from under her. He was saying something to her, his mouth moving, but the words made no sense. When he rose and held out his hand, she took it automatically, leaving breakfast half-eaten, leaving behind wild abandonment and questions and a world that seemed intent on crumbling around her no matter what she did next.

Mel could never say with any degree of certainty how they got out of the hotel. She had a vague sense of being led, giving a mumbled “thank you” to someone in a hotel shirt who approached with worry and concern etched on his face, drawn by the despair she glimpsed on her own in the mirror behind the registration desk.

Her phone felt hot in her hand. She clutched it to her, the only connection to the tiny hospital thousands of miles away in Belize.

Her clinic.

I don’t even have the right to say that anymore. It’s not “mine” any more than that mountain over there. But this was an old argument she’d held for years since she’d first opened the doors of the building she’d fought for, that she’d built with her own hands. It was hers, and would always be.

They drove fast down the coast, wind whipping her hair into her face in a stinging caress that brought tears to her eyes. At least that’s what she pretended they were from. Gradually she came to herself, and found buried beneath the grief a certain anger.

“Brant, stop.”

They were somewhere between Santa Barbara and home. Brant shot her a look and eased over, taking the next exit, pulling into a parking lot on a side street between colossal mansions with wedge views of ocean between them.

“Welcome back,” he said as he put the car in park and turned to face her, one hand reaching to cup her cheek. “Ready to talk about it?”

His fingers were warm against her cheek. She leaned into the caress, closing her eyes, and for the barest of moments could forget strange texts from women named Lisa and bankrupt clinics.

Then the phone vibrated in her hand, another text from too far away, and she was brought back to herself. “We need to do something…”

Half-turning in the seat to face him, she began to talk, using her hands to gesture wildly sometimes as she vented her anger and frustration. He let her talk, asking questions, pulling her back to reality when she floundered in the territory of self-blame and recriminations. At one point he grabbed her phone from her and called Carmen himself and pledged a month’s expenses. It was a tidy sum, even for someone that wealthy. Mel shrieked at that, objecting that it was too much, but he waved her off, and made a second call from his own phone to someone named Bill who had the money in motion before Mel finished reassuring Carmen that, yes, Brent did mean it and, yes, the money was on the way.

When she stared at him, eyes wide, trying to understand, he only smiled and raised her hand to his lips, planting a gentle kiss on her palm. “You’re mine,” he said with a shrug. “That means that clinic is mine, too. Of course I’ll help support it.”

Mel’s world wasn’t one where people gave so freely, without strings, and she was lost with no idea what to say to him. With all the strangeness of the past few days, the distance between them seemed so foolish and inconsequential. She had to force the words around a hard lump in her throat as she reassured Carmen for the fifth time in as many minutes that, yes, the clinic was indeed funded another month.

Maybe the vast fortunes of Hollywood’s royal family could keep them afloat, but as she hung up she thought guiltily about all the other sorely needed facilities that Doctors International had planted along the globe. Some, she had to admit, were really more desperately needed than hers. No one family could support DI. That was too heavy a burden, even for this much wealth.

She tried to voice her concern to Brant, tried to make sense of all of this without sounding like she was ungrateful for all he’d done, but found herself tripping over her own tongue. Brant simply put the car in gear, winding through residential streets until they escaped out of whatever coastal suburb they were in and found a road that disappeared between trees and sandy stretches that seemed better suited to dune buggies. He parked a ways up what suspiciously looked like a long driveway.

Mel watched as he walked around the car and opened her door, offering his hand.

“There’s a private spot near here I know about,” he said cryptically.

“Private?” she questioned dubiously. There had been several cars, RVs, buses, motorcycles, and even horse trailers parked on the road behind them. It might not be a smooth road, but it was definitely a busy one.

He didn’t answer, only led her to a path she barely saw between the long grasses that waved in the wind. Mel caught her breath as they came out on the top of a cliff, overlooking the beach below.

The sound of the surf was loud in her ears as helped her down a path that turned out to be more manicured than she’d expected, down to the steps carved out of the rock face itself. When she looked out at the water, she saw surfers in the distance. But the path they followed came out on a stretch of deserted sand. When she looked up, she caught glimpses of a house above them, sunlight reflecting off the windows.

“Brant, we can’t.” Mel was looking at a fence that ran from the cliff face to the waves and signs that marked everything past that point as PRIVATE PROPERTY. Including several dire warnings of consequences to those foolish enough to journey past the warnings, it was a formidable fortress of fence and threats.

Brant climbed over it. “I told you, it’s a private stretch of beach.”

“No, Brant, it’s a stretch of private beach! There’s a difference!”

Brant faced her from the other side of the fence. The wrong side. He kissed her, arms coming around her, pulling her close despite the barrier.

Then Mel was suddenly airborne, landing in his arms as he carried her over the fence. Despite her protestations, her fears about being shot for trespassing, a small voice marveled that a man who spent his life inside practicing medicine would be that strong.

