Kitabı oku: «Santiago's Convenient Fiancée»

CHAPTER ONE

SANTI CLENCHED HIS fists so tightly it hurt. Good. There was still feeling in them. He shot his fingers out at full length, simultaneously giving them a hard shake. The movement jettisoned him back to memories he’d thought he’d left back in Afghanistan. Syria. Africa. Wherever. Didn’t matter. Dog tags were dog tags. CPR worked or it didn’t. The need to shake it off and stay neutral was the same no matter where he was.

What mattered now was the chest in front of him needing another round of compressions. Fatigue couldn’t factor into it. Giving this guy another shot at living could.

“Where the hell is the ambulance?” he bellowed to anyone who might be in the vicinity. The only answer...the echo of his own voice reverberating off the cement stanchions of the underpass. Raw. Frustrated.

Santi wove his fingers together again and pressed the heel of his palm to the man’s chest, ignoring the worn clothes, the stench of someone who had slept rough too many nights and the fact he’d been providing CPR for twenty minutes since he’d rung for an ambulance.

“C’mon, Miami!” he growled, keeping steady track of the number of compressions before stopping to give the two rescue breaths that just might jump-start this poor guy’s system. “Give the man a chance.”

He glanced at the man’s dog tags again. Diego Gonzalez.

“What’s your story, amigo?” He tugged off his motorcycle jacket, leaving it where it fell on the dry earth before beginning compressions again. He might leave it for Diego once the ambulance turned up and they got a shot or two of epi and some life back into him. From the state of Diego’s clothes, the world had given up on him. Well, he sure as hell wouldn’t. He’d seen it time and again since he’d left the forces. Veterans unable to find a path after their time overseas. Nothing computing anymore. Lives disintegrating into nothing. He might have hung up his camos just a few months ago, but the last thing he was going to do was forget the men who’d given the military their all, only to find life had little to offer when they came home.

Home.

The word was loaded, and just as dangerous as a sniper bullet. He shook his head again, tightening his fingers against his knuckles as he pressed.

Twenty-nine, thirty.

As he bent to give another two breaths he heard the distant wail of a siren.

“Finally.”

One. Two. Three...

* * *

“Ready or not! Here we come!” Saoirse flicked on the whoop-whoop of the sirens, loving the wail of sound that cleared a path through the thick of Miami’s commuter traffic.

“For crying out loud, you mad Irish woman! You’re not in your racing car now.”

“Is that you angling for a ride this weekend, Joe?” Saoirse grinned.

“I’ll be happy to make it through this shift alive, thank you very much. And then you are taking me straight to the cantina. Safely,” he added with a meaningful look as she took the next turn at full pelt. “And heaven help your next partner. They’re going to need nerves of steel.”

Saoirse laughed, weaving between the cars as if she were barrel racing a horse she’d known since it was a colt. Smooth, fluid. It was grace in motion, if weaving an ambulance through grumpy Floridian drivers was your thing. It was hers. Hadn’t always been. But speed ran through her blood now and the tropical heat suited her to a T.

At least something in the past year had turned out all right.

Life had well and truly shot her in the foot, but it had also given her a visa to the States. It should have been a fiancée visa, but the student visa did the same trick. Not that the change of direction still wasn’t raw. Still too fresh to discuss. She gave her head a quick shake and refocused.

“What kind of cake will you be having, then, Joe? Not that awful rainbow-colored thing you had on your birthday, I hope.”

“Hey, little whippersnapper. It’s my retirement party—not your twelfth birthday.”

“I’m partial to coconut.” She gave him a cheeky wink, eyes still glued to the traffic. “We don’t get that sort of thing in Ireland. Want me to call the desk and tell them it’s your favorite?”

Joe pressed his hands to the dashboard of the ambulance as Saoirse hit the brakes then the gas pedals in quick succession as a very expensive-looking convertible whizzed past them, horn blaring.

“What’s up with them?”

“They weren’t expecting Annie Oakley behind the wheel, Saoirse,” Joe hollered. “For the love of my retirement check! You’re going to give me a coronary before we get to the call!”

“Joe! What are the chances you’re going to pronounce my name properly before our last ever shift is over? Sear-shuh.” She overexaggerated the vowel-heavy name her parents had lumbered her with. Maybe she should change that, too. Chopping off most of her hair had been downright liberating.

