Could their temporary vows...

Become a marriage for real?

When Isla MacLeay comes to the beautiful Caribbean island of El Valderon, the last thing she expects is to be forced into marriage. But the fiery Scottish redhead is in danger, and the only solution is for her to wear Dr. Diego Vasquez’s ring. Isla is already nursing a broken heart...but now she must protect it from the man she could easily fall in love with—her husband!

ANNIE O’NEIL spent most of her childhood with her leg draped over the family rocking chair and a book in her hand. Novels, baking, and writing too much teenage angst poetry ate up most of her youth. Now Annie splits her time between corralling her husband into helping her with their cows, baking, reading, barrel racing (not really!) and spending some very happy hours at her computer, writing.

Also by Annie O’Neil

Healing the Sheikh’s Heart

Her Knight Under the Mistletoe

Reunited with Her Parisian Surgeon

One Night with Dr Nikolaides

The Army Doc’s Christmas Angel

Tempted by Her Single Dad Boss

Italian Royals miniseries

Tempted by the Bridesmaid

Claiming His Pregnant Princess

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Doctor’s Marriage for a Month

Annie O’Neil

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08982-1

THE DOCTOR’S MARRIAGE FOR A MONTH

© 2019 Annie O’Neil

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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This one goes to my editor Laurie, who I’ve finally got to work with after she spotted me in a So You Think You Can Write competition many moons ago.

Thanks to her, my confidence grew enough for me to keep on trying, keep on writing and eventually get my very first contract to write books for Mills & Boon/Harlequin.

Thank you so much, Laurie!

Your faith in me has led to a whole magical world of book writing I never thought would come my way!

xx Annie O’

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

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

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

“NO TAKERS FOR the Nocturnal Turtle Tour?” asked Isla MacLeay as she scrubbed at her face, hoping her father couldn’t see that it was, as it had been for the past three days, stained with tears.

“Not tonight. I thought we had some takers, but...” Her father looked out at the huge expanse of beach before them. “I guess getting the sanctuary established is going to be a bit more of a task than I thought. Here you are, lassie.”

She felt one of her father’s soft cotton handkerchiefs brush against her hand. She took it with a smile she knew didn’t reach her eyes as her heart cinched tight. It was the second time this week he’d acted like a “real dad.”

If getting dumped a week before her wedding was all it took to get his attention, she would’ve faked a wedding years ago.

Before her father had found her she’d been sitting against a palm tree, next to the little tote bag that held her diary and her increasingly eclectic pen collection, almost enjoying quietly sniffling away as silvery moonlight bathed the idyllic crescent of beach, where palm leaves murmured in the light breeze as the warm Caribbean sea lapped and teased at the pure white sand.

She’d come a long way from her little Scottish home in Loch Craggen, but tonight the beach had been as far as she’d been prepared to go.

She had kissed her father goodnight when he’d pulled out yet another one of his huge folders full of plans for the El Valderon Turtle Sanctuary and, not being sleepy, had strolled to the beach for a bit of a sob, leaving the low-slung buildings of the sanctuary behind her, and losing herself to the beautiful cove which they surrounded.

The billowing foam arcing atop the waves surging in from the Caribbean Sea reminded her of a delicate glass of fizz, just about to overflow. Not that she was used to champagne being popped and poured at the drop of a hat. Her fiancé—her ex-fiancé—hadn’t really been one to plump for that sort of thing. Not for her, anyway.

Remembering his words had fresh tears rolling down her freckled cheeks. Just in case she hadn’t understood what “I’ve fallen in love with someone else” meant...he’d gone on to make it plain as day.

“How could I marry you? It wouldn’t be fair. To either of us. Sorry, babes. Now that I’ve dipped my toe into the waters of life off Craggen it’s plain as day. I’m a world traveler. And, as much as it pains me to say it, you’re a boring, rule-abiding, science nerd. It’s just not my scene, darlin’. Ciao!”

Ciao?

The man had only flown to Italy once. He’d not even left the airport and now he was fluent?

Pffft. That showed her for falling for pretty words and a handsome face. She saw it now. Plain as the hand in front of her face. Kyle had only wanted someone reliable until something better came along. The next man she met and fell for would be a nerd through and through.

