Stranded in Paradise (7 page)

What idiot was knocking on the door?

Carter rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes, trying to remember where he was. The antihistamines he'd taken had his thinking process on the blink. The mix-up at Pioneer Inn, thinking he had a room only to discover that his reservation had been eaten by the computer and he couldn't get a room until tomorrow night, then the frantic search for another room, and being reduced to a stay in the Mynah Nest, was enough to throw him off balance. He'd wanted to get settled, start the relaxing process. It would be another day before he could get in to the Pioneer Inn.

The persistent knock rattled him.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so dragged out. Now some nincompoop was trying to beat down the door.

Annoyed, he rolled out of bed as whoever it was pounded on the door again. He stumbled, bumping his knee on the desk, and finally reached the door, but not before his big toe found a straight pin some former guest had dropped on the carpeted floor.

Pain shot up his calf and he sucked in a breath as he dropped to his knees to extract the blasted harpoon. The slight trickle of blood when he pulled the pin free made him sick to his stomach. He was a lily-livered coward when it came to the sight of blood, especially his own.

Another brisk knock on the door brought him back to his feet.

“Okay! Okay! I'm coming!” Hopping on one foot, he slid the security chain free and cracked the door a fraction.

Oh, great. The wren. What was
she
doing here? And in a bathrobe? He averted his gaze to the floor.

“Mr. McConnell? I'm sorry to bother you but—”

Carter opened the door wider and Tess stepped back, clearly startled. They stared at each other. Finally Carter prompted. “How did you find me here? Are you following me?”

She stood speechless. Her lips moved but no sound came out. “You're Carter McConnell?” He nodded his head.

“How dare you!” she sputtered. “I am not the kind of person who follows total strangers! Besides, you were staying at the Pioneer Inn.”

He leaned on the doorsill, still fighting sleep. “I
thought
I was staying at the Pioneer Inn. Some mix-up with the reservations—computer glitch. I move to the Pioneer tomorrow night.” He yawned, running his hand through his tousled hair. “So, what do you want if you're not stalking me?”

“The airline delivered your bags to my room by mistake
—
I thought you'd want to have them right away. Of course, I wouldn't have disturbed you had I known . . .”

He glanced from the towel on her head down to her bare feet. Her left ankle and foot looked like an over-inflated water balloon.
“
That's looking worse.” He pointed at her foot. “What was your name?”

“Tess Nelson,” she spurted. “And I'll thank you to mind your own business.” She turned and marched toward her room. Carter tugged his luggage into his room and then dropped across the bed and fell asleep before he could think another thought.

4

“Looks like that storm is intensifying, Erin,” the radio announcer began. Tess lifted her head to see what time it was—7:12. “The meteorologists are picking out names as this baby grows, with sustained winds up to fifty miles per hour. We're on standby here in Maui but who knows if she'll change directions.”

She turned off the alarm. So much for sleeping in today. If she were home she'd already be on her snack break. She stuffed the thought aside. She was on vacation. She was going to enjoy.

As she stepped out of bed the pain in her foot surged. She needed to find a doctor and see about getting a contact lens, but not before she got ahold of Beeg.

Picking up her cell phone and address book she called Beeg's home number again. The answering machine picked up. When it beeped, Tess said, “Hey, Beeg, I'm here in Maui but I seem to keep missing you. Call me on my cell phone . . .” She hung up and stared at her phone. Where could Beeg be? It wasn't as if she didn't expect her to come.

Padding to the bathroom, she brushed her teeth and then took out a brush and started in on her hair. A big clump of hair dropped into the sink. She looked at it in disgust. She'd have to wear a hat today, definitely.

“This is not my idea of the perfect vacation.” Tess exited the hotel in search of an eye and foot doctor. She'd decided to stop back at the airport to rent a car too, since she hadn't gotten ahold of Beeg and taking taxis everywhere was getting quite costly.

Once that was taken care of it was time to attend to her injuries. Her ankle now looked like a bloated corpse, and the sprain needed a doctor's attention.

Thirty minutes later she was sitting in a clinic, fanning herself with a coverless issue of
People
magazine— recently and thoroughly mangled by the four-year-old sitting next to her.

A nurse appeared through an outer door. “Ms. Nelson?”

“Me.” Tess laid the magazine aside and stood up and hobbled to follow the white uniform. Upon entering examining room 4, she was sat on a narrow table with a long strip of white paper where the nurse efficiently recorded her blood pressure and temperature. Stripping the sphygmomanometer off, she then scribbled notes before positioning a clipboard on her trim stomach. “What can we do for you today?”

“I sprained my ankle running to catch a plane. It's very painful.”

She nodded. “Visiting Hawaii?”

“Yes.”

She clipped the pencil on the board. “Doctor will be in shortly.” The door closed behind her, and Tess drew a deep breath, holding her foot out in front of her to reassess the damage. The ankle was blue and distorted— could she have chipped the bone? The prospect added another unwelcome angst to her growing list.

Thirty minutes later the doctor appeared. Tess sat up quickly: she'd finally given in to the uncomfortable table and laid back. Absently smoothing her hair, she smiled at the gray-haired physician with a noticeable paunch.

He peered at the chart in his hand. “Having ankle problems?”

