The Vet's Escape to Paradise, page 4
Well, look at that. She actually had been.
* * *
Luckily the middle-aged island local in the roadside café near the beach just needed an introduction to some of Jero’s antibiotic ointment. Ivy covered the wound on the simpering dog’s hind leg with a sterile gauze pad and told the portly man in a vest top not to let the dog lick the affected area.
‘We need a cone, really,’ she told Jero, touching his arm lightly, registering how the heat of him did something to her insides instantly.
‘We don’t use them—they create too much plastic waste,’ he said, swiping a hand across his forehead.
‘How did it happen?’ she asked the rotund man in the vest. He was sipping from a can of beer with his feet up on a stack of cardboard boxes in the storage room, watching them kneel on the floor in the hot, stuffy room beside his dog. He said he didn’t know, which left Ivy more concerned than she thought best to show.
‘People don’t always treat their animals here like they do in the west,’ Jero told her, on their way back out into the sunshine. It was late afternoon now, and she was tired from the long day attending to calls like this.
‘I was starting to get that impression.’
‘They just let them wander around, or chain them up as guard dogs. At least we got him to bring him to the mobile clinic next week, when we come back to sterilise.’
We. There it was again. She followed him back up the dusty path. It was nice that he was starting to see her as a real valuable team member, and the word sounded inclusive on a level that lifted her heart for a second...but she did have a flight home booked in two weeks’ time.
‘Wait.’ Jero put an arm out. Ivy stopped in her tracks. She sucked in a breath at the almost-contact. ‘Look,’ he said, and she followed his eyes to the sea beyond the bushes and the tiny beach ahead, framed by dark lava rocks and palo santo trees.
‘What is it?’ She was intrigued now by the sight of the water. It looked as if a set of special waves were erupting in a current of their own. Jero sprinted across the road to the beach, dropped the bag to the sand and started fishing masks and snorkels out of it quickly. Another sea lion and its calf watched them from the shoreline, then waddled into the water as she reached him.
‘This is rare to see from the beach, if it is what I think it is!’ His enthusiasm was so infectious she laughed. ‘You don’t want to miss this,’ he said, and swiftly pulled his shirt over his head. She almost staggered backwards. His ripped torso totally tore her eyes from the weird commotion in the water.
Wow.
Was he going to pull his shorts off too?
Nope. He made a hurry-up movement with his hand.
‘OK, OK!’ Stripping down to her bikini, she didn’t even have time to feel self-conscious, even when he fixed the mask over her head and pulled at the straps, being careful not to pull her hair.
‘How does that feel?’ His deep chocolate eyes searched hers and her brain went blank. His body was everything she’d expected, and his breath turned her insides to fire. It, mingled with his suntan lotion, created an inexplicably delicious tang.
‘It feels good,’ she managed, and he smiled with one side of his mouth, then shook his head, as if he was battling something he wanted to say all of a sudden. Apprehension pooled in her belly. Then he motioned her into the water.
In seconds his strong arms were carving through the turquoise shallows with her close behind. A green sea turtle gave her the eye from the seabed, but still he pressed on. She had no clue what they were even aiming for... Until she saw it.
The giant manta ray stole all the breath from her lungs as she stopped just short of ploughing into Jero in the water. He grinned around his snorkel as her eyes grew wide. The creature was as huge as a silver satellite dish, gracefully gliding through the blue with no apparent fear of their proximity. Inches from her mask, it was overwhelming to see, but then it performed some kind of spinning move, spiralling up to the surface, sending her and Jero to the surface with it.
‘They breach like this, to get the parasites off their undersides,’ he explained, pulling his mask and snorkel down to his neck. He found her hand and she gasped, tasting salt at the back of her throat. His brow furrowed as he drew her closer. ‘Are you OK?’
She was trying not to show it, because the spectacle was incredible, but they’d swum a little too far out than she was really comfortable with. ‘I’m OK. That was...beautiful.’ She laughed softly, knowing her nervousness escaped with it.