“There’s nothing wrong with being reliable as a millstone.”

When her grandmother had said it, it had sounded like a good thing.

When Kyle had said it she’d instantly heard the bell toll for the end of their marriage plans.

She couldn’t help but wonder how others might have reacted—what people who were perky flight attendants in Europe might have been inclined to say.

Not that she’d met Kyle’s new girlfriend. Girlfriend! But the rumor mill ran stronger than the mountain rivers that flowed into the inky depths of Loch Craggen. Apparently the new girlfriend was absolutely adorable and soooo sophisticated.

What was wrong with corduroy skirts, woolly tights and hand-knitted jumpers? It was cold in Loch Craggen. Even in August.

Which was precisely why she had packed just about nothing appropriate for her last-minute trip El Valderon. Was there anything appropriate, apart from mourning clothes? She wasn’t mourning Kyle, exactly. But she did feel she was mourning the loss of something intangible. Either way, she needed new clothes and had promised to take herself shopping. One of these days.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Startled into the present, she stared with her father out into the inky darkness as the moon slid behind a cloud.

“What was that?”

Despite the late-night tropical heat, goose bumps rippled up Isla’s arms, then shot down her back.

It wasn’t a sudden chill she felt.

It was fear.

She pressed her fingers to her eyes, gave them a quick rub, then pinged them open, forcing herself to adjust to the inky darkness.

“Dad?” She couldn’t see him. He’d been right beside her a second ago!

Fear clashed with an age-old anger. Had he run off toward the danger, instead of staying with her when she truly needed him?

She squinted out into the darkness.

The gunfire sounded again.

“Dad? Daddy! Are you all right?”

Where was he?

Her heart pounded against her chest. Isla hadn’t called her father “daddy” in years. Decades, even. At thirty-one years old she was a grown woman. A doctor. But fear had a way of reducing a girl to her essential self. A little girl who’d come halfway round the world to seek solace from her father when her heart had been smashed into a thousand little pieces.

None of that mattered now.

An anguished male scream broke through the roar of blood in her head as rapid-fire Spanish was lobbed from one end of the cove to the other.

She didn’t have to be a doctor to know the sound of pain, but she was thanking heaven that she was. It narrowed her focus. Pushed away the fear. Gave her something to do: help.

She spun round and saw a young man clutching his shoulder. Her heart lurched into her throat. She saw blood pouring between his fingers. Oh no. He’d been hit.

Everything slowed down, as if she were in a frame-by-frame film sequence.

The atmosphere at the oceanside cove had flipped from tranquil to chaotic in little more than the blink of an eye. One minute she’d been quietly sobbing her heart out about her wreck of a life and the next... Gunfire and shouting erupted from each of the two heavily armed groups facing off against each other.

So these were the men her father had said “might bear a bit of a grudge” against the sanctuary.

The man stumbling toward her must have been caught in the crossfire between The El Valderon Turtle Sanctuary’s security guards and the tattooed, slick-haired members of Noche Blanca—the ragtag but reportedly vicious, mafia-type group led by the island’s one notorious criminal: Axl Cruz.

He had been enraged when the owners of a large coffee plantation had donated the land to the sanctuary. Her father had hinted that there had been a rise in tension over precious turtle eggs. Precious to Axl Cruz because they meant money on the black market. Precious to her father because the sea creatures were endangered.

Instinct set her in motion.

Flashes of gunfire lit up the inky black sky. An illustration, if she needed one, of why the so-called gang called themselves White Night.

Her nostrils stung with the sour scent of spent gunpowder.

A volley of Spanish came at her from all directions as yet another round of gunfire broke through the night. When the moon reappeared she saw her father.

“Daddy!”

Why were they dragging him away?

“I’m all right, love.” Her father’s scratchy brogue carried across the cove. “Just stay calm. You’ll be fine. They only want the eggs. They won’t hurt you if you do what they say. All right, laddies. ¡Suéltame!”

She strained to hear her father’s calm, ever-scientific voice rising and falling, explaining something in Spanish as calmly as if the gun-wielding pandilleros had come along for one of her father’s nocturnal sea turtle tours.

