She thought she could handle any disaster...

Responding to a tsunami on the tiny island of Guam should be a routine assignment for Dr. Anna Atao. From epidemics to earthquakes, she’s treated patients in the most dangerous and remote places on earth. Except Anna hasn’t been back to Guam since a tragedy there tore her life apart—and she left behind the man she loved. Seeing Nico brings back all the pain and joy of their time together, but Anna knows he’ll never leave the island. And once her deployment ends, she plans to catch the first helicopter back to the mainland. Anna may be an expert in survival, but without Nico, can she ever truly heal?

“Where are we?” Anna’s eyes were wide with confusion.

“We’re in that old stone church off Chalan Road,” Nico told her.

She sprang to her feet. “I went to Lucas’s grave.”

He nodded. “We tried to reach you on the sat phone but you didn’t answer, so I got worried and came after you. There’s a hurricane going on outside—I needed to get you to safety. You passed out there.”

“I...”

Despite everything, he was glad she’d gone to Lucas’s grave. She so desperately needed closure, but it was clear she hadn’t found it. He fought to breathe. How was he going to help her?

“Do you have any emergency supplies?” she asked. He pointed to his bag and she rummaged through it, coming up with a handful of pills and a water bottle. “Hand me the radio.” The battery-operated device turned on, but there was no signal.

“I guess we’re stuck in this dungeon until the storm passes,” he said. Not that it was a horrible prospect. This might be the last time he’d get to have Anna to himself. “Let’s just hope there aren’t any dragons.”

“Just those we brought with us,” she said wistfully.

Then the lights went out.

Dear Reader,

This story has been in my heart for nearly a decade, since the first time I visited the beautiful island of Guam. I fell in love with the people there and the seeds of this story were sown. Mending the Doctor’s Heart is the story of Captain Anna Atao, a woman who must find the courage to forgive herself and find a way back to love.

This book explores the depths of deep pain and sacrifice, against the backdrop of a paradise island decimated by natural disaster. I cried when I wrote Anna’s story and every time I’ve read it since. It’s a story to immerse yourself in, and the tears you shed will be worth it to see Anna complete her journey.

To get free book extras, visit my website, sophiasasson.com. I love hearing from readers, so please find me on Twitter (@SophiaSasson) or Facebook (SophiaSassonAuthor) or email me at readers@sophiasasson.com.

Enjoy!

Sophia

Mending the Doctor’s Heart

Sophia Sasson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SOPHIA SASSON puts her childhood habit of daydreaming to good use by writing stories she hopes will give you hope and make you laugh, cry and possibly snort tea from your nose. She was born in Bombay, India, and has lived in the Canary Islands, Spain, and Toronto, Canada. Currently she calls the madness of Washington, DC, home. She’s the author of the Welcome to Bellhaven and the State of the Union series. She loves to read, travel to exotic locations in the name of research, bake, explore water sports and watch foreign movies. Hearing from readers makes her day. Contact her through sophiasasson.com.

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To all the people who live on remote islands and preserve their natural beauty for us to enjoy.

Acknowledgments

This book and the entire State of the Union series would not happen without my awesome editor, Claire Caldwell.

Most of all, thank you to my readers. Your reviews, emails and letters keep me writing.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

FIVE YEARS, TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS and ten hours since she left and swore never to return. Anna watched the swirls of aquamarine, green and royal blue surrounding the little patch of island she once called home. A tiny drop of land in the bucket of the great Pacific Ocean. At ten thousand feet, the view was breathtakingly beautiful, but as the helicopter dropped, the serene vision gave way to the carnage of broken buildings and debris-littered streets. She swallowed hard.

Anna was the only passenger on board, so as soon as they touched down, she unbuckled, grabbed her duffel bag and hopped out. Her boots hit the muddy ground with a squelch. She pulled down the sunglasses parked on top of her head and raised her arm to shield her face from the stinging wind kicked up by the still-revolving helicopter rotors.

This was the golf course where she and Nico were married. It looked far worse on the ground than it did from the air. The pristine green lawn with perfectly planned hills and flower beds was gone. Tree branches were everywhere, strewn about with random garbage. This is the least damaged part of the island? A crushing vise gripped her heart. Is Nico alive? She hadn’t been able to get through to their house on Tumon Bay; the landlines and cell towers were out.

“Captain! You okay?”

Anna turned to see the pilot carrying a box. He tilted his head toward the rest of the cargo, which he had unloaded from the helicopter and set on the ground. How long had she been standing there? She looked toward the medical camp. Tents were set a hundred feet from where she stood, their dull beige forlorn against the calm blue sky.

Anna swung the duffel on her back, looping the handles around her shoulders so she could carry it like a backpack. Her arms protested as she lifted a heavy box. It had been more than a month since her last deployment, and her muscles were a little out of shape.

She carried the box to a waiting staff member, then set down her bag and helped the pilot carry the rest of the supplies from the makeshift helipad. When they were down to the last box, the pilot stepped back into the cockpit, waving to her as he started the rotors.

The helicopter rose and disappeared from view. There was no way off the island now; she was stuck here. Again. The permanent ache in her heart gnawed at her.

Picking up the remaining box, she walked back to the bright-faced staffer. His crisp uniform, regulation lined badges, and chipper hello told her it was his first deployment. She nodded to him and handed over the box.

“Where do I report?”

He pointed her to the medical command tent. She unzipped the outer pocket of her bag to remove her papers. As she entered the tent, her eye caught the big digital clock that hung from a wire. Forty-five hours and twenty-two minutes. That’s how long ago the tsunami had struck. It was also the clock that would determine when she could leave. Around the time it struck 168 hours, the actively wounded would slow to a trickle, mostly limited to those hurt as a result of the rescue efforts. When the red digits ticked to 381 hours, the rescue operation would be over and the focus would turn to recovering bodies. By then, plenty of relief organizations would crowd the small island with their staff outnumbering the injured. She’d be replaced by social workers who would stay here for months dealing with the mental trauma that would haunt people for generations to come.

“Took you long enough to get here.”

She whirled to come face-to-face with a woman dressed in blue scrubs. Rear Admiral Linda Tucker was Anna’s height, around five foot six, and had red hair streaked in spots to faded copper. Her face sagged with exhaustion but her gray eyes sparked as she surveyed Anna.

The Public Health Service was a uniformed division but worked more like a health care service than a military unit, so Anna didn’t salute and was happy to note that her new supervisor was wearing scrubs. Some PHS field commanders insisted they wear their uniforms, which inevitably made the days uncomfortable. Yet despite this concession, she knew Linda Tucker’s reputation and braced herself.

“I got here as soon as I could,” Anna replied evenly.

“I expected you yesterday.”

Anna had flown from Washington, DC—where she’d been visiting with her sister, Caro—to Japan, where she had to wait for the long-haul military transport helicopter to bring her to Guam. She’d been traveling for twenty-three hours and fifty-three minutes straight.

Shrugging, she settled for a nonchalant. “I was delayed.” What she didn’t say was that she’d come close to being discharged from the PHS for defying orders to board the first transport to Guam. It had taken a call from the surgeon general’s assistant with a plea from the SG himself to get her on board. She was the only PHS officer who spoke Chamorro.

“Well, get changed and meet me back here, we have a lot to do.” Dr. Tucker turned and bent over the newly arrived cardboard boxes, efficiently slicing through the tape. Anna handed her papers to the clerk, a young man with a pockmarked face who looked pained to be there.

Anna scanned the tent while the clerk typed her details into the computer. The tent looked like every other medical command center she’d seen. Every available inch of space was being put to use. Corners were stacked with cardboard supply boxes, the center dominated by U-shaped desks cluttered with laptops and assorted materials. A large fan blew in fresh air from a makeshift window, but the heat was still oppressive. She ran her finger under her collar and twisted her neck, trying to get some air between her sticky skin and the wilted cloth of her once-starched khaki uniform. She scanned the faces in the room but quickly stopped and chided herself. Why would he be here? Nico would be out in the community, helping people defy the odds of survival. If he’s alive. Closing her eyes, Anna took a breath. She’d have to go to the house in Tumon Bay to check on him, find out for sure. From what she’d seen in the air, the roads weren’t passable by car, so she’d have to walk the five miles there. At her typical walking speed, she could do it in an hour and fifteen minutes, but given the condition of the terrain, she figured she’d have to budget at least four hours to get there and back.

“I’ll show you to your tent. That way you can get changed while I process your paperwork,” the clerk said suddenly. Anna turned to see Dr. Tucker motioning to him to hurry things up.

“I need you to get to work.” She bent over the boxes again before Anna could ask when she might be able to go check on Nico.

Anna followed the fast-walking clerk out of the tent and down a narrow pathway. No matter where she went, the sounds of the aftermath of a disaster were always the same. Moans of people in pain, shuffling of fast-paced boots, generators and battery-powered machines rumbling to life, the smell of wet earth and the incessant buzzing of insects.

Nico has to be okay. I’d know if he wasn’t. Wouldn’t I?

The clerk led her to the tiny tent that would be her living quarters. She groaned inwardly at the paper sign in the plastic sleeve on the door-flap indicating she would be sharing the tent with Linda Tucker. So she wasn’t going to get a reprieve on this deployment.

She changed quickly and found Admiral Tucker waiting for her outside the tent. She motioned for Anna to follow. “We don’t have enough wound care supplies or topical and IV antibiotics, so we need to ration them. I understand this isn’t your first deployment?”

“No, ma’am, I’ve been through twenty deployments in five years. My last one was in Brazil for the Zika virus after I returned from Liberia, where I was dealing with the Ebola outbreak.”

