by Dianne Drake
“I see you have a situation,” Arlo called out. It was too funny not to laugh, which he and everyone else did, as Layla struggled to get out from under the affectionate ministrations of the two-hundred-plus pounds of Tika, who thought this was the best playtime ever, and wasn’t about to let her new playmate out of the water.
“Did I mention that baby elephants love to play?” he said, walking over to the edge of the tub, not to lend Layla a hand but to enjoy a more close-up view of playtime in the elephant compound.
Covered with muddy water, she simply looked up at him. No smile. No frown. No expression whatsoever on her face. “I think she’s sprained my ankle,” she said, her voice flat. “Could you help me out of here? I want you to have a look at it.” With that, she extended her hand to Arlo, who was already feeling terrible about Layla’s injury.
“Maybe it’s just a twist,” he said, as he took hold of her, which was his first mistake. His second was to lean slightly over the tub in case he had to lift her from the water. In that instant, what he never saw coming happened. Layla pulled him down into the tub with Tika and her.
“The twist, Doctor,” she said, her face still as serious as it could be, “is that you fell for it.” Then she smiled.
“What the—?” he sputtered, still trying to figure out what had just happened when Tika, who was thoroughly enjoying having two playmates now, slid herself over the top of Arlo then splashed around until half the water was out of the tub.
That was the opportunity Layla needed to hop out and grab the hose, then start to refill the tub with water, much to Tika’s delight, as she now nuzzled Arlo like a kitten might nuzzle its mother. “I think she loves you,” Layla said, turning the hose directly on Arlo. “In a muddy kind of way.”
He sputtered as the water hit his face, which, to Tika, was an open invitation to slide across him again, but go on out the opposite side of the tub, leaving Arlo sitting in the middle of a pool of dirty water while Layla continued to hose him down, still trying to keep a straight face.
“You know this isn’t funny,” he said, attempting to stand—another invitation for Tika to rejoin him in the tub and knock him back into the water.
Layla finally laughed. Smiled, laughed again and wiped at the streams of muddy water dripping from her hair. “When it was me in there, you thought it was.”
Arlo managed to slide away from Tika and get himself over to the edge of the tub. When he looked up at Layla, who was still laughing, and who also turned the water back on him, his heart skipped a beat. There was such a vulnerability about her when she let herself go. Not only was she stunningly beautiful underneath all that mud that was caking on her now, her laugh was infectious. It made him laugh along with her.
“When it was you in here, it was funny,” he said, crawling on his knees then looking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t going to fall victim to a playful Tika attack again. But she’d found his sack of mangos and was helping herself to a little treat, which gave Arlo a chance to get out of the tub. He held out his hand for the hose, but Layla refused. Instead she turned the water on him again. “You really don’t think I’d fall for that old trick, do you?” she asked, taking a couple of steps back from the tub. “You’d have to be pretty naïve to—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Arlo lunged out of the water and grabbed the hose away from her, threatening to turn it on her now. “Mud suits you, so I really should just let you stay as you are,” he said, laughing, as she came at him and tried to grab away the hose.
She made another jump at him but again failed to get the hose. “You know you’re just asking for more trouble,” she warned him.
“And you know I could pick you up and drop you right back in the tub for more Tika play,” he said, turning the hose on her.
“If you can catch me.” Layla made another lunge at him, this time with the intent of knocking him back into the tub, but he turned the water on her face, and by the time she wiped away enough to see, he’d ducked to the other side of the tub, still hanging onto the hose.
“Oh, I can catch you,” she said, edging her way around the other side, hoping to trap him against the fence so she could grab the hose and claim victory.
But he was too fast for her. In fact, as she got so close to him all he could see was the outline of her breasts through her wet T-shirt, he knew he had to get away as the thoughts in his head were suddenly going places he didn’t want them to go. So he intended to drop the hose and sprint off to his own baby, Lamon. But before the hose hit the ground, she grabbed it up and hit him with a spray of water as he, too, tried to get across the tub, his intention being to surrender his shirt to cover her up. “Um, Layla,” he said, deliberately keeping his eyes above her shoulders, “I think you need to...” As he started to unbutton his shirt, she hopped into the tub with him, knocked him down, then stood over him, aiming the hose over his head with one hand and fist-pumping the air in victory with her other. “Victory is sweet,” she said, stepping back and offering Arlo a hand to help him up.
“You really need to cover up,” he said, almost in a whisper, struggling now to keep his eyes averted. Being polite wasn’t so easy, though, when temptation was so close. “Before someone else sees you.”
She looked down at herself, then laughed. “Why, Doctor, you’re a bit of a prude, aren’t you?” She did try to pluck the stretchy fabric away from her skin, but that was almost impossible.
“Not a prude so much as not wanting everybody here to get a look at you the way I’m seeing you. Especially since you’re their doctor.”
“Prude,” she said, turning the hose on him again.
