ISLA HAD TWO CHOICES.
Give in to the nerves that were threatening to consume her alive, proving Kyle right for dumping her and moving on to someone with “a bit more pizzazz, baby.” Or she could make her parents proud.
She chose the latter.
Sure, her mother was no longer here to see her, and her father wasn’t bearing actual witness—not to mention the fact she was saving a human versus an endangered species—but there were guns, bullet wounds and angry faces holding ground over invisible turf lines. This was the stuff her parents were known for.
Besides... These goons had her father.
Losing one parent was bad enough. And when her grandmother had passed away a couple of years back she’d been devastated. No way was she losing her father as well.
She wasn’t ready to be an orphan.
“Are you going to let me go to him or not?” Isla glared at Scarface—her new nickname for Ponytail Man who, now that he’d closed in on her, had revealed a raised scar running the length of his jawline.
There was some nice stitch work there for what looked like a massively botched job in the old “assassination with one stroke of the knife” department’. It looked more jig-jaggy than one-fell-swoopy. Whoever had done the surgery had done their best with what must have been a pretty horrific wound. Not to mention offering Scarface the preferred end of the stick in the whole staying alive thing. She’d like to meet that doctor if she got the chance.
Scarface snapped something short and staccato at her. It didn’t sound very nice, and suffice it to say her nerves were shot.
“That’s not much of a way to speak to a lady. Especially when she has plans to help your wee friend, here.”
She pointed down toward the shoreline, trying to channel the strength and courage her mother had virtually glowed with.
“I’ll have you know if that young man has an arterial bleed...” She crossed her arms and gave him her best knowing look. “He’ll be dead by now. Muerto.” She drew a line across her neck and made a dead face.
Scarface stepped forward, aimed his gun directly at her face and called the others to close in on her.
Oops.
She’d have to work on her communication by body language skills.
She shook her head and feigned world-weariness with a heavy sigh. “I am a doctor. Médico.” She pointed at herself again, hoping the word was an actual Spanish word.
She’d taken an oath to treat each and every patient who came her way. Even if they had been caught stealing turtle eggs for their alleged powers of sexual prowess.
Once Mr. Gunshot Wound was in Recovery, she’d make it clear to him that the one thing these eggs did produce was turtles—not a hot night in the sack. Unless, of course, he was iron deficient, in which case she could recommend some supplements.
See? Sensible and sassy.
She turned toward the young man. Instantly all the guns were lifted a bit higher. A metallic reminder that her freedom was not her own.
“I need to examine him,” she said, irritation threading actively through her voice as she met another one of the pandillero’s dark eyes.
No response.
“If I don’t get to him he’s going to die.”
The men stared at her.
She persisted. “He could drown. Look at him!”
The poor lad was sprawled on the shoreline, legs apart, hands clutched to his chest, and the tide was coming in without an ounce of pity for a young man whose life could be taken away. Much like the baddie now staring at her as if he were carved out of marble.
This was absolute madness!
She glanced toward the security men wearing El Valderon Turtle Sanctuary T-shirts. Their guns had been taken from them and they were being tied to palm trees by yet more members of Noche Blanca. Terrific. When had that happened?
“Any one of you willing to let me know why I can’t help this guy?”
She stared at Scarface for answers. He pushed her further into the center of the newly floodlit part of the cove with the butt of his rifle.
“Hey!”
She rubbed the small of her back. No one—and that included gun-wielding criminals trying to steal turtle eggs from idyllic beaches in the middle of the Caribbean—was going to push her around. Had she mentioned being dumped this week? The cancelled wedding?
She wheeled on him. “I am a doctor,” she ground out. “Dottore?” She pointed at herself, wondering why she was now speaking in Italian.
Maybe because you’re a boring GP whose only access to the world is via your television.
She pushed Kyle’s cutting tone out of her head. It was a heck of a lot better than getting access to the world via an array of flight attendants’ lady gardens!
She gave the pushy gunman her best no-nonsense face. The one she always had to use with Mrs. MacGregor when she refused to take her insulin. Scottish stubbornness was a force to be reckoned with. If she could get Mrs. MacGregor to listen she could do the same with these men.
“I can stop your friend from bleeding to death...” she pressed her hands to her stomach and then braved making her dying face again before looking him in the eye “...but you have to let me go to him.”
She pointed at the young man again, speaking as calmly as she could. Difficult with her heart trying to launch itself into her throat every few seconds.
“I need to help him.”
She kept pointing at herself and then the young man, feeling about as awkward as she did every Christmas when her aunties forced her to play charades.
Talking slowly didn’t appear to be remotely helpful. The man stared at her entirely unmoved.
He would have been terrific at playing a tree in the school play. She tried to picture the scene in an attempt to make him seem less scary. Miraculously, it worked.
So she did the only thing she could think of that would end this ridiculous stand-off while that poor man bled into the approaching surf. She ignored the man in front of her and began deliberately walking toward her patient.
No one moved a muscle.
No guns were raised.
No safety catches were unclipped.
Not that she really knew what that would sound like, but she was over-familiar with the crime show oeuvre and knew having the safety on or off was very important.
Was that what she’d done her life these past few years? Approach it with the safety on?
Well... Look at her now. Here she was in the middle of a crime scene, marching toward a patient as if the Hippocratic oath made her bullet proof.
At least if she died it would be in a blaze of glory. How very “MacLeay” of her. That would make the papers back home!
She looked down at her wrinkled eyelet blouse and crumpled A-line skirt. Her hand crept up to her hair. Her auburn curls had exploded into the equivalent of a comedy wig the second she’d stepped off the plane and she hadn’t had the heart to try and wrestle them into submission. Yet. She’d given herself a week to cry and feel sorry for herself and she was only halfway through it.
Another reason to be annoyed with these banditos. How dare they interrupt her self-indulgent sob-fest when she so rarely took time