The rear admiral’s eyes widened with respect. “Good, then I don’t have to orient you. Feel free to call me Linda.” She continued her brisk pace, weaving through the narrow gaps between tents, dodging pieces of machinery and carts carrying supply boxes from one tent to another.

“The locals are just now mobilizing, so we get about ten new patients an hour. Tent space is at a premium. Anyone who doesn’t need to be monitored gets sent to the high school, mall or the hospital, where they’ve set up shelters.”

Anna’s throat closed. “Is the hospital operational?” she choked out. The last time she’d been at the Guam General Hospital, she’d lost everything she ever loved. She hadn’t used her pediatrics training since then, staying as far away from children as she could.

Linda shook her head. “Not as a medical facility, but the building is still standing so they’re using the space to house people.” Linda slowed and turned to make sure Anna had heard her.

“A local stopped by a few hours ago to say someone’s managed to set up a field hospital in one of the newer buildings. A local physician is helping them, but they have over a hundred people there. If we get through our current patients, I’d like you to go. They can’t get those patients to this side of the island.”

Anna nodded. It would give her a chance to go to Nico’s house, her old house, and make sure he was okay. “Did they tell you where on the island?”

“Talofofo. It’s on the Pacific side, so I’m not sure how well it fared.”

A brick fell through Anna’s stomach. Talofofo. That’s where Nico had bought land. Right after they’d buried Lucas, the piece of herself that would forever be in Guam. Nico had tried to convince her it was the way to heal, a desperate attempt to get her to stay. What happened to his plans? Had they washed away like the rest of their life together?

“Dr. Tucker, I have a request.” Before she could continue, Linda stopped abruptly and Anna almost bumped into her. One of the patients had come out of a tent screaming at her.

“I’m going to die!” A man scarcely over five feet tall stood in front of Linda, his chest puffed out.

“Sir!” Linda’s voice was firm and laced with annoyance. “I’ve told you already—you’re not getting pain medication, so stop the racket.”

Linda turned to her. “He’s yours. Sixty-some-year-old male, leg laceration, five stitches, prior undiagnosed first-degree heart block. He’s been having arrhythmias, which is why he’s still here. Not even close to the worst of the wounded.”

Anna took in the broad, wrinkled forehead, the firm purse of the man’s lips, the gray in his hair and the slight stoop to his back. He was an elder, a man used to getting what he wanted. She stepped up to him and bowed slightly, making her frame smaller so she wouldn’t tower over him, then spoke softly in Chamorro. “We don’t have supplies, the hospital is damaged, we’re saving the pills for people who are badly hurt.”

The patient nodded, thanked her, then went back to the tent.

Linda shook her head. “He speaks English. I heard him talking to the others. These people!”

Anna bristled. “He needed to know that you weren’t making a judgment call in denying him pills. People here understand shortages and rationing...” She muttered under her breath, “They understand it all too well.”

Linda pressed her lips together tightly, and Anna reminded herself that the woman was a superior officer. While Anna wasn’t interested in climbing the career ladder, she had to work and live with Linda for the foreseeable future, and she still had to ask her for a favor.

“He should be grateful we’re here to help him,” Linda said irritably. “But I’m glad you speak Chamorro. Follow me—I think I’ll put you in this tent.”

Anna opened her mouth, then shut it. Linda had already resumed her purposeful walk. Most of the doctors she worked with didn’t appreciate the local cultures. They were adrenaline junkies who went into deployment to feed their hero complexes and left with little understanding of the place. They were dispassionate about the very people they supposedly came to serve. While people like Linda annoyed her, at some level Anna understood the need for emotional distance from the patients they were serving. She had come to Guam and ingrained herself in the community. If she’d treated her time here for what it was, a temporary medical rotation, she never would have married Nico, never would have had Lucas.

Linda went through the open doorway of one of the tents, talking as she went. Anna pushed her attention to Linda. She needed to stop thinking about her past and snap into the present. This could be Liberia, or Sri Lanka, or Thailand. The tents all looked the same, the misery around her was no different. Pretend you’re not in Guam.

“...but I need someone who has a background in pediatrics,” Linda was saying. The sound of crying babies and high-pitched little voices made Anna freeze. Filled wall-to-wall with children of all ages, the tent suddenly spun around her. Older children were sitting on cots, while younger ones played and crawled around on the dirt floor. Mothers held tiny babies and stared at her as she took it all in. She shivered. The flash of a sweet face burned her eyes, and she jolted at the memory of a cold little body in her arms. No. No, no, no, no!

Linda kept talking. “I have my hands full. No one has evaluated these children since they were brought here, and most of the—”

“I...can’t.” Is that my voice? “Listen, I’m not sure what you were told, but I don’t treat children. That’s the only thing I won’t do. You can assign me to the burn unit, send me out into the field to do body recovery... I’m game for anything else, but I don’t treat children.”

Linda put her hands on her hips. “Dr. Atao, you’re a pediatrician! Need I remind you that we’re in the middle of a disaster here? You don’t get to pick where you work, and we have a tent full of children who need attending to.”

Anna’s chest tightened, but she forced herself to meet Linda’s eyes. “I have an understanding with the PHS that I don’t treat children anymore. I—”

“Are you refusing an order?”

A child’s wail pierced through her. Her muscles tightened. Technically her understanding with the PHS was just that, an unwritten agreement. Her boss knew what had happened with Lucas, and her orders usually had a note attached about not assigning her young children to work with. It had never been an issue, not once in all her deployments. And perhaps in another place she could have handled it... But not here on Guam.

She shook her head. “I’m really sorry, I’ll do anything else. I just can’t...”

Linda wasn’t listening. One of the staff in the tent had handed her a writhing infant. “The paramedics are a little concerned about this baby. You’re the only one who has any pediatrics training.”

Linda extended her arms, ready to transfer the little body into Anna’s.

Anna stepped back. There was definitely something wrong with the infant; she looked a little blue around the lips. A cold hand squeezed her heart and her brain shut down. All she could see was a still little body, his skin cold as ice.

“Give her oxygen now, check blood gases and listen to her heart for murmurs,” she choked out.

She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were squeezed shut, no air would go in or come out. She turned and ran outside, desperate for oxygen. As soon as she’d cleared the tent, she put her head between her knees trying to calm down enough to get air into her lungs.

“No. No. No. No. No!” She barely realized she was chanting the words.

Her chest burned as she gasped for air. Everything spun around her. Her knees buckled and she fell, scraping her hands. She sat on the muddy ground and closed her eyes, picturing herself in the depths of the ocean, imagining the schools of fish going about their business, corals moving with the currents. One of her PHS colleagues had suggested taking up scuba diving. The hobby had given her the muscle memory she needed to control her breathing and the ability to close her senses and focus on a visual. A way to cope. To be a functional human being again.

Three hundred and thirty-six hours, and then she could leave.

She opened her eyes. Linda was standing with one hand on her hip, the other holding out a little cup of water.

Anna drank even though she wasn’t thirsty. She knew the act of swallowing would force her diaphragm to relax and slow her breathing.

“Are you dismissing me?” Anna wheezed out.

“I should. But besides you, I’m the only doctor here. The local nurses and paramedics have barely enough training to help. I haven’t slept in over a day.” She blew out a breath. “I have to deal with you until reinforcements arrive. But this will be noted in your record.”

Anna didn’t care about a reprimand in her file. “I’m a competent doctor. I can deal with just about anything other than children. It’s personal.”

Linda sighed, clearly frustrated but resigned. She gave a dismissive shake of her head. “Guess I need to go treat those kids.” She pointed to an area where people were erecting more tents. So far the camp had about twenty, but just in the time Anna had been walking around, a new one had been put up.

“I’ve already checked on everyone to this point.” Linda gestured to the tents at the periphery. “I need you to start with those who arrived in the last two hours. They’ve been put in tent twenty-four. The paramedics who’ve been helping triage have been instructed to start putting people in tents as they’re built.”

Linda turned to walk away.

“Dr. Tucker, I have one more request.”

Linda turned, her brows furrowed with impatience.

“I have some family here in Guam, and I don’t know whether they’re okay. Can I go check on them?” Anna hadn’t meant to sound desperate, but Linda’s frown softened.

“Start by checking the roster to see if they’re here.” She glanced at her watch. “Can you go in after seeing the backlogged patients? I need a few hours of sleep.” Her tone was almost pleading.

Anna nodded. She’d been waiting for almost two days. A few more hours wouldn’t make a difference. Not to Nico.

She parted ways with Linda and went to the medical command to ask the clerk for the roster of patients.

“I’m still transferring the paper logs to the computer. Check in later.”

“Can you see if there was anyone by the last name Atao?” she said softly. The clerk looked up, eyeing the nameplate on her right breast pocket. He nodded, then tapped on the keyboard and shook his head.

“No one so far. I’ll come find you if I see that name appear in the paper logs or the new arrivals.”

Anna thanked him.

“We’re not the only medical camp around the island. I’ll ask the others when I make my status calls.”

Tears stung her eyes at the pity in his voice. She stood straight, thanked him, then turned. Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to sleep on the plane. Couldn’t stop herself from imagining all the scenarios she would face on Guam. Still, she was alert and eager to get to work.

The tents were filled to capacity. A standard issue tent could comfortably take twenty patients, but there were easily more than forty per tent. Each person shared his or her narrow cot with one or two others, taking as little space as they could so there was room for everyone. Anna introduced herself to the local paramedic, Jared, who was assigned to watch over the tent, and got right to work. Most people had broken bones and wounds of various sorts, which the paramedic had bandaged. A dialysis patient was worried about how he would manage. Anna figured the patient could comfortably make it another day or two before he would get toxic; hopefully resources would arrive by then. The first days after a disaster were always the hardest.

