The Doctor's Marriage for a Month

by Annie O'Neil

  Where he would have expected to feel a flare of irritation at the fact that Isla wasn’t just going along with things, he felt his heart soften with compassion. Fair enough. This was being done under duress. In a foreign language. Most people would have tears pouring down their face now.

  Not Isla. He could see her battling her fear into submission—and winning. But if she wanted to save her life and, her father’s, she’d be wise to follow his cues.

  This was foreign territory for him as well. He wasn’t a “save the damsel in distress” sort of guy. Not that Isla seemed weak. But she did need help. His help.

  “How about I translate?”

  She gave him a nod. One that said, I’m not happy about this, but I’ll do anything to save my father. His heart twisted tight at the shot of fear that flashed through her eyes. Twisted once more when he saw it turn to anguish.

  He brushed the back of his hand against her soft, pale cheek and against the odds she leaned into it. The intimacy of the moment suddenly made the vows they were mid-way through exchanging feel that much more real. They were in this together. He wasn’t the white knight riding in and saving her. They were playing equal roles in a dangerous game of survival.

  “He’s asked if you will accept me as your husband. I have already accepted you as my wife. So now you say, Si, quiero. It means you accept.”

  For an instant he thought her veneer of strength was going to crack. In the next he saw her entire body fill with resolve. Determination. It was an extraordinary thing to witness. The power of familial love. It made him proud to have made the decision he had. The first hit of genuine pride he’d felt since Nico had died.

  “Sí.” She gave his hand a squeeze as she confirmed. “Sí, quiero.”

  The priest pronounced them man and wife, and before another moment passed Diego gave in to impulse, put his hands on Isla’s waist, pulled her to him and kissed her.

  He would have loved to say he was gentle. He would’ve loved to say that the very first time their lips met it was with the softest touch his reluctant wife had ever known.

  But the emotion heating up his veins was the past colliding with the present. When his mouth reached hers there was hunger in his touch. And fire.

  * * *

  The next few hours were frantic with activity. So much so that Isla periodically forgot to be blindsided by the fact that she was now, in the eyes of the Catholic church and the El Valderon government, Señora Isla Vasquez.

  The whole thing was so ludicrous it was impossible to register. In just a few short days she’d gone from being engaged, to dumped, to married.

  She was a wife.

  In name only. Obviously.

  But...

  Her fingers drifted up to her lips and traced them as if that would turn back time. What she couldn’t forget was that kiss. She’d never in her life felt anything like the lightning strike of connection she’d felt when Diego had kissed her. It hadn’t been an ordinary kiss. Not like anything she’d experienced before. He had been tasting her. Exploring her. Possessing her.

  She pressed her eyes tight and an image of him instantly pinged to the fore.

  Tall. Caramel-skinned. Mahogany eyes flecked with gold. Long fingers. Strong arms. A body that filled out clothes in a way only a man who possessed leonine grace could.

  And an above par surgeon.

  The man who had saved three lives in one night.

  Paz’s. Her father’s. And her own.

  Diego was the stuff of fairy tales.

  The kind that didn’t always end so well for the Princess, she curtly reminded herself. There was a reason those stories didn’t venture beyond the wedding.

  She held up yet another book to her father. “Staying or going?”

  “That one has to come back to Loch Craggen with me.”

  She gave her father an exasperated smile. “Dad. You can’t take them all. We’ve got to get to the airport in less than an hour and there’s usually some sort of weight restriction.”

  As if following the rules mattered anymore.

  Her mind pinged to her pathetic carry-on bag with its two skirts and two T-shirts. One of each was ruined now. And she was still wearing the scrubs Diego had given her.

  Her shoulders shifted along the fabric. She was too aware of the broad shoulders that would normally fill them. Though he was her husband now, there was a part of her that wanted to claw them off. To demand that for once she be allowed to be her own woman.

  Not the rule-follower. Not the good daughter. Not the pragmatic GP. A woman who made her own decisions. Chose her own path. Wasn’t forced to marry a man at gunpoint because her father valued turtles over his daughter.

  “There won’t be a weight restriction on business class.”

  “Business class?”

  “Your husband’s way of making the transition less painful, I suppose.” He returned her perplexed smile with a weary one of his own. “You picked a good one, you know.”

  “What?” What on earth was he on about?

  “Diego,” her father explained unnecessarily. “He will be a good husband for you.”

  “Father!” Her nerves crackled with a peculiar mix of indignation and something else. Hope?

  She tsked away the thought. “I married Diego so that Noche Blanca wouldn’t kill us. Don’t you remember that part?”

  Her father tipped his head from side to side, as if wedlock under duress might not have been the only option available to her.

  Was he stark raving mad?

  The little girl in her wanted to throw herself on the floor and have a proper tantrum. Couldn’t he see what his actions had done? It was her mother all over again. Wading into the danger zone with no thought for the family she’d leave behind.

  “Anyway...” She primly packed the rest of the books into the box without bothering to ask. “It’s only for a month.”

  “That’s what he told you?”

