Forever Perfect: Billionaire Medical Romance (A Chance at Forever Series Book 1) Read online

  “It’s not that far…” Dr. Layton said, his eyes still on the hotel.

  “You’re going to help me with the medical supplies.”

  “Oh, sure, I can….” He was still somewhat confused, looking at Tom like he wasn’t sure why he wasn’t doing the baggage, but gamely climbed into the passenger seat.

  Mel shot the gears into first and burned rubber against the tarmac. At the end of the runway, she veered off away from the hotel and dove into the thick foliage, penetrating deep into the jungle.

  “Aren’t you going the wrong way?” Dr. Layton clutched the frame of the Jeep as though he were about to be hurled off into the wilderness at any moment.

  “Nope!”

  “That wasn’t the hospital?”

  Mel laughed. For the first time since that sot had landed in her world, she laughed. “That’s a resort for spoiled little rich people. You get to get dirty for three weeks, Doctor.” She was still laughing as the Jeep leapt over a pothole and Dr. Layton launched his breakfast into the jungle.

  He had the decency to wipe his mouth with his shirt.

  “Tell me, Doctor,” she called over the slamming of the shocks and the death knells of the Jeep’s suspension system, “what’s your specialty?”

  “Cosmetic surgery,” he gasped as the Jeep danced and tried to fly again.

  She almost hit the brakes. Almost. “Are you SERIOUS?”

  “Of course.” Dr. Layton grabbed at his seatbelt as they hit a dry stream bed at a speed usually reserved for highway driving. “Why?”

  “Because Doctor,” Mel said, hitting the gas when even she knew it was a stupid-ass move to drive like this just because she was mad as hell. But she wasn’t able to hold back the contempt she felt, and attacking the road would get her in less legal trouble than, say, ejecting idiot plastic surgeons into the middle of the jungle. “My patients have life and death issues, and the last thing any of them are worried about is if their TITS are big enough!” She slammed in another gear and the Jeep bucked and jumped under the sudden fury.

  He turned in his seat and regarded her with a look that showed he matched her contempt, despite headaches and hangovers, and yelled, “I ALSO DO ASSES!”

  Chapter 2

  Okay. That had totally sounded better in his head. But what the hell was this woman’s problem? It was none of her business how he conducted his own affairs. And being drunk once in the last…what was it…nearly 15 years was exactly that—his business. He’d cleared his calendar for a week, anticipating the reunion with his old friends. He’d planned this week as a vacation. Hell, when did he ever get a chance to go back to New York City anyway? It’d been ages since his residency at Scott Thompson Hospital, and he’d been looking forward to some opportunities to catch up…or maybe hook up.

  And none of that was any of this crazy woman’s business.

  Except that, somehow, he’d signed on to work with her. When did that happen? He wracked his brain, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to bring up the memory of exactly how he’d ended up in the jungle with a mad woman behind the wheel trying to kill them both.

  Only, the vehicle lurched, leaving his head spinning and his stomach back somewhere at the top of a hill. He’d thought it would be easier if he couldn’t see where she was going. He’d been wrong. He reluctantly opened his eyes again, reminding himself to breathe deeply…and screamed.

  The road ended in front of them and the canyon that opened to receive them was enormous. At the last minute, she spun the wheel, and they careened alongside the drop-off on two wheels before retreating back into the underbrush.

  She gave him the look reserved for little sisters who shriek at spiders.

  For the first time in his life, Brant Layton blushed. He could feel it, the heat flooding his face almost painfully. “Is any of that fragile?” he asked, pointing at the boxes in the back of the Jeep, deflecting her gaze, giving him time to regain some measure of composure. And hopefully make her slow down. Dear God, let her slow down.

  She actually glanced behind her, as though she’d forgotten her packages. It was her turn to blush, a pretty tinting of her cheeks that was gone so quickly he thought for a moment he’d imagined it. Even more startling, she eased her foot off the accelerator. A little. Very little.

  “Look,” Brant shouted, ignoring the added thrum of his own voice to the cacophony echoing in his head. “I’m sorry I’m here and taking up your time, disturbing your existence. I will be more than pleased to make it up to you by leaving as soon as I can. The quicker I can get to a phone the sooner you can be rid of me!”

  Quicker. He shouldn’t have said ‘quicker.’

  She shot the clutch and shifted again, moving the lever like the Jeep had to be punished. “No, Doctor,” she said, a slow smile spreading over her face. It was not a reassuring smile. “My partner out here has gone home for three weeks. You’re here to replace him, and if you bail now I’m stuck as the only doctor in a hundred miles, and my colleague has to come back. You want to go back to your Champagne tits and ass, and your country club, fine, but you are NOT going to put yourself over the needs of everyone else!”

  He blinked. “Champagne tits?”

  Oddly, she seemed to color at that reminder of her outburst. This time she came out in a full blush, cheeks pinking, adding warm hues to her suntan in a way that women in L.A. spent a fortune trying to duplicate with cosmetics. It was a rather startling realization that when she wasn’t screaming at him, she was a rather attractive woman. Sure, the nose might be better if it was slightly turned up, but that strictly an esoteric choice. And the way it was now had a certain charm.