The young paramedic with curly black hair and dark eyes followed her from patient to patient, chatting away.

“My cousins are helping get the airport fixed,” Jared told her. “There’s so much junk on the runway, Lando—that’s my uncle—had to go get a garbage truck to haul it all out.”

Anna knew that one of the reasons so few resources had made it to the island was that helicopters were very inefficient. They could only carry so much weight to conserve fuel for the long journey back to Japan or the Philippines. The neighboring Marshall Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands—CNMI—had also been badly damaged in the tsunami.

“What about the military base?” Anna inquired as she drained the infected wound of an older woman.

“They were also damaged. They’re repairing the base and sent an engineer to direct the efforts to fix up the airport, but there aren’t a lot of people on base.”

Anna nodded. Five years ago she had pleaded with the garrison officer on the air force base and each of the two navy bases, but they hadn’t been able to help her. They’d been stretched thin with troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan and there were no helicopters to transport Lucas off the island, no cardiac surgeons at the military hospital to perform the operation that could have saved his life.

“Have there been a lot of casualties?” Anna asked out of earshot of the patients as they went to get more supplies.

Jared shrugged. “It’s hard to say right now. We had a brief warning from Hawaii saying they detected an earthquake off their coast, so we told everyone to take shelter inland, but not everyone made it. We’re seeing a lot of rescuer injuries.”

Her stomach roiled. Knowing Nico, he’d be out there putting himself at risk.

Once she was done gathering supplies, she moved on to the next tent, scanning every face for the one she knew so well. Yet another paramedic assisted her as she checked each patient in the overflowing tent. The hours sped by as more tents were put up, additional workers arrived and patients who’d been waiting in a triage area outdoors were moved to shelter.

Anna was surprised to see it was already dark when she came out of the last tent. People were still coming in, but she’d visited every patient at least once and discharged several after bandaging their wounds. She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease out the tension. She’d been on the island for five hours and forty minutes. She wondered whether she should try to find Linda or just inform the medical command clerk that she was heading to Tumon Bay to check on Nico. He’s probably okay. Still, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in her stomach.

A shout grabbed her attention. “We have incoming, they need a doctor. Now!”

Anna ran to the triage area, where a group of new arrivals were gathered. A man yelled, “Ayuda, ayuda.”

Anna stepped up and placed a hand on the man’s shoulders. “I will help you. Tell me what’s wrong,” she said in Chamorro.

The man blinked rapidly. “A car fell on this man.” He pointed across the field. Anna turned and asked the clerk to go find Linda and anyone else who was available. The damage from the tsunami was astounding; she’d seen a boat perched on top of a tree. In such cases, secondary accidents after the disaster injured more people than the event itself. She followed the shouting man away from the camp. They got to the main road, which was blocked by a big tree. On the other side of the trunk was a farm tractor with a wagon attached.

“Anna?”

She turned toward the familiar voice, momentarily blinded by the lights of the tractor. Is that really her? She shielded her eyes from the glare. Her chest squeezed painfully.

“Nana?” she said. Nana was what Nico called his mother. What Anna had once called the small woman standing before her. Nana stepped forward, blocking the light from the tractor. She looked exactly as she had five years ago, her curly gray hair pinned in a bun, standing tall in her five-foot frame.

“Anna!” She closed the distance between them, then reached out and clasped Anna’s hands, her eyes wild. “Please, you must help Nico.”

CHAPTER TWO

ANNA RAN TOWARD the tractor. The giant tree that blocked the roadway lay there, dark and ominous. Branches and limbs tore at her bare arms as she scrambled over the trunk. The thin cloth of her scrub pants tore as she made her way over the top. She barely felt the sting of the scrapes on her knees. Still blinded from the glare of the headlights, all she could see were shapes of people milling about. She scooted her way down a branch; it was too high to jump down. A shadowy figure approached at a run.

She used her hands to propel her body downward a little faster, ignoring the protests of her damaged skin. Just as she got close enough to jump the rest of the way, a pair of powerful hands grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down, slamming her into a hard chest. The smell of Irish Spring soap and sweat filled her nose, a scent as familiar to her as her own perfume. He held on to her even after she had a firm footing on the concrete.

“Anna!” Her heart thudded against her chest. She collapsed against him, relief flooding through her like someone had hit the release valve on a pressure cooker about to blow. He was alive. His strong arms held up her boneless body. Drawing her close, he rubbed his cheek against her head and her heart flooded with warmth.

“Oh God, Anna, it’s really you.” His voice was husky, and he pulled her even closer. The feel of his body against hers, so familiar and yet so distant, tugged her back into reality.

She pushed away, the words out of her mouth before she raised her face to look at him. “Nico!”

He stared down at her. His height had always been the talk of the island, a trait no doubt inherited from his white father.

Their eyes locked, her blue-gray ones pinned to his soft brown.

“You came back?” His voice was low, the words a little broken.

Something burned through her. Her legs weakened, threatening to buckle underneath her.

She stepped back, out of his reach. “I had to come for my job.” There was a slight tremor in her voice.

His eyes shifted. She stared pointedly behind him, eager to look away. “You need to come with me, Tito is hurt.”

She followed him to the wagon behind the tractor and climbed up to the platform. Nico’s cousin Tito was on the back of the wagon. He had an obvious open femur fracture, the bone protruding from his leg at an odd angle. Someone held a cloth to the wound, pressing on it to stop the bleeding.

“Anna, is that you?” Tito groaned in pain.

Anna smiled reassuringly at him. She’d been fond of Tito. He was slightly shorter than her but what he lacked in height, he made up for in width. “Yes, it’s me, Tito. Looks like I’m gonna have to save you again.”

“You came back for Nico?”

Anna shook her head, wishing she’d had the forethought to bring her medical bag. Her stethoscope was still miraculously around her neck. She took it off and began listening to his chest.

“Good! ’Cause he ain’t available no more.”

Anna took the stethoscope out of her ears. Did I hear him correctly? Tito groaned again and Anna cast around for something she could use to reduce the fracture. She spied a blanket in the corner of the wagon and pieces of rope, used to secure animals, hanging from the side rails. She picked up the blanket and wrapped Tito’s fractured leg. He howled in pain, but Anna knew there was no other way. They wouldn’t be able to safely transport him to the camp if she didn’t reduce the fracture first.

As she untied a rope, she spoke to the group of men who had come with Tito, avoiding eye contact with Nico.

“Okay, we need to make a manual hare traction splint.” She took the rope and tied it to the ends of the blanket. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to reduce a femur fracture in the field. The last one had been in a rice paddy in Thailand. At least she was on dry ground this time. She finished constructing the makeshift splint. “I’m going to pull on this rope. I need you men to hold Tito down.”

“What? No! This woman is gonna kill me!” The men ignored Tito and two of them kneeled on the floor, bracing themselves on either side of the injured man.

Anna grabbed the rope and balanced her footing. She pulled as hard as she could, keeping an eye on the bone, watching for the shift in the bulge telling her she’d snapped it back into place. She grunted, increasing the pressure on the rope. Tito screamed.

Nico wrapped his arms around her from behind, pressing his body close to her with the familiarity of a husband. Heat spread through her but she ignored how well she fit against him. He put his hands on top of hers and yanked with her. The bone fell into place and she held the rope taut. She could feel the warmth of Nico’s body against her back. The hair on his arms pricked her skin.

“Okay, Nico, take this blanket and hold traction while I go arrange for a stretcher.” She was glad her voice was businesslike. Ducking, she crawled underneath his arms and over Tito’s legs. He had ceased howling and was now moaning and mumbling incoherently. Anna checked his breathing and pulse. Tito was in pain but would be okay until they got him to camp and gave him something to dull it.

Anna stepped down from the wagon to see a few of the men had run ahead to the camp and requested a stretcher already. She instructed the men to find two pieces of wood and nail a makeshift cross to the board.

They rolled Tito onto the stretcher and with Nico’s help, she tied her traction splint ropes to the cross to hold the fracture in place.

Someone lifted one end of the stretcher and nearly dropped it. Nico teasingly reminded Tito to lose weight and picked up the front end. That’s when she noticed the blood on his T-shirt, right around his waist.

“Nico, you’re hurt!”

He shrugged and adjusted his grip on the stretcher but she heard the unmistakable groan and saw the shift of his body. He was injured.

Two other men lifted the back of the stretcher, and a couple others held the sides as they maneuvered it down from the wagon and made the long walk around the tree trunk, since there was no safe way across. Anna followed, watching Nico shift his weight every few seconds. He was in pain.

They found Nana on the other side of the tree and she fell in step with Anna, reaching out to squeeze her hand. Anna let the woman take it for a moment, but pulled it back on the pretense of needing to check on Tito.

When they arrived at camp, Linda was waiting. She inspected the hare traction splint. “Not bad for fieldwork.”

Linda took over Tito’s care, instructing Anna to manage the rest of the arrivals. Anna opened her mouth to protest but Linda was long gone.

* * *

NICO WOULD HAVE gone with Tito but they wouldn’t allow him. It was just as well. He had a lot to do, and that was without knowing Anna was back. What is she doing here, anyway?

She turned to Nico. “Let me look at your injury.”

He began shaking his head; the pain would subside eventually. He needed to get back to Talofofo, but one look at her face and he stopped. Maybe fate had intervened to give him the courage to do what he’d been putting off for more than a year. A jab in the arm caught his attention and he looked down to see Nana, her eyebrows raised at him. He didn’t need her to speak to know what she wanted him to do. She’d been bugging him for months to get in touch with Anna.

After nodding to his mother to let her know he understood her silent message, he followed Anna silently to a tent that had just been erected. A man was delivering boxes.

