The Doctor's Latin Lover

by Olivia Gates

  Children. Javier’s.

  Oh, God, please get me out of here.

  But Carmela wasn’t finished. “I know you want Javier now. Women—they all go crazy for him.” Just what Savannah needed now: to know how run-of-the-mill, one-of-a-herd she was. Not that that was news. But what followed was. “But you’ve come at a time when Javier has started to…notice the woman who wants to be his helpmeet in the difficult path he’s chosen. She’s one who expects nothing from life but to love him, who’ll bear him as many children as he wants, a woman who calls Colombia home and can never leave it.”

  Another woman? And he had started to…notice her? As in, already intimate with her?

  Vicious fangs clamped in her guts. Jealousy. The one thing she hadn’t suffered on Javier’s account. He’d never given her cause. There’d been no doubt he was a one-woman man. As long as he remained with that woman.

  But had he been forming a relationship when she’d barged into his life, forced her presence on him? Had that been why he’d been so reluctant to act on his desires? His purely sexual desires? Until she’d imposed herself on him, while he’d literally been tied up?

  Don’t let me start weeping now, oh, God—please!

  Javier was striding towards them now, his intimate smile wrenching at the tatters inside her. Without one more glance towards Carmela she ran towards him, heard the manic note in her quivering voice. “Are we ready to go at last?”

  Are we ready to go at last?

  Javier put his full strength into hurling the rock. He heard the crack of his shoulder at the violent, inappropriate, stupid action, then the rock’s as it hit the surface of the river.

  Savannah’s feverish words hadn’t stopped revolving in his brain over the last five days now, eating at him with each cycle.

  What a fool he’d been.

  He’d thought there had been a chance, after that first day—and night—back in Neiva that she wasn’t too repelled by his family or his house, that she’d get along to a degree and might actually consider including them in her life. He’d drowned in her passion and had waited for some sign, some word, that it was more than passion this time, that if he asked now, she wouldn’t laugh again.

  But she wouldn’t laugh this time. She would gasp in horror.

  She’d been almost crazy to leave. She would never return, not voluntarily, and must be very sorry she’d asked him to take her there. Her eyes had been rabid as she’d tossed a wave at his family before jumping in the Jeep as if she’d been escaping something revolting, suffocating…

  “Javier, we need to expand the MSU now. There’s a glitch in the mechanism.”

  At Alonso’s call, Javier turned from the sorry sight that was adding to his depression—the twisted, destroyed bridge on the Magdalena River. Another scar of the ongoing war between government troops and drug-financed rebel groups in San Vicente del Caguán.

  Maldita sea! Even without being exposed to his own life, Savannah had already seen and experienced enough to convince her to run home the moment her mission was over. He’d be crazy to ask her to stay. Even if she loved him, this was no place for her. And anyway, she didn’t love him.

  Javier slowed down as he fell into step with Alonso, to make allowance for his awkward gait. He’d long begged Alonso’s forgiveness in public for threatening him with physical violence, no matter what the reason. In private, he’d also told him about Caridad’s emotions for him. Alonso had heard him out then had walked out without a word. He’d behaved as if nothing had happened ever since.

  To break the uneasy silence on the way back, Javier found nothing but a rhetorical question. “So we’re ready to start our first list?”

  Alonso gave him the deserved ridicule. “No, we’re expanding the MSU to play squash.”

  “Touché. So—when are you going to forgive me?”

  “You mean for making me feel inferior and crippled?”

  “Por Dios, Alonso. It never, ever crossed my mind that you are. And you aren’t. I would have threatened Esteban with the same thing, and we both know who’d win there. That was about defending Caridad, not putting you down.”

  Alonso gave a mirthless laugh. “You managed to do it nevertheless.”

  Javier was mortified. What was there to offer now but more protestations of good intentions, when they’d already led to hell?

  “But I do forgive you for that, Javier. I do know it’s my own insecurities putting the worst possible interpretation on your words. Hell, not pussyfooting around my fragile ego means you don’t consider me any less macho or sturdy than you are.”