Joe made another mangled attempt at pronouncing it as they lurched through the next junction and Saoirse laughed.

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you twice, just go with Murphy. If that’s too much for you, Murph will do just grand.”

“Sorry, darlin’.” Joe spoke through gritted teeth as they shot through another red light. “I’m of the generation where you do not call a lady by her last name.”

“Is that what you think I am?” Saoirse shot him a sidelong glance. “A lady?”

“Well,” grumbled her partner of two months, “something like that, anyways.”

Saoirse threw back her head and laughed. “Don’t you worry, Joe. I’ll get you to your party safe and sound tonight. Your wife won’t have to worry. There’s only one heart attack we’re fixing today and that’s whoever is...” she abruptly pulled the ambulance to a halt at the side of an overpass where a motorcycle stood without a rider “...under this bridge. You ready for a bit of off-roading?”

* * *

“Down here!” Santi shouted as loudly as he could once the siren’s wail was turned off in midscreech and he heard the slamming of doors. Keeping count as he took in the change of environment was second nature to him. What wasn’t was registering the stuntwoman-style entrance of the paramedic.

The skid down the embankment was more snowboarder with a portable defibrillator than cautious EMT adhering to health and safety codes. First came the boots in a cloud of gravel and dust, then a set of...decidedly female legs...a swoop of a waist and... Ker-ching! This woman wore her regulation jumpsuit as if she were delivering a sexy singing telegram. Hard to do, harder to pull off.

“How long you been at it?”

The lilting voice and ultrafeminine figure didn’t match the C’mon, buckaroo, I dare you to say something unprofessional attitude her face was actively working. Fine. Suited him. He wasn’t here to pick up a date.

“Twenty-four minutes. What took you so long?”

“You look like you know what you’re doing,” she shot back, all the while pulling out the pads to her twelve-lead ECG. “Why haven’t you got him back yet?” Her blue eyes sparked with confrontation as she gave a satisfied “Humph!” in response to his lack of one.

Feisty.

“It’s a long time to carry out compressions.”

“That’s very wise for an EMT.”

“Paramedic,” she snapped, unshouldering her run bag on the ground opposite him and pressing two gloved fingers to Diego’s carotid pulse point, eyes glued to his. If this had been a staring contest he would’ve been happy to stay all day but they had a life to save.

“Are you sure it’s been that long or are we just guesstimating?”

“We’ve been timing.” His eyes stayed on hers. “Still early days yet.” He gave her a look that said You give up easy, received a glare in return as she ripped open the man’s shirt—all without blinking. Even the sea went cloudy sometimes, but not her blue eyes. They were as clear as could be. Limitless.

Santi refocused on his hands. “He’s a vet.”

“You, too?”

Wasn’t much of a stretch to make the link. One life wasn’t worth more than another, but some prodded at your conscience a bit harder.

“Marines.” He never gave much more information than that. He nodded toward the unconscious man. “Diego Gonzalez. That’s the name on his tags, anyhow. Thirty!” He gave the two breaths as she applied the monitoring pads to the heavily tattooed chest.

“Joe! How’re you coming with the AED?” she shouted over her shoulder, a swish of short blond hair following in her wake as she began peppering Santi with questions. “Have you sprayed nitroglycerin, injected epinephrine, anything?”

“Yeah. I keep it just here in my invisible magic bag of tricks.”

“Easy there, cowboy. It was just a question.”

He checked his tone before he continued. She was just doing her job. He needed to do his.

“I saw him stagger at the side of the road when I was riding past. Then he fell down the embankment. I’m an off-duty doc—paramedic,” he quickly corrected. Coming to Miami was about looking forward, not what he’d left behind. “I was on my bike so...no run bag. That’s why I called you guys. There are some cuts and bruises that’ll need looking at and I’m pretty sure he could do with a saline drip.” He nodded down at Diego’s dry skin. “Dehydrated. Big time.”

“Right. Guess we’d better get to it, then.” She raked around in her bag as her partner skidded to the bottom of the hill in a slow-motion version of—what was her name anyway? He hadn’t seen her around the depot when he’d checked in to get his schedule. Santi’s eyes flicked to her badge.

Murphy.