She opened a zippered bag and one-handedly pulled out a folded cot. Anna had always been self-sufficient, preferring to do the hard work herself rather than ask someone else for help. It was her strength that he’d been drawn to when they’d first met, and also what he had counted on to get them through their son’s death.

“Sit,” she said sternly.

He was lower than her on the cot, so he tipped his head back to take her in. She looked the same, yet different. The luscious brown and golden locks that had hung all the way to her waist were cropped short now, close to her earlobes. Once vibrant blue-gray eyes were tired and had crinkles around them that hadn’t existed five years ago. Her face held more definition, less of the fullness that used to be there. She was far more beautiful, but hauntingly so. Sadness shrouded her.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight.” He winced as the words left his mouth. Didn’t mean to say it out loud.

She pressed her lips together. “Yeah, well, I haven’t had your relatives stuffing food down my throat.”

His gut twisted at the bitterness in her voice. One of his favorite memories was right after she’d given birth to Lucas. Her face had a plumpness to it, her skin shone brightly, her normally slim figure had a wonderful feminine roundness. His relatives had showered her with attention and food, and she’d welcomed the nurturing for herself and baby Lucas. It was the only time in their marriage she’d embraced the presence of his extended family.

“Remove your shirt.”

He wasn’t going to make this any easier on her than it was on him. She had left him. Nico had done everything he could to get her to stay. When he finally let her go, it was with the hope that distance would heal her. He’d emailed her. Once a week for the first year, then monthly until he’d given up two years ago when she still hadn’t answered. Not a single text, email or call. Not even to tell him she was okay. She’d even shut down her Facebook page, so he had no idea where she was or what she was doing. He’d finally resorted to emailing her sister Caroline, who at least had the decency to give him regular updates on what was happening with Anna, and let him know that she wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere.

He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and lifted it, wincing at the stab of pain across his belly. She inhaled sharply as he slid the shirt across his head and balled it up.

“How did you get that cut?”

“Tito got himself trapped under a car. The door had a jagged edge I didn’t see when I was pulling him out.”

“It’s dirty and likely to get infected.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“Some things never change,” she muttered.

“Anna.”

When she was upset at him, her eyes would normally turn an icy blue, a color he loved so much he would sometimes needle her just to see it. But now there was nothing but darkness. The same one that had been there when she left the island. He had hoped time would heal her. That leaving him would somehow bring her comfort. It hadn’t.

“I’m going to stitch it up, then give you antibiotics.”

She went to leave, but he grabbed her hand. Her skin felt soft, her hand small and fragile in his. “Why aren’t you at peace with what happened to us?”

Her eyes flashed. “Because it didn’t happen to us, it happened to me.” His chest burned. No matter how hard he tried, she had never let him share her pain. Looking at her now, a familiar tightness choked his chest. He had grieved for Lucas, but he had moved on with his life. Taking a breath, he tried to shake off the suffocating feeling. What was wrong with him? He was at peace with what had happened. It was Anna who obviously still needed closure.

“Anna, you have to stop blaming yourself. You’re not the reason Lucas died.”

“I’m not the only reason. This island is the other reason. If we had been in California, he never would have died.”

He let go of her hand and she stepped away. After Lucas’s death, she had begged him to leave Guam, to come with her to California where they could start a new life. When they married, he’d thought she understood the man he was, a family man, one who wouldn’t leave his home, his land. Not like his father. But ultimately she hadn’t understood. She’d left without him and he’d let her go, thinking she would come back after time healed her wounds. But she hadn’t come back. Nor had she healed.

Anna rummaged through some boxes and returned to him. He started to say something but stopped when a man entered the tent and began unpacking medical supplies.

Anna held up a needle in one hand and an upside-down bottle in another.

“Lie back,” she ordered.

Nico lay on his back and felt her pouring liquid over his belly. It stung. He closed his eyes; there was no point in repeating the same conversation they’d had for months after Lucas’s death.

A needle pierced his stomach, sending a sharp pain through his body, but then everything went blissfully numb. He opened his eyes and craned his neck. Anna was bent over him, stitching away. He remembered the last time he’d seen her like this and a different pain speared his chest.

“Anna...”

“Not now, Nico.”

He waited patiently until she was done and saw her place a dressing over his wound. When she turned away, he sat up.

The man who’d been unpacking boxes left with an armful of empty containers.

“Anna...”

She turned to him, her eyes wet. “I can’t do this, Nico. Not here.”

He stood, then reached out and took her hand, pulling her close to him. She rested her face on his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, he placed his hand on her head, feeling her soft cheek on his bare skin, weaving his fingers into her silky hair. The years melted away as he felt her body against his. She belonged to him, always had. But her wounds were still as raw as the day she left. This island had never been her home because she hadn’t let it be. And never would.

“I’ve missed you, Anna.”

She nodded against his chest and he knew she still loved him, had felt the agony of their distance just as he had. Lifting her head, she stepped back, eyes shining, cheeks wet. He felt what she wanted to say. The very words that were on his lips. “Anna...we...” They were simple words, yet they stuck in his throat, threatening to choke him.

Her big, wet eyes stabbed at his soul. “Nico, I can’t do this. I can never come back here for good. We...we...we need to divorce.”

CHAPTER THREE

SHE FELT HIS pain more acutely than her own. Yet Anna stood poised to cut into the delicate heart of her two-month-old son. Her hand trembled slightly as she touched the precision steel blade to pale pink skin. Right before it pierced, she retracted the scalpel. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. Even a minuscule tremble could end Lucas’s life. She wasn’t a cardiac surgeon, but if she didn’t correct the big hole in his heart, he would die. If she made the tiniest of mistakes, he would die. If any one of a thousand things went wrong during the surgery, like the electricity going out again, he would die. She was six thousand miles away from California and they were out of time. There were no other options.

She opened her eyes and looked up to see Nico’s tall frame fill the viewing gallery window. His hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, the normally smiling face creased. He put a hand on his heart, then onto the window that separated them. The gallery was meant for medical students and other physicians to watch surgeries. No father should witness his wife cutting into their son, but Nico had insisted on being there. Even across the room, she could see the wetness in his eyes. He mouthed, “I love you,” then kissed his fist, relaying confidence she didn’t feel.

She lowered her eyes from the viewing gallery to see the entire operating room staring at her. The panic in her chest was clearly visible in their eyes. The cold, sterile air reeked of desperation. They weren’t going to stop her, tell her how foolhardy this whole thing was. Not today. They were used to letting their babies die.

“Dr. Atao, you need to begin.”

The gentle but firm voice of the nurse anesthetist reminded her that the longer she waited, the more her son’s life would be at risk. The hospital didn’t even have a physician anesthesiologist. No one in their right mind would do this surgery. She looked at Nico one last time. His brown eyes reached into her soul, filling her with love. I have to do this. Lucas couldn’t die.

She took a deep breath, willing her heart to slow its frantic beating. She looked down at the small square of exposed skin, the rest draped with a blue sheet, as if the sheet could hide the fact that her little baby, the one she had nursed only an hour ago, was lying underneath. He was totally still, his normally wiggly, giggly, crying body as still as the air in the room. Ice seeped through her bones.

She pressed the scalpel into the skin above her son’s heart.

* * *

ANNA SAT UP with a sharp pain in her chest.

“Dr. Atao?” Her brain registered someone calling her name.

“Dr. Atao!”

She rubbed her eyes. A hazy face slowly came into focus. “Sorry, Doctor, you asked me to wake you. It’s eight o clock.” Anna thanked the clerk and checked her watch. Three hours had gone by fast, but at least she’d slept. The dream! She hadn’t had it for 392 days. But then she shouldn’t be surprised it had returned. It wasn’t so much a dream as a replay of the worst day of her life. The day she had performed surgery on her two-month-old son, hastening his death. It was technically a routine surgery; had she been in California, it would have been performed by a team of pediatric surgeons and Lucas would be a happy child today, five years, three months and four days old. But she’d been here on Guam, basking in the glory of being a new mother, ignoring the early warning signs.

She swung her leg off the cot, went to the latrine and splashed water on her face using the jug she’d brought. Time of death, 10:56. She’d done CPR for more than an hour, until finally the staff had pulled her away from Lucas and another physician had been called in to pronounce the death of her little baby.

For days after, his cries still woke her up at night.

She wiped her face with a paper towel. It was time to get back to work. There were still only two physicians, and patients were coming in by the truckloads as roads were getting cleared. Linda and Anna were taking turns sleeping. Anna had to keep moving; it was the only way to get through the remaining 319 hours on Guam.

A canteen hadn’t been set up yet, but the medical command tent had a corner stocked with a box of MREs—military grade “meals ready-to-eat”—instant coffee and hot water. She made her way there and was surprised to find hard-boiled eggs and basic bread. Compared to the MREs, any real food was a treat.

The PHS personnel and several of the local firefighters who had been helping were huddled around the cardboard box that served as a table. There was even fresh coffee, courtesy of a French press. Anna helped herself to a cup.

“Dr. Atao, thank you for the treats,” one of the firefighters said.

“What?”

“Your husband brought them in.”

Anna choked on the lukewarm coffee she had just sipped.

“Excuse me?”

“The man with the same last name as you.”

“Hi, Anna.” She turned to see Nico, all six feet three inches of him, looking strong in a fresh T-shirt and jeans.

“Um...thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Actually, it’s a bribe.”

Anna grabbed his arm and pulled him outside the tent. She didn’t want her colleagues overhearing their conversation.

“I have no problems signing the divorce papers, but you might have some trouble getting them drawn up and adjudicated today given what’s going on,” she said. Last night after she’d asked for a divorce, he had sighed with relief, telling her that’s what he wanted to talk to her about.