  OK. Good. Great. But? There was a but here.

  “What I don’t forgive you for is planting this crazy, damaging hope that Caridad could love me.”

  Javier came to an abrupt stop, took Alonso by the shoulders. “That’s not a crazy hope. The woman is lovesick for you.”

  Alonso shook his head. “Stop it, Javier. If you want to pander to my ego, you’re doing the one thing that’s bound to damage it further.”

  “You stop it, Alonso. You may be so insecure you can’t see it, but we can all see how much she loves you and craves one gentle word from you. She as much as told me that, after she gave me a piece of her mind—can you believe that? Caridad railing at me for being so hard on you?”

  Sudden tears filled Alonso’s eyes. Two overflowed. His choking whisper closed Javier’s already oppressed chest. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “But—but why would she love me? I have nothing.”

  “You have everything, Alonso. You’re a brilliant doctor and an honorable, handsome, strong man…”

  “Don’t go overboard now, Javier. Handsome? Strong?” Alonso’s gaze went to his shortened leg.

  “Give me a break, Alonso. Are you comparing yourself to me? To anyone with matching legs? What about those without any? And if I lost one or both my legs tomorrow, would that make me less of a man?”

  “No. But as a lover, in a woman’s eyes, in a beautiful, perfect woman’s eyes…”

  Would Savannah look at him if he weren’t big and strong and capable in bed? Probably not. Most certainly not. But Caridad wasn’t Savannah.

  “Why don’t you ask Caridad? She’ll tell you what she sees in you.”

  Alonso was silent for a second. “If she loves me then she’s a fool. She could have her pick of powerful and wealthy men. Someone who’d help her whole family, not barely support her.”

  “That’s her choice, isn’t it? And, then, you’re not making money because you’re following me around in my non-profit escapades. Work in a private hospital and you’ll be able to support Caridad’s horde. That’s a humanitarian cause, and you’d be helping the woman you love while you’re at it.”

  “You make it all sound so easy.”

  “It is, you lucky man!”

  But luck had nothing to do with it. It was all about choices. Alonso had chosen the local Cinderella to fall in love with. He had to go fall in love with an enchantress from another world.

  Alonso fell silent, pondering the new possibilities. A few meters from the MSU, he spoke again. “Am I allowed to talk about you and Savannah now?”

  No, Javier wanted to shout it. But right now he would have let Alonso walk over him, just to get him out of his funk, to make amends. His “go ahead” smile was more of a grimace.

  “Nothing went according to your pessimistic projections, huh? Savvy is amazing, and seeing you together is even more so. It got me so lonely for Caridad I wanted to jump in the river.”

  “Now you get to jump in Caridad’s arms instead.”

  “Not as soon as you get to jump in Savvy’s!” He tossed his head in the MSU’s direction. Savannah was standing in the vestibule, waiting for them, lithe, golden, radiating passion and promise.

  He didn’t climb up the ladder. Her magnetism pulled him up, and into her waiting arms. Her hands went to his head, performing that curious ritual of hers, kissing his forehead first. Love swelled inside him
, flowed to arms that swept her up, to lips that gasped for hers. The taste of her eagerness flooded him and he sank, wishing he’d never resurface.

  But he had to. There were the claps and the whistles on one hand, the job on the other. He clung to her lower lip for one farewell suckle then let her go.

  He went to tackle the expansion mechanism problem with Emmanuel and she joined him, her hand in his. In minutes they were stepping out of the MSU as it expanded.

  “Did you draw up a list for today?” Javier asked.

  “While you were throwing rocks in the river, you mean?” She pinched his buttock. “Sure did, beautiful.”

  He choked. Would she ever stop surprising him?

  Sí, in nineteen days.

  “Beautiful? Me?”

  ‘Yes, you. The most beautiful thing on earth. The amazing thing is you don’t have a clue you are. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  Love?

