The Doctor's Marriage For A Month

CHAPTER TWO

ISLA HAD TWO CHOICES.

Give in to the nerves that were threatening to consume her alive, proving Kyle right for dumping her and moving on to someone with “a bit more pizzazz, baby.” Or she could make her parents proud.

She chose the latter.

Sure, her mother was no longer here to see her, and her father wasn’t bearing actual witness—not to mention the fact she was saving a human versus an endangered species—but there were guns, bullet wounds and angry faces holding ground over invisible turf lines. This was the stuff her parents were known for.

Besides... These goons had her father.

Losing one parent was bad enough. And when her grandmother had passed away a couple of years back she’d been devastated. No way was she losing her father as well.

She wasn’t ready to be an orphan.

“Are you going to let me go to him or not?” Isla glared at Scarface—her new nickname for Ponytail Man who, now that he’d closed in on her, had revealed a raised scar running the length of his jawline.

There was some nice stitch work there for what looked like a massively botched job in the old “assassination with one stroke of the knife” department’. It looked more jig-jaggy than one-fell-swoopy. Whoever had done the surgery had done their best with what must have been a pretty horrific wound. Not to mention offering Scarface the preferred end of the stick in the whole staying alive thing. She’d like to meet that doctor if she got the chance.

Scarface snapped something short and staccato at her. It didn’t sound very nice, and suffice it to say her nerves were shot.

“That’s not much of a way to speak to a lady. Especially when she has plans to help your wee friend, here.”

She pointed down toward the shoreline, trying to channel the strength and courage her mother had virtually glowed with.

“I’ll have you know if that young man has an arterial bleed...” She crossed her arms and gave him her best knowing look. “He’ll be dead by now. Muerto.” She drew a line across her neck and made a dead face.

Scarface stepped forward, aimed his gun directly at her face and called the others to close in on her.

Oops.

She’d have to work on her communication by body language skills.

She shook her head and feigned world-weariness with a heavy sigh. “I am a doctor. Médico.” She pointed at herself again, hoping the word was an actual Spanish word.

She’d taken an oath to treat each and every patient who came her way. Even if they had been caught stealing turtle eggs for their alleged powers of sexual prowess.

Once Mr. Gunshot Wound was in Recovery, she’d make it clear to him that the one thing these eggs did produce was turtles—not a hot night in the sack. Unless, of course, he was iron deficient, in which case she could recommend some supplements.

See? Sensible and sassy.

She turned toward the young man. Instantly all the guns were lifted a bit higher. A metallic reminder that her freedom was not her own.

“I need to examine him,” she said, irritation threading actively through her voice as she met another one of the pandillero’s dark eyes.

No response.

“If I don’t get to him he’s going to die.”

The men stared at her.

She persisted. “He could drown. Look at him!”

The poor lad was sprawled on the shoreline, legs apart, hands clutched to his chest, and the tide was coming in without an ounce of pity for a young man whose life could be taken away. Much like the baddie now staring at her as if he were carved out of marble.

This was absolute madness!

She glanced toward the security men wearing El Valderon Turtle Sanctuary T-shirts. Their guns had been taken from them and they were being tied to palm trees by yet more members of Noche Blanca. Terrific. When had that happened?

“Any one of you willing to let me know why I can’t help this guy?”

She stared at Scarface for answers. He pushed her further into the center of the newly floodlit part of the cove with the butt of his rifle.

“Hey!”

She rubbed the small of her back. No one—and that included gun-wielding criminals trying to steal turtle eggs from idyllic beaches in the middle of the Caribbean—was going to push her around. Had she mentioned being dumped this week? The cancelled wedding?

She wheeled on him. “I am a doctor,” she ground out. “Dottore?” She pointed at herself, wondering why she was now speaking in Italian.

Maybe because you’re a boring GP whose only access to the world is via your television.

She pushed Kyle’s cutting tone out of her head. It was a heck of a lot better than getting access to the world via an array of flight attendants’ lady gardens!

She gave the pushy gunman her best no-nonsense face. The one she always had to use with Mrs. MacGregor when she refused to take her insulin. Scottish stubbornness was a force to be reckoned with. If she could get Mrs. MacGregor to listen she could do the same with these men.

“I can stop your friend from bleeding to death...” she pressed her hands to her stomach and then braved making her dying face again before looking him in the eye “...but you have to let me go to him.”