“Oh, I already have them drawn up, but you’re right, it’ll be weeks before the courthouse is open for us to file them. That’s not what I was going to ask.”

He already has the papers drawn up? How long has he been thinking about this? While she had considered divorce many times, the thought of calling a lawyer and actually having papers drawn up had never crossed her mind.

“What is it, then?” She shifted on her feet, eager for him to leave. She had work to do and the last thing she needed was Nico hanging around distracting her.

“I have a hospital building in Talofofo. People who can’t make it to the camps on this side of the island have been coming there. Dr. Balachandra—you remember him, don’t you?”

How could I forget the doctor who pronounced Lucas’s death?

She must have nodded because he continued on. “He’s been treating those patients, but he went to Cocos Island late last night to see a woman in labor with a breech birth and the currents are too strong this morning. He can’t make his way back on the little boat he took out there.”

Anna took a sip of the now cold coffee she was still holding and studied him. The only sign that he’d aged were the stray gray hairs around his temple. Nico was four years older than her, which meant his fortieth birthday was just around the corner. Yet aside from those wisps of gray, nothing else had changed. His face remained smooth, his milky-brown skin, inherited from his mother, unmarred. His high cheekbones gave him the kind of exotic handsomeness that made women swoon, and he hadn’t lost any of his legendary charm.

“You built a hospital?”

“It’s the private hospital I told you I would build in Lucas’s memory. It’s three months from opening.” He looked around. “Maybe a little longer now.”

Don’t leave, Anna, I’ll build a hospital in Lucas’s memory. We’ll make sure no one ever has to sacrifice like we did. I need you to do this with me.

He gave her a small smile. “It took a few years, but I built it to the best hurricane standards so it fared pretty well. It’s damaged but still standing.”

The pride in his voice cut through her. Before she left, he had tried to show her the land he’d bought in Talofofo, vowing to make enough money to build a private hospital where specialists from around the world would be invited to care for the locals so they would never have to rely on the substandard facilities of the chronically underfunded public hospital. It had been his way of making sense of Lucas’s death. As if anything could make sense of Lucas’s death.

“I need you to come see the patients who aren’t in good shape. I used the tractor we brought last night to clear off the road to Talofofo. It won’t take more than a few hours.”

Spend the day with you? Go see the hospital that memorializes the fact that I couldn’t save our son?

“I’ll see if Dr. Tucker can go out. I have patients to see here.” She somehow managed to keep her voice steady.

“I already talked to Dr. Tucker—she asked me to get you.”

Anna stared at him. How dare he?

“It was her decision to send you.” His voice was hard, his eyes dark and unreadable. There had been a time when his open face couldn’t hide the emotions in his soul.

Anna shifted on her feet. How am I going to get myself out of this one?

“Dr. Atao.”

She turned to see Linda walking toward her, and sighed in relief. “Dr. Tucker, just the person I was hoping to see.”

“I see you found Nico, and what’s this I hear about him being your husband?”

Anna opened her mouth to answer, but Nico jumped in. “We’re actually separated.”

Linda looked from Anna to Nico. “Well, I hope that doesn’t make working together awkward.”

“Dr. Tucker, I think it might be better if I stayed here, I...”

Linda glared at her. “Dr. Atao, I’ve made a lot of concessions for you. I’m expecting additional staff and supplies today. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m in charge here.”

Anna pressed her lips together.

“There are no kids at the Talofofo hospital,” Nico bent down and whispered in her ear.

Her face warmed. They were all but divorced; he needed to quit acting so familiar with her.

Before Anna could find the words to respectfully tell Linda and Nico to shove it, Linda was gone.

“Come on, Anna, the whole family is at the hospital helping out. They want to see you.”

Why? She almost asked, then stopped herself. His mouth was stretched into that broad smile that used to melt her heart. But even his smile had changed. It was more reserved.

“Doesn’t seem like I have much choice, so let’s go gather up supplies.”

It didn’t take them long to fill a box with the things she needed. Anna lifted the box and Nico reached over to take it from her, his hands brushing hers.

She stepped back. “I can carry it.” One thing she could never fault in Nico was his chivalry. There was an incident once when they had hiked up to the Fonte Dam, and she’d twisted her ankle. Even though she’d been able to walk on it, he’d carried her on his back the entire four miles home. He hadn’t listened to her objections.

He raised an eyebrow. “Fine, then.”

They made their way back to the road. Anna’s arms protested. The box hadn’t felt that heavy back at camp, but walking through mud and debris was wearing her down.

“You okay with that box?”

She nodded. “It’s pretty light.”

His lips twitched but he graciously pointed to a pickup truck parked down the road. She saw that the big tree she’d climbed last night had been chopped up and moved to the side so cars could pass in single file. The locals weren’t going to sit on their hands and wait for help to arrive. She remembered when Nico had first introduced her to the island he’d said, No one comes for us. We’re more than twelve hours flying time from the US mainland. We fend for ourselves. At the time she’d been enchanted with the idea of living on a remote island and awed by the spirit of the people who charted their own course.

Branches and leaves still littered the road. As they crossed the fallen tree, her foot caught an errant limb and she reached out to keep from falling. Nico grabbed her arm to stabilize her, then wordlessly took the box. He walked to the passenger side of the pickup, opened the door for her and set the box in the truck bed.

She got herself into the seat, then shut the door before he could come around to do it for her. Nico placed his hand on the steering wheel but didn’t start the engine. Anna stared at him. He turned to her. “Before we see my family, there’s something I need to tell you.”

She waited. His face told her she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. Her heart slowed until she could barely feel it beating inside her chest. He tried to smile, but it was his fake smile, the one he gave when he was trying to put a good face on bad news.

“Nana has breast cancer.”

She gasped and instinctively placed her hand on his.

“She’s not in a lot of pain yet.”

A small ray bloomed in Anna’s chest. “Have you considered taking her to Hawaii or California for treatment?”

Nico shook his head. “I’ve begged, but she doesn’t want to leave the island. She’s convinced that it’s better to spend her last few days dying here than to waste away in a hospital on the mainland. Besides, Guam Hospital can do some basic radiation and chemo.”

Anger sparked through her. Couldn’t he see that his mother might have a real chance at treatment? Why are they so obstinate about staying on this island?

“That’s why you’ve been working so hard to get that hospital up and running?”

“She was only diagnosed a month ago. The hospital was well underway, but yes, my hope is that it’ll be open in time to help her.”

She squeezed his hand. His frozen face told her he was fighting back tears.

“There’s one more thing.”

She waited, watching his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. Her heart kicked up a notch. More bad news.

“My mother has asked me to marry again. She wants to see grandchildren before she dies. You’ll be meeting someone who’s very special to me.”

CHAPTER FOUR

AS THEY DROVE down the littered road, Anna clung to the handhold while Nico swerved to dodge branches, pieces of furniture and random objects. At times, he had to go off-road to bypass a section.

“This is what you call passable?”

He gave her a half smile and wiggled his brows. Despite herself, she smiled back. It was Nico’s mischievous smile. Like the time he’d surprised her with their honeymoon. She’d thought they were going to Tahiti or Fiji. Instead, he’d driven her to a run-down house in Tumon Bay.

“What’s this?”

“It’s our new home.”

She stared in horror. They had talked about buying a house so they wouldn’t have to live in his family home, with his mother and the rest of his family constantly in their faces. Anna had pictured one of the cute cottages by the sea with a front porch they could sit on and enjoy breakfast as they watched the tide come in. While this house was on the sea, it looked like it would fall into it any second. The railings on the front porch were broken. A section of the roof had caved in. Trash littered the front and side yards. While she could hear the ocean, there was no sight of it. The whole thing looked like a crumbling heap that would collapse if she poked it with a finger.

“You bought this?”

He nodded and she turned to see his eyes shining, his mouth turned up in a brilliant smile.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking. This place is a dump and if we combined our salaries, we could’ve had something much better. But I wanted to buy this for you, with my own money, and fix it up the way you want it.”

Fix it up? This place needed to be bulldozed. Before she could say anything else, her feet left the ground as he lifted her. Automatically, her hands went around his neck so she could rest her face in the nook between his neck and shoulder. It was the best vantage point to breathe in the scent that was uniquely Nico. Earth, sweat and clean soap. Somehow the feel of his solid chest tempered her anger. It always did, and he knew it. He was still dressed in the cotton shirt and pants he’d worn to their wedding. She had chosen a plain white dress that fell to her ankles. Somehow a big wedding dress didn’t appeal to her. They were married in the church where Nico had been christened, then had a luncheon at the golf course. Her sister Caro had come with her two-year-old toddler and the rest of the guests included nearly every person on the island. Nico and Nana were connected to everyone somehow, either by blood or friendship.

Stepping onto the rickety porch, he kicked open the door, which nearly fell off its hinges. The inside of the house was only marginally better than the outside. They entered through a foyer with peeling paint and years of grime and dirt on the hardwood floors. Miraculously, the stairs didn’t crumble under their weight.

He toed open the door of a bedroom and set her down. Anna gasped. The room looked like it belonged to another house. There was a big wooden four-poster bed, complete with white gauzy drapes. It was covered in rose petals. A dark wood dresser held several candles, their flickering lights dancing along the mirror. The wide plank floors gleamed. Skylights let in the soft glow of the evening sun and big French doors led to a balcony.

Nico walked over and opened the doors. She followed him outside and gasped again. The balcony looked out to the calm waters of the bay and the waves of the Philippine Sea beyond.

“There is no other home on this island with this view. When we fix up the rest of this house, it’ll look like this bedroom.”

