The Doctor's Marriage For A Month. Annie O'Neil

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      Nope.

      Not a living soul.

      Just a chance to realize that her heart had stopped hammering against her rib cage as if it too were trying to escape.

      Two weeks ago she would’ve been hiding under something right now. Most likely the big bed in her little stone cottage on Craggen. Not standing between two gun-toting groups of men with her arms out like some sort of bonkers traffic controller.

      Was being dumped more character-building than soul-destroying? Or was the truth a bit more simple.

      After the week she’d had Isla really didn’t have time for this sort of ridiculous machismo.

      She pushed her own issues to the wayside. Her father was here to help the community—not hinder. Nor had she faced up to a lifelong fear of flying only to get killed when she got here.

      She was here to lick her emotional wounds, sulk a little. Wallow. Something she never did. And she was not best pleased to have to patch together gun-wielding turtle egg poachers just because they didn’t see the sense in her father’s big plan.

      The same father, she reminded herself, who probably should’ve mentioned the fact that El Valderon was more akin to the Wild West of yesteryear than a restorative Caribbean spa.

       Maybe he simply didn’t want to see the dark side.

      Her heart softened. For once, her father had been trying to do right by her. To give her a place to hide away from the prying eyes of Loch Craggen. Regroup after being deemed “the most boring girlfriend on earth.”

      Well, Kyle would’ve been boring too, if his mother had been killed and his father had lost the plot. Someone needed to be practical. Someone needed to look after Grannie. Someone had to be there.

      Ponytail Man retrained his gun on her. She stared him straight in the eye. Here was her chance to show Kyle Strout just what boring looked like.

      She looked down at the pure white sand currently soaking up the splatterings of very real blood, courtesy of the egg poachers and guards shooting at each other.

      A swift shot of resolve crackled through her like a flash of unexpected lightning.

      She wasn’t boring.

      Nor was she going to engage in all this mopey, weepy, victim of an ill-fated romance palaver.

      She was going to save this man’s life, then find her father and help him make his dream of saving the sea turtle come true.

      She squared off to Ponytail Man and fixed him with her fiercest look of determination. The type she would’ve given Annie Taggart’s highly energized toddlers when she needed to take blood samples.

      Yes, she’d show Kyle precisely how exciting “fifty shades of boring” could be.

      * * *

      Fury pumped through Diego’s veins. He slammed his phone against the stucco wall outside the small hospital, not caring when the handset shattered.

      If Noche Blanca were going to act like cavemen they could resort to smoke signals if they wanted his help.

      But as quickly as the urge to tell them where to stick their call for help launched his blood pressure through the stratosphere, it crashed back down to earth.

      A patient was a patient. Even if that patient was a class-A idiot. And this particular idiot was the son of Noche Blanca’s take-no-prisoners head honcho Axl Cruz. If he died there was no telling the extremes Axl would take to exact revenge.

      Diego picked up the pieces of his phone and shoved them into his pocket, shaking his head in utter disbelief. It was the third burner he’d obliterated in a week. Just yesterday, as he’d been stitching up one of Axl’s pandilleros who’d lacerated his arm after putting his meaty fist through a window, he’d thought he’d made it crystal clear. The help would continue so long as they left the sanctuary alone.

      Transition periods took time. And, sure, it depleted everyone’s pocket money—which he knew was rich, coming from him—but the ultimate reward was peace. A steady economy for all the islanders. That was priceless. And it was why he’d instructed his family’s company to gift the land to the sanctuary.

      He swore as he strode into the hospital, not caring who heard.

      “Amigo! Hold up.”

      He whirled round as the small hospital’s head surgeon caught up to him.

      “Que paso? I didn’t think you were on tonight.”

      The thunderous expression on Diego’s face told Dr. Antonio Aguillera all he needed to know.

      He raised his hands and backed off. “I’ll call in back-up.”

      “I’ve got it,” Diego growled, grabbing a fresh pair of scrubs and a pair of surgical scrubs from a porter passing with a supplies trolley. “I’ll bring them back to the clinic.”

      They both knew what that meant. These patients weren’t on the right side of the law. The hospital was stretched to the limit as it was, and Diego knew more than most what happened when blood was shed and Noche Blanca were involved.

      “Just a bit short on supplies.” He’d ordered some in from the States, but, as often happened in developing countries, things went missing.

      “Okay, brother. Good luck.”

      Anton disappeared into a nearby supplies cupboard and moments later handed Diego a jute coffee sack he knew would be stuffed full of supplies. Supplies that the hospital’s administration would never officially hand over to him, despite the number of lives he’d saved that hadn’t been linked to Noche Blanca.

      Diego gave his colleague a slap on the back. One that communicated all the things he couldn’t say.

       No one will ever be able to replace my brother, but thank you for treating me like one. We both know luck counts for nothing when dealing with Noche Blanca.

      “See you in the morning.”

       With any luck.

      “Dr. Vasquez! Momentito, por favor!”

      Irritation crackled through him. He didn’t need to wriggle out of another administrative hoop. He wasn’t on shift tonight.

      He turned around.

      Maria del Mar.

      The woman was half siren, half business mogul. It was a shame she’d picked healthcare as her means of expressing the two sides of her personality.

      Running the hospital was akin to a hot night in the sack for her. The life and death decisions... The status... The ability to play God... Or goddess, in her case.

      The only reason he worked at the hospital was because he’d vowed not to hold the rest of the islanders accountable for one woman’s СКАЧАТЬ