Emergency Marriage

“The last word, as usual. You’re a control freak, aren’t you, Salazar?”

He closed his eyes, begging for control. This couldn’t be happening to him. Every time she called him Salazar in those cool, low velvet tones, lust kicked hard in his loins. Just the memory of her crying out his name when she’d thought him injured—the fantasy of her crying it out, again and again, in another form of desperation…

Cool it, Salazar. No time to discover you’re having an early mid-life crisis rolled in with a second adolescence. This is probably the one woman on earth who should be off limits.

He ventured a look at her. Her uncanny eyes were gleaming their challenge. He groaned. “I guess right now, if I say it’s for your own good, you’d send my head rolling.”

“Don’t tempt me. I don’t have enough energy to knock your head off.”

“You’re angry with me.”

“Go to the head of the class.”

“Well, if you want to bawl me out, you’ll have to stand in line.”

That stopped her, deflating her unnatural animation. She slumped down in her seat and averted her face.

“See what I mean? The last word. You just have to have it. I didn’t think you’d stoop to spouting nonsense to score it, though.”

“It’s not nonsense. You can’t even begin to understand how angry I am at myself. I failed Diego and he died. La Clínica is still lacking in critical care, and it’s my responsibility. It’s also my responsibility you walked out today. I just see that beating myself up over mistakes and oversights is futile and counter-productive at this point. I’ll just have to live with it. At least I’m alive—and strong and healthy as an ox.”

“Don’t! Patronize me, ignore me, or even overrule me like you’ve been doing so far. But don’t—don’t you just sit there and tell me you’re feeling guilty. I don’t want to hear about it.”

So she was feeling guilty, too! But was it just a natural reaction to surviving an accident that had killed another, or was there more to it? Had she played a more active role in that accident, as he’d accused her? Shouldn’t she be feeling more than guilt, with her lover dead? Though Diego had said he’d broken up with her before the accident. Was that why she wasn’t grieving for him?

So many questions, all answers less than pretty. Not that he cared. He just wanted to slam on the brakes and haul her into his arms, comfort her.

Yeah, sure. Her only comfort right now would probably come from giving him a black eye!

He wrestled the urge down, adding it under an airtight lid to every other wild desire she provoked in him. “Try to sleep, Laura. There’s still a long way ahead.”

He watched her eyes dull with resignation, watched her turn her head on the headrest and fall silent.

He’d said there was a long way ahead.

Did she know how long yet?

* * *

Laura jerked awake to a jarring lurch. Aggravation rose inside her. Just as she’d managed to doze off, too, with the jostling motion of the van and Armando’s nerve-racking presence beside her!

But he was no longer beside her. He was beneath her. At least his lap was, his hot, hard thighs cushioning her head and shoulders, her upper torso hanging in the air in the space between their seats. Her lips and nose were buried in his abdomen’s steel-ridged muscles, in his virile-scented, naked flesh.

Breath congealed in her throat, the urge to jackknife up and away from the heart-stopping contact overwhelming. She twitched and the powerful hand securing her in place tightened around her buttock. A whimper escaped her swollen lips.

He shifted to accommodate her more and her right breast molded against his splayed thigh. As for where the back of her head was pressing…

She pushed at him and he immediately removed his arm.

“You’re awake.”

“How perceptive.” She forced herself to sit up in a natural, unhurried movement. “And you’re naked!”

“I’m not.”

Oh, no? Then she must have developed X-ray vision, if she could see the daunting expanse and definition of his exposed chest and abdomen. She’d known he was first and foremost a thoroughly physical being, tough, vigorous, carnal. Those were the first things anyone noticed about Armando Salazar. She hadn’t needed to see him naked to figure that out. But now he was…

“I’m half-naked,” he concluded lightly.

And I’m half out of my mind, if I’m reacting to you this way. Out loud she said, “I’m supposed to thank you for keeping your pants on?”

“You should.” His lazy nod and the easy bulge of his heavy muscles as he negotiated another steep turn set off a whistling in her ears, a tightness inside her head. What was wrong with her? This was her nemesis! Her blood boiled near him with anger and frustration, nothing else. Maybe she was concussed. That would explain all those ridiculous reactions

“They stayed on only for your modesty’s sake.”