  He didn’t know what kept him on his feet. Then he was swept off them as everyone joined them and carried him along and back into the MSU. Everything, even his agitation and disbelief, had to be put on hold then, as they prepared their stations for their first surgery list, and as they were submerged in it.

  He was separated from Savannah all through the list. By the time she joined him for the last procedure of their evening list, a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, he was at roaring pitch. She’d said she loved watching him in his field of expertise, minimally invasive surgery, loved learning at his hands. All he wanted to know, all he’d been able to think about for the last eight hours, was: did she love him? Had she really meant it, or had it been just a figure of speech? Would this day ever end so he could find out?

  Her throaty voice broke over him. “A straightforward case for a change?”

  His eyes clung to hers, searching. “Sí. Chronic cholecystitis, with intermittent upper-quadrant abdominal pain, nausea, weight loss and tenderness on palpation. Ultrasound showed the gallbladder stones, three of them, big ones, around two centimeters each. Gallbladder wall thickness around three and a half millimeters.”

  “Where do you want me?” She meant at which port of the four he was going to access the patient’s abdomen from. He knew where he wanted her. Her eyes fervently agreed and her lips mouthed, ‘Soon!’

  Javier struggled to clear his throat, and his head. Alonso had already completed the general anesthesia. “I’m obtaining a standard four-port access. One 1 cm umbilical port, one 1 cm epigastric, and two 0.5 cm right upper quadrant. You can take those. I’ll start with the umbilical…” He paused as he performed the small incision, produced the carbon dioxide tube nozzle and inflated the abdomen with it, for better viewing when he introduced the long flexible tube with the laparoscopic video camera on its end, and to provide more room to maneuver during the surgery. “OK. Camera in. You’re on.”

  Savannah made the tiny incisions and introduced the two fenestrated blunt forceps that they’d use to maneuver their way to the gallbladder. Her eyes swung up to him after he’d finished making the epigastric incision. “So what’s the story with San Vicente del Caguán?”

  Javier started dissecting the inflamed, adherent gallbladder out of its fat pad and from the liver’s surface, watching his actions, which the camera transmitted to the monitor. “Savannah, the gallbladder is too distended. Insert a needle and drain some bile so I can apply a clamp grasper for dissection and manipulation.”

  She did that in under a minute and he started talking as he dissected the short cystic duct free, the duct connecting the gallbladder to the common bile duct, using a right-angle clamp. “When the peace process with Colombia’s largest armed opposition group ended, the government ordered the aerial bombardment of the guerrillas’ safe haven, what used to be called the demilitarized zone. Then they started reclaiming it.”

  Javier maneuvered clips on the cystic duct away from the common bile duct, then Savannah transected it using scissors. “San Vicente del Caguán was one of five municipalities that made up the DMZ. It served as the guerrilla army’s capital. When visitors started pouring in following the suspension of hostilities, the town’s economy boomed. Then the security forces retook the urban centers, resulting in massive civilian casualties, and everything fell apart.”

  He paused as they repeated the same technique with the cystic artery, dissecting it free using a right-angle clamp and dividing it between clips.

  “The government promised San Vicente del Caguán would be protected from retaliation. Instead, it was abandoned, by both the Colombian authorities and the international community. The civilian population was also stigmatized as ‘pro-guerrilla’. Everyone conveniently forgot about the guerrillas’ persistent human-rights violations when they were in control of the DMZ.”

  He performed the hook electrocautery to dissect the gallbladder off the liver bed and Savannah irrigated for him with normal saline, suctioned off the fluid and clots, checked the dissected area for hemostasis, making sure there was no bleeding. “OK, Savannah, insert a soft four-millimeter silastic drain through the lateral port, to ensure all of the washout fluid is removed early in the post-operative period.”

  He handed the gallbladder from forceps to clawed grabber, then drew it out of the abdomen through the umbilical port, very careful to avoid rupturing it while pulling. “Violence escalated when the military retook the area, and the civilian population have been systematically targeted, both by the security forces and their paramilitary allies, and by the guerrillas. Harassment, torture, threats, kidnappings for ransom, killings—political and non-political—are all on the rise, though it’s difficult to gauge the extent, due to the wall of fear and silence. Unknowns in the area are also targeted, in the general atmosphere of paranoia and opportunism.”