He gave a satisfied smile. Irish. He’d thought that was what her accent was. Hopefully she’d brought some of that fabled Irish luck along with her, too.

“Open wide, Diego.”

Santi watched as she swiftly carried out the tracheal intubation and attached the airbag and oxygen tanks together. The woman was no stranger to a cardiac arrest. That was for sure.

“Joe! Have you got that AED ready or not? And how about some epinephrine for the poor lad?”

“Give a man a chance, woman!” her partner huffed as he handed over the paddles for the AED unit after he’d pressed the power button. “I’ll load you up some epinephrine.”

“Thanks, Joe. You’re the best tutor a girl could ask for.” Her eyes zapped to Santi as the AED began its telltale charging noise. “Are you clear? Wouldn’t want you getting shocked, now. Would we?”

He lifted his hands away from Diego’s chest and, once again their eyes met. More of a lightning strike than a tiny click of connection. He didn’t know what she was seeing in his eyes, but the triumphant glint in hers made his raised hands feel more like a surrender than a safety measure.

“Clear!”

The corners of her lips twitched into a smile at his microscopic flinch. She’d cranked up the volume on purpose. It was easy enough to see she wasn’t flirting, but not so simple to put a finger on the rise she was trying to get out of him. The day was pulsing with tropical heat, but this woman didn’t sweat. But, válgame Dios, did she ever have a glow.

He followed her gaze to the portable heart monitor. Nothing.

“Joe?”

Her colleague wordlessly handed her a syringe loaded with a one-milligram dose of epinephrine as Santi recommenced compressions.

“Want me to get the backboard?” Joe asked with an unenthusiastic glance up the steep embankment. The poor guy looked like he could’ve done with an iced coffee in the shade. January wasn’t usually this hot, but it’s what the weather man had brought.

“Don’t worry, we don’t need it for this phase. Too uncomfortable for the patient while we’re doing compressions.” Santi threw the guy a get-out-of-hard-labor option. “When I finish this round, why don’t you take over compressions and I’ll get it—”

“Hey! You’ll stay exactly where you are, big shot,” Murphy jumped in. “You’re not raking round our ambulance. We don’t know you from Adam.”

“He said he’s a paramedic,” Joe interjected, obviously still hopeful he wouldn’t have to clamber up the embankment. “Who are you with?”

“No one today. I’m what they call in between positions.” He saw Murphy’s eyes narrow at his words. She didn’t need to know he’d already polished his boots in advance of his first day at Seaside Hospital. “Twenty-nine. Thirty.”

He raised his hands away from Diego’s chest and looked directly into Murphy’s eyes as she pressed the charge button on the AED. Through the high-pitched whine of the charging defibrillator he felt an otherworldly surge of electricity hit him in the solar plexus. That indefinable connection that made a man cross a crowded room when his eyes lit on a perfect stranger and the organic laws of chemistry did their explosive best to bring them together. He hadn’t felt that charge of attraction in a while. On a roadside, giving CPR to a vet, wasn’t exactly where he’d thought he’d feel it next, but...he hadn’t really thought there’d be a “next.” Too many ducks already waiting to be put in a row. He scraped a tooth along the length of his lower lip, eyes still glued to hers... The hot Miami sun wasn’t the only thing warming him up.

And then—she blinked.

Ah...so he wasn’t alone here. She felt it, too.

“Huh.”

He heard the sound—an instinctual response to disbelief—come from her throat, but her lips hadn’t even parted. Just pushed forward in a disapproving moue that disappeared as she pulled her lips in on themselves and swallowed whatever words were roiling around her mind.

Santi fought his own features, trying to maintain his best neutral face when all he wanted to do was grin.

His first chink in her Gaelic armor.

He wasn’t a flirter and this sure as hell wasn’t flirting, but—electricity was hard to ignore. The automated voice of the AED broke through the static in his head. Verbal sparring would have to wait. He watched as her eyes flicked to the monitor at the sound of the electric charge making the connection.

A thin flat line.

Her fingers shot down to Diego’s carotid artery and, as if she was an angel delivering the healing touch...beep, beep, the flat line re-formed into the graphic mountainscape that was a beating heart. It was a far cry from a match to the Rocky Mountains—more like the rolling hills of South Dakota—but with a bit of luck and a stint in the hospital he’d get there. The triumphant glint returned.

