Page 7 of Love on the Rocks
Chapter 3
Angelos Mavromatis always got what he wanted. And tonight, what he wanted was her.
- One Week with the Greek
NIKOS
“Doc! Aïe!”
I gripped my pen as the howling started, determined to finish the last sentence of the paragraph I’d been working on:The island was hidden by a sorceress’s spell and the constellations were the only sign the sailors had to guide them to its rocky coast. But the singing of the sirens near the shore was said to make the stars tremble in the sky . . .
“Doc!” The all-too familiar voice cried again; this was no singing siren but the holy terror of the island. With a heavy sigh, I set my notebook aside and opened my office door. Sure enough, there was Dimitris, grasping his twisted arm in his hands, eyes glassy with pain. So much for finishing the translation of my grandfather’s book today—my one day off. It looked like I’d be setting bones instead.
“Only twelve years old and I’ve already mended a third of your body,” I complained an hour later after I’d X-rayed the bone and had begun wrapping the cast on Dimitris’s scrawnyarm. This was the third bone he’d broken in the past two years. “I hope this time will be the last.”
“Pfff!” He waved me off. “I never learn, Doctor.”
“Just like your brothers.” His older brothers were also regulars in my tiny office. On an island of just over three hundred people, you got to know everyone intimately. And as the only doctor, I was especially familiar with the more accident-prone residents.
When the cast had set, I warned, “Now, don’t get this wet. No swimming or fishing for a few weeks.”
He slapped his forehead with his good hand. “Why didn’t I think of that? What am I going to do with myself?”
The kid was in constant movement. He reminded me of a younger version of myself, only slightly more insolent. I pulled a book from the shelf behind me and handed it to him. He stared at it as if I’d just offered him a steaming pile of donkey shit instead of a well-worn copy ofThe Hobbit.
“Ti sto kaló?!”
“In English, please,” I warned. I’d been talking to him almost exclusively in English for the past few months because he was clever and wanted to become a YouTube influencer—of what I had no idea; apart from skinned knees and broken bones, he wasn’t exactly an expert in anything yet.
“Do you see me read books? Never!” I pushed him out into the miniscule waiting room where three pairs of dark eyes followed us from beneath smoky eye makeup. Where had they come from? They must have snuck in when Dimitris left the front door open.
“Kalispera, Niko,” they said in unison.
“Kalispera.” I nodded my head at them and glanced at my watch. I was late. The ferry would be arriving in less than two hours.
“Why are there always so many girls in your waiting room, Doc?” Dimitris asked as I forced him out onto the sidewalk.
“Remind me to teach you about the concept of supply and demand next time you break a bone,” I said as I slipped him a honey lozenge and closed the door so he couldn’t ogle my patients. Sprinting back into my office, I palmed some Benadryl and anti-inflammatory cream, determined to deal with all three patients at the same time.
I knew that whatever “illness” had brought the women to the office was most likely not very serious. One of them had an allergy to tomatoes and kept eating them anyway—I saw her at least once a week. The other two were more creative when it came to inventing sudden ailments that needed my attention, but I’m sure it was nothing that couldn’t be solved by a little ibuprofen.
After seeing them out, I sprinted home to grab my toolbelt and nearly stumbled over Argos, who was curled up like a giant shaggy rug outside the door. I clicked my tongue at him, and he yawned, then followed me up the hill toward the other side of the island.
At the top of the rocks, I paused and let my eyes wander over the hills that dipped into valleys, where spring wildflowers and herbs had just begun peeking through the brown rocks. Soon everything would be in bloom. A rugged paradise framed by the brilliant blue sea, the vista never ceased to take my breath away.
As far as my grandfather was concerned, our island was the center of the world. He used to bring me to this very spot when I was a kid and, pointing his fingers in different directions, tell me stories from the book that was his life’s work. The book that I’d been translating for the past year. I could still hear his voice as I looked toward the horizon. “There, over that ridge is Crete, and to the east is Turkey, farther still to the north, Italy. The Ottomans, the Venetians, they tried to hold on to this island, butthey couldn’t. It’s ours, we’ve been here since it emerged from the sea.”
The sea. It held miracles and mysteries, and I’d always had a connection to it.
“All good things come from the sea, Niko,” my grandfather liked to say. He always insisted that we were descended from ancient sea people, ones that had inspired myths and legends. Despite his pragmatic tendencies, he had a superstitious streak that drove my mother crazy. It was one of the reasons she’d left years ago to make a new life in the States.
Funny how all I ever wanted was to come back to this place. And I had. When my grandfather got sick three years ago, I took over his practice, and since he’d passed away, I was doing my best to safeguard the island’s history.
My eyes wandered over the visible vestiges of that history. From the crumbling pillars of the ancient temple on the highest peak, to the white clay church and tiny monastery behind the old stone walls of the Venetiankastello. When my gaze landed on the silver-leafed cluster of ancient olive groves on the far side of the island, a ball of resentment formed in my chest. In a few short months, they could be gone, replaced by a white, rectangular monstrosity of a resort, with an infinity pool and nightclub to boot.
I cursed at it and continued over the hill, stopping to peek into the old shepherd’s cottage that used to belong to Kyria Antonia. Everyone had believed she was a witch, and she had terrified me as a kid. But once I’d taken over my practice, I’d made frequent house calls to her, and, in a weird twist of fate, she’d left the place to me. No explanation—she just said I’d need it one day. So far, however, I’d abandoned it to Giorgos’s goats.
The sound of the goats bleating in the distance made Argos bark. I patted his head and shooed him away. “Go find your friends.”