Ever since her mum had died the man had lived on another planet. How else could one unbelievably intelligent human think he could talk down a criminal gang intent on illegal turtle egg sales?

It was why her grandmother had raised her to be the sensible one. The reliable one.

The boring one.

She pushed aside her ex’s cruel words and tried to follow her father’s directions. As bonkers as he was, there wasn’t a chance on earth she was going to lose him too. Not after the week she’d had. So she did what she was good at: following protocol.

There was a gunshot victim and he needed help. Now.

She astonished herself by offering a polite smile to one of the burlier men closing in on her. His pitch-black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. If he loosened his hair and put on a smile she could imagine him as a father or son.

He grunted and looked away.

Apparently smiles weren’t going to help tonight.

Her father had told her that in a good year on the black market a family could live for a year on the proceeds of a single night’s haul of the precious eggs. Little wonder some of the men had turned to crime when the land had become protected.

Not protected well enough.

Her father’s project was meant to put an end to the need for violence. Create a viable means of making a living on the island. Bring an end to the destruction of the endangered animals. An end to the violence. A way to legitimately support a family. But it would take time. Time these men didn’t seem willing to give.

A tall, lanky man stepped forward and grabbed her arm as yet another unhooked a skein of rope from his shoulder.

Her vision blurred as reality dawned.

She was going to be held hostage.

She turned and caught a final glimpse of her father being manhandled toward the smattering of seaside bungalows where the sanctuary staff lived. Before he disappeared she heard him shouting something about calling for help.

An ice-cold flash of fear prickled along her spine.

Help? Which one of them was in any position to call for help? She’d only been on the island a few days, and those had largely been spent sobbing her eyes out over her broken engagement. The little girl in her wanted to scream with frustration. He was the one who was tapped into the local support network. He was the grown-up!

The male who’d been shot uttered a low groan as he dropped to his knees in pain.

And just like that she remembered she was an adult too. One with the power to help.

It felt as if hours had passed since she’d heard the first gunshots, but Isla knew better than most that only a few precious seconds had passed. Life-changing seconds.

The pony-tailed man shouldered an automatic weapon. She followed the trajectory of his gun as it swung to the far side of the cove.

He raised it to the starlit sky and fired. The sharp rat-a-tat-tats sounded more like a signal than an attempt to get the turtle sanctuary’s ragtag protection detail to run for the hills.

Her heart ached for the sanctuary security team. They were gentle men—cooks, farmers, bricklayers, fathers—whose sole desire was to see an end to the violence that threatened to taint their lives so cruelly.

Ire burnt and stung in her chest, then reformed as a white-hot rod of indignation. They shouldn’t have to live like this. Fearing for their lives while trying to do the right thing by their families and their community.

“Everybody stop!”

Much to her astonishment, they did.

The moment’s reprieve in the shooting and shouting gave her a chance to listen for anyone approaching or more instructions from her father.

Nope.

Not a living soul.

Just a chance to realize that her heart had stopped hammering against her rib cage as if it too were trying to escape.

Two weeks ago she would’ve been hiding under something right now. Most likely the big bed in her little stone cottage on Craggen. Not standing between two gun-toting groups of men with her arms out like some sort of bonkers traffic controller.

Was being dumped more character-building than soul-destroying? Or was the truth a bit more simple.

After the week she’d had Isla really didn’t have time for this sort of ridiculous machismo.

She pushed her own issues to the wayside. Her father was here to help the community—not hinder. Nor had she faced up to a lifelong fear of flying only to get killed when she got here.

She was here to lick her emotional wounds, sulk a little. Wallow. Something she never did. And she was not best pleased to have to patch together gun-wielding turtle egg poachers just because they didn’t see the sense in her father’s big plan.

The same father, she reminded herself, who probably should’ve mentioned the fact that El Valderon was more akin to the Wild West of yesteryear than a restorative Caribbean spa.

Maybe he simply didn’t want to see the dark side.

Her heart softened. For once, her father had been trying to do right by her. To give her a place to hide away from the prying eyes of Loch Craggen. Regroup after being deemed “the most boring girlfriend on earth.”