  “What’re you looking at?” The glare she shot him was almost more frightening than the fact she’d taken her eyes off the road. So much for the charming way she looked when she wasn’t yelling.

  Dr. Brant Layton was one of the most successful cosmetic surgeons in California, a land known for plastic creations in human form. He hadn’t gotten to where he was by being a fool. He grabbed the Jeep frame hard enough that he couldn’t swear that permanent indentations wouldn’t be found in the metal when this ride was over. The vehicle launched itself over a series of potholes in an animal trail disguised as a road. He did not mention her nose. “I’m looking at the face of the woman who wants to kill me because I chose an ignoble profession, far inferior to hers,” he muttered, and closed his eyes again. Some things he was just better off not seeing. His death for one.

  Brant nearly flew over the hood of the Jeep as she slammed on the brakes. They spun to a stop in thick mud.

  “Alright,” she said quietly after a long moment during which the engine cooled, making soft ticking sounds in the sudden silence. “I apologize.”

  Eyes opened in surprise, and staying open this time, he rubbed his ribs on the right where the dashboard had been kind enough to stop his sudden flying exit. “Apology accepted,” he mumbled, and sat back heavily in his seat.

  She took a breath. A rather shaky one. “I have an issue with drunkenness,” she admitted, eyes averted. “Especially within the medical community.”

  “I assure you, madam,” he said, straightening and staring rather stiffly at the rutted trail that disappeared into the trees ahead, “I have not operated on anyone since the first sip of some rather expensive whisky passed my lips last night. And, though it’s certainly none of your business, I’m not in the habit of drinking to excess, nor have I done so since my college days.”

  “Saved it up for the journey, did you?”

  He turned to regard her. There was still fire there, still a load of distrust, but at least she wasn’t punishing the transmission for her passenger’s transgressions. “As it happens, I had scheduled a vacation for this week. A very good friend of mine is getting married and several of us gathered to bid him a fond and drunken farewell.”

  If anything, her expression became somewhat stormier. “Marriage is a sort of death, then?”

  “Death is a transition, Doctor; so is marital status
. We don’t mourn for the departed, we express sadness that our relationship with them is at an end.”

  “How long since you’ve seen this old, dear friend?”

  “Fifteen years.”

  “How does your relationship change?”

  Dr. Layton stared at the tree in front of him, the branches heavy with moisture from a recent rain and overgrown with a sort of moss. “Ok, good point,” he conceded then frowned as the branch in front of them moved. A lot. It took him a minute, and when he figured it out his mouth opened and closed a few times. Finally he gave up and just pointed, that action seeming to loosen his tongue. “That’s a big damn snake!”

  She followed the line of his finger and shrugged. “The camp mascot eats snakes that size.”

  “Thank bloody goodness. What, you have a ferret or mongoose…”

  “No, it’s a bigger snake.”

  “Just a phone call,” he assured her, his eyes still on the snake. “I really would like to use the phone, please.”

  “Alright.” She pressed her lips together a moment, and Brant couldn’t help but glance down at them. “I’m sorry for my reaction, but out here we see a lot malnutrition, a lot of abused women, dysentery and syphilis, and real, life-threatening problems. And there is no one out here who will soon die if they don’t get silicone packets tucked into their chests.”

  He sighed, snake forgotten for the moment. “Please, Doc, we were getting along so well for a moment there. Don’t get yourself worked up on my account. I understand you don’t want me here. I get that as clearly as a cracked rib.” He gingerly explored his side again. “I can’t stay more than week, or I lose my practice and my patients. I’ll stay that long if only to give the powers that be time to find another drunken fool to shanghai into your service.” Why was he saying yes? And why did he let her think he only operated on the rich and famous? Should he bother mentioning that he worked on other people, too? He shook his head; it wasn’t worth trying to explain it to the fire-ball doctor.

  Mel slipped the Jeep into gear and drove off at a reasonable speed, considering the rut-riddled drive and her previous performance. “It doesn’t work that way!” she called as they broke through the foliage and drove up to a curiously normal-looking clinic in the middle of the jungle. “Phone’s in the office.” She pointed to a set of double doors, modern enough that they would have been at home in downtown L.A. Maybe San Francisco. Things were a little more lax up there.

  ***

  “What the hell do you mean NO?” he screamed into the phone. The “office,” as such, turned out to be partially storage and partially overflow, a small room tucked just inside the doorway, off to the right of a much larger hall that he barely noticed in his haste to get some semblance of order back into his life. There was the promised phone, a satellite contraption that seemed to lack something Dr. Layton had previously thought fundamental: some way to dial the numbers.

  In this particular case, the phone direct connected to Doctors International’ headquarters and from there they decided what calls to make. Or not to make. Like the one Dr. Layton was attempting, the one to get him on the next flight home and away from crazy women who try to fly their Jeeps at a very low altitude.

  “Then I suggest you find someone who can make decisions, because at this point I’m about to call my lawyers and have you all under charge of kidnapping!”