She pointed at the young man again, speaking as calmly as she could. Difficult with her heart trying to launch itself into her throat every few seconds.

“I need to help him.”

She kept pointing at herself and then the young man, feeling about as awkward as she did every Christmas when her aunties forced her to play charades.

Talking slowly didn’t appear to be remotely helpful. The man stared at her entirely unmoved.

He would have been terrific at playing a tree in the school play. She tried to picture the scene in an attempt to make him seem less scary. Miraculously, it worked.

So she did the only thing she could think of that would end this ridiculous stand-off while that poor man bled into the approaching surf. She ignored the man in front of her and began deliberately walking toward her patient.

No one moved a muscle.

No guns were raised.

No safety catches were unclipped.

Not that she really knew what that would sound like, but she was over-familiar with the crime show oeuvre and knew having the safety on or off was very important.

Was that what she’d done her life these past few years? Approach it with the safety on?

Well... Look at her now. Here she was in the middle of a crime scene, marching toward a patient as if the Hippocratic oath made her bullet proof.

At least if she died it would be in a blaze of glory. How very “MacLeay” of her. That would make the papers back home!

She looked down at her wrinkled eyelet blouse and crumpled A-line skirt. Her hand crept up to her hair. Her auburn curls had exploded into the equivalent of a comedy wig the second she’d stepped off the plane and she hadn’t had the heart to try and wrestle them into submission. Yet. She’d given herself a week to cry and feel sorry for herself and she was only halfway through it.

Another reason to be annoyed with these banditos. How dare they interrupt her self-indulgent sob-fest when she so rarely took time for herself?

She gave her shoulders a little wriggle and kept her head held high. Looks weren’t everything. Besides, she hadn’t been shot yet, so perhaps dying in a scrappy skirt and T-shirt ensemble wouldn’t be an issue.

She kept her eyes glued on the young man. A late teen at best. On the cusp of the rest of his life. He deserved a fighting chance to make some new decisions. Take a fresh path. And she was going to be the one to give him the chance. Then the pandilleros would free her, liberate her father, and everyone could get on with their lives.

Scarface shouted at her and then at another one of his hombres as the roar of a motorboat cracked through the thick night air. She heard the word médico somewhere in there, so thought the best thing to do was to keep on walking.

Finally! They were getting the hint. She was trying to help. And maybe the boat was the island version of an ambulance.

The waves were just beginning to shift the sand around the boy. She pulled off her light cardigan and moved his hands away from the wound without too much effort. His strength was clearly fading. She sucked in a sharp breath. The bullet had entered the lower region of his right shoulder. His breathing was jagged. She pressed her fingers to the pulse line on his throat. Accelerated.

Diagnoses flew threw her mind. Pneumothorax? Chest wall tenderness? Only an X-ray would give a proper read on the situation, but if that bullet had nicked the boy’s lung on entry there was every chance he was suffering a hemo-pneumothorax. A potentially lethal combination of air and blood filling the chest cavity.

“Me llama, Isla.”

He stared at her with glazed eyes and said nothing.

She silently berated herself. It didn’t matter if he knew her name or not. What mattered was whether or not she could stop the bleeding and keep him breathing. The frightened look in his eyes sharpened her resolve to help him. Her heart twisted inside her chest as it hit home just how fortunate she had been as a child.

Okay, her parents had been away on research trips for the bulk of her childhood, but she’d had her grandmother. She’d known her parents would try their best to get home for holidays. They’d make a huge event out of her birthdays. She’d been clothed, fed, and she’d always known she was loved.

It was why she’d vowed to become such a solid rock for her father when her mother had died. She knew half of his world had been torn away from him that day and, like her grandmother before her, she was going to be there for him. Reliable. Dependable.

Boring.

She gave her head a shake. Boring or not, she had a patient.

“Isla,” she repeated, pointing to herself. “No hablo Española.”

Obviously. She’d hardly be prattling on to him in English if she was fluent in Spanish.

He said nothing.

“I’m here to help.”

She did her best not to look horrified when she tore a bit of his shirt away to examine the open wound the bullet had made. You didn’t get this sort of injury at her “humdrum fuddy-duddy” general practice on Loch Craggen. The worst she’d seen since she’d taken over from Old Doc Jimmy MacLean was an accidental impalement when a pitchfork-throwing contest had gone wrong.

