by Becky Wicks
Nothing.
Then everything.
The water had started moving around the end of the line.
‘There they are!’ Ryan had exclaimed excitedly, shining his light out ahead of them and putting a hand on her shoulder, over her clammy skin.
Madeline had gasped, feeling her face break out into a grin as a white-topped frenzy came into view. It had been as though someone had installed a tiny hot-tub in the middle of the river.
She’d felt the line tug as Ryan rested his flashlight on the bench, facing them.
‘Don’t let go—pull it in! Don’t let the line go loose,’ he’d urged as his hands moved to her quickly, gripping her waist over her thin blue dress to hold her steady.
‘Don’t let go of me—they’ll eat me, too,’ she’d said, leaning further into him.
‘I won’t. You’ve got it—you’ve got it...’
He’d been pressed against her in the boat. His head almost resting on her shoulder from behind as he’d helped her pull the fish in through the frenzy and over the side.
‘Great job!’ he’d cried, elated, holding up the line and moving away from her to reach for the flashlight again.
He’d shone it on their catch—a silvery fish about twice the size of a goldfish, with an orange tinge. It hadn’t looked very scary, even as it wriggled and flapped. Madeline had reached for the line to get a closer look but Ryan had gripped her fingers and held them tight away from it.
‘Not so fast!’
‘Sorry.’
‘You want to see what this thing will do if it gets a hold of your finger?’
His face had been so close to hers she’d practically been able to feel his stubble tickling her cheek. She’d smelled him: a raw, animal scent mixed with sunscreen that had made her a little wobbly on her feet. Luckily she’d been able to blame the boat for that.
He’d stuck a hand in his pocket, pulled out a thick green leaf. Holding the line with the fish still attached, he’d dangled the leaf in front of the piranha. Instantly the fish had opened its jaws, revealing an ominous row of razor-sharp teeth, and started chomping the leaf to pieces from bottom to top with ferocious zeal, as fast and as efficient as a chef’s knife chopping a cucumber.
Madeline had watched with equal amazement and horror.
‘Told you—you don’t want to mess with these guys.’
Ryan had grinned, turned off the light and thrown what was left of the leaf overboard. His eyes had sparkled like ice cubes in the moonlight, and Madeline had sworn she’d never seen anyone so handsome in her entire life as Ryan when he was smiling, living in the now, not letting his past weigh him down like a hunk of lead.
‘That’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,’ she’d breathed, laughing with the sheer adrenaline of it.
She’d studied his lips, his mouth—so different from Jason’s. She’d been so certain that she’d never even want to kiss someone else. But in that moment, awed by their primitive environment and slightly scared of the flesh-eating fish, she’d known she’d say To hell with professionalism and kiss Ryan Tobias if he’d initiated it.
As his eyes had raked over her lips under the infinite Milky Way she’d willed him to throw her down in that rickety boat and erase every last trace of her ex, and the others before him, from out of her for ever. At one point she’d been convinced he was going to—because Madeline had seen it in Ryan, too—looked it straight in the face.
That hunger. That unmistakable desire.
But he’d tossed the fish into the box under the chicken and rowed them back to camp in silence. Then, instead of sitting around the fire with her and the others, he’d given the piranha to Evan to roast, retreated to his tent alone and hadn’t even said goodnight...
The trees shifted behind her, signalling that her time alone at the camp’s only washing facility was almost up.
Madeline put her cup down by her book and jumped into the water with the small bar of organic soap she’d been given. It was one that left no trace of any chemicals behind. She swam for a few metres under the surface, popped her head up and looked back.
Her heart leapt like a rabbit as she saw Ryan standing on the deck, peeling off his shirt.
Had he seen her?
Her eyes glued themselves to his body. His muscles were rippling in the early-morning light; his unshaven face was shadowed around his jaw. He was fiddling with the button on his khaki trousers now, undoing it, sliding the trousers down his strong, lean legs and shrugging them off.
Madeline froze. If she moved he would see her. She considered closing her eyes, but it was too late. His boxers were already halfway down his legs and he was kicking them aside with his trousers and towel.
He was going for a swim. Naked.
Her breath caught in her throat. He lifted his arms and stretched up to the sun, as though expecting Mother Nature herself to stand and applaud her own fine work of art. Perhaps she was. The wind was riffling through the trees around the little lake, causing the cicadas to up the volume of their hum.
Madeline swallowed, digging her feet into the squelchy mud below her. She’d never seen a man with a body like his before. Ryan Tobias was pretty much perfect—the quintessential ‘hot doc’ calendar contender for the month of August, standing like some idolised enigma in shafts of yellow sunlight.
Bending over in the sunlight.
Pointing his hands at the water in the sunlight.
He dived in.
Madeline panicked.
She traced the line he was leaving on the surface with her eyes, as though he himself were a pack of piranhas. She considered swimming past him at full throttle and clambering out before he had the chance to see her. But, again, she was too late.
The water rippled out in front of her and his head appeared. Then his eyes sprang open, looking right into hers from less than a foot away.
‘Hi,’ she said, under her breath.