“Guess you’d better get away up that hill for a backboard, then.” She jutted her chin toward Joe. “It’s my partner’s last day. We don’t want the old fella slipping a disk or anything, now, do we?”

“Watch it, girlie. I still have plenty of time to file a grievance against you and get you shipped back to where you came from,” Joe cautioned, as he all but proved her point by performing the stretch and twist only a stiff back could bring.

A jag of discord took hold of her features and just as quickly was lifted away with a bright smile. There was a story there. But she hid it well, cleverly tucking it away behind a sharp wit and a winning smile. Miles better than his go-to scowl.

“That’d be about right, Joe. Picking on a poor wee girl fresh off the boat from Ireland. Now, quit your faffing about and get me another dose of epi, would you?”

Santi’s eyebrow lifted in an amused arc. At five feet and a splash of something extra, this woman—“Murphy”—would’ve struggled at a standing-room-only stadium concert. But he had little doubt she was head and shoulders above your average crowd.

“Hey,” he asked as he pressed up from the ground, “what’s your name, anyway?”

The smile she was refusing to give him morphed into a smirk as she raised a finger and double-tapped her name tag.

Murphy.

So that’s all he was getting.

He felt his lips peel into a full smile as he took the steep incline in a few long-legged strides. They’d board up Diego then away she’d go...

Meeting this enigmatic woman was no doubt going to fall into the brief encounter catalog of his life, but he could feel the moment elbowing into the happy memories section. Suffice it to say the department wasn’t very big, but the unexpected jolt of affirmation that he was still a red-blooded male was a reminder that some parts of life were definitely worth living.

* * *

“Here you are, mija.”

Saoirse reached out both hands to take the iced glass, loaded to the brim with a freshly whizzed margarita. With salt. It was a take-no-prisoners cocktail and about as well deserved as end-of-day drinks got.

“Your parents named you well, Ángel!” She gave the bartender a grateful smile. It had been a lo-o-o-ng day. New Year’s Day celebrations seemed to have lasted two weeks in Miami. One of their patients had only been adorned in a swirl of glittery tinsel. Didn’t he know it was bad luck to leave his decorations up so long? Or take quite so many little “magic” pills? It was one way to start the New Year with a bang. His girlfriend had looked exhausted.

“Murph!”

She looked up, scanning the growing crowd, eyes eventually landing on her friend Amanda waving to her from the entryway to the patio, arm crooking in a get your booty over here now arc. She took a huge glug of the margarita, convincing herself it was to make sure the drink didn’t spill as she wove her way through Mad Ron’s Cantina to the picnic-table-filled, blue-tiled garden area already overflowing with well-wishers for Joe. She’d been lucky when she’d landed him as a mentor in her work-study program. The guy had seen it all. Not to mention the fact that, forty years on, an ambulance had helped him accrue a vast pool of friends. The place was heaving.

“Hey, girl! What took you so long?” Amanda gave her one of those American half hug things she was growing to like. Irish people weren’t huggy like this, but after the day... No. Make that the year she’d had? The blossoming friendship was a much-needed soul salve.

“I wanted to stop by the hospital to check on a patient.”

“Oh? Bit of a hottie, was he?”

Saoirse snorted. Mostly to cover up the fact it had been the roadside stranger she’d been hoping to see, not the tattoo-covered vet they’d saved.

“Not so much. But he’d been out a long time—cardiac arrest—and I wanted to see what his recovery was like. Curiosity. Never seen a guy make it through who’d had over twenty minutes of compressions.”

“You did that? Twenty minutes?” She blew on her fingers in a color-me-impressed move.

“Don’t be mad!” Saoirse waved away the suggestion, trying to shake the mental image of Mr. Mysterioso’s very fine forearms as she did. She had a thing for forearms and his had launched straight to Number One on the Forearms of the Week list. Not that she actually kept a list or anything. She blinked away the image and forced herself to focus on Amanda. “No mad compressions for me. I would’ve stuck my magic electric shockers on him straight away.” She made her best crazed-scientist face to prove it was true.

“You’re such a diligent little paramedic, aren’t you?” The verbal gibe was accompanied by an elbow in the ribs.

Saoirse jabbed her back and laughed. “Hey! Don’t be shortist!”

“As long as you promise not to be tallist!”