He was surprised by her lack of modesty, and he was enjoying not only the view but the spontaneity. Was this the real Layla? The one who came out of her shell when she wasn’t taking herself so seriously? “Look, let me get up and give you my shirt, OK? And next time wear something more decent.” Unfortunately, as she backed away to allow him to rise up to his knees, Tika decided it was time to play again and ran toward the tub. Hopped in. Knocked Arlo back down, as well as Layla, who landed on top of him.
“So, now what?” she asked, still holding onto the hose like it was a trophy.
He smiled, bracing himself for what he knew was about to happen. And it did. Layla turned the hose so the water sprayed down his head, and as he went to grab it out of her hand, she kissed him. It happened so quickly, so innocently, he wasn’t even sure it had happened. But the look of total surprise on her face told him it had, and it had surprised her as much as it had him. He didn’t react, though. Caution was the better choice here. Wait and see what she did next. All his hopes were pinned on another kiss, but Tika had something else in mind as she slid slightly to the side of him to start a new game, which was much the same as the old one. Water, mud and lots of attempts to sit on their laps.
Certainly, it was safe. But it was also disappointing. And, as he was dwelling on that, Tika lunged, flipping him over, which pinned Layla underneath him. For what seemed like an eternity, he simply stared down at her.
“Mud or not, you’re a beautiful woman,” he said, lowering his head to capture her lips. But after a brief kiss, which was more a prelude than a real kiss, the way they’d used to kiss, he moved to her eyelids, kissing first the left, then the right. Feeling the slippery mud between their bodies, realizing it heightened the moment rather than taking away from it. Then he kissed her lips again, this time harder, but the sensation ignited him so quickly, he pulled back much sooner than he’d intended.
Layla was surprised judging from the look on her face, possibly by the kiss, possibly by his restraint, and she groped for him, tried to pull him back, but the mud oozed through her fingers, causing her hands to slip away. Yet she reached up and touched his lips. Tickled them the way he remembered, running a single finger from corner to corner. Back and forth, over and over until he could no longer endure it.
Then, without thought, he was kissing her again, slipping his hand underneath her muddy, wet shirt, now transparent enough to see her nipples. And that’s when he stopped himself. Pulled back, only farther this time, and simply stared down at her. She felt so good underneath him again. Too good. And, yes, the consequences could be devastating. They had been once, and that was something he never wanted to go through again.
Which was why he rolled off Layla, got himself out of the tub, then removed his shirt and handed it to her. “Put it on,” he said, sounding almost grumpy, even to his ears. Because, despite what he knew, he still did want to kiss her. And more.
CHAPTER SIX
“EXCUSE ME, DOCTORS,” said a tiny old woman, keeping her distance from the very wet, very muddy Arlo and Layla.
She was Sylvie Fontaine, the director of the facility. A volunteer there herself once.
“We have a visitor in need of medical assistance.”
Her voice was soft, her accent distinctly French, and the look on her face totally amused, probably because of what she’d just witnessed.
“He’s complaining of an upset stomach.”
Arlo and Layla looked at each other as Layla buttoned his shirt to be modest while he stood there, bare-chested, looking sexier than any man she’d ever seen in her life. His abs were tight, the proverbial six-pack. His chest bare and broad. His arms strong. Everything about Arlo exuded strength, and she was surprised by her reaction to him. He was beautiful, even if still muddy. Perfect. A man any woman would want. A man she would want if that’s why she was here. Which wasn’t as that kind of thing, even briefly, was too much of a distraction and she had goals. “How long?” Layla asked, fighting hard to refocus on work.
“He wasn’t feeling well last night, and he hasn’t gotten out of bed yet today. If one of you could look—” She pulled the remainder of her words, then laughed. “After you’ve cleaned up.”
“Sure,” Arlo said, taking the hose from Layla and running it over his head. “Once we’re both fit to be seen.”
“She seems nice. Very protective of her elephants,” Layla commented as Sylvie walked away.
“She is. And she’s a good friend.”
“Who will, hopefully, let me use her computer to order that chamomile tea. And some chocolate chips. When her assistant showed me in, I noticed they have a proper oven, so maybe she’ll let me borrow it to bake cookies.” Her eyes lit up. “You do still like them, don’t you?”
“That was the one thing you made better than anyone else’s.” It was obvious the kiss wasn’t going to be mentioned and, to be honest, there was no reason to. It had been a spontaneous moment. One that had happened naturally. So, really, what was there to say? They were adults. They didn’t have to dwell on what had happened. And the likelihood of it happening again...
“Two days before you left, I baked three dozen. You ate every one of them in a matter of a couple of hours, which was my first clue that something bad was going to happen. You always turned to binge eating when something was about to come down on us. In retrospect, I should have realized that three dozen cookies meant it was going to be really bad.”
“Better than taking out my frustrations in a bottle.”
“Or we could have talked.”
“Not really. By that time, I think we’d said everything that needed to be said. Rehashing what we couldn’t have fixed wouldn’t have gotten us anywhere.” He finished hosing off the mud and handed the hose to Layla, who laid it in Tika’s tub. “I mean, we already knew that neither of us would walk away with everything we wanted.”
“I suppose toward the end we got into the habit of not talking because to do to that meant the problems didn’t exist.”