Well, Kyle would’ve been boring too, if his mother had been killed and his father had lost the plot. Someone needed to be practical. Someone needed to look after Grannie. Someone had to be there.

Ponytail Man retrained his gun on her. She stared him straight in the eye. Here was her chance to show Kyle Strout just what boring looked like.

She looked down at the pure white sand currently soaking up the splatterings of very real blood, courtesy of the egg poachers and guards shooting at each other.

A swift shot of resolve crackled through her like a flash of unexpected lightning.

She wasn’t boring.

Nor was she going to engage in all this mopey, weepy, victim of an ill-fated romance palaver.

She was going to save this man’s life, then find her father and help him make his dream of saving the sea turtle come true.

She squared off to Ponytail Man and fixed him with her fiercest look of determination. The type she would’ve given Annie Taggart’s highly energized toddlers when she needed to take blood samples.

Yes, she’d show Kyle precisely how exciting “fifty shades of boring” could be.

* * *

Fury pumped through Diego’s veins. He slammed his phone against the stucco wall outside the small hospital, not caring when the handset shattered.

If Noche Blanca were going to act like cavemen they could resort to smoke signals if they wanted his help.

But as quickly as the urge to tell them where to stick their call for help launched his blood pressure through the stratosphere, it crashed back down to earth.

A patient was a patient. Even if that patient was a class-A idiot. And this particular idiot was the son of Noche Blanca’s take-no-prisoners head honcho Axl Cruz. If he died there was no telling the extremes Axl would take to exact revenge.

Diego picked up the pieces of his phone and shoved them into his pocket, shaking his head in utter disbelief. It was the third burner he’d obliterated in a week. Just yesterday, as he’d been stitching up one of Axl’s pandilleros who’d lacerated his arm after putting his meaty fist through a window, he’d thought he’d made it crystal clear. The help would continue so long as they left the sanctuary alone.

Transition periods took time. And, sure, it depleted everyone’s pocket money—which he knew was rich, coming from him—but the ultimate reward was peace. A steady economy for all the islanders. That was priceless. And it was why he’d instructed his family’s company to gift the land to the sanctuary.

He swore as he strode into the hospital, not caring who heard.

“Amigo! Hold up.”

He whirled round as the small hospital’s head surgeon caught up to him.

“Que paso? I didn’t think you were on tonight.”

The thunderous expression on Diego’s face told Dr. Antonio Aguillera all he needed to know.

He raised his hands and backed off. “I’ll call in back-up.”

“I’ve got it,” Diego growled, grabbing a fresh pair of scrubs and a pair of surgical scrubs from a porter passing with a supplies trolley. “I’ll bring them back to the clinic.”

They both knew what that meant. These patients weren’t on the right side of the law. The hospital was stretched to the limit as it was, and Diego knew more than most what happened when blood was shed and Noche Blanca were involved.

“Just a bit short on supplies.” He’d ordered some in from the States, but, as often happened in developing countries, things went missing.

“Okay, brother. Good luck.”

Anton disappeared into a nearby supplies cupboard and moments later handed Diego a jute coffee sack he knew would be stuffed full of supplies. Supplies that the hospital’s administration would never officially hand over to him, despite the number of lives he’d saved that hadn’t been linked to Noche Blanca.

Diego gave his colleague a slap on the back. One that communicated all the things he couldn’t say.

No one will ever be able to replace my brother, but thank you for treating me like one. We both know luck counts for nothing when dealing with Noche Blanca.

“See you in the morning.”

With any luck.

“Dr. Vasquez! Momentito, por favor!”

Irritation crackled through him. He didn’t need to wriggle out of another administrative hoop. He wasn’t on shift tonight.

He turned around.

Maria del Mar.

The woman was half siren, half business mogul. It was a shame she’d picked healthcare as her means of expressing the two sides of her personality.

Running the hospital was akin to a hot night in the sack for her. The life and death decisions... The status... The ability to play God... Or goddess, in her case.

The only reason he worked at the hospital was because he’d vowed not to hold the rest of the islanders accountable for one woman’s idiot decision.

Sure. It sent a message to Noche Blanca. You wield guns? Your problem.

