by Annie O'Neil
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 minu
te 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 t
reating 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.”
CHAPTER THREE
ISLA WAS DISCOVERING new things about herself at a rate of knots. Riding in a motorboat and willing a gunshot victim who was patently on the side of the “baddies” to survive apparently did that to a girl. If this boy didn’t make it... It wasn’t worth thinking about. Seven years of medical training had brought her to this point. And the revelations were flying thick and fast.