“I sprained it while I was running to catch a plane. It's been throbbing for hours.”

“Hummm.” Setting the chart aside, he took her bare foot and examined it.

“Yes . . . hummm. There's considerable swelling and bruising.”

“I've taken Advil and used ice packs but nothing helps.” She waited, heart pumping erratically. What if it was broken and she had to endure a hot cast—which would undoubtedly mean crutches. . . . Her heart banged against her rib cage.

“Humm. . . .” He bent closer and carefully manipulated the smarting appendage. Tess gritted her teeth and closed her eyes.

“Hurt?”

Pain! Searing agony, you masochist!

She grinned. “A little.”

“Hummm.” Straightening, his eyes focused on a mole on her left arm. Narrowing in on the site, he examined the barely distinguishable discoloration. “How long have you had this?”

The heart again. Thumping wildly, crowding the back of her throat. “All my life—I think.” She tried to remember— she'd had the mole all her life, hadn't she? The blemish looked vaguely familiar—but maybe it had come up lately. She felt faint.

“Does it look strange?
Dangerous?”
She turned to peer at the now definitely suspicious looking
thing
on her left forearm
.

“Hummm.” He pulled a light over to the table, switched it on, then reached for a magnifying glass. Wide-eyed, she studied his grave demeanor, ankle forgotten. Drawing the light nearer, he scoured the object for what seemed an inordinately long time.

“What?” she asked faintly.

“Hummm. . . .” The magnifying glass moved back and forth—an inch here, half inch there. . . .

Sweat broke out on her forehead.

Straightening, he snapped off the light and pushed the stand back. “I'm going to write you a prescription for pain and something to relax those muscles. Before you leave I'd like to take an x-ray of that foot, but I believe we're dealing with a simple sprain.”

Nodding mutely, she tried to fathom how pain and muscle relaxants could relate to a suspicious looking mole? Dear God—she'd
never
noticed. Len had thrown her into such a tailspin, and she'd been so busy with work. . . . Had she overlooked something? Melanoma. She'd read article after article about the dreaded skin condition. She lifted her forearm and stared.

The doctor wrote on the pad. Her mind faintly registered the scrape of ball point against paper. She'd have to fly home immediately—consult her doctor, who would then refer her to a specialist. How good were Denver oncologists? Her hands trembled. She would fly to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota—she'd have the best of care there—maybe even extend her life a few more years. . . . Her heart sank. There was so much yet to do—so many things she'd wanted to experience. Motherhood. She wanted to spend a summer in Ireland, take an Alaskan cruise.

“I'll wrap the ankle—should give you some relief,” the doctor was saying. He tore the prescription off the pad. “You call the office tomorrow and my nurse will give you the results of the x-ray. Meanwhile,” he smiled, “enjoy our beautiful island.”

She nodded, numb now. “The . . . mole. Should I see . . .?”

“The mole?” He flapped the air. “Perfectly normal. You've probably had it all your life.” He turned and walked out, closing the door behind him.

Weakly lowering herself flat on her back, she stared at the ceiling, trying to still her racing heart.

An hour later and two blocks away, Tess walked through the door of an optical service whose flashing red sign promised, “ready in one hour.”
Now to get rid of these glasses.

For the next hour and a half, she read magazines and filed her nails. One whole morning in paradise shot on medical emergencies plus the visits cost twice what she'd have paid on the Mainland.

“Ms. Nelson?”

Tess tossed the magazine aside and for the second time that morning hobbled into a small cubicle—this one filled with strange looking apparatus for a preliminary exam. She read numbers, pointed right and left, and pushed a button each time a flash occurred.

She jumped when a blast of air hit her right eye: glaucoma test. Moments later she was ushered into the optician's chair. When the man entered, she did a double take at his bottle-thick lenses, which he repeatedly shoved to the bridge of his nose with his forefinger.

“Lost a contact?”

“In the airport.”

“Shame.” Up went the glasses. After a series of tests— ptosis, exophthalmos, lesions, deformities or asymmetry problems—he got down to the business at hand.

She heard a flipping sound. “Is A better, or B?” the doctor asked.

“B.”

She heard a click. “B or A?” Up went the glasses.

“A.”

Click. “A or B?”

“Uh . . . A—no wait. Let me see B again.”

Click.

“What was the question?”

“A or B.” Up went the glasses.

“B. No, A.”

“A or B?”

“A.”

She was getting dizzy.

Click. “B or A?”

“B—A—I don't know. They both look the same.”

Twenty minutes later she walked out, after paying for the examination and ordering one contact, which she now had to kill an hour before she could get. She settled on lunch and a brief excursion through a trendy dress shop where she purchased a silk blouse for an outlandish price. All in all, she considered the morning had cost her close to three hundred dollars, and it was barely noon.

Breezing out of the optometrist shop, she smiled, relieved to be free of the annoying glasses. Her foot hit something sticky on the sidewalk and she paused and lifted her heel, groaning when she saw a wad of pink bubble gum stuck to the leather sole. Lowering the good foot, she scraped back and forth, keeping an eye out for curious bystanders. Her sandaled foot moved back and forth, back and forth, each rub producing nothing more than a long, stringy, sticky piece of gum-based latex.