A belated realization hit her. “Oh, the tear gas…”

It must have dissolved in the rain, soaked his clothes. The longer they remained on him, the worse the injury he’d sustain, up to second-degree burns. Armed with the professional incentive, she took a closer look at his body and saw how flushed his polished bronze skin was. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you’re erythematous! What ridiculous modesty. Take them off immediately.”

“Trust me, I can’t.”

Did that mean he wasn’t wearing—? “Oh!”

“Oh is right. La Clínica’s near, anyway.”

Recovering quickly, she asked, “Until then, shall I wash you down with a hypochlorite solution to neutralize the agent? Is it back there?”

“Hypochlorite is contra-indicated, Laura. It’s good for other sorts of chemical contamination, but with CS or tear gas it only exacerbates the reaction.”

“Oh!” She didn’t know that. A good thing she wasn’t ready with a bottle of the stuff. She bounced back with another suggestion. “What about another alkaline solution?”

“The one effective solution to relieve symptoms and hydrolyze the agent is a mix of sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate and benzalkonium chloride. Which I don’t have! Another colossal oversight, going into a riot zone without it.”

“You couldn’t have known what to expect.”

“I should have been prepared. I wasn’t. If I suffer burns, it will teach me a good lesson.”

“Aren’t you being too melodramatic, suffering in punishment for a simple omission?”

“Says the woman who marched into the middle of a riot and nearly got trampled to death!”

“OK. Touché. But have you at least washed yourself off?”

“I did, even though that also makes it worse, acting like the rain did, since it wasn’t a real hosing down. I only did it to decontaminate my skin just enough for when you slept on my lap.”

Sensations and flashbacks burned their way up to her skin in a flush worse than his chemical burn. “You should’ve kept me awake.”

“Why? You needed the rest.”

“Well, I don’t feel rested. I feel bent out of shape, permanently.”

“And if I’d kept you awake, I would have been heartless and a nuisance.”

“You could have left me sleeping in my seat with my seat belt on!”

“And have it pressing on the injuries it caused in the accident? My only other option was to throw you on the van’s floor next to our patient. This archaic van doesn’t have a secondary stretcher and—”

“OK, stop. You have it.”

“Have what?”

“The last word.”

Her answer was a long, sideways look that had her heart trying to hide in her gut. What was that in his eyes?

She didn’t want to know.

She turned blind eyes away, searching for something to distract her. The sight of La Clínica De La Communidad hovering on the horizon wasn’t a good choice.

Although her experience here had been a crushing disappointment on all fronts, the ‘what if’ factor was overpowering. She could have done a lot of good here. She could have found purpose and happiness. She’d found nothing but every sort of letdown.

Armando had bought this strategically situated, sprawling establishment from its owners after the collapse, giving them desperately needed cash for a dilapidated, money-pit mansion, many annexed buildings and the surrounding land. It had taken two years to renovate and equip it, to become a gravely needed and pioneering medical facility serving a hundred-mile radius, plus a far wider reach through its flying doctors service. Besides the usual medical services, La Clínica provided emergency surgical intervention to one quarter of the vast pampas region. And now through GAO’s resources it was also reaching out to the wilderness of Patagonia and developing intensive care, research, education and rehabilitation facilities.

It was the dream of every doctor come true. Practicing medicine on their own terms, really making a difference, operating within a very elastic, responsive medium. A medical establishment based on the community’s best interests and backed by its wholehearted support, not under governmental control, bound by decaying medical systems’ undiscriminating rules or insurance’s stifling restrictions.

Armando brought the car to a halt in the main building’s emergency driveway, then turned to her. “Right. Back to bed until I say it’s OK for you to leave it.”

By the time his efficient emergency team had unloaded their patient, he was carrying her to a wheelchair, disregarding her protests.