She pressed her cardigan to the wound and as gently as she could turned the young man on to his side, so she could see if the bullet had come out the other side. No.

That scenario came with its own set of complications. Her mind whirled back to her first posting after med school. A central Glasgow A&E department. The gunshot and stabbing victims there had the entire Imaging Ward at their disposal. X-rays to locate the bullets. CT scans to check for symptoms, and any indication of vascular damage or unstable vital signs.

The only thing she wouldn’t need here was an MRI. If that bullet was close to any vital soft tissue structures Magnetic Resonance Imaging was the last thing you wanted with a metal bullet inside you.

She pressed her fingers to the young man’s carotid artery. If he loses more blood...

She gave her head a short, sharp shake. His pulse was still there. He was obviously a fighter. Good. He was too young to die and, judging by the impressive array of ink on his arms, and the fact he wasn’t wearing the sanctuary uniform, she had a feeling that if he lost his life on her watch things might not pan out so well for her father.

She was mentally kicking herself for not bringing her medical kit on the trip. The only useful things she had back at the bungalow were an extra-large box of tissues, the small bottle of tequila she’d spied on her father’s bookshelf and so far refused to let herself pinch, and her ever-present pair of tweezers.

She might be boring, but her eyebrows were perfect. Not to mention the fact she could pull a sliver out of a little boy’s knee faster than you could say boo.

What she wouldn’t give for a wound-packing kit.

What this kid needed was a hospital. And blood. An IV line chock-full of antibiotics. An X-ray and a chest tube to get the air out of his chest cavity and into his lungs.

As if on cue, a medium-sized motorboat roared into the isolated cove. A gabble of response burst from all the men who had been closing in round Isla.

When she clapped her eyes on the man at the helm of the high-tech boat—a man with inky dark hair, bone structure that would put a supermodel to shame and body language that belonged solely to an elite group of alpha males she’d never even dreamed of seeing in real life, let alone meeting on a tropical beach—one thing and one thing only popped into her mind: You’re not to be trusted. Not by a long shot.

* * *

Diego took in the scene as quickly as he could. Eight men circled around something or someone on the beach. The reason he’d been called, no doubt. Paz “Cruzito” Cruz. Axl’s youngest son.

The pointlessness of it all clouded his heart.

A young man shouldn’t be risking his life so another could slurp down raw turtle eggs in a pint of beer.

Axl told them they were brave. Revolutionaries. Taking what was rightfully theirs.

Cowards. That was what they really were.

Cowards with guns threatening an already poor nation with civil unrest.

He jumped out of the boat in one fluid motion, the warm sea water saturating his trousers up to his thighs. He pulled the motorboat up to the shore by a thick rope, which he tossed to one of the younger men. He threw his keys to another. They knew the consequences if anything happened to his boat.

Prison. For the lot of them.

But as it stood turning them in wasn’t on the agenda. Saving a life was.

“Dónde está Cruzito?”

The men parted and there he was. The son of Noche Blanca’s head honcho. Bleeding out on the beach over a handful of worthless cracked turtle eggs. They would’ve brought him maybe ten dollars. Twenty if he was lucky. Hardly the “big pull” he knew the kid was trying to reel in to win his father’s approval.

He’d met him before. Cruzito was no career criminal. He was a boy trying to make his father proud the only way he knew how. The sooner he learnt that winning his father’s approval was nigh on impossible, the better.

Diego bit back the telling-off the seventeen-year-old deserved. He’d save his life first. Then he’d give him a telling off. And hand him over to his father for an even bigger one.

His eyes traveled to the pair of hands pressing a blood-soaked wodge of fabric onto the gunshot wound. A woman’s hands. Delicate. Pale skin. Creamy white and soft as silk. His gaze slid up her arms and widened when he reached her face.

His heart slammed against his rib cage so hard it punched the air straight out of his chest.

She was unlike any woman he’d ever seen. Utterly bewitching. Like some sort of fairy creature. The type who emerged from enchanted woodlands in faraway countries covered in snow and ice and had the power to take a man’s heart hostage if she chose to.

Not that she looked cold-hearted. Far from it. Nor did she look as if she needed his help. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Her heart-shaped faced was a picture of crystalized concentration. Her cheeks were pinked up with exertion. Her richly colored auburn hair looked as though it was made out of a millions strands of coiled silk. Wild and untameable. When he met her bright blue eyes, sparking with life, he thought the exact same thing. Here was a woman who did things her way.