‘You’re a good swimmer, aren’t you? I didn’t even ask.’ Jero trod water, right up close; so close his billowing shorts tickled her hipbones and sent a different kind of current rippling through her insides. She studied the droplets of water on his thick black eyelashes as he took her shoulders with firm reassuring hands. The whole ocean seemed to close in around them.
‘I followed you out here, didn’t I?’ confusion made her snap before she swam away from him on her back.
Distance was imperative, before she lost her mind completely. What the heck was that? She’d almost wanted to pull him close, to feel those muscles pressed against her. The way he’d been looking at her; she knew that look. He might not have pushed her away but no...no way.
The guy wasn’t in it for some silly fling with a volunteer and she certainly wasn’t here for that either. Especially not with a single dad. Her libido was too fired up; she’d been single for the majority of the year, and since she’d got here to the Galapagos she’d been a permanent odd one out around all those mushy couples at the hotel. He probably hadn’t felt half of what she’d just felt; it was all in her head. He was merely concerned she might drown.
Jero was already underwater, diving back down to the manta. Reluctantly she followed him back down into the blue, mind reeling. But as soon as she was under, a sense of calm enveloped her and stuck, even when she was forced up for air. The sight of Jero circling the manta as it drifted silently around the coral like a silver spaceship was as mesmerising as the creature itself.
Suddenly, another one appeared from the blue. Then another, until there were five. The commanding creatures were hypnotising, dancing like a synchronised swimming team. Wow. Maybe this was how she meditated, from now on.
* * *
Back on the beach Ivy got her first glimpse of Jero’s full tattoo up close. It wasn’t a dragon, as she’d thought from past stolen glimpses. It was actually a giant manta like the one they’d just seen, swimming at an angle, drawn from jet-black blocks of what looked like Mayan symbols.
Sexy as hell on his tanned upper arm.
He caught her looking at it as he stuffed the snorkels back into his bag, and she couldn’t divert her eyes fast enough.
‘When did you get that?’ she asked, to mask the fact that she was now entirely too self-conscious of her wet white shirt over her bikini. He shrugged back into his shirt, swiped a hand over his head and slung the bag back over the other shoulder. Then he pulled up his sleeve again, revealing the tattoo to her, like an art piece he’d spent hours sculpting, as he obviously had his arm.
‘I got it after my first visit here, when I came to see if I could really live here.’
She cleared her throat. ‘Nice,’ she said, wondering if he could tell how he was making her feel, getting half naked and showing her the wonders of the deep. How dared he? Now she wanted to do it again. ‘What does it mean?’
He cocked an eyebrow, pulled his sleeve back down. ‘It means I got a tattoo.’
‘Yes, but all those symbols.’
‘Do they have to have a meaning?’
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t help match his smile as he led her back to the road and made for the boat.
* * *
‘I want to snorkel again,’ she said when they were bumping their way back across to Santa Cruz. Jero laughed behind his sunglasses, a foot away from her on the bench.
‘You’re in the right place. I think your hotel runs snorkelling trips, right?’
She frowned at the horizon. ‘Yeah, right. Me and a bunch of couples. Sounds like a blast.’
Jero ran a hand along his jaw, and she felt her face redden. She hadn’t meant to imply she was resentful or have him worry about her for any reason. ‘I mean, I’d much rather spend my time with you...volunteering. For the next two weeks. I’m learning a lot. And that’s something I don’t say often to strangers.’
‘I’m a stranger, am I?’ He smirked into his shoulder, and she gripped the mast, feeling herself sliding towards him with the motion of the boat; or the undeniable chemistry she could feel intensifying by the second. Unless she was imagining it? She still couldn’t decide, but, really, why would someone like Jero want anything more than her skill set?
‘Funny you think that,’ he said. ‘You know more about me than I know about you.’
She squared her shoulders. He had a point. She hadn’t exactly spilled her heart to her newly appointed mentor about Simon, or the break-up, or the reasons behind it. Jero was a father; one who was raising his daughter alone. Besides, he’d never asked her much about herself anyway.
