by Annie O'Neil
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Isla looked Maria straight in the eye. “I’m really looking forward to working in the mobile clinic.”
Any pretense of charm Maria had been trying to maintain dropped away. “I’m afraid we really don’t have the funding to cover your insurance. And, of course, you’ll have to sit our medical exam. It’s very rigorous. It’ll take weeks, if not months to organize. And as you’re newlywed I suppose time is at a premium for you?”
“Fair enough.” Isla smiled brightly. “Seeing as that’s the case here, I’m assuming it won’t be a problem for you if I open up a wellness clinic out at the turtle sanctuary?”
Diego almost laughed. Isla wasn’t just delivering a blow to Maria, she was giving him the proverbial heave-ho as well. Kudos to her for knowing her own mind.
“Wellness clinic?” Maria didn’t even try to rein in her disdain.
“I run a similar program back in Scotland. Just a couple of low-cost clinics a week. I find a preventative approach to medicine cuts back on a lot of unnecessary trips to the emergency ward. It’s a way to put a fast track on people prone to diabetes, heart disease, chronic respiratory problems—that sort of thing. Catching preventable diseases late proves very expensive for us, as it involves having to get patients back to the mainland via helicopter or boat. I suspect it’s the same for you. I’ve found the clinic to be a most cost-effective investment. Not to mention its use as a means of catching various cancers early, and lung disease, hypercholesterolemia—”
“Fine. You’ve painted the picture.” Maria glanced at Diego, visibly annoyed at Isla’s commonsense plan.
If Diego hadn’t been so keen to keep Isla within eyesight—or at least earshot—for the foreseeable future he would’ve applauded her.
“Turtles and people. Aren’t you from an interesting family?” Maria flicked an invisible piece of lint off her shoulder.
“Diego certainly thought so.” Isla smiled benignly. “Didn’t you, mi amor?”
She looked up at him with a look so pure and loving he would have sworn she meant it. ¡Dios mio! The woman could’ve been a politician!
Diego put his arm round his wife’s shoulders, a smile twitching at his lips as she snuggled up almost conspiratorially beneath it. They’d make a hell of a team if she weren’t here under duress. If she actually cared about him. About the island.
Then again, if this was Isla under pressure he couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d be like unleashed.
“Maria, it might be worth considering the excellent PR that would come from launching such a forward-looking program in the mobile clinic. Of course I’d be busy seeing patients of my own there, but if you were to be happy using Isla’s British medical license as sufficient evidence of her ability to practice medicine you could announce her intention to meet preventative care patients. There’s more than enough room. And if there were any problems I would be on hand to help. Smooth over any transitional problems.”
“Our diagnosticians are already overwhelmed with their work here at the hospital...”
It was a flimsy excuse and everyone knew it. The term grasping at straws sprang to mind.
“A press release would be brilliant!” Isla leant in to Maria, praising her as if the idea had been her own. “You can assure the press that I’m used to working with limited resources. A stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff and a thermometer work wonders. There would be zero draw on the hospital’s resources.”
Maria scowled, but didn’t storm off as she often did when she and Diego discussed preventative care. She would be perfectly happy for Diego to run a similar clinic so long as he stopped helping Noche Blanca. The argument ended the same way every single time: Not until we treat everyone the same.
Maria gave Isla a cursory up-and-down eye-flick. She too operated a policy of keeping her friends close and her enemies closer.
“What if you have no patients and Diego is overloaded? Do you plan on sitting around filing your nails?”
Her hostile approach would have made many women run for the hills. He’d seen it before with Maria. Hackles flew up. Claws came out. Whoever she was speaking to would take their services elsewhere. To a different island, even. But not Isla.
Shrugging out from underneath his arm, she took a step toward Maria and solemnly shook her head no. “Absolutely not. It would be a privilege to work with my husband. Ease his burden. And, of course, help the people of El Valderon.”
Diego had to stop himself from letting out a low whistle of approval. His wife gave as good as she got—but with kindness and fairness at the fore.
“Even plasters cost money—who will cover that?”
The crack in Maria’s voice told him she was beginning to flounder.
“I will,” he said.
Any profits Vasquez Corp made were plowed right back into the community, and he was pretty sure this counted. He made a mental note to call the head of the board—a woman who doled out fair solutions as rigorously and passionately as she worked picking coffee beans.
“Dropping money on vanity projects? Picking up wives in the course of a weekend?” Maria snapped. “It’s all so easy for you, isn’t it?”
Diego dropped any pretense of charm. “No, Maria. It isn’t. The instant my brother died any sort of ease I had with the world evaporated.”
The blood drained from Maria’s face, and as she drew in a sharp breath to launch her rebuttal attack Isla stepped between the pair of them, instantly defusing the near-explosive tension with a quick nod and a clap of her hands.
“Right, then,” she said. “If it’s all right with the pair of you, I’d like to get to work.”
* * *
“Well done, mi amor.”
Isla gave Diego a cautious smile. She felt as though she’d held her own, but also that they had acted like a team. It was something she’d never felt with Kyle. There was exhilaration in the power of two. Even so...
