His Bride in Paradise

by Joanna Neil

  ‘We should get her to hospital right away,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep my finger over the hole until we can get her to a surgeon. Will you phone ahead and arrange for a surgical team to be waiting for us?’

  ‘Yes, I will. Are you going to be okay staying with her like that? I could take over for you if you like.’

  Alyssa shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine. I’m just anxious about our other patient. He was very breathless. I didn’t get a chance to do anything other than check him out.’

  ‘I think the paramedics started to give him oxygen when we arrived, but I’ll go and take over from them while we get this lady transferred to the ambulance. Sit tight and I’ll send the paramedics over to you.’

  ‘Thanks, Connor.’ On an afterthought she said, ‘Will you ask Ross to take care of the children and see that they’re handed over to their father?’

  ‘I will.’ He smiled at her. ‘You’re doing a great job. You amaze me, Alyssa. You’re a brilliant doctor. I’d be more than glad to have you at my side if I were in dire straits. I can’t think of anyone else I’d sooner have with me.’

  Her heart jumped a little. It was great that he had faith in her. ‘Let’s hope that’s never put to the test.’ She stayed where she was, keeping her finger in place to stop the blood from escaping, but his words warmed her through and through.

  A couple of minutes later, the paramedics had placed Raeni on a stretcher, and wheeled her to the ambulance, with Alyssa staying constantly by her side, her hand still in position.

  Malik travelled with them, propped up a little by pillows to ease his breathing. There was an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and his eyes were closed, but it was plain to see that he was suffering a considerable amount of discomfort.

  ‘Did you manage to examine him?’ Alyssa asked quietly as the ambulance driver started up the engine and they sped away.

  Connor nodded. ‘I think there may have been some disruption to the diaphragm,’ he said in a low voice. ‘When I listened to his chest with the stethoscope I could hear sounds that you wouldn’t usually expect to hear.’

  ‘You mean there might be a tear in the diaphragm?’

  ‘That’s right. So some of the abdominal organs might have been pushed upwards into the chest cavity. We’ll do a chest X-ray and MRI scan to be certain, but I’m pretty sure he’ll need surgery.’

  Alyssa winced. ‘They’re both in a bad way.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She studied him thoughtfully for a moment or two. ‘I didn’t realise it straight away, but you weren’t quite yourself when you came out of the ambulance. What was wrong?’

  ‘I was fine.’

  ‘No, you weren’t. I could tell. What was it, Connor? It couldn’t be that you were bothered by the crash, could it? You must have seen things like that many times in your career.’

  He nodded, and perhaps he realised that she would persist in her questioning because he said, ‘But never when Ross’s car was at the scene. When I first stepped out of the ambulance, it looked as though his car was part of the accident. I felt sick to my stomach, imagining that you and he might be injured.’

  She sucked in a quick breath. ‘I didn’t know…I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.’

  ‘It was, but then I found out that you were both okay. That was a tremendous relief. I couldn’t bear the thought of either of you being hurt. I don’t know how I would have gone on if—’ He broke off. He looked uncomfortable, as though he’d said too much.

  ‘If what?’ Alyssa prompted him, but he shook his head.

  ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’

  She thought about it. Was he wondering about how he would go on if anything happened to Ross? Or maybe he was thinking of her…was it possible? Might he care for her more than she dared hope?

  Their conversation had to come to an end, though, because by now they had arrived at the hospital and medical teams were waiting in the ambulance bay.

  There were separate teams for each of the patients. Raeni was whisked away to the operating theatre and Malik was taken to the radiology department. Alyssa walked with Connor to the emergency room and saw that Raeni’s children were there with their father. Ross, it turned out, had gone on to the airport to see if Carys was waiting.

  ‘Heavens, I’d forgotten all about Carys,’ Alyssa said in a stunned tone. ‘She must be wondering what on earth’s going on.’

  ‘I expect Ross will look after her,’ Connor murmured.