‘All by yourself at the Aqua Breeze,’ he continued now, making her heart tangle up in her ribs. He reached for two more bottles of water, passed one to her, eyeing her almost cautiously. ‘What are you doing tonight?’
Her head sprang up to meet his eyes. She had a date with a treatment and nutrition plan for Mrs O’Brian’s senior cocker spaniel back in Galway, which she’d insisted on helping with from afar, much to Mike’s very vocal chagrin. ‘I did have a plan...’
‘Cancel it. There’s a beach clean-up we do every week. I usually man the barbecue afterwards for the volunteers. It’s a fun time, you should join us.’
Ivy looked to her feet, feeling his eyes still roving her profile. Butterflies fluttered a trail around her navel. ‘I’ll think about it. Thank you.’
He nodded and took a swig from the bottle that showcased his Adam’s apple and his biceps from a whole new intoxicating angle. She resisted the urge to say she’d come.
She probably shouldn’t.
She should be gunning the butterflies down one by one, right as they took flight. It would be a very good idea to stay away from all non-work-related events with Jero; picturing him naked when they were supposed to be saving lives together was not conducive to a productive learning environment. If only she could forget this unfortunate, futile crush.
CHAPTER FOUR
JERO FLIPPED A veggie burger over on the grill, feeling Nayely’s and Martha’s eyes on him from across the beach. They were talking about him; he could always tell.
The sun was sinking lower, and the beach clean-up was well under way; scores of locals and the odd tourist had already filled a pile of rubbish bags with washed up flip-flops and plastic bottles. His eyes found Ivy, deeply involved as he’d guessed she might be if she showed up...which she had done, an hour late.
He’d spent that hour thinking maybe she wouldn’t come.
They’d shared something intimate with those mantas. It had gone beyond all physical contact, or even words. Something had changed in that moment, being with her in the water. On the boat after that, the air had felt physically charged. He could have sworn she felt it too—the way she’d avoided his eyes but couldn’t keep hers off his body. The secret thrill had made him ask her here, to something that wasn’t work-related.
He was regretting it already. The more he found his eyes roving her figure as she followed the shoreline in a long sea-green sundress, the more he felt unsettled. She even looked good picking up rubbish.
He flipped another burger on the grill and served three hungry customers, irritated at the way he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, bathed in the final streaks of sunlight. The woman was leaving in a matter of weeks, and even if he did go ‘there’ with tourists, which he absolutely did not, she was working with him. Around Aayla. The last thing he needed was for things to get complicated.
She was walking across the sand now, making a beeline for him. Damn, that long sundress was almost see-through in places, with the setting sun behind her. She was a knockout, in and out of the bikini he’d seen her in today.
‘Hey, Ivy, you made it.’
She cast her amber eyes up and down his apron and tongs. ‘Hey, yourself, chef.’
He was about to offer her his speciality—grilled shrimp and pineapple skewers—when Aayla bounded over, pigtails flying, covered in sand. He handed her a wet towel for her hands, which she ignored. ‘Ivy! Did you bring your camera?’
‘Not tonight...sorry,’ she said, holding her empty hands up while Aayla pouted.
‘Ivy’s camera is not your toy,’ he reminded her, handing her the towel again, and Aayla rolled her eyes, swiping at her dirty hands with it for all of three seconds before handing it to Ivy.
Ivy held the towel at arm’s length, as if it were some strange, foreign artefact he’d just dug up from a Mayan tomb. He bit back a smile, tossing it into a rubbish bag for her.
‘Ivy, I thought of a new game we can play with the puppies tomorrow,’ Aayla said, eyes bright.
‘Why don’t you go play with Sasha?’ he cut in, tossing a sausage in a bun for another customer.
She ignored him, casting her usual beseeching gaze up at Ivy. ‘We can teach them to roll over!’
‘Aayla...’