This was why she loved Nico. He dreamed of things she couldn’t even imagine and made them happen. She turned and put her arms around him. “I love you, Nico, and I can’t wait to make this our home and raise our children here.”

He gave her that half smile and wiggled his brows as he carried her to the bed.

“Did our house in Tumon survive?”

While Nico had done most of the work to restore that house, Anna had put in her fair share of sweat equity. She remembered sitting with a toothbrush cleaning the grout in the kitchen floor, hauling trash to the industrial-sized bins in the yard, spending days scraping wallpaper off the walls and hand-cleaning inches of mud off the floors. It had taken them the better part of a year to make the house livable, and more often than not, she’d spent the time yelling at Nico for the slow pace with which things got done on the island. But when it was all finished, the house was even better than what she’d ever imagined. She’d been bounced from one rental to another as a child, and this was the first place that had felt like home.

He gripped the steering wheel. “I don’t know.”

“You weren’t home when it happened?”

“I don’t live there anymore.”

Her stomach lurched. Had he sold their house? How could he? Even as the thought flew through her mind she realized how unreasonable she was being. She had left him, and their life. Why would he stay in their home? Of course he’d sold it.

“We still own the house, I didn’t sell it, but I couldn’t live there anymore.”

His eyes were fixed on the road ahead. “I gave it to you in the divorce papers I had drawn up.”

Pain ripped through her chest. How could she have forgotten about the asset division in the divorce settlement? While she had never been divorced herself, she had seen her mother through five of them, each one impossibly more contentious than the last. In the last one her mother had fought with her ex-husband for two months over a painting they had acquired during travels overseas. The painting wasn’t worth as much as they each spent on lawyer fees.

“You bought the house, and it’s probably worth ten times what you paid for it. You should keep it.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t been there since the day you left. Tito has been going once a month to do some basic upkeep. I paid the insurance, so any damage from the tsunami should be covered.”

“What will I do with the house? I don’t even live here. You should sell it.” As she said the words, her breath stuck. The house was not a commodity; it wasn’t a car or jewelry that you sold and split the proceeds, even though she knew that’s what most divorced people did. The house had been home. Their home. One they built together.

Nico swerved hard to avoid an upturned car and Anna slammed into the side door. His jaw clenched. “The house is not for sale. If you don’t want it, we’ll figure out another solution.”

Why did she feel relief? He was being totally unreasonable. Not that she wanted any money from him, but if he wasn’t going to live there, he should sell it. The firm line of his lips told her he was done with this conversation. One of the many things about him that irritated her. It wasn’t that his mind couldn’t be changed. When they were married, a kiss in that crook between his neck and shoulder or a nip on his earlobe melted his resolve. Fights didn’t last long. Until she had Lucas.

After more than an hour of driving, he pulled up to a white building. At least three cars were on the roof and a good-sized yacht was on its side on the front lawn.

“The building was in the direct path of the tsunami. The roof will be an expensive repair.” Nico’s voice was grim, as if he was surveying the damage anew.

The windows were blown out but the building seemed intact, which was far better than what the other buildings in the area looked like. Most of them were missing walls and had roofs caved in.

“Will insurance cover it?”

He nodded. “They should, but they’ll be dragging their heels with all the claims that’ll be hitting them.”

They picked their way across the lawn. The revolving door at the hospital entrance had been blown out, so all that remained was a gaping hole. Still, Anna didn’t miss the etched brass sign next to the door.

In memory of Lucas Michael Atao. The baby who remains in our hearts.

All are welcome, all will be served.

We save lives here.

Hand on her mouth, she staggered and gasped. He was right there as her knees buckled. She waited for the panic to hit but it didn’t. All she felt was Nico’s strong chest on her back, his arms holding her upright. It had been 1,923 days since he’d died. Yet the vise that gripped her heart was as strong as it had been the day it happened.

“I’ve never forgotten him, Anna, and I never will. Your sacrifice, and his, will not go in vain. Good will come from his death.”

She couldn’t talk about this. Nothing in the world could take away the hole in her soul. Not a new hospital, and definitely not Nico. Leaving his embrace, she steadied herself for what waited inside. Silently, he walked in first and she followed. Several people were in the lobby mopping and piling litter into large garbage bags. They waved to Nico and Anna, automatically greeting them with “Hafa Adai!”

She knew a few people, but not well. Some frowned, obviously trying to place her. She walked past them before recognition dawned.

Unfortunately, that luck didn’t hold. “Anna, is that really you?” Before she could stop him, Nico’s uncle Bruno enveloped her in his arms. Never mind that he hated her and they’d never gotten along. He greeted her like she was his long-lost daughter, kissing both cheeks and wiping tears from his eyes as he gushed over how good it was to see her back on Guam.

“Uncle, enough now. Mrs. DeSouza is critical—Anna needs to attend to her.”

Bruno patted her on the shoulders. “It’s so good to see you.”

Anna shook her head as they walked away. “What’s come over him?”

“Aunt Mae died last year and he’s been going on these emotional extremes ever since.”

Anna stopped. “Aunt Mae died? How?” Anna had been quite fond of Bruno’s wife, who had taken Anna under her wing and shown her how to fit in with Nico’s family. She had taught Anna how to make Chamorro food and perform the rituals at church. Aunt Mae had even shown her what to plant in her garden to deal with the briny air. The woman was no spring chicken but she couldn’t have been more than sixty.

“She had a heart attack.” Nico’s voice was matter-of-fact but Anna knew how much he too had cared for Aunt Mae. “I wrote you an email to let you know, but you never replied.”

Anna had set her account so emails from Nico went to a special folder automatically. It was the only way to make sure she never saw his name in her in-box. After returning to California from Guam, she’d been sitting on a bus and checked her smartphone, mindlessly scrolling through emails. She’d read the email from Nico even before her brain had fully processed who the note was from. Crying uncontrollably for the rest of the bus ride, she had almost packed her bags when she got home. Luckily her brain kicked in. So she’d made sure she never accidentally read his emails again. Keeping him out of her mind was the key to her survival.

“I didn’t see the email,” she said sheepishly. “I’m sorry about Aunt Mae, she was a good woman. If we have time, I’d like to go to her grave and leave some flowers.”

“She’s buried near Lucas.”

He might as well have dropped a boulder on her. Since the day she buried him, Anna had not seen her son’s grave. On that horrid day, she’d buried a piece of her soul along with him, a part that she’d never get back. It was the same part that once loved Nico.

“What’s this about Mrs. DeSouza?”

Nico got the hint and led the way. Anna noticed that though the hospital wasn’t quite functional, the inner core was intact. It seemed the entire community was there fixing beds, rolling medical equipment, tending to sick patients. An old man bent low over a cane handed water to a young man who was sitting with a towel over his head. We take care of each other. No one comes to help us, we only rely on each other. Nico had explained this to her when they’d first met; it was what had first made her fall in love with Guam. She had traveled the world and seen a lot of close-knit communities, but never had she witnessed the kind of kinship that existed here.

Nico left her in what would eventually become the ICU. Right now, a generator was powering the few pieces of equipment that weren’t waterlogged. A gap-toothed man sat at the nurses’ station taking apart a defibrillator. Far from a sterile environment, but Anna was used to that now. In Liberia, she’d been lucky if there was a tent available to deal with a patient gushing blood. It was a minor miracle she hadn’t gotten sick.

Mrs. DeSouza had suffered a stroke. Anna vaguely remembered her from community parties. If her memory served, Mrs. DeSouza had never been married, so she fostered little children. Teen pregnancy was common on the island and young mothers often needed child care while they studied for exams or took courses at Guam University. Anna did the best she could for the sick woman.

She moved on to the next patient on a bed, thankful she’d never seen him before. He was in better shape, though he’d obviously had a heart attack. Someone had used a defibrillator but he still had an arrhythmia. She administered some medication and hung an IV bag for a continuous drip. The man would need more invasive testing but he was fine for now.

Nico returned as she finished with her fifth patient. “Mrs. DeSouza won’t make it through the night,” she said without preamble.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he nodded. “Dr. Tucker said there were surgeons on the way.”

Anna shook her head. For once it wasn’t an issue of resources. “She’s too far gone. It’s time to say goodbye.”

Nico nodded. “She has two teenagers she’s been fostering for four years now. They’re really close, I’ll ask someone to go get them.”

“The patients here are good for now. Where do you want me to go next?”

“We have some with burn injuries from fires that broke out.” He grimaced as he said it, and Anna knew why.

She nodded. “Let’s go. They are probably more critical than some of these cases.”

He took her to another unit that was set up like a general hospital ward. Several individual rooms surrounded a nurses’ station, where Nana sat. She stood and came to Anna. “I didn’t get to properly greet you yesterday.” Giving her a hug, she took Anna’s hand and patted it. “Welcome home, my child. I am happy to see you are well.”

Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. She had never gotten along with Nana. While Anna understood why some of the extended family took issue with the fact that she was white and not Chamorro, she didn’t understand why Nana disliked her. Nico’s father was white. He had been a marine stationed on Guam. Sometimes Anna wondered whether Nana had been taking out her husband’s betrayal on Anna. Still, like Uncle Bruno, her smile held genuine warmth and her eyes welcomed Anna sincerely.

Nico motioned to the first door, but before he opened it, he paused. “Are you sure?”

“I’m a doctor—I’ve seen pretty horrific things.”

He opened the door to a darkened room. The figure lying on the bed looked barely human; he’d been burned from head to toe. Anna slipped on gloves and a mask. Burn patients were highly susceptible to infection and she was glad that Nico had had the foresight to put the man in a relatively clean, secluded room. The patient was unconscious but breathing on his own, with a weak but steady heartbeat.