“I would’ve preferred to work at the sanctuary.”
Diego nodded. She saw that he understood, but that he wasn’t going to budge on this point. Annoying as it was, she also felt that warm, glowing feeling that someone had her back. And not just any someone.
Diego.
If she didn’t watch herself she’d go down the same path she had with her parents and Kyle. Seeking love and attention where it simply wasn’t on tap.
“One step at a time, Isla. For now? You wanted to be useful and you will be. Consider yourself the victor. Maria del Mar is a force to be reckoned with.”
“A force who would’ve preferred she was the one wearing this?” Isla held up her hand, shifting it until the diamond caught the light.
Diego nodded. “Perhaps. One day long ago.” His eyes shifted to where Maria was disappearing around a corner. “She’s married now. Happily, believe it or not. She generally just likes torturing people. I think it’s a hospital administrator’s mission.”
Isla didn’t press the point. There was clearly some sort of history there, but it wasn’t as if she’d arrived on El Valderon with a clean slate. Well...it had been cleanish...slightly muddied...
Whatever. Her entire world was different now. She was different now.
To have gone from a sobbing-into-the-pillow wreck to a woman who could hold her own against another woman so obviously used to coming out on top of the food chain felt amazing. Maybe it was still adrenaline. Maybe it was the fact that she had no one here expecting her to be a particular way.
She stole a quick glance at Diego and fought the warm glow heating up her belly.
Maybe it was having someone believe in her.
She stepped away from the hand Diego was about to put on the small of her back. “Why don’t you show me the clinic?”
* * *
A few days later Isla’s admiration for Diego had quadrupled. Every morning he ensured she spoke with her
father via a video call, so they could each see the other was alive and well. The line usually broke up before either of them were able to say much, but it was ridiculously comforting to see her father in the little stone cottage. The same wee house he’d been raised in. But then once they’d changed into scrubs and climbed into the mobile clinic Diego treated her exactly as she’d been hoping he would: as a professional.
Seeing the island—Diego’s homeland—this way also gave her a greater insight into the man who held her destiny in his hands.
He was generous. Almost to a fault. Kind. Patient. And he always had her safety in mind. She’d thought it would feel stifling...suffocating, even...to once again be filling a role she hadn’t planned on: meek, over-grateful, reluctant, bride.
But it was quite the opposite. He expected nothing of the sort from her, and the feisty spirit she’d surprised herself by showing at the hospital that first day with Maria was something he not only enjoyed but encouraged.
This particularly bright morning he made the usual stop on their way out to the far end of the island and picked up Carmela’s twenty-year-old granddaughter Sofia—“just in case the language barrier proves problematic”.
It was his deft way of dealing with her minimal grasp of Spanish.
“Where is the next stop?” she asked. The mobile clinic had already stopped at a remote village and a tiny school.
“It’s going to be a longer visit than the others. It’s at the Vasquez Coffee Plantation.”
“As in...?” She pointed at him.
He gave her a nod and a slow wink, which sent uninvited ripples of pleasure down her spine. She was going to have to find a tactful way to ask him to stop doing that. He was too...too yummy to also be flirty. This was work. She was working. Twenty-five more days and she’d be at home in the cottage, making her father hot chocolate.
A jag of discomfort blurred the vision.
Was that what she really wanted? To go back to the same old, same old? Had it ever been?
Diego, she abruptly realized, was merrily chatting on about the coffee plantation.
“It’s a bit more diversified these days. When my father left and I had to take over the companies, I turned them into co-operatives. Fairtrade initiatives and the like. It’s better for the workers that way. The co-operatives agreed to a pool of money going toward healthcare—which the hospital allowed to be used to fund the mobile clinic—and this way they can see, hands-on, that I care. And, of course...” he dropped her another of those steamy winks of his “...Maria isn’t out of pocket.”
Isla managed to ignore the wink and, because Sofia was clearly tuning in to their conversation, stemmed the questions she wanted to ask about his family and the businesses. Instead asked about the people they would be seeing.
“Poor, mostly. Laborers. They will likely never be rich.” He sounded disappointed, but then regrouped. “They are certainly better off than they were when my father ran things.”
“And he is...?” She left the question open.
“In Nicaragua. No doubt on his fourth or fifth wife and sixth or seventh business empire. Maybe both.”
Diego kept his eyes glued to the road, his tone neutral, so Isla didn’t press. She knew how complicated it could be to talk about parents. She still hadn’t told Diego her own mother had died. That information felt like a precious secret that, if kept incredibly close and deeply private, might one day change the past.
A young girl’s dream that would never come true.
After a few more minutes of driving in silence, he said, “My mother’s in America. No doubt doing the same. With husbands. Not so sure about empires.”
“I suppose everyone has their own way of dealing with grief.”
“Brava, cariña. You’re one of the few to see it that way. Most of the islanders think my parents are spoiled brats who left when the going got tough.”
Isla looked out the window and swiped away an unexpected tear. “Let’s just say my father didn’t cope very well when my mother died.”