He shook his hair, sending a shower of droplets out around him. ‘Good morning.’
‘Didn’t you see my book on the deck, with my cup?’
Her toes were still curling into the mud under the water. She couldn’t see her feet, or anything else—a fact she was glad of as he stood there with a look of amusement spreading from his cool grey eyes down to his twitching lips.
He’s naked, she couldn’t help reminding herself, feeling the colour rise to her cheeks.
‘Nope—didn’t see. I was half asleep till I jumped in here. We had an emergency in the night so I didn’t get much sleep.’ He stepped closer to her, spreading his arms out on either side as though trying to gather the water between them. ‘Nice surprise.’
Naked, naked, naked.
‘What was the emergency?’ she asked, stepping backwards slightly, aware that if she stayed where she was she might accidentally touch him with a very inappropriate part of her body.
‘Poisonous caterpillar got to one of the kids and his finger swelled up so much the poor thing had a blue hand.’
He stopped right in front of her, his bare torso inches from her breasts in her purple bikini. She studied his face in the sun—the bronzed cheeks, the faint lines around his eyes—noticed how his eyelashes caught drops of water from his dripping hair before he blinked and set them on their downward path again.
Madeline felt as if she was under a searchlight all of a sudden, and another memory from the night before, of his hands on her waist in the boat, flooded her mind and her loins at the same time.
She turned onto her back in the water and felt his eyes on her breasts as they stuck above the surface like her toes. She studied the swaying branches overhead, and the darting dragonflies, reminding herself to breathe.
‘Is the kid OK?’ she asked without looking at him.
He floated on his back beside her. ‘Yes, he’s good now. Morphine always helps.’
‘You must be exhausted.’
‘All in a day’s work. Or a night’s. And I’m not the only one working hard—how’s it going with your group of kids? You seem to really love them, and we can all see how much they love you.’
Madeline closed her eyes, swallowing as his fingers brushed hers under the water. She was still clutching her organic soap and he took it out of her hand gently, stood upright and then, to her surprise, took her left foot gently in his hands and ran the soap over it while she floated.
This was definitely not happening. Ryan was not going out of his way to touch her.
‘I do,’ she said in reply to his statement, though the words came out a little strangled. ‘Love the kids, I mean.’
She tilted her head to look at him, but he seemed to be willing her not to say a word about what he was doing. In silence he trailed the soap between each and every one of her toes and massaged them with firm fingers...slowly, sensually.
Madeline’s insides were on fire. Ryan wouldn’t let her stand, though. He kept her feet against him, pulling her soles to his solid chest as he continued his massage, then worked the soap up her legs softly, firmly, then softer again.
If she hadn’t been lying in a lake she’d be wet for other reasons by now, she realised, groaning inwardly.
‘I don’t know why you gave up nursing, Maddy,’ he said softly, breaking into her thoughts.
He let her feet go but moved to her side, placing one hand under her back. He started to trail the soap softly in a circle around her navel.
‘We’ve spoken about me a lot, but why don’t we talk about you?’
Madeline was struggling to maintain an air of calm, and she somehow levelled her voice, closed her eyes and allowed him to wash her. No one had ever done anything like this to her before.
‘There’s nothing to say. I’m happy to leave all that stuff to you guys while I write.’
He ran the soap between her ribs, up to the string at the front of her bikini. He pressed it against her flesh, released it and slowly ran the soapy trail up, up, up over her collarbone and neck. Then, with nimble fingers, he moved the hand that was beneath her in the water to the back of her bikini top and pulled it undone.
Every part of her was throbbing with desire.
‘Is this what they call a medical extreme?’ she whispered daringly as he pulled the flimsy fabric from her body, leaving her top half exposed to the sun and the sky.
She thought she caught a smile on his face. He trailed the soap over her nipples, taking his time, seemingly relishing the equal amounts of thrill and torture he was causing her. She could still sense his silent urging for her not to mention what was happening, just to let him continue. It was the most erotic situation she’d ever been a part of.
His body towered over hers, blocked the sun, and from behind her eyelids she could see him taking her in. She could feel his own longing mounting by the millisecond as he trailed the soap down over her midriff, down, down to her bikini bottoms.
‘My God, you’re beautiful,’ she heard him say hoarsely.
She couldn’t take it any more. She put her feet to the ground, moved her hand under the water to feel for what she had no doubt would be standing to attention like a soldier—but he grabbed her fingers, held them tight.
‘Not yet.’
‘Ryan...’
‘Someone’s coming.’
An enormous splash by the deck made her jump. She ducked under the water up to her shoulders and Ryan thrust her bikini top into her hands beneath the murky surface, sprang away from her side. Someone was swimming out in their direction, but she couldn’t make out who it was.
With trembling fingers she rushed to tie her top up and noticed Ryan swimming four feet away from her, as if nothing had happened. As if they were just two strangers in a lake.
Her insides were doing cartwheels, and so were her thoughts. Did that just happen? What the hell were they thinking? They were here to work...not to romp about in the jungle like two wild animals. She wasn’t another one of his lovesick fan girls—she was a professional writer on an assignment. And she was too heartbroken over her ex to notice anyone else anyway...wasn’t she?
