Emergency Marriage

And she still sent his hormones raging.

He swore.

“Boy, I knew you were…many things. I’m adding plain crude to my list!”

“Your Spanish is taking off if you understood that.”

“Swear words are a must-know-first in any foreign language. A universal defense against locals who enjoy insulting you to your face, counting on your ignorance!”

“That was a strictly inner debate, not intended for your ears. Sorry I blurted it out loud.”

Her eyes lightened, becoming emerald again with suspicion. “It’s too late to pretend, Salazar!”

“I agree. It is too late. You’ve called me Armando at last, so you can’t go back to calling me Salazar.”

“I used to call you Dr. Salazar, and I called you Armando…” She stopped, shook her head, looked away.

“Only because you thought I’d been shot,” he completed for her. “I always did wonder at your insistence on calling me Doctor, even when we were meeting socially, daily, when I’m on a first-name basis with everyone. You are, too. Why do you find it so hard to say my name?”

Was the man for real? He didn’t realize she’d rather not call him anything, not be near him at all? That he made her feel defensive, vulnerable, useless?

That first time Diego had dragged her to Armando’s house, to show her off to “the Salazar patriarch”, Armando had taken one look at her, one hard, drawn-out, enervating look, then, thankfully, had dismissed her. He’d looked at Diego as if he’d lost his mind, getting mixed up with her. He hadn’t said anything, though. A month later, he’d made it equally clear he thought GAO crazy to give her the aid operation reins. This time he’d done something about it.

One day she’d been head of GAO’s mission in Argentina, the next, for all intents and purposes, his subordinate. He’d swooped in and snatched it from beneath her feet, then shoved her out of the picture.

He wasn’t only local and a medical jack of all trades, a surgeon/emergency doctor/search-and-rescue operative all rolled into one; he was also director of La Clínica—Argentina’s most revolutionary medical facility. He’d established it after Argentina’s financial collapse had torn apart all systems, the medical system being the paradigm of disintegration.

She’d met Diego when he’d been in the US recruiting medical personnel for his cousin’s project. And before she’d met him, she’d thought it the most exciting, enterprising medical endeavor ever. If it hadn’t been for her previous commitment to GAO, she would have loved to have joined herself.

But then she had met him.

It had all gone nightmarishly wrong. Coming to Argentina was supposed to have been the start of her new life—the love she’d never had, the work she’d always dreamed of and people who really needed her. So many expectations, so much advance work and plans.

But no amount of logistics or fantasies could have prepared her. Not for the reality of the situation at ground zero, or for the meteoric deterioration of her relationship with Diego. She’d needed time. To sort out her mess with Diego. To start becoming effective in her job.

But Armando had denied her that time. He’d talked GAO’s administrative body into making La Clínica GAO’s base of operations in Argentina. And in La Clínica he made his own rules and dispensed them with an iron hand.

He stopped at nothing to achieve his goals. Distorting truths, manipulation, outright lying. He hadn’t needed her team’s expertise as he’d said, he’d only needed GAO’s resources. In the month they’d been in La Clínica, he’d totally excluded them and was dispensing GAO’s resources whichever way he pleased, throwing its agendas and protocols out the window. No wonder he felt he deserved to be reported.

What infuriated her more was her own reaction. She’d taken his abuse lying down. It didn’t make her feel any better, wailing that her personal mess had drained most of her stamina. An excuse worse than the offense. Weak, foolish, stupid!

But it was over now. Diego was dead, and her love for him long before that, and she wasn’t needed in any other way here.

Time to put her expertise in cutting her losses to use.

“Well?”

So he was still waiting for an answer! “I’ll call you whatever I like, not what you like.” Her words were cool, tight. “And I will continue to recuperate. Just not at La Clínica.”

“Oh, no?” He slowed down and shoved his face closer to hers. Space shrank and air disappeared. “Where else will you have your operating surgeon, the only one really qualified to follow you up? To handle any complications that may yet develop? To remove the stitches all over your face? Or do you intend to do it yourself back in your villa before your posh welcome-home party?”

An involuntary hand went to her facial dressings. “I can remove my own stitches.”

“Even the ones you can’t see without the help of a mirror?”

His persistence finally wore her nerves down. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to dwell on my injuries, on the accident, on…on… I want—I need closure.”

“Who doesn’t? But you think you’ll ever have it if you have scars to remind you every time you look in the mirror? Maybe every time you take a breath?”

“I’m sure you did a great job putting me back together, that there’ll be no complications…”

“Is that your informed medical opinion, Dr. Burnside?” His generously shaped lips twisted, and suddenly she felt something new towards him. The need to physically strike out at him. To wipe off that abrasive superiority written all over him.

Stupid urge. You can’t afford more of those. Just shut him up.

She breathed in. “Listen, if anything happens, I’ll seek immediate help. But right now I’m not going to La Clínica. Not as a patient. Haven’t you demoted me enough already? I’ll just get on with my life. I don’t need your permission to do that.”

His fleeting, severe look hit home. Then he spoke the three words, slow and distinct, “Yes, you do!” A few strands of his hair caught the sun that had bleached them copper as he took a turn into a road she recognized, the road leading to Santa Fe and La Clínica. “Going back for your full postoperative period is non-negotiable, Laura.”

“I—”

“Drop it.”

Staring ahead at the boundless horizon she was still unused to, she fell silent, stymied.

Armando heard her frustration loud and clear. He kept his still-scalding eyes on the demanding road, slowed down some more. She’d been battered too much already.

“So how bad am I beneath these dressings?”

Her subdued question surprised him into biting off, “Bad enough!”

He caught a more-than-crude expletive back at the last moment.

Why had he said that?

Oh, what the…? It was just as well. She had to face the reality of her injuries, didn’t she? And anyway, at the moment her injuries did look bad. And they could remain so if she compromised her recuperation. Laura Loca Burnside, philanthropist extraordinaire, glittering, brilliant society darling, who had no idea just how dangerous and desperate it really was here.

The moment he’d learned she’d left, he’d predicted she’d head for GAO’s headquarters, smack dab in the middle of the city center the riots were ravaging. He’d never driven so recklessly. All the way, Diego’s accident, his death, haunted him, taunted him. He could have ended up the same today, chasing after her.

But in either case, she hadn’t asked either of them to…

“Anything more specific to add to that delightful and sensitive report of my impending metamorphosis into a monster?”

His attention snapped back to her. Was that sarcasm? She had a sense of humor? He’d thought she took herself too seriously. She’d never cracked a smile, not in his presence. And he’d been present almost all the time she’d been in Argentina. Her glares were something, though. It was almost a surprise he hadn’t turned to stone. Parts of him had…

He was really losing it! If her resentment affected him this way, he didn’t want to know what a smile, a touch would do…

Stop it, moron!