Once inside, he ran to discard his contaminated clothes and apply first aid to his inflamed skin, leaving her in her GAO team’s care, to suffer their deluge of questions. The doctor and two nurses who’d accompanied her from the US no longer knew what they were doing here and were constantly looking to her for answers and reassurance until she wanted to scream, Stop asking me. I’m no longer in charge of anything. Ask the magnificent Dr. Salazar!

She had to get away from here. Away from him. And if today had gone to plan she would have been packing now, not back at La Clínica and under his thumb.

She got up from the wheelchair, waving away assistance from her team. She’d walk back to her cell under her own steam.

On her way there, she couldn’t help wincing again at the state of the building. The miserable veneer, the decaying columns and arches, the cracked walls, the stained, lusterless marble floors, all bore witness to Armando’s refusal to restore anything that wasn’t vital to the building’s integrity and functionality. Hard to believe this place housed first-rate wards and state-of-the-art medical facilities. But it still needed so much more to realize its potential. So much more…

A nurse caught her eye, started to talk. Laura apologized for not stopping and kept her eyes glued to the main corridor’s floor from then on, feeling everybody’s curious glances prickling down her back. Suddenly, large sneakered feet planted themselves in her line of vision. No need to follow the endless denim-clad limbs up to know who it was.

“If you want to kill yourself, there are much quicker ways.”

Armando didn’t wait for a comeback, simply bent and carried her to the suite she’d been occupying since he’d let her out of Intensive Care. The moment he closed the door, she struggled out of his arms and onto her feet.

“I’m leaving, Salazar—now, not later.” Her voice was unsteady, out of control. “And not only La Clínica but Argentina. That’s why I was going to GAO’s liaison office today. To arrange for my departure and replacement. I’ll check into a hospital as soon as I arrive in the States—”

He cut off her agitated words. “You’re not leaving. Not now and not when you’re fully healed either!”

What? His next words made even less sense.

“You’re staying here in Argentina, where I can make sure you and the baby are OK.”

“What are you talking about? What baby?”

“Yours and Diego’s. You do realize you’re pregnant?”

CHAPTER THREE

“I’M what?”

A long, assessing glance answered Laura’s shocked question. Then Armando shrugged. “So, you didn’t realize. Anyway, you heard me, Laura. And you heard me correctly.”

Hypoglycemia—she hadn’t eaten since yesterday—that had to be it. Or auditory hallucinations. To be expected with all the sedatives and painkillers pumped into her system over the past week. Or maybe just a plain and simple breakdown.

She couldn’t have heard him correctly!

“Don’t look at me as if I’ve sprouted another head, Laura.” A gentle grasp caught her hands in one of his, steered her to the bed. He lifted her up on it, then kneeled to take off her shoes. “I’ll leave the rest of your clothes to Matilda. Now, por favor, Laura, let me check you. We’ll talk about this later.”

Matilda, the staff nurse he’d rung for, came bustling into the room. Cooing in Spanish, she expertly helped Laura off with her clothes and put her back into a hospital-issue gown. Armando had his back turned, busy reviewing her charts, writing down notes and directions for her continued care and medication schedule.

Once she was tucked up in bed, he came back to her. Her numbness deepened as he gently took her vitals, examined her, making sure her surgical wounds were intact. He deftly placed a cannula in her arm, unscrewed its cap and, dragging the mobile pole closer, placed the end of a saline bag’s giving set on it. He set the drip, broke two ampules, injected one in the cannula’s other outlet and one into the saline. Then he pressed the controls of a patient controlled analgesia pump in her hand and attached an oximeter, to monitor her heartbeat and oxygen levels, to her other finger.

It was all happening to someone else.

That someone else was watching Armando about to close the door behind him after he’d dropped a bomb that had devastated her reality.

He’d said she was pregnant.

Pregnant!

“Armando!”

Armando froze, the temptation to swear a blue streak, to run, overwhelming.

This wasn’t how he’d thought this would happen. Not that he’d given it much thought. He’d still been struggling to come to terms with it himself, and he’d hoped to have this confrontation only once he had. He’d had vague plans that they’d talk, about the baby and what next. He hadn’t expected she’d push him into acting without thinking, hadn’t expected she’d want to leave.

Not very bright since, come to think of it, it made sense she’d want to.