She was plopped unceremoniously onto her feet and he took her hand again and kept walking.

“We’re breaking the law, Brant.”

Brant took off his shoes and walked closer to the water. Mel reached for the boots she favored and pulled them off with the socks. The water was cool and soothing and the cuffs of her pantlegs were soon soaked through. “I was at a party here once,” he said with a shrug, and offered her his hand.

He pulled her out past where the surf had played with her toes. With complete disregard to her jeans, which were now soaked to the knee, she bent to pick up a seashell, marveling at the perfection of it, feeling some of the weight of the day slipping from her shoulders.

He twined his fingers through hers and led her back to the sand finally, inviting her to sit. She lay back, her head on his shoulder as he asked her about the clinic, prodding her when her words faltered, letting her talk, letting her cry.

Eventually his questions became more detailed. He wanted to know about the early days of the clinic, about the financing while she was there, expenses, how many people came and went through the doors, all of it. She began with the memories of breaking ground, of fighting back the jungle with nothing but sweat, a machete, and several bulldozers.

He laughed at her description of the contractors and the “government regulations” they made up on the fly, each one costing more and more money. He listened intently to the descriptions of the waste storage and incinerator, the septic tank, and the attempts by some misguided fool to put down paneling in the operating room.

“Brant…where is all this going?” she asked finally, raising up on her elbow to look at him.

“You asked me about Lisa…” Brant began quietly.

Mel’s stomach clenched. “Do I want to hear this?”

Brant sat up and rested his elbows on his knees, looking at her uncertainly. “Lisa is… a… uh… she’s a gift. To you.”

“You bought me Lisa?” Mel paused. Stared blankly. “I don’t need a hooker. Especially a female.”

Brant laughed and then settled down with a smile. “Lisa was very highly recommended by a friend of mine. She’s a great manager and organizer. I wanted to save this for a wedding present, but under the circumstances I think I need to give her to you now.”

“Brant? What are you talking about? Manager for what? I’m currently unemployed. I have all the time in the world to manage myself.”

“She’s not managing you, she’s managing your foundation.”

Mel watched him for a long time, trying to process and coming up blank. “My what?”

“Foundation. Like Doctors International but without the embezzlement and graft.”

“A… a what?”

“Foundation.”

That’s what she’d thought he’d said. “Brant, you don’t give someone a foundation! I don’t even think you create foundations, they just… are! You… are you telling me that you’ve been running off to create a replacement for DI? You’re serious? What the hell! Wait… YOU ARE SERIOUS!” Mel scrambled to her feet. Paced in a circle and then turned to stare at him, her mouth opening and closing but nothing coming out.

“Surprised?” Brant stood and held out his hands. It looked like the time her dog brought a dead rat to her doorstep and didn’t receive the hero’s welcome he so obviously was expecting.

Mel crossed her arms across her chest, suddenly cold in the wind that blew off the waves. She took a step backwards. “How… how… how…”

“It’s a wedding gift,” he said, his words faltering, expression going from pleased to wary.

“I was going to get you golf clubs!” Mel stomped the sand under her feet and sprayed them both. “And that was going to take everything I had! A FOUNDATION?! Who does that?”

“Listen, it’s in the works. Getting donations isn’t the only thing a foundation does. There are investments and securities and all kinds of things I don’t understand. I was never good with the business side of things. But I already have people anxious to join in, not just giving money, but time and skills and…” Brant’s uncertainty was melting away, becoming defensive.

Retreating.

I’m hurting him.

But was it really her fault? Okay, maybe her tone was less than thankful. No more expected than hysterical screaming was the reaction the dog had hoped for with the gift of rat. But a foundation?

“Mel, this solves not only the problem of your clinic but all of them. We’re in a position already that when we throw open the doors we can even start a few new clinics in other countries. Think about it. Doors are opening for us that DI could never get to.”

“BRANT!” Mel said, stalling until she could find a way to explain it to him. She couldn’t. “You should have discussed this with me. This is a lifetime commitment, this is long-term deal, we need to… to… I don’t know, be ready. We can’t just decide one day, ‘Hey, let’s have a foundation’ and pick it up like a bottle of wine. This needs to be… carefully thought out.”

“It is. By people who know what they’re doing. Your degree is in medicine, so’s mine. You’re used to dealing with money as a constraint. I’m not used to dealing with it at all. If we wait until we’re comfortable with throwing millions of dollars around the world, we’ll never get started. By then, your clinic and all the others will have gone back to the jungle.”

“Brant...” Mel took another step backwards, stumbling over her boots still lying on the sand. “You should’ve asked for my opinion on this. It’s too big a step. What…” she placed her palms out in a gesture that pleaded with him to understand. “This is huge.” She stared lamely at her hands. “What am I ever going to be able to get for you? Ever?” She grabbed her boots and turned to go. “We’re trespassing. We need to go,” she said and walked back the way they’d come.