“Are you just going to stand there or are you going to use those long legs of yours to walk over here and help me?”

He absorbed the Scottish accent and connected the dots. Doug MacLeay’s daughter. She had to be. Where the Professor had a Let’s all calm down and talk about this approach, his daughter looked as though she were ready to spit fire.

Her eyes lasered across the collection of men who had now finally dropped their weapons. “No one here seems to have a polite bone in their body. I hope you’re planning on breaking the mold. A medical kit and a fourteen or sixteen-gauge needle wouldn’t go awry either.”

He smiled. He liked being right. She was feisty. Just as quickly he sobered. Axl Cruz didn’t give a flying monkey if the most beautiful woman on the island was tending to his son. She’d seen too much. Knew too much. Cruzito’s wouldn’t be the only life he’d have to save today. Just by being here this woman had started a clock to her inevitable assassination.

The tumble of curls masked her eyes as she tipped her head toward the shoreline. “Tell me that boat of yours goes to the hospital.”

“No.” He shook his head. “But I’m here to help. Diego Vasquez,” he said, by way of introduction.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, get on with it, then. This flimsy jumper of mine’s hardly going to save the lad’s life, is it?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. Not the usual response he got. Usually it was more fawning. Sycophantic, even. More the swinging of a hip and the heave of a bosom if it was one of the island’s few socialites. A batting of the eyes if it was that petite curvy nurse in Pediatrics.

He kind of liked being huffed at. But he liked saving lives more.

He rattled through a swift set of instructions in Spanish that set the men running.

In under a minute a stretcher was pulled out of the back of the boat, along with a wound-packing kit, a catheter and a chest tube.

He switched to English. “You’re a doctor?”

She nodded. “Dr. MacLeay. Doug MacLeay’s daughter. Isla.”

Isla. “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.”

They both cringed at the cheesy line, but he wasn’t about to take it back. In just a handful of seconds she’d lit fires inside his gut he’d long thought dormant. Dead, even. Dead for a very precise reason. Relationships meant caring. And caring meant loss.

He didn’t do loss. Not anymore.

“I hope you’ve got a wound pack in there. I can’t tell if the bullet’s hit anything. Increased blood pressure and respiratory rate indicate the lung’s taken a nick, or perhaps a bit of bone from the rib cage is lodged in there.” She gave her shoulders a little shrug up to her ears.

He knew the drill. All too well, unfortunately.

He pulled out a handful of gauze packs. His hands covered hers as they swiftly packed the wound together.

He ignored the fireworks shooting up his arms and arrowing south as he spoke. “I’ve got a couple of IV bags preloaded with antibiotics in my run-bag. Looks like he’ll need them. Now.”

She dropped her lids to half-mast over those bright blue eyes of hers, sucked in a sharp breath and pulled her hands away from his, dousing them in the approaching surf. Neither of them watched the blood travel back into the sea as the wave withdrew into the ocean.

“First...”

She pulled an IV bag from his medical tote, squinted at the writing on it, nodded, then expertly inserted a needle into Cruzito’s arm. She connected it to the removable plug, then filled the drip chamber as she held the IV bag pinched between her shoulder and chin while he continued to compress the wound. Once she’d purged the air from the line she opened the catheter port so the solution could begin to flow.

“I hope you have a supply of O-positive blood in that bag somewhere. And second—I’m not going anywhere without my father.”

“It’s probably best if you leave him out of it.”

“My only living relative?” Outrage radiated from her every pore. “I don’t bloody think so!”

Diego lowered his voice. “If he’s hiding, just leave him there. It’s safest.”

Giving the family land to the sanctuary had seemed like such a good idea. Now it seemed like his worst.

Life is complicated. Peace takes time. Peace takes perseverance.

“Too late for that,” Isla bit back. “Two of your mates strong-armed him out of here. I want to see him before I do anything else.” She held up the IV bag. “An air embolism is a dangerous thing for a man already teetering between life and death.”

Something told him there wasn’t a chance on earth she would really compromise Cruzito’s welfare. If she really would take a life for a life she wouldn’t have been compressing his wound with five gun barrels pointing at her head. Only a doctor who took her vow of care seriously would be kneeling in the blood-stained surf, prepared to give life to a man who was responsible for her father being dragged away by armed gang members.