So. No use flaying himself over another bad call. Her bad calls were what mattered now. Judging by what she’d done today, her decision-making was obviously impaired. Only one priority existed. She was staying. He wasn’t letting her go in her condition. And not with Diego’s baby.

You just can’t imagine seeing the last of her, Salazar, a candid voice in his head said. Admit it.

Oh, whatever! He just had to stop her in her tracks. And he surely had.

Not for long, though.

He dragged his feet back into the room, closed the door and leaned on it. “Laura, por favor, leave it till later.”

Her laugh broke out, hysteria tingeing it. “When later? When I’m in labor?”

He stared at her, clutching the blanket, eyes wild, lips trembling. He didn’t know what else to say.

“How could you possibly know I’m pregnant? When I sure as hell don’t? When it’s impossible?”

“It’s not impossible. When you started deteriorating and I knew we had to operate, I had all sort of tests done. That’s how I know.”

“I didn’t know pregnancy tests were routine before emergency ops!”

Shouldn’t she be dulled by the sedative already—by everything else, for that matter? He shook his head and exhaled. “Normally, they aren’t. But I asked for everything. Lab thought everything included a pregnancy test. It was a good thing, too. This way I picked category A medications and anesthetics that aren’t harmful to fetal development.”

“I still tell you it’s impossible. I haven’t—we haven’t…” Her words trailed off, her angry agitation giving way to a look of supreme concentration. Followed by frightening pallor.

Laura felt her consciousness ebbing, then a wave of sickness rose, threatening to engulf her.

She’d fallen into Diego’s arms at first, coming with all the building eagerness of their year-long online romance, of believing she’d finally found her soulmate. The one. Her rose-tinted glasses had been firmly in place and Diego’s incredible good looks and concentrated charm had completed her dazzle. It hadn’t taken long for reality to come into focus once more.

But they’d used protection and—and that did have a failure rate! As for the period she’d had recently, it was possible to have one at the beginning of a pregnancy…

Suddenly it was crucial to know. “How far along am I?”

“I’d say about eight weeks.”

And since Diego had been dead one week, it had probably happened that last time. That time she’d known for sure she didn’t want him any more. The time she’d told him it was over. Just over a month after they’d started their relationship. How ironic.

And how disastrous. An unwanted pregnancy, by an unwanted man. A dead man to boot!

But—but the tests could be wrong, maybe a mix-up. These things happened. God—please, make it a mistake…

The world receded. Armando blurred out of focus. Just before she lost sight of him, she thought, He’s injected me with a sedative. A safe one for pregnant women, no doubt. How thoughtful…

* * *

Time stopped for Armando the moment Laura closed her eyes. He stared down at her sleeping her artificial sleep. An alien, disruptive sensation itched in his chest.

Three months since he’d first laid eyes on her. No way could he have predicted then that it would end like this. Diego dead, her pregnant, and him… What about him?

He was getting what he wanted at last—GAO’s resources and connections. But GAO had been in Argentina for a long time, and they hadn’t done much—until she’d come. She’d moved things, made things happen. Diego had said it had all been for him, to please him. That it was all her own personal clout and her family’s.

He hadn’t cared how he’d got help as long as he got it. That was, until he’d seen her.

Breathtaking had been the first thought that had filled his mind. I want her the second. The third I can’t have her.

Diego had known. He’d looked his triumph into his eyes and bragged, “Isn’t she something? And she’s all mine.”

So he’d resorted to being dismissive and remote. Then Diego had made it impossible to stay remote, so he’d stayed dismissive…

But he’d needed GAO, and this had meant more Laura, everywhere in his life. Then Diego had given him…details. More than he could stomach knowing. He’d told him how things had gone downhill, fast, how he’d no longer wanted her, how she’d clung. That hadn’t sat right. He’d suspected Diego had been trying to save face. Laura didn’t seem the type to cling to anyone.

Maybe he should have done something besides providing an unwilling ear. If he had, maybe it wouldn’t have ended up this way.

Yeah, sure. With his track record, they would have both fallen flat on their backs laughing if he’d preached relationship success.