The only thing was, when it was your kid brother lines got blurred.

“No time, Maria.” He tapped the face of his non-existent watch.

It was a ten-minute boat run to the turtle sanctuary. He’d thought with Professor MacLeay’s plans to turn the turtle eggs into a legitimate commodity Noche Blanca might back off. That Axl would move on to another island, just as he had moved to theirs some fifteen years ago.

Maria wobbled toward him on her ridiculous high heels. Why the woman was even at the clinic after-hours was beyond him.

He snorted.

She has no life. Just like you.

No. That was exactly the point. He did have a life. Unlike his brother, who’d died just a few miles away from this very hospital.

Nico hadn’t been a criminal. Wayward? Absolutely. But his heart had been pure gold. When some bandilleros from a neighboring island had tried to move in on El Valderon Nico had thrown himself between a bullet and the eldest son of Axl Cruz. On nights when he let himself think about it, Diego guessed his brother had thought Better the devil they knew...

In Maria’s eyes the life-saving gesture had painted Diego’s kid brother with the Noche Blanca brush, and Nico had bled out a handful of miles away as an ambulance idled in the hospital’s parking lot.

Would going there have been scary? Sure. But that was what bullet proof vests and the police were for. And most of Noche Blanca weren’t true criminals. They were weak men, intimidated and bullied into a life of crime by someone who promised them untold riches. Riches he had no right to promise them.

The only good thing about Axl Cruz was that he liked a clean shop. Not one other gang had ever gained a foothold on their small island nation.

Better the devil they knew...

“Diego Vasquez! Where are you off to with a bag of El Valderon coffee beans?”

She knew as well as he did that the sack he was holding wasn’t full of premium roast.

He slung it over his shoulder and pasted on his version of a good-boy smile. “Off to help a citizen of this fair isle, Maria. Where else?”

He never saw the point in lying.

“That citizen had better not be inked up and wearing knuckle dusters.”

He gave a careless shrug. “Won’t know till I get there.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who made the call?”

“A concerned citizen.”

He knew the drill now. Keep it vague, then she couldn’t say no. Theirs was an unwritten agreement, but to all intents and purposes it was written in stone. So long as he could use hospital supplies to treat patients on-scene he’d continue to work at the poorly staffed hospital. The second she turned off the supply room tap it would be Hasta luego, mamacita.

“Meet up after for a drink? Maybe we can talk about putting you on the roster for a few more shifts?”

He laughed. He had to hand it to her. If she wanted something she went for it. Her husband must have one helluva spine. Diego was civil to her. Polite, even. But there wasn’t a chance on God’s green earth that he would be her friend.

“I’ve got to go, Maria.” He swung the bag back round. “Duty calls.”

He pulled the keys to his motorboat from his pocket and set off at a jog. He wasn’t going to let Maria stand in the way of yet another life being lost.

Not on his watch. Not ever again.

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.

Diego knew he wielded enough power with the thugs that all he had to do was say the word and they would pull her away. Disappear her. But he couldn’t load Cruzito into his boat and get on with things without his conscience bashing him in the head every five seconds. She was fighting for her family. And that spoke to him louder than anything else could.

He turned to El Loco. “Donde esta el Profesor?”

El Loco, the largest of the group replied. They had him “in custody.” El Jefe had rung when he’d heard about Cruzito and wanted “a word”.

Diego’s eyebrows shot up. A “word” could easily be accompanied by a bullet, followed by a mysterious disappearance.

This was his fault. He should be the one having a word. He hadn’t told anyone he was the one who had donated the land. Most people thought it was government property and, as such, would remain unfunded. Noche Blanca hadn’t realized until he’d got here that Doug MacLeay had come with more than his heart on his sleeve. He’d come with money. And the means to change the power structure on the island.

“Hello? Excuse me?” Isla MacLeay was waving a hand in front of his face. “I don’t suppose you have any oxygen in that magic bag of yours? His respiratory distress is increasing.”

Diego produced a small tank and deftly slipped the mask over Cruzito’s mouth and nose.

“And can I get that fourteen-gauge? I don’t think the chest tube can wait.”