  Isla’s heart-rate careened into a sprint. “Do you think he was lying?”

  Her father feigned interest in a book he was about to put into the box. “Island time works differently. So does Diego Vasquez.”

  Isla was about to ask what on earth that meant when, as if on cue, Diego poked his head through the open front door of the small bungalow her father had been staying in. Then he looked back over his shoulder when someone called his name.

  Her pounding heart launched into her throat and her fingers automatically flew to her lips, as if seeing him brought back each and every moment of that searing kiss. It was as if they’d been branded into her cell structure. In a good way.

  She scraped her nails along her lips, begging the accompanying pain to tear the memory from her.

  Diego entered the room and he and her father quietly discussed logistics as she tried to attach reason to her physical response to her husband. Fear and excitement often felt the same. It was why people loved watching horror films. The thrill of surviving something terrifying. A physiological response to something outside of your control.

  How else could she explain the powerful connection she’d felt when their lips had not only touched, but had sought each other as if their lives depended on it.

  Hers had.

  His hadn’t.

  And yet...

  She looked at him, filling the doorway in a non-threatening way. Protectively. It wasn’t the body language she’d experienced when he’d pulled her to him after they had been pronounced man and wife. His kiss had had intent. His hands on her body had had the feel of a man claiming something. As if he’d finally claimed her after a hard-fought battle to win her heart. As if he loved her with every fiber of his being.

  But when she’d pushed at his chest he’d let go of her as if she’d been made of fire.

  Would you have pushed away or pulled closer if you’d married Kyle?


  Was this the point when she would admit to herself that she’d always known they weren’t meant for one another? That someone else was out there?

  “You two are ready?” Diego waited a moment, then gave the doorframe a one-two pat, as if their lack of response was all the answer he needed. “Ahora. I’ll be driving you, but don’t be alarmed if there appear to be...escorts.”

  “Axl?” Her father gave his head a distracted shake, as if this were all perfectly normal.

  The two of them began discussing a route to the airport that would draw the least attention.

  “I want people to know the sanctuary is still that. A sanctuary.” Her father met Diego’s gaze and said solidly, “And I’m not just talking about the turtles.”

  It struck Isla that maybe this was her father’s way of dealing with her mother’s death. Providing sanctuary to anything and everything he could. Even if it came at the cost of his own safety.

  He was a scientist. One who understood the “risk” part of “risk assessment” much more than most. She should too, with her medical background. Operations weren’t always successful. A small fever could kill. One day—any day—a person’s heart could just stop.

  Science didn’t make up for loss, though. Not in her book. The day her mother had been killed was the day she had become an “i” dotter and a “t” crosser. The one who was there. The one who could be counted on. The one who would marry a stranger so her father could live to save another living being that wasn’t his daughter.

  Diego shifted and turned in the doorframe as a man approached the bungalow.

  Something stirred in her that took the edge off the waves of fear. Gratitude. She owed her life to this man Dr. Diego Vasquez. A total stranger to her yesterday, and today he was her husband. Her esposo. It was plain as the nose on her face that he was no ordinary man. Not here on El Valderon, anyway.

  She checked herself. Not anywhere.

  He seemed to wield some sort of invisible power over the islanders. Not the power of force. Or of cruelty. The power of...vision. A man who left change in his wake. A man who had the power to convince her father he needed to leave his project if he had any hope of it ever succeeding.

  Little short of a miracle in her book.

  “Isla?”

  Her heart squeezed tight as she looked at her dad. She didn’t want him to leave.

  “What do you think if I miss the flight?”

  But she did want him to live.

  “No, Dad. Absolutely not. You are getting on that plane.” It was role reversal of the strangest kind. The child parenting the parent.

  They talked back and forth in hurried whispers as Diego continued to talk to the man on the patio.

  “What good are you to the turtles if you’re dead?”

  That was her final argument. The one that eventually convinced him to unearth his long-legged trousers. His hiking boots. Woolen socks. The worn green backpack he’d taken with him near enough everywhere in the world apart from home to Loch Craggen.

  “The key to the house is at the surgery. My locum is called Dr. McCracken. There’s not much to know about the house, but don’t be surprised if Miss Laird nips in to water the plants. I’ve not been able to get hold of her yet to tell her you’re on your way home.”

  “Miss Laird?”

  Her father had no memory for names. Especially for the women of Craggen. There’d been only one woman for him, as he’d said on the rare occasions when he let himself revisit the past, “and she’s gone now.”

  “She has been on the island about four years now. You’ll like her. Mary Laird,” Isla continued, “She has a small animal rescue shelter near the surgery—dogs, mostly, I think, but she’ll take on anything. Last I heard she was nursing a seal. She sometimes does reception shifts for us at the surgery.”

  Her father barely seemed to register the information and she didn’t blame him. If his thoughts were pinging round from topic to topic like hers were his brain was mush.