She examined his burns and determined that most of them were first degree with some second degree. The total mass of burns was concerning, so she dressed as many as she could, started an IV and gave him medication.

Each room held its own disturbing picture. Anna dealt with it the way she’d learned: one at a time. Compartmentalized. If she allowed herself to think of all the patients at once, she wouldn’t be able to stand.

“How do you do this?” Nico was helping her with bandages. There was only one nurse at the hospital, and she was working on the less critical cases. No one else could stomach being in the rooms with the smells and sight of burnt flesh. They were on their third burn victim, who was also unconscious.

“I take it one patient at a time. I stay in the moment. My heart cried in the last room. I’m going to grieve for this one now because I don’t think she’ll make it.”

“And when you walk out of the room, will you think about this?”

She shook her head. “I expend my emotions when I’m with the patient so when I leave, I have something left to give the next patient. I have to compartmentalize.”

“How do you do that?”

“It’s a learned skill. I’ve been working one disaster after another for the past five years. In Liberia, nearly all my patients died. My mentor there taught me how to be compassionate without losing myself.”

“Is that what you did with me and Lucas? Compartmentalized us?”

Her head snapped up.

“Not a day has gone by when I haven’t thought of Lucas.”

“Then why haven’t you been back?”

Because being here makes me want to bury myself with my son. She wished she could have left Lucas and Nico on Guam, but she carried them with her wherever she went.

She went back to bandaging the wound.

“I blame myself too. I blame myself for letting you do the surgery. Not because it didn’t go well, but because I know you will never let go of the responsibility. I knew that when you made that first cut, that no matter what happened, you would never be the same.”

“You would’ve let him die.”

“Not because I wanted to, but because that was his fate.”

Her hands were trembling too much to continue with bandaging. “It wasn’t his fate. It was this island. If we were in California, he’d be getting ready to go to kindergarten.”

“Sometimes, Anna, you have to accept what befalls you.”

“And sometimes, Nico, you have to take control of your life and leave the man who refuses to do what’s right for his family. You are not responsible for righting every wrong your father did.”

They’d had this conversation before, said the same hurtful words to each other, and yet it seemed they couldn’t stop. She took a deep breath and looked at her watch. Three hundred and seventeen hours before she could leave.

They finished attending to the rest of the patients in silence. She asked for a chart at the nursing station so she could document what she’d done. While the normally painstaking medical notation was often forgone in disasters, Anna wanted to leave a treatment plan for whichever nurse or physician came in next. The hospital had a working helipad, which meant rescue organizations might be able to transport patients off island to the Philippines or Hawaii for further care.

When Lucas had been diagnosed, the commercial airline pilots were on strike so there had been no outbound flights. They’d waited for a month but there was no sign of the strike resolving. That’s when she’d begun researching other means of transport. With her mother’s and sister’s help, she’d cobbled together the money to hire a private helicopter. By then it had been too late. A storm system had come in, making helicopter flight impossible. Lucas had gotten worse and time ran out.

“You must be Anna.”

She looked up to see a pretty young woman with dark hair and dark, luminous eyes.

“Have we met?”

The woman shook her long, lustrous hair. “I’m Maria.”

The name was obviously supposed to mean something, but Anna couldn’t place it. Then it hit her. Nico’s new girlfriend. Her throat closed.

“You’re Nico’s...” She couldn’t choke out the words.

Maria nodded. “Fiancée.”

They’re already engaged?

“Well, almost fiancée. We haven’t made it official yet—he wanted to make sure things were squared away with the divorce.”

Maria was sucking up all the air in the room. Anna looked around to see if there was anyone who could save her. A patient crisis, another tsunami, anything?

“I see you’ve met Maria.” Nico appeared and put an arm around Maria. She smiled adoringly at him like he was her teenage crush. Then realization struck.

“Wait, are you the same Maria he went to high school with?”

They both nodded and Anna felt sick to her stomach. Nico’s second cousin, who had also gone to the same school, had told her all about the girl Nico dated who had moved away in their junior year. While Nico had been nonchalant when he described the relationship, his cousin told her that Nico had long considered Maria to be the one that got away.

“My parents moved us to Hawaii when I was sixteen, but once I got my master’s degree in administration, I decided to come home and work here.”

“Maria is our hospital administrator. She came back to do some good for the island.” The pride in Nico’s voice made Anna feel like a three-year-old whose lollipop had been taken away. She wanted to hit the other woman. Of course Maria was his childhood love who had returned home to make the island a better place while Anna would continue to be the white woman who’d left her husband for her own selfish reasons.

Maria snuggled against his arm, then turned to Anna. “I want to thank you for going to see Congresswoman Driscoll-Santiago.”

Anna looked up in surprise. She didn’t know anything had come of all the conversations she’d had with the congresswoman about supporting more medical infrastructure for the island.

Anna had met the congresswoman when she was Kat Driscoll, a professor who had recently discovered that she was the secret daughter of a powerful senator. At the time, Anna had set up a meeting with the senator’s chief of staff, Alex Santiago, to make a plea for funding for Guam. Alex had rebuked her, but Kat, who was a silent witness to the meeting, had come up to her afterward to ask for more details.

Eventually, Kat had become a congresswoman—and married Alex. Kat’s chief of staff was her half-sister, Vickie Roberts. Vickie was the one who often called Anna to get specific information about Guam on Kat’s behalf.

“That’s how we got this hospital built so fast and were able to buy state-of-the-art equipment. The congresswoman got us special federal funding. Ironically, it was disaster preparedness funds. She came here to tour the island last year and emphasized that you were the one who compelled her to do something.”

“I didn’t do much, I just brought the issue to her attention,” Anna said shyly, thrilled that Kat had actually kept her promise. She made a mental note to send the congresswoman a thank-you note. Kat had invited Anna on that trip to Guam, and Anna had flatly refused, ending their conversation awkwardly. Since then, their relationship had cooled and Anna was afraid she’d offended the congresswoman.

Nico cleared his throat. “I’ve been meaning to thank you too, Anna. It escaped my mind with everything going on.”

Maria slapped him playfully. “Nico, I can’t believe you. It’s the first thing you should have said when you showed her this building. I bet he went on and on about how he built this place with the best stuff and that’s why it’s still standing.” She gave Anna a conspiring look. “Isn’t that just like him?”

Anna’s stomach churned. “I should check on the other patients.”

“I’ll take you to the next unit,” Nico said quickly.

As Anna stepped out from the nursing station that had separated them, Maria came and gave her a hug. “I’m so glad to meet you. I know you’ve been a big part of Nico’s life, so you will always have a place in my heart. Will you please let me make you dinner one night?”

Is she kidding? Who invites the not-so-ex-wife to dinner? Anna searched for malice in Maria’s eyes but all she saw was an open invitation. Maria was exactly the kind of woman Nico should be marrying. She shared his generous heart and his Chamorro hospitality.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be leaving in thirteen days and there’s a lot to do between now and then.”

Maria began to protest but Nico gently dissuaded her and walked out with Anna. The tense silence stretched between them until Nico finally broke it.

“Our wedding date is set for one month from now. As soon as I can, I’ll get you those divorce papers.”

CHAPTER FIVE

JUST WHEN NICO thought the day couldn’t get any worse, Uncle Bruno showed up. Nico had tried to keep the older man away from where Anna was tending to patients but once Bruno had seen her enter the hospital, the man was on a mission.

“You listen, boy, I don’t want your head turned again. Maria is a good girl. Your mama only has a good year or two left in her. I don’t want you wasting them chasing that woman again.”

“Uncle B, less than an hour ago you were greeting her like she was your long-lost daughter.”

“Of course. What do you want? I should be rude to her? She was family—technically still is since you’re too much of a sissy to get the divorce done.”

Nico pinched the bridge of his nose. He loved his maternal uncle but Bruno had become quite insufferable since Aunt Mae’s death and his mother’s diagnosis. Bruno’s anxiety was easy to understand. Nico’s mother had five siblings. One had died in a car crash and two others had moved away to the mainland. They came home once a decade. Most of their children had also moved away as well; Nico hadn’t seen his cousins in more than twelve years. Bruno and Mae’s two daughters were living in Oregon and Washington. While they came to visit their father once a year, both were increasingly “westernized,” as Bruno called it. Nico knew that he was effectively Bruno’s only family. He and Maria had talked about the fact that they might one day have to take care of Bruno when he became too old to live by himself. It was a conversation he could never have had with Anna.

“What do you want me to do? Wave a magic wand and get the internet working so I can get to my files? On a good day we don’t have a reliable connection.”

“You can build this whole hospital but you can’t get the internet working?”

Nico sighed and threw up his hands. “Uncle B, I got work to do.”

Bruno grabbed his arm. “Listen, Nico, I see the way you look at her and I understand it. It’s how I felt about Mae. But Anna is going to break your heart again, just like your father did to your mother. The white folks never stay. They come here and see the glittering shops and beach resorts and think that’s what life will be like for them. Then they realize that us locals don’t live like that.”

How many times had Nico endured that lecture? Everyone knew the tired old story of how his father swept his mother off her feet, married her with a promise to build a life together, then abandoned her when she was several months pregnant. Nico’s father had been a marine stationed on the island, and he simply left when he was reassigned. Teresa Atao hadn’t even had a chance to change her maiden name. Divorce papers were sent before Nico was born.

When Nico fell in love with Anna, the family was up in arms, worried that history would repeat itself. And it had. He knew that Bruno and his mother were close, and her pain over his father’s betrayal anguished Bruno’s heart, but the knowledge didn’t make his uncle any less difficult to deal with.

“I will get those papers signed. It’s a good thing she’s here. She’s met Maria, she knows where things stand with me. Don’t worry.”