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ She was relieved at the thought. ‘Perhaps he’ll take her for lunch somewhere. That’s what I planned to do.’

  Connor nodded. ‘Don’t worry about it—I’m sure Ross will explain the situation to her and help to make her feel welcome. They always got on well together.’

  ‘Good. That’s a relief, anyway.’

  He led her towards his office. ‘I’m still on call for a few hours so I might have to leave at any moment, but I think you should sit down and rest for a while. That must have been a terrible ordeal for you, and yet you stayed in control, doing what you had to do. I’m really proud of you, Alyssa.’

  She pressed her lips together. ‘I didn’t really get a chance to think about it—until you arrived, and then it hit home with a bang.’ They went into the room and he switched on the coffee machine.

  ‘You’re a wonderful, skilled doctor,’ he said, a few minutes later as he handed her a reviving cup of hot coffee. ‘It would be a tremendous waste to the profession if you were to give up on it.’

  ‘I did what I could…but we don’t know yet what will happen to her. I may have been too late…’

  ‘At least you gave her a chance of survival. If you hadn’t acted as you did, she wouldn’t be here now, in the operating theatre.’

  Alyssa sipped her coffee. It was good to know that he had faith in her, but could she live up to those expectations? Perhaps it was too early yet to say. She was still very shaken by what had happened.

  His pager bleeped and he checked the text message briefly. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Will you get a taxi back home when you’re ready? I can give you the number of a reliable company.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me,’ she murmured.

  He studied her, his gaze dark and brooding. ‘But I do worry,’ he said. ‘That’s the problem.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘IT MUST have been a terrible shock for you—coming across an accident like that.’ Carys shook her head, making her blonde hair swirl silkily around her pretty, oval-shaped face. ‘Such awful injuries. Ross has been telling me all about it. And those children—they must have been scared half to death.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alyssa agreed, ‘that was worrying, seeing how upset they were. It’s hard not being able to give them any real news about their mother, but she was still in the recovery room when I left the hospital, and we won’t know how she’ll be for some time yet. She lost a lot of blood and there are problems with her lungs because of the extent of the injury.’

  ‘At least she came through the operation.’ Ross poured drinks for the girls as they sat on the deck, looking out over the sparkling blue ocean. Brown shearwaters swooped and dived for fish, their white underbellies glinting in the sunlight, while black-headed terns cheekily tried to steal their catch.

  Alyssa sipped her fruit punch, listening to the clink of ice in her glass. It was good to have Carys here at last. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry we had to leave you high and dry at the airport,’ she said. ‘You must have wondered what was going on. Perhaps you thought we’d abandoned you?’

  Carys laughed. ‘Oh, no. I knew something must have gone wrong. Ross phoned to tell me he was on his way, and then he took me to the Oasis Club for lunch and drinks. We had a lot of catching up to do, and he told me all about the filming.’ She frowned. ‘Apparently it will all be over with soon…I expect life will seem fairly drab after all the excitement of the film shoots.’

  ‘You’re probably right. I think Ross will feel it q
uite badly—he thrives on the adrenaline rush.’

  Ross nodded agreement. ‘Once one project finishes, I’m on the lookout for another.’

  As for herself, she would have to think through her options once her contract with the company came to an end. Instead of the relatively easy time she had been expecting, this stint of work in the Bahamas had given her a lot of food for thought.

  They chatted through the afternoon, until Connor arrived home from his shift with the ambulance service.

  ‘Hi, there, Carys,’ he said, coming on to the deck and greeting her with a warm smile. ‘It’s good to see you again.’ He bent his head towards her.

  ‘You, too.’ Carys lifted her cheek for his kiss and, watching them in such a warm, tender embrace, Alyssa felt a sudden sharp stab of jealousy. It was an unexpected reaction and definitely one that she didn’t want. It was upsetting that she should respond this way, and it bewildered her. After all, there was no call for it—Carys was her cousin, they’d been close friends all their lives, like sisters almost, and it was perfectly natural for her and Connor to be close to one another.