  When they’d put the last book that would fit into his pack and sealed it, they stood and faced one another. He looked more weary than she had ever seen him. At fifty-eight he was hardly old, but the fine lines she’d seen round his eyes were now creases. And the gray at his temples had shot through the rest of his dark hair, giving him more salt than pepper. It hadn’t happened overnight, of course. But it felt like it. His exhaustion had been accrued over years, but she felt as though it was the very first time she’d actually seen how much his diligent work had aged him.

  The lines, the gray hair, the slightly hunched shoulders... She now realized they weren’t just from fatigue. This was what defeat looked like.

  MacLeays weren’t very good at admitting defeat. Maybe that was one of the reasons why she’d turned a blind eye to all the glaring problems in her relationship with Kyle? The varied interests. His late nights to her early mornings. His crumpets and jam to her plain toast with butter.

  “What do you want me to tell folk back home?”

  Her heart thumped against her rib cage for a whole new reason. It was the first time her father had called Loch Craggen “home” in years. If ever.

  “What do you think we should say?”

  “Oh...” He pressed a couple of tentative fingers to his eye, which was quickly turning black.

  He’d told her he had fallen against a chair when he was “chatting away” with the Cruz family. She believed that about as much as she believed Diego Vasquez was in love with her.

  “I think I’ll tell them I had a bit of regrouping to do and that you agreed to stay on to look after things at the sanctuary. You will, won’t you?”

  She nodded. The run-in with Noche Blanca had scared him. It made her blood boil. Made her want to stay and see her father’s vision through to its fruition. Bring peace to the island and longevity to the welfare of the sea turtle.

  Piece of cake.

  Right?

  She forced a plucky smile so that her father couldn’t see that her insides were turning into liquid fear.

  “I’ll come back.” He pulled her into his arms. “And not just for the turtles,” he whispered into her hair. “I’ll come back for you.”

  Her heart nearly exploded with a combination of grief and love. How she wanted to believe it was true.

  For the first time in her life she had absolutely no idea what her future looked like. She’d spent nearly every school holiday with her grandmother, because her father, once again, had forgotten to collect her from boarding school. She loved the man to within an inch of her life. He was her father. But he wasn’t so great at keeping promises.

  Maybe that was why she’d said yes to Kyle’s proposal. Hoping against hope that she might be enough for an obvious playboy to change his ways.

  Served her right for trying to change a man. The only person she could change was herself.

  Diego, who she was quickly realizing seemed to have a sort of sixth sense of when he’d be needed, appeared in the doorway again. “Everything all right, corazón?”

  He lifted her father’s book-heavy backpack to the car as the two of them followed behind, each carrying a box.

  Diego drove them to the airport in an open-topped Jeep. As predicted, there were a couple of ominous SUVs with tinted windows following behind. The Noche Blanca crew were ensuring that Professor MacLeay not only got on a plane but on the right one, with only a one-way ticket to his name.

  As she waved goodbye to her father, after one last hug, then watched him disappear beyond the security gates it shocked her to realize her gut instinct was to turn to Diego for comfort.

  * * *

  Diego reached across from the driver’s side of his car, only just stopping himself from giving Isla’s leg a light squeeze. Again and again he found himself reaching out to touch her, comfort her. Again and again he reminded himself he was not the marry
ing kind. He’d never wanted to be a husband or a father. Even so...he didn’t like seeing her face look so drawn.

  “He’ll be safe now.”

  Isla nodded and wove her fingers tightly together, watching as the blood drained from them. She drew a sharp breath, as if to launch into a speech about how loathsome she found this entire situation, then reconsidered, and, after steadying her breath said simply, “Thank you.”

  The words were so heartfelt they sucker-punched him straight in the chest.

  He reminded himself that her gratitude was solely for her father’s welfare. Not for any heroics on his part. Or kissing. Or marriage. Or any of it. She would have done anything to save her father. Just as he would have to save his brother, if he hadn’t been away at medical school.

  “Of course.”

  “What’s that old saying?” she asked.

  Isla drummed her fingers along her lips. Lips he would resist kissing again if he had to drain the very marrow from his bones. Isla MacLeay was not his to love.

  “Marry at haste and repent at leisure?”

  He gave his thick stubble a scrub. “That sounds about right.”

  She gave her shoulders a shake and let out a huff of air. No doubt psyching herself into her new reality.

  “Well!” She unwove her fingers, rubbed her hands together, then let them land in her lap with a clap so sharp he knew it must have stung. “I guess that gives us a month of leisure,” she said, without a trace of joy.

  He was about to correct her. Say he wasn’t sure about the timing. He’d just been making a stab in the dark last night. Working with men who circumnavigated the law as if it were lethal nerve gas took care. Delicacy.

  “To us and our month of leisure!”

  Without a thought, he took her hand in his, drew it to his lips and kissed the back of it. It was a strangely natural thing to do. Just as it had been when he’d pulled her into his arms after her father had disappeared into the departure lounge, and then again when they’d watched his plane rise and soar off into the deep blue sky.

  Though her eyes were hidden by huge movie star sunglasses, and he’d not seen her shed a single tear, he had little doubt there’d be shadows beneath them.