Bruno heaved a sigh of relief. “Good. I don’t want her destroying your happiness again.”

“I won’t.” Anna’s voice cut through the air like a machete.

He really should stop asking whether the day could get worse. Apparently, it was careening downhill. How long had she been standing there?

“How could you think I mean him harm? I will not stand in the way of his happiness.”

Okay, so she’d heard the worst of it.

“Nico, if the internet is what you need, the field hospital has a satellite connection. I’ll ask the clerk to help you when we get back. The sooner we get this over with, the better it will be for everybody.” She looked pointedly at Bruno.

“Oh, Anna, don’t be mad at me.” Bruno gave her one of his cuddly, toothy smiles. “You’re well aware this boy needs a kick in the pants to get something done. You are a lovely girl and will make someone a very good wife—”

“I’ll make a white man a very good wife, right?”

Nico flinched at the hostility in her voice and noticed Bruno did too.

“Anna, Bruno is a Chamorro-ist, you know that.”

Although she tried to hide it, he could see the hint of a smile on her face. It was a term she had come up with to describe his friends and relatives who constantly berated the non-Chamorro people of the island. They were the ones paranoid about their culture being washed away by the increasing presence of tourists and foreigners on the island.

“You two go ahead and make fun of this old man—my poor Mae is rolling in her grave seeing how you treat me these days.”

Nico rolled his eyes and patted his uncle good-naturedly. Even Anna’s face softened. He grabbed her elbow and led her away before the situation ignited again.

“Don’t mind Uncle Bruno, you know how he is.”

“It’s not just him—your entire family always looked at me that way, like I would get up and leave any day. And I guess I did.” Her voice was thick and a heavy sorrow weighed on his heart. He knew it hadn’t been easy for her in the beginning, but they’d built a home together. With Aunt Mae’s help, she had settled into his culture, and he thought she’d embraced it. Had she always felt like an outsider in his home?

“For what it’s worth, that’s not what I thought.” He peered deep into her eyes. The previous anger was gone, replaced by desperation so intense, it touched his soul. His arms automatically lifted to pull her close to him, but he let them drop back to his sides. Maria had been very patient with him. It was time to move on with his life, give his family some closure too. They had moped with him for five years. Nana had consoled him when he’d cried for Lucas, encouraged him when it seemed the hospital would never get built. The entire community had rallied around him. Anna had left of her own volition, and she hadn’t come back. She had never shared in his dreams.

“I have no intention of standing in the way of your happiness with Maria.”

“I know that.”

“I’ll sign the papers. You can have anything you want—the house in Tumon...whatever. We’ll get them printed and signed today so it’s done.”

The lady doth protest too much.

“You’re right about the house. We should sell it and split the profits,” he said.

Is it just me or does she look disappointed?

“You bought the house, you should get the money from it.”

Why was she being so forceful? Was it that she wanted nothing to do with him and Guam? Including any money that came from the house they’d literally built together?

“How about we go to Tumon when that road gets cleared up and then decide how to split it. If the house is totaled, it’ll be a check from the insurance company made out to both of us.”

She seemed to consider his proposal, then nodded slowly. He released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The house was yet another item on his to-do list. After they were married, Maria was going to move into his mother’s house with him, so they could take care of her. Bruno and Tito had kept up the house in Tumon ever since Anna’s departure. Nico had been dreading making a decision on it. Maria had offered to go out there with him several times, but it didn’t seem right to take her. He and Anna would know what to do. Together.

The next hour went by quickly as Anna dealt with the less seriously injured patients. Nico had never really seen her in action like this. He watched the way she took care of people, assuring them they would be okay while dealing with the most gut-wrenching injuries.

He was exhausted after seeing the burn patients, despite being the one who’d brought them in from the field and knowing what to expect. Anna had walked in cold and not once had he seen her recoil like the tough-as-nails men who had carried the victims to the hospital. Anna always had been bulletproof. One of the many reasons he’d fallen for her. Without question, she was the great love of his life, the kind the legends talked about. Most people never felt this kind of love, and he considered himself lucky to have had it. But now it was time to be a responsible man and take care of his family; a family Anna didn’t want to be a part of.

“Do you have your mother’s chart handy? I can review it.”

He hadn’t asked, but of course she’d offered. Pointing to a computer terminal, he led her there. “Maria insisted that we have our electronic medical records that are backed up on servers in a fire-and waterproof room in addition to off-site data storage. We were able to restart our servers and find a machine that hasn’t been damaged. I’ll have a clerk type in all the handwritten notes you’ve left on the patients.”

Her eyes widened in surprise and his chest bloomed with pride. For their entire marriage, she had been the more accomplished one; she was more educated, made a better salary, had more prospects than he did. She never let him feel it, but it was always there. He hadn’t left the island to go to college. His degree in architecture meant a lot to him, but it wasn’t from a prestigious university like hers. And it was just a bachelor’s degree. He’d never earn as much money as she did. This hospital was his legacy, and he wanted her to be proud of it. That was why he’d begged Linda Tucker to send Anna with him today. He knew she would never have come of her own volition.

“Wow! There are clinics Stateside that still don’t have electronic health records. How did you manage that?”

Smiling, he pointed to the computer and logged in. “The people in Washington, DC, have no idea how efficient we can be with money when we want to. The grant they gave us covered the EHRs, too. Instead of buying one of those expensive ones the companies sell, my friend George designed this database. The man went to MIT. He’s settled in Boston now, but when I called him up to do us a favor, he flew over for two weeks, figured out the specs and then did his computer magic. We had the servers and computers shipped from Japan.”

She nodded. “I always knew you could do anything you wanted. You’ve accomplished more here in a few years than people do in generations.”

“It wasn’t all just me. I hired Maria two years ago and she’s been here right alongside me. She helped write the grant that let us build the hospital.”

Anna turned toward the computer and tapped some keys, but not before he caught the pain in her eyes. Taking credit for everything was easy, but not truthful. He knew how to construct a building but he knew nothing about what it took to run a hospital—Maria had done all that. She had been his partner in every way; his dreams had become her goals. Being with Anna made him forget that, and he wanted to make sure he reminded himself. He owed Maria.

He pointed to various features of the EHR as Anna navigated his mother’s chart.

“Looks like she has stage 3 breast cancer. That’s serious, but not fatal. She hasn’t seen a breast surgeon, which is what I’d recommend. They may suggest surgery or send her to a radiation oncologist. I know some good people in California if you fly her over.”

Nico shook his head. “She doesn’t want to leave the island.”

Anna gaped at him. “Are you crazy? This is her life we’re talking about. She doesn’t have to move there forever, just for treatment. There are even some medical assistance programs if you can’t afford the treatment.”

He bristled. “It’s not the money. This island has been her whole life—she wants to die here surrounded by family, in her home. She doesn’t want to live out her last days thousands of miles away in a sterile hospital.”

“But she doesn’t have to die! The five-year survival rates are pretty good. Treatment means more years of life for her...”

“Yes, but at what cost? Being sick all the time, lying in a bed? She wants to enjoy her last days and go out as the vibrant woman she is. That’s how she wants to be remembered, not as a sick old lady.”

Her wide eyes and slight pout told him that she not only disagreed, but wanted to dig her heels in and make him see things her way. And he wanted nothing more than to pick her up and kiss the pout right off her face.

“It’s okay, Anna, I appreciate what you’re saying, but you know it’s not the way we do things here. My mother wants to die with dignity. She doesn’t want to linger on and be a burden to her family.”

“As a doctor, it’s my job to save people, and your mother is by no means terminal. If you want to be obstinate, fine. There’s only so much I can do.”

“It’s not your place to say how I should or should not live my life.”

Nico turned to see his mother standing there and groaned. Why couldn’t he catch a break? First Uncle Bruno and now his mother. The look in her eyes told him he was in for a long lecture. Approaching her, he spoke softly in Chamorro. “Nana, Anna is trying to help. Please don’t start something. We don’t have to listen to her.”

“You do know I speak Chamorro, and my hearing is perfect.” Anna’s tone reminded him of the time he’d taken her to see the Fish Eye Marine Park and she’d been asked to pay the tourist fee, which was twice as much as the residents’ ticket price. She had planted her feet and given the baby-faced teenager working the counter an earful about how she was just as much a resident as Nico. The poor kid probably hadn’t received that kind of scolding since he was a toddler.

He gave her an exasperated look, remembering why they’d had to buy the house in Tumon Bay to begin with. For some reason, Anna and his mother just rubbed each other the wrong way and he always had the misfortune of being caught in the middle.

Anna stepped up to his mother, and short of physically separating them, Nico realized he wasn’t going to avoid an argument today.

“Nana, I understand that you want to die at home, I respect that. But you don’t have to die at all. Women survive breast cancer and go on to have happy, healthy, productive lives. You can see your grandchildren grow up. Surely that’s worth the sacrifice of getting treatment.”

She’d called his mother Nana. That’s what Anna had always called her. When he’d first introduced the two women, Anna had insisted on calling her Mrs. Atao. That had changed when they got engaged, but it warmed his soul to know she still thought of his mother as Nana.

“Child, when you’re my age, you’ll see that life is about quality rather than quantity. It’s time for me to go. You mainland people fight to the end, painfully eking out every breath. That’s not how we do it here.”

He watched Anna blow out a frustrated breath. She didn’t understand; never had.

“Thank you for looking at her chart,” Nico said. “Let me drive you back.”

She blinked up at him, then shuffled her feet. “Is there someone else who can give me a ride?”

It was just as well. They’d just fight all the way back, and it wasn’t worth it anymore. “I’ll arrange it.”

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