Oh, he’d wanted their relationship to succeed, had he?

A token knock at the door cut through his mesmerized contemplation of Laura, bringing in Lucianna Perez, his godmother and head emergency nurse.

“Sorry, Armando, but there’s been a huge fire in a high-rise housing complex in Rosario and medical services there are swamped and crying out for help. Most victims threw themselves out of windows and there are dozens of them. All multiple injuries besides the burns. Two firemen were injured, too. Since you’re back, I thought you’d want to head the team going to the scene.”

He nodded, snapping back to professional mode. But first… “Luci, get Matilda back in here. When her shift’s over, her replacement takes her place. I want constant monitoring and minimum movement. Anything happens, no matter how minor and no matter where I am, report it immediately.”

With a final look at Laura he ran out, putting on the fluorescent medical team yellow jacket Lucianna had handed him. “What’s ready?”

Lucianna’s answer was prompt—and regretful. “El Bicho is the only one left on the ground right now.”

And was there any wonder why? His pilots avoided the archaic bucket of bolts so aptly called The Bug like the plague. Saddling him with it on his emergency flights was their way of protesting its existence on their meager fleet. As if he could afford to trash the monstrosity and had chosen not to! “And who’s left behind?”

“Only Dr. Burnside’s people.”

Armando gritted his teeth. So the day had come when he was forced to take them on, rely on them. They’d been complaining of lack of occupation. Now they’d get it with a capital O.

With Laura spearheading them, they’d come believing that all that was needed to spread relief and stability was some cutting-edge medical equipment and a forced transfer to American medical protocols. They’d made no allowances for the incompatibility of an imported doctrine, or the ever-expanding shock waves that had fractured the very underpinning of society.

Laura’s experience here so far had been with smiling politicians and eager media people. Today had been her first real dip into Argentinian reality—though he had to admit, she’d surprised him. Flabbergasted him more like. It took incredible guts and skill to do what she’d done back there. It took fearlessness. More, selflessness. Had he been that wrong about her?

Niggling shame uncoiled inside him. He fought it down. So he’d been wrong. He was man enough to admit it. But it didn’t say she was qualified to run things here. If anything, it said she wasn’t. She might be a far better doctor than he’d thought, a far better human being, but the fact still remained—that she was uninformed, out of her element. She needed him in charge until she learned, until she realized…she needed him…

His thoughts fogged with unbidden heat, then scattered at the sight of Laura’s team running to meet him at the helipad.

The two blond men and the redheaded woman were watching him warily, but with a touch of defiance, too. He’d stepped hard on their toes, made them redundant. Now they’d be getting their baptism by literal fire. They’d all see if they could handle emergencies outside the luxurious protocols of American EMS services.

At the helicopter’s door he turned to Lucianna who’d bustled after him, carrying fresh supplies. “Get Romero and Pablo to follow me to the location as soon as they hit ground from their emergencies, along with anyone who can be spared. Prepare ORs One through Four. We’re low on blood, but get Bank to give us all the O-neg they can. Send collectors over to our regular donors and beg for some more. Pay Luca and Estefan whatever they ask. It’s out of my personal pocket so don’t document it.”

He lowered his voice so Laura’s team wouldn’t hear him. “I’d also feel better if you come with me this time. Just until we see how things pan out. This way I’ll give you some more blood on the way, too.”

When she hesitated, he exhaled. “El Bicho is safe, Luci. Noisy and bumpy and under-equipped but safe, OK?”

She nodded at once, trying to cover up her instinctive reaction. “But you can’t give me more blood!” she objected. “You just gave 850 mil a week ago, and that was a risk…”

“I eat like a horse. I’ve made it all up.”

“You know you couldn’t have. And anyway I can’t take blood from you while you’re flying that—the helicopter!”

“Next to flying ‘that—the helicopter’ while fighting off a crazed nut on crack, it’ll be a breeze. And it’ll only take ten minutes.”

Lucianna tutted, her genial middle-aged face disapproving. But she knew it was useless arguing with him. She rushed back to get the necessary blood drawing and preserving equipment.