“Again, water under the bridge,” he said “Anyway, rather than both of us staying here to take care of one patient, you stay and I’ll head back to the clinic.”
“I’d rather go,” she said. “I scheduled a house call and it’s on the way, so—”
* * *
Halfway back to the village, fighting to keep her mind on everything but Arlo, Layla noticed a cart up ahead. It was overturned, with a water buffalo standing off to the side of the road, still in its wooden yoke. Her heart jumped to her throat. There was a serious injury up ahead and she didn’t have the means to do much more than apply a bandage. “Hello,” she called out, wondering where the driver was. Hopefully gone off to get someone to help right his cart. “Does anybody need help? Can anybody hear me?”
She picked up her pace as something raised the hair on the back of her neck. “Is anybody hurt?” she yelled, once she was so close it startled the water buffalo, which scampered away.
Layla’s first instinct took her from one side of the cart to the other, looking underneath where she could see something other than the grass, then looking at the corresponding ditch along the road, and even the field beyond that. At first she saw nothing, so she took another look around, approaching from the opposite direction. “Anybody here?” she yelled. “Please, if you can hear me, let me know where you are so I can help.”
Stopping, she listened for a moment, then heard it. A faint voice, words she didn’t understand. Even so, she recognized the sound of a person in dire trouble. So, once she got herself off the road and climbed waist-high into the ditch at the side of it, she managed to pull herself toward the front of the cart, and that’s when she finally saw him. Or rather the small part of him that was exposed from mid-chest up. The grass there was so tall she’d missed him her first time around. Or maybe he’d been asleep or close to unconsciousness and hadn’t heard her yell. But he had on her second attempt, and the first thing Layla did was take hold of his hand. Not for an assessment but to reassure him he wasn’t alone.
“I’m going to help you,” she said, not sure how she was going to do that. “I know you can’t understand me but I’m going to do everything I know how to do to get you out of here.” Then take him where? Back to the clinic that had nothing to repair the injuries she suspected he had sustained. “My name is Doc Layla. Can you tell me your name?”
He didn’t answer but he squeezed her hand. “Good,” she said. “You just hang in there with me.”
Layla ripped some of the tall lemongrass from the ground and managed to clear an empty space for the man’s head and shoulder, and she was shocked to see how young he was. Maybe thirty. At first glance he didn’t appear to be bleeding. There was no seeming distress registering on his face. More like a look that said he couldn’t believe this was happening to him.
“So far, I’m not seeing much,” she said, coming up alongside him, then sitting down on the mound of dirt where she’d ripped out the grass. “But I’ll keep looking.” Because an overturned cart as heavy as this one had to have caused damage. To find it, she needed to be level with him to do an assessment. Underneath him would be dangerous, and there was nothing exposed on either side that would help her.
“Look, I know you’ve sustained some injuries, so I’m going to do my best to figure out what they are.” Damn, she wished she knew the Thai translation for what she was telling him, but she didn’t. “My name is Doc Layla,” she said again, then pointed to herself. “Layla.”
The young man responded with “Mongkut,” which she took to be his name.
“I’m going to examine you, Mongkut,” she said, pulling a stethoscope from her rucksack and hoping that he would identify that with doctor. And he did, as a look of relief washed over his scratched face.
What was under the cart, holding him in? Maybe with a little leverage he might be able to crawl out on his own, but until she knew more about what was going on, she couldn’t risk it. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you where you are for a little while.” If only she had something to give him for the pain. “The first thing I’m going to do is assess your vital signs: your heartbeat, breath sounds, blood pressure. I’m not sure I can see where,
exactly, you’re injured, but if you’re stable enough, I’ll run to the village and get some men to come lift the cart off you.”
He listened intently, as if he understood every word, then when she finished speaking, he smiled at her and nodded his head in thanks.
Layla’s first assessment was his blood pressure. She expected it to be elevated, considering the situation, and her face blanched when she couldn’t hear it. Automatically, her hand went to his neck and her fingers to his carotid artery to find a pulse. It was there, but weak. Too weak. So she tried for another blood pressure reading and this time what she came up with was dangerously low, which led her to take a third reading that yielded the same result. That’s when her heart started beating faster.
“I think you may have an injury I can’t get to,” she told Mongkut, as she removed Arlo’s shirt and laid it across her patient’s shoulders, like a thin layer of cloth was going to do any good. “So, try not to move while I do the rest of my tests.”
Her mind raced with what to do with a crush injury. She knew if Mongkut didn’t receive aggressive medical treatment immediately, his chances of survival were very poor. “As I’m examining you, let me tell you what I think is happening,” she said, knowing it was more for her own benefit than his. “Now I’m counting your respirations,” she said, squeezing her hand inside the cramped space between Mongkut’s body and the front rim of the cart to lay her hand on his chest. “Damn,” she muttered. He was breathing too fast and too shallowly. “I think we have a bit of a problem here, Mongkut,” she said. He roused when she said his name and forced a smile.
“First, there’s hypovolemia. That’s where you’re bleeding internally, and it’s nothing that is usually observable on the outside.”