‘I think they’re a little young to roll over,’ Ivy answered, passing him the ketchup when she saw he had his hands full. ‘Maybe when they get adopted, their new parents can teach them that?’
Aayla frowned thoughtfully. Jero was about to direct her towards her playdate again, but Ivy had another idea. ‘We could try teaching them to sit if you like? Most puppies pick that up pretty quickly if we give them treats.’
Aayla’s eyes lit up. ‘Can we photograph them, while they learn?’
‘Maybe. Let me think about it.’
Aayla seemed to think that was an appropriate answer and skipped away up the beach happily. He felt a sigh of relief escape into his barbecue smoke.
For some reason, Aayla seemed drawn to Ivy, even without the camera. She had taken to shadowing Ivy in the clinic after school, and, OK, so they’d been feeding the puppies, and caring for Pluma together, which constituted more as work than hanging out, but still. Aayla got attached easily, no thanks to a lack of a mother figure in her life, and all of this...well, this had been his fear from the start: that his daughter would be crushed once someone else she admired sped off on the tourist boat and never returned.
‘You know, I’ve been thinking,’ Ivy said now, scraping a hand through her wild curls and making the orange rays reflect off the silver bracelet around her slender wrist. ‘It was pretty impressive, how you got me to switch off down there today with the mantas. You took me out of my head and put me somewhere else. That doesn’t happen a lot.’
‘Is that so?’
She half smiled at the ocean, then him. ‘I didn’t think about my emails for at least twenty minutes.’
He laughed and she shrugged. ‘Sounds stupid, sure, but that’s a big deal for me. I wanted to say thank you, Jero, for taking me in the way you have since we met. It means a lot.’
She turned to face him, and there it was again in her eyes: the look that spoke volumes of abject sadness, and secrets, and some kind of profound loss that had propelled her to escape into her work, even before she’d arrived at the Aqua Breeze Couples’ Resort all alone. It made her infinitely more vulnerable to him, and he stopped himself conjuring another carnal fantasy about seeing her with that dress off.
He hadn’t asked her any personal questions yet that could be construed as getting too close. Hmm. That was pretty selfish of him. Maybe she’d been waiting for him to ask and assumed that he just didn’t care. The fact that she was here for work, to learn and to be of use was no restitution for his guilt suddenly.
‘I’m happy I could help,’ he told her truthfully. ‘And you’re helping me more than you know already. Your experience is invaluable.’ He put down the tongs and untied his apron as his friend Nige slapped him on the back and offered to take over the barbecue duties.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said, checking Aayla was still under the supervision of Sasha’s mum, as was their agreement while he was on grill duty. ‘I have something I think you should see.’
She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Intriguing.’ Then she hesitated on the spot, as if she wasn’t sure if she should leave the scene either. Was he making her nervous after that ‘moment’ earlier today? ‘I can’t be long,’ she said, eyeing the crowd around the shoreline. ‘I do have to get back to work.’
‘What work?’
‘I run a clinic...’
‘How could I forget?’ he teased, and she fixed her eyes on him with such piercing effect he wished he hadn’t said it. ‘Are you going to sell up?’ he asked her, remembering she’d mentioned some private equity company trying to buy them out.
Her face fell a second. ‘I don’t know yet. I don’t know what else I’d do if I didn’t work there. It’s been my whole life.’
‘Work isn’t your whole life though, is it?’
‘I love my work,’ she clipped. Then she sighed and huffed a laugh. ‘I know, I know... I should switch off more. Everyone tells me that.’
‘I can always dunk you in the ocean again, if that will help,’ he offered, and her mouth twitched again.
‘I suppose a little walk won’t hurt.’
They headed up the beach, and around the rocks and he couldn’t tell if he was unnerving her after earlier, or if she really was so into her work that she couldn’t be away for more than an hour.
‘I guess your partner must be freaking out without you, in Galway?’ he asked as they took the narrow pathway that curved around the huge round boulders together, up, up, up towards the sky and what he knew would take her breath away.