“I don’t have any one-way valves on me. Just the catheter hub.” He opened his case, his hand automatically going to it.

“Do you have a pair of gloves?”

“Yes,” he said, passing them to her.

He watched as she deftly slipped the needle into the second intercostal space, then asked for a scalpel, surprising him when she cut the finger off one of the gloves, inserted it on top of the catheter hub and heaved a sigh of relief when it began to flutter as the air released and Cruzito’s gasping eased.

Impressive. The woman knew how to improvise. It was one of his specialties and he hadn’t seen that particular technique before.

Diego lowered his voice and tried to make it look as if he was speaking to Isla about treating Cruzito.

“Do you know how things work here? With Noche Blanca?”

“I’m getting a pretty good idea.”

And she clearly wasn’t impressed. What she should have been was scared. Her father’s life was in danger. Hers too. There was nothing win-win about this situation. The only way he could keep her alive for now was to make her crucial to Cruzito’s welfare.

“Help me bind this packing for the bullet entry wound and we’ll get him on the boat.”

It wasn’t a request.

She met his gaze, seemed to understand what he was saying and gave him a curt nod. She put the IV back between her chin and shoulder, then wound the gauze round Cruzito’s shoulder as Diego carefully raised him and held him steady so Isla could tightly secure the gauze in place.

He continued in a low voice. “Have you seen El Jefe?”

She shook her head no.

“He’s The Chief. The man who runs Noche Blanca. This is his son.”

Her shoulders stiffened but she continued to wrap. Most people would have run for the hills or broken down in tears. She took the information in silently.

She was obviously running on adrenaline. He knew the feeling all too well.

He’d been in her shoes seven long years ago, but he could still remember every second of that night as if it had just happened.

He swallowed back the memories and continued, “They’ve run the island for the past ten years or so.”

“Is this a turf war? Are there other gangs they’re fighting with?”

“No. It’s... There’s a complicated history on El Valderon. All of the islands round here—like tiny countries...” He paused and started again. “You know how a farmer likes to ‘know’ his fox?”

“What? Keep the fox sweet otherwise a meaner, bigger one will move in?”

“Precisely. That’s how it works here. There are other gangs who are much worse over in Latin America. Much more violent. This...” He nodded toward the hodgepodge squad of henchmen. “This is small-fry.”

He watched as she absorbed the information. Many visitors refused to understand. Couldn’t comprehend how might ruled over right. Especially on such a small island with a population under a million.

But fear, power and a very clear identity were effective means of gaining control. It was the way they’d won over his kid brother. A reedy teenager who hadn’t yet found his place in the world. They’d given him one. Then put him in the line of fire.

Diego didn’t know who he loathed more. The hospital for not treating him, Noche Blanca for putting him in front of a bullet, or himself for not seeing what was happening and forcing his brother to work for the family business.

He’d turned his loathing into action. Volunteering to treat any victim of violence, wherever they were, no matter the circumstances. No matter the danger.

“Your father’s ruffled a lot of feathers since he’s arrived here.” He met her solid gaze. Damn. He’d never known eyes to be so blue. Or so unwavering in their ability to meet his. “You don’t look surprised. I’m guessing you’re your father’s daughter.”

She huffed out a laugh. “Genetically? Yes.”

An invisible knife plunged into his gut and began to carve upwards toward his heart. Isla shouldn’t have to go through what he had. Endure the loss senseless violence could bring.

He tilted his chin up at El Loco—the universal man signal for Hey, pal, tune in.

In Spanish he asked if he could find out if El Jefe would bring Isla’s father to the clinic. The one hidden away from prying eyes.

“Estas loco?” The enormous bodyguard who had been with the gang since he’d been a teenager looked shocked.

“Sí.” He shrugged, as if asking for the impossible was just how he rolled.

It was crazy. But if Diego saved Cruzito, Noche Blanca would owe him a second favor. And he was going to call both of those favors in tonight.

“Call him.”

He flicked his head at the other men and issued a few quick instructions. They began forming a chain to load Cruzito onto the boat. He fixed his gaze on Isla.

“You ready for the ride of your life?”

Her jawline tightened and she arched an eyebrow. “Ready when you are.”

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