Oops. So much for keeping her secret close and safe.
“Oh...?” he said simply.
It would have been so easy to pour out her life story. Tell him all the things she was sure he’d understand. How she’d become a doctor because it had been the one thing that might have helped her mother out there in the jungle. How she’d felt utterly powerless to keep her father safe, but loved him anyway. He was her father. How she’d become more and more conservative in order to counterbalance his recklessness. How she was wondering now if anything she’d done—her move back to Loch Craggen, her insane engagement to Kyle—had mattered.
Diego didn’t press for more details, but he reached across and gave her leg a squeeze. He got it. Here was yet another layer of connection with this mysterious and wonderful man. She was really going to have to clamp down on her emotions if she was going to get through the remaining twenty-five days with her heart intact.
“Right!” Diego said eventually, pointing toward a huge wooden gateway that led down a beautifully manicured road to a series of low traditional stucco buildings. “Welcome to the plantation.”
They parked up outside the cottages—which, he explained, were housing for the full-time workers. There was also housing further along the road, for people who had worked there their entire lives and were now retired.
“Like these houses? That’s amazing.”
He shrugged. “It’s not much when you consider what their hard work has given my family.”
And there he was in a nutshell. A man vividly aware of what he owed his community.
It didn’t surprise her in the slightest when, just a few patients in, it became clear to see they adored him.
She’d never seen so many octogenarians fluttering their eyelashes, nor so much disappointment when they realized she was the one who would be taking their blood pressure.
“It’ll be easier to get a more accurate read if you do it,” he’d cheekily whispered in her ear as one elderly woman blushed when he showed her to a chair.
Isla had blushed too, when his hand had casually shifted from her waist to her hip, then lightly grazed over the curve of her derriere as if they had been married for years. Such a casual but intimate gesture, and it was chased up by the shock of realizing that the feeling she couldn’t put a name to when he dropped his hand was an ache for more.
Diego was seeing their last patient—a teenage boy—in the back exam room with Sofia when a knock sounded at the open door. Isla took the opportunity as a chance to try out her limited grasp on Spanish.
“Adelante, por favor!”
A beautiful woman, exquisitely dressed with a thick mane of black hair tumbling down her back, stepped into the small waiting area. Isla pushed her papers to the side of the table at which she’d been working and half rose. They hadn’t been expecting anyone else.
The woman wasn’t dressed at all like the other women they’d seen. They had mostly been wearing thick cotton work clothes or brightly colored traditional skirts and blouses. The fabric of this woman’s dress was clearly high quality. Raw silk? A high-quality linen? The rings on her fingers weren’t cheap knock-offs, either. The sheer luster of them spoke of their authenticity.
She shot a nervous look behind her, then came and sat next to Isla at the table just outside another small exam room.
“How may I help you today?”
“You are Isla Vasquez?” The woman hesitated, a well of emotion clearly building in her throat.
Isla handed her a tissue. She’d always believed knowing it was safe to cry made it easier to stop fighting the emotion. When she looked at the woman’s face again she saw tears brimming in her dark eyes.
“I am Serena Cruz.”
For a moment the name didn’t register. Then everything came together so rapidly Isla didn’t have a moment to put on her game face.
Serena reached out and put a heavily jeweled hand on Isla’s arm. “Don’t be scared. I am here as a mother.”
“Well, then...” Isla held her head high. “I will listen to you as the daughter of a man hounded away from a place he loved. At gunpoint.”
Serena nodded, visibly taking on board what Isla had said. “I want to thank you.”
For what, exactly? Surviving the most terrifying experience she’d ever been through? Agreeing to marry Diego to save her father’s life?
She couldn’t exactly spell any of that out. Diego had told Axl they were in love.
Then again, if Serena knew where she was—knew she was Diego’s wife—surely she also knew this whole charade was a ruse to keep her father alive. A swirl of bile rose in her throat as she reminded herself that this woman’s husband had threatened to kill her and her father. She owed her nothing. She pressed her lips tight.
“My son is alive because of you. And, of course, Diego.”
Isla forced herself to speak levelly. “The way I understand it, both your sons are alive because of the Vasquez sons.”
Serena shot her a sad smile. “This is true. But I believe it is you who has made the bravest of sacrifices.”
Isla bridled. “I don’t think so. I’m still alive.” She let the words simmer between them, then softened. Serena obviously wasn’t here to fight. “None of this needed to happen.”
Serena shook her head. “When I met my husband he was a strong, honorable man. He worked hard. When the government changed in our country his job was taken from him. He lost himself that day.”
Something twigged in Isla. Diego had mentioned earlier they’d be heading toward a village where quite a few Noche Blanca members lived, including Axl. He’d already been out this morning to change Paz’s dressings, but had made no mention of seeing Serena.
“Does he know you’re here?”
Serena shook her head, no.
“Why didn’t you want him to know you were here?”
A tear lost its hold on Serena’s eyelash and slid down her cheek. “I want my husband back. The man I married. I love him. And I will stand by him no matter what. Do you understand?”