They clinked glasses with a satisfying guffaw. Amanda towered over Saoirse and rarely missed a moment to comment on her friend’s diminutive stature. Just about the only person in the world who could.

A swift jab of pain shot through her heart at the memory of her fiancé—ex! Ex, ex, ex! Ex-fiancé resting his head on top of hers. To think it had made her feel safe! What a sucker. She shook off the scowl the memory elicited and replaced it with a goofy smile when she saw Amanda’s questioning look. The woman had laser vision right into her soul. “Wouldn’t it just be my luck to come across the lippiest desk nurse in the whole of Miami?”

“Not everyone’s prepared to take all your blarney, Murph. Fess up. Why were you really at the hospital? Don’t tell me you’re a margarita behind the rest of us just because of quizzical interest. You got exams coming up or something?”

Saoirse avoided the light-saber gaze her friend was shooting at her and took another thirst-quenching glug, a shiver juddering through her as the ice hit her system.

“Oh. My. Word.” Amanda’s eyes were well and truly cemented across the heaving garden. Saoirse’s shoulders dropped. Phew. Dodged a bullet. Looked like eye candy had saved the day.

“Three o’clock,” Amanda murmured. “Tall, dark and too freakin’ sexy for the word sexy. I’m going to get a cavity in my eye from the sweetness of this man. Murph—what’s better than sexy?”

Mr. Mysterioso popped into her head and quite a few words jostled for pole position. “Edible? Scrumptious? Lip-lickingly perfect? Luscious?”

Hmm...there was a bit of a food theme going on here. Couldn’t have anything to do with the perfect caramel color of the knight in shining motorcycle gear’s forearms, could it?

“Luscious,” Amanda repeated, her voice all soft and swoony. Was she remembering she was happily married?

“Three o’clock?” Saoirse had to at least take a glimpse. Looking never hurt, right? It was the feeling part that hurt—and she wouldn’t go down that stupid, heart-crushing path again.

Her eyes flitted from face to face, none of them fitting into the knee-weakening territory Amanda’s stranger clearly dominated. “I can’t see him!”

“Get up on the picnic bench, then.” Amanda didn’t wait for Saoirse to protest, all but lifting her up and aiming her toward the entryway. “You’ve got to get a look. This guy could fill up a calendar all by his lonesome. Then they’d have to make up some more months just for fun... Can you imagine it? Mr. Yes-Ma’am-uary!” She gave a military salute before giving Saoirse an additional prod to hurry her up on her quest to steady herself on the bench seat.

“For crying out loud, Amanda. Quit your pushing, will you? I can get on the bench by myself—Oh...”

They said lightning never struck twice. But that had been disproved. And today was blasting another hole in the theory.

“You see what I mean?”

Did she ever? And when Saoirse’s eyes connected with the object of their evaluation...she needed to get down from the bench. Quick smart.

“He’s all right. I’ve seen better.” Saoirse jumped down and took another spine-juddering slurp of her icy drink. Her jets needed cooling. Big time.

“You’ve gone mental.” Amanda’s jaw all but dropped in disbelief. “The man rocks it!”

“Rocks what exactly?” Saoirse went for a dismissive snort and ended up cough-choking. Awesomely sexy. Not.

Okay. So she didn’t really need to ask the question because she knew exactly what he rocked. And it wasn’t just her boat. He was rocking her tummy. Which was currently doing some sort of loopy ribbon-twirling fest thing with the half of margarita it had inside it. He was rocking her heart. Which seemed to have kicked up a notch—or seventeen—in the pace department. Her entire nervous system was experiencing a takeover as if he were playing a goose-bump xylophone along her arms...then down her back and in a sort of heated swirl around her—

“Uh.” Amanda pressed a hand to her friend’s forehead. “Are you sure you weren’t at the hospital to make sure you aren’t going clinically insane?” She drew out the last word just to make super sure Saoirse knew her friend thought she was nuts. “How on earth are we ever going to find you a hot boyfriend to marry in the next two months if your taste in men is so weird as to not find that amazing specimen of a man...?” Her hand shot out in a pointy gesture and made contact. With a chest. A chest Saoirse had already had the good fortune to stare at for some length of time earlier that day.

Amanda’s jaw dropped again.

“Miss Murphy. We meet again.”