  He met Savannah’s eyes, saw her acknowledgment of his meaning, the possible hazards of being here. She dropped her gaze first as she removed the epigastric port. He exhaled, closed the umbilical port, removed the other ports and ensured hemostasis, wrapping up the procedure.

  “Twenty minutes! That has to be some record, Dr. Sandoval.” Nikki sounded too cheerful. Probably scared out of her wits.

  “You sure are the fastest surgeon I’ve seen.” Savannah’s praise was as potent as everything about her, always making him want to jump up and punch the air. As she walked behind him to the soiled room, her whisper hit him between his shoulder blades. “Not fast at all in other capacities—to my eternal gratitude.”

  He turned on her, pushed her back into the soiled room, snatched her cap and surgical gown off, then his, and took her lips. His tongue prodded them open, then drove into her.

  He came up at Nikki’s discreet cough, heard Savannah gasping, giggling. She gave his jaw one last nibble before she slipped out of his arms. As they washed, her sideways glance tantalized him further. “I take it you don’t want to have dinner?”

  He herded her out, dragged her behind him, running all the way to her tent. “If I say I want you for dinner, it won’t be true. I want you for, before and after every meal, every day, mi amor. I want you every moment of every day.”

  There. He’d as good as said he wanted her always, for always.

  What would she say?

  She said nothing. Just fell on her sleeping bag, every frantic move she made as she worked off her boots and pants arranging her in a pose that blanked his mind with carnal ferocities. He’d take her like that first, before she managed to take off her shirt, suckle her through it and the bra. It sent her crazy when he did that. Then he’d have her on top…

  Just ask her before all your mental operations fail.

  He fell to his knees before her and she surged into him, ripping his shirt open, her mouth latching on to his quivering muscles, biting, suckling hard. He didn’t ask. He roared.

  “Don’t be mad.” Her smile went through him, a spotlight of pure delight illuminating his soul. His hand convulsed in her hair, pressing her head harder into him as she suckled his nipple. If only he coul
d just drive her into his chest, where he could keep her for ever. “I’ll hunt for the buttons and sew them back on—as usual.”

  “I never thought…you’d be…such a seamstress.” His gasps rose as she pushed him down and straddled him.

  “No? But you always praise my suturing skills. It’s all needlework.”

  Her moist heat ignited him and the overriding drive to merge with her now took over. A laugh erupted from deep in his chest at her gasps as he switched their positions. He tore her shirt open, revealing her heaving breasts. “I’ll sew these buttons back on.” He tugged again, shredding it. “I’ll perform a damn esthetic repair.”

  Her cotton bra and panties met the same fate. He freed himself, put a hand under each of her knees and dragged her over him. He opened her thighs around his waist as he knelt between them, her hips on his thighs. He rested himself at her entrance, soaked up her quivering anticipation, the crashing waves of her desire through the contact. His eyes squeezed shut as a groan reverberated through both their bodies. Then he sought her eyes. A tear slipped from her right one into her trembling mouth, emerged on a delicate, overpowering “Please!”

  He rammed into her. Her scream at his abrupt invasion drenched him in dread. What if it was pain and not pleasure? He tried to pull out but her clamping legs kept him close, her pulsing body kept him inside her. “No, darling, no—please—just give me…”

  “Mi amor, mi vida!” He obeyed her. The tension was already crackling, lightning bolts of impending release flashing in his system. Her cries, telling him how he felt inside her, what he made her feel, filled his head, each cry another sledgehammer of stimulation.

  “Javier, Javier…” Her cries choked as he picked up pace and ferocity. He absorbed her every shudder and twist and grimace as all her tension tightened her beloved body into an upward bow. Then he thrust her over the edge, and bore the storm of her release until her convulsions broke his own dam. She pushed herself up on extended arms and he lunged into her kiss, poured all his love, all of himself into her.