  Even so, she bent her head to hide her frown. Had her cousin kissed Ross that way, or were these special moments reserved for Connor?

  Annoyed with herself, she swallowed some more of her ice-cold drink and put on a smile. ‘We were wondering what to do this evening,’ she told Connor. ‘We thought it might be good to take Carys somewhere special.’

  He straightened up and nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. There’s a beach barbecue and fire-eating show going on tonight at Smugglers’ Cove. That should be well worth a visit.’

  ‘It sounds great,’ Carys said, her blue eyes bright with anticipation. ‘I vote we go for the fire-eating—just as long as I don’t have to try it out myself!’

  ‘I doubt there’s much chance of that.’ Connor laughed. ‘But it should be fun, and there’s usually dancing and a whole variety of cocktails to try out.’

  ‘You’re leading me down the path to devil-may-care, I can see that,’ she told him with a smile. ‘But I’m not worried. I’m here to relax and have a good time, and I want Alyssa to do the same.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ Alyssa murmured. ‘I’m there in spirit already.’ She shot Connor a quick look. ‘Why is it called Smugglers’ Cove—were there dark and dangerous goings on there at some time in the past?’

  ‘There certainly were. It was the hub of rum-running in the prohibition era. There are lots of caves around there where sailors could hide their booty.’

  She smiled. ‘It’s getting to sound more and more interesting.’

  ‘You’ll enjoy it, I’m sure.’ Connor went to shower and change, and later, as the sun started to set on the horizon, they all set off to walk along the headland to Smugglers’ Cove. Rounding the bay, they were met by the sound of drums beating out a fast, heady rhythm and by the sight of islanders dressed in vivid costumes, dancing to the feverish beat.

  The aroma of barbecued chicken greeted them, and a buffet table had been laid out on a terrace filled with platters of pork, ribs, rice and peas and bowls of salad. It was colourful and appetising, and Alyssa realised she was hungry.

  Connor and Ross went to get drinks while the girls found seats at a table and sat down to watch the dancers. Men, bare-chested and athletic, moved to the music, their bodies supple and toned, while the women dancers wore tube tops and flouncy short skirts that flicked up and down as they shifted to the rhythm of the band. There was a fire at the centre of the group, and they took it in turn to light torches, swirling them around, making patterns with the flames.

  Alyssa drank tequila sunrise, a flamboyant cocktail with brilliant red and orange colouring, and felt the music deep down inside her, so that when the floor show finished and Connor held out his hand to draw her to her feet, she was ready to dance with him in the traditional hip-shaking, foot-stomping way of the fire dancers. They laughed together, buoyed up by the cheerful atmosphere, and when Carys and Ross came to join them they danced as a foursome.

  ‘I’d no idea you could move like that,’ Alyssa remarked, and Connor smiled and tugged her to him.

  ‘You don’t do so badly yourself,’ he murmured huskily against her cheek. ‘You’ve been tantalising me all night long with those swaying hips and that gorgeous body.’

  ‘Have I really?’ She laughed, snuggling up to him. Perhaps the alcohol had gone to her head because all she wanted right now was to be in his arms and it didn’t matter to her that there were people all around.

  ‘Yes, you have, Jezebel.’ His eyes were dark, glittering with smouldering intent. ‘I’ve been wanting to get close to you all night. I need to have you all to myself.’ He looked around. ‘What do you say we give these two the slip and go for a walk along the beach?’

  ‘That sounds good to me.’ She glanced over to where Ross and Carys were engrossed, deep in conversation. ‘I don’t think they’ll miss us, do you?’

  ‘It doesn’t look like it. They’ve really hit it off, haven’t they?’

  So they set out to walk back along the beach in the moonlight, kicking up the sand with their bare feet, laughing when the waves rolled in and tickled their toes.

  ‘I think I’ve had too much to drink,’ she murmured, gazing up at the clear night sky. Stars shimmered like diamonds and in the balmy evening the whole world seemed magical. ‘My head is swirling, and it’s filled with music.’