She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t any more, and she knew it.
Whoever it was who’d come for a swim wasn’t from the camp, she realised. The masculine figure swam right past her and carried on. She turned back to Ryan but he wasn’t there. He was already swimming back to the deck.
He was climbing out, wrapping a towel around his waist, scooping up his clothes as if he’d already forgotten she’d ever been there. Then he walked quickly back the way he’d come through the trees, leaving her alone and still trembling.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WASN’T AS if he could have stopped himself, Ryan thought, buttoning up a fresh white shirt outside his tent and raking a hand through his hair as he walked quickly back towards the medical stations. His hands had moved before his head had even been able to begin to process what he was doing.
Madeline had been floating there next to him with the sun in her beautiful green eyes, wearing next to nothing, and he’d been completely naked. He was only human, for God’s sake.
A stupid human.
He’d been careless, and that had been a close call.
‘Ryan!’
It was Maria, calling him over to one of the stations. He strode across the grass towards her, past the line of people waiting to register for treatment. He kicked a football that flew at him from the group of children clearly waiting for Madeline and waved at them, putting on a happy face.
His heart was pounding harder by the second. What if one of the camera guys had caught sight of them just now, with a telescopic zoom and an eye for making some seriously dramatic television? Not that anyone here would do that, he realised thankfully, but still, nothing would stop them talking amongst themselves about him and Madeline.
He clenched his fists at his sides. He couldn’t keep away from her. Even being angry with her didn’t help. Madeline Savoia was a bomb threatening to detonate right in front of him, and she was all the more dangerous for the way she was sliding into his conscience, getting under his skin.
All he’d wanted to do last night in that boat was lay her down and feast on the look of wonder and excitement in her eyes as he showed her even more new things. Hell, the things he wanted to show her...
He loved how empathetic she was, how readily she’d adjusted to her new environment, never once complaining about how harsh and hard it was to be out here. The kids adored her and lined up for her in the mornings, bringing her fruit and flowers and any other present they could think of to make her smile. Maria was lending her books.
She was the saint of the whole damn camp already.
‘Ryan,’ Maria said, leading him inside. She looked agitated. ‘We just had a radio call—there’s a patient on the way from the village. Mark and one of the volunteers are bringing her in on the boat right now.’
‘What’s the problem?’ he asked, glancing at another volunteer, who was wrapping a strip of gauze around a teenage boy’s forearm in the chair beside him. The air was thick and hot and smelled of antiseptic spray and disinfectant. He scrubbed his hands at the basin of water.
‘Seventeen-year-old girl, name Abigail, severe abdominal pains. Mark’s already diagnosed her with an ectopic pregnancy, ruptured tube...’
‘We have methotrexate close if we need it?’ he asked, drying off his hands on a paper sheet. It was the safest and quickest way to induce abortion.
‘Already on it,’ Maria said, doing up her scrubs as he prepared the laparoscope. ‘This kid sounds like she’s been through a lot already, from what Mark says. She’s been hanging out here the past two days with her little brother and Madeline—she probably didn’t even know she was pregnant.’
‘Madeline?’ Ryan tur
ned around, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves.
As he spoke her name the plastic sheet over the door was swept aside and Madeline came rushing in, this time beside Mark and a volunteer, followed by Jake with his camera.
The canvas stretcher they were carrying held the pregnant girl in question, and he recognised her immediately from the village. Long-haired, chatty Abigail, lying on her back with her belly exposed, letting out the most horrific howls. It wasn’t clear at all that she was pregnant, but the blood on her skirt made his heart sink.
Madeline was clutching the sweaty girl’s hand, talking fast in Spanish. As they brought the stretcher up to the bed he didn’t miss the tears in her eyes. Her hair was still wet, tied in a bun on her head and she met his glance for half a second—a glance that said nothing but, Help this girl.
Ryan could see that her nursing instincts were primed once again, probably pushing all thoughts about what had just happened at the lake completely out of the window.
He was already in action. As the camera circled he helped Mark and Maria get the sobbing Abigail gently off the stretcher and onto the table. Her skin was damp, and had a greyish tinge that concerned him. A crowd of people had gathered at the opening to the medical station, but Mark walked over and ushered them all away.
Madeline looked as though she was going to leave, too, but Abigail reached for her arm, clutched it and gripped on as if her hand was a metal vice.
‘No quiero que te vayaso,’ she was begging in Spanish. ‘Don’t go, please.’
‘We’ll have to do keyhole,’ Ryan told Maria, who nodded in agreement.
‘What? Here?’ Madeline looked shocked.
The girl sobbed, gripping her even tighter.
‘It’s better than open surgery. Quicker recovery, less blood loss. Maria—general anaesthetic...’
‘Yes, Doc.’
Maria turned around to the trolley that held the equipment she’d prepared the second the radio call had come in. They were lucky to have a laparoscope—a long fibre optic cable system which allowed them to see the area in question on a monitor connected to a generator, which they charged via solar power. It wouldn’t cause the girl too much extra trauma.