  ‘That’s because we can still hear it, even from this distance.’ They rounded the headland and stood for a while, looking out over the bay. A heron was silhouetted against the moonlit horizon, standing on a rocky outcrop, preening itself.

  Connor took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly, and it seemed to Alyssa just then that it was so right that they should be together like this. No one had ever made her feel so good, so perfectly at ease with herself and the world.

  ‘Have you had a good time tonight?’ he asked softly, and she nodded, blissful in his arms, not wanting to move.

  ‘I have. I think I’ve fallen in love with this island, its people and their traditions.’ She’d probably fallen in love with him, too, and maybe that was what coloured her judgement, but she couldn’t tell him that. He might feel it was time to gently extricate himself, and she wanted to stay close to him for as long as was possible.

  ‘I’m glad. I want you to be happy, Alyssa. You were so sad when you first came here…Not outwardly, but I think inside you were hurting, though I didn’t realise it at the time. You talked about how you felt about your work, your relationship with your parents, and your ex…Do you still feel bad about breaking up with him?’

  She shook her head. ‘I haven’t thought about him in a long time.’ She frowned. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, how someone can take up so much of your thoughts and be so great a part of your life, and yet after a while they fade into the distance?’ She thought about that for a while.

  ‘I think perhaps we were never really suited. He didn’t understand me and how important my work was to me back then. And, of course, when everything went wrong for me in my job, he wasn’t there to support me. I suppose I started to look at him with different eyes then, even before he cheated on me.’

  Thinking about that was a salutary reminder of how things could go wrong. She looked up at Connor, his face shadowed in the moonlight. Could she let herself love him and put her trust in him? She wanted to, so much.

  He cupped her cheek in his hand. ‘I shouldn’t have doubted you when you first came here. I had such preset ideas about the women who’d set their sights on Ross in the past, and I was judging you without even knowing you.’

  ‘And you don’t have those same worries about Carys?’ She smiled. ‘He seems to be very taken with her.’

  ‘He’s always had a place in his heart for Carys. Nothing ever came of it because she sees him for what he is—a man who enjoys life to the hilt and jumps at every opportunity without thinking first.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s changing
.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So you don’t need to be his protector any more?’

  ‘Probably not. It’s a habit I should have left behind long ago.’ He smiled. ‘I wonder why we’re wasting this moonlit night talking about Ross?’

  She knew the answer to that. ‘Because I’ve had a little too much to drink and I’m afraid if I let you kiss me I’ll do something foolish like fall in love with you.’

  He inhaled sharply. ‘That would never do, would it?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘You know what they say, “once bitten…’“

  ‘True. But not all relationships have to end badly, do they? Perhaps I hadn’t thought about it properly before. I mean, just because your ex let you down, and my parents made a mess of things, it doesn’t have to follow that all love affairs follow the same course, does it?’

  He swooped to claim her mouth once more and kissed her, deeply, passionately with all the fervour of a man whose emotions were rapidly running out of control. His hands shaped her and drew her to him, tracing the lines of her body with tender devotion.

  ‘I want you so much…’ he said raggedly ‘…so much that it’s like an ache deep inside me.’

  Her heart seemed to flip over. It was good to know that she could make him feel this way…It made her blood fizz with excitement and filled her with exhilaration to know that he wanted her, and in her heady, dreamlike state she was almost ready to throw caution to the winds and tell him she felt the same way. But self-preservation was a powerful deterrent and just a hint of caution remained, a tiny spark of doubt left to torment her. Perhaps his view of things was changing, but he still talked about affairs, and not about a lasting commitment, didn’t he?

  It would hurt her so badly if he were to cast her aside once she had committed herself to him. She knew it and there was no escaping the fact. The distress of having to end the relationship with James would be nothing compared to how she would feel if Connor was to go out of her life. She realised now that her feelings for him went very deep, deeper than she’d ever thought possible, and she didn’t think she could cope if he were to let her down.