  The crazy woman…what was her name…Bell? Dr. Bell wandered in, assumedly after having unloaded whatever supplies survived the drive into the jungle. Okay, maybe she looked a little less crazed. Certainly, her murder/suicide driving style had chilled now that she was walking and not driving.

  “Yes, kidnapping, you heard me. You cannot, CANNOT, accept a legal signature of someone who is intoxicated or not in control of his faculties! To do so is to be nothing less than the shanghai-ing captains of San Francisco, and that IS kidnapping.” He nodded once to the doctor who was watching him very closely. He was distinctly not greeting her, but nodded more in a way of saying “See there?”

  The voice on the other end of the line came back with a long string of commentary that required listening. Something the other end of the conversation would do well to emulate. “No, San Francisco is not in Shanghai; Shanghai isn’t even a country…” He pulled the receiver away from his ear and looked at it in disbelief for a moment before diving back in. “Well, of course it exists! It’s just not a…look, we’re straying from the point here. Find someone to send me a plane to get out of here. What about the plane I came in on? Fine, I’ll take that one. Why can’t I?” He shook his head, listening in disbelief to the thick accent of the person on the other end. “I KNOW I HAVE A CONTRACT!”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Mel looking at the floor, trying her best to suppress a growing smile that threatened to break free at any moment.

  “Look,” he said slowly into the phone, “get me home and out of here, not in three weeks, not in three days, RIGHT NOW, or you’ll hear from my attorney.” He reached to slam the phone back on the hook and belatedly realized there wasn’t any.

  “It just isn’t the same to press the end button down hard,” he grumbled, throwing the receiver down on the desk. “Used to be you knew when someone slammed the phone down, now it’s clicks.”

  “I’m sure that a slam was implied,” Mel said reasonably. “Besides, that was Peggy; Peggy is a volunteer with the organization and doesn’t get paid. At that she’s not worth the price.”

  “Wonderful.” He took a deep breath and tried again, slower. “Listen. The thing is, I do have some patients, and regardless of the frivolity of their desires, they are my patients.”

  She nodded and looked to him. “I have patients, too, Doctor,” she said quietly. “Follow me, please.” She turned and, ignoring the door that led back into the building, took another that led directly outside. She walked out of the office without a backward glance.

  After a heavy sigh and slow count to ten, he followed her into the humidity and heat of the jungle.

  Chapter 3

  In the jungle, even the sunlight had weight. It wasn’t just hot, it was sweltering, like walking into an over-heated sauna. Cliché, but there really was no better way to describe the oppressiveness of the heat and air. Heavy, strange-shaped leaves covered the jungle; Brant longed to work his way into the mottled darkness of the greenery and hide in the relative coolness of the canopy. However, even a cosmetic surgeon from L.A. knew that in the depth of heavy leaves and overgrowth lay snakes, and predators, and all manner of life-threatening creatures.

  The foliage was held at bay by constant effort, and greensmen were chipping away at the edge like carving room from a glacier. They were losing ground, and Brant wondered how long it would be before the jungle reclaimed the clearing when the clinic was abandoned. He didn’t think it would be more than a few days.

  The Jeep Dr. Bell had slammed through the underbrush was empty now, the supplies taken in either by her or some elves he’d yet to meet, and it sat clicking as the heat from the engine radiated out into the swelter of the day. He stood, propped against the side of the vehicle, no longer caring about the mud splatters and the results on his only pair of pants.

  Mel walked out of the office and leaned against the door, regarding him. “Are you ready to work yet, or are you planning to try sending smoke signals to L.A.?”

  He pushed off against the truck, annoyed all over again. “Tell you what, Doctor, why don’t you lend me your drums and I can contact civilization like a proper savage?” He wasn’t a bad guy, most days, but she was making him feel like an incompetent idiot.

  “Very cute. These ‘savages’ are human beings with real issues and serious problems, not like the dollies you sculpt into perfect mannequins.”

  “I’m quite sure, Dr. Bell, that these natives are a proud and noble people. I was not calling them savages. I save that identification for people who manhandle automobiles like Chicago cab drivers. I understand I’ve been kidnapped and held for a ransom I n
eed to work off, but I have no desire to be killed in the process!”

  “Enough with the kidnapping, Dr. Layton,” she shot back. With each iteration of the title, the word Dr. took on more and more vitriol, becoming a four-letter word. “You need to accept responsibility for your own action, drunk or not. You signed on, got on that plane and you, you—DOCTOR—made the decision to come here. No one dragged you here!”

  “Thank you, Mommy.” Brant stomped in the dirt and walked toward her. “I don’t need a lecture about responsibility. I understand responsibility. I have my own patients, my own staff, my own practice, and I have a responsibility to them!”

  “So you got piss-drunk and figured—?”

  “Yes, I got drunk!” he yelled, beyond frustrated. “For the first time in fifteen years! Since I was in medical school and had to cut open my first cadaver, I got drunk! I understand that makes me weaker and less perfect than your noble self.” He snorted. “I can only grovel in your divine light! You’re a bitch, you know that?!” He turned and stormed into the jungle.

  Right now, the thought of wandering into a lion talking to a tiger while poisonous snakes watched seemed like a welcomed relief. Or whatever the hell lived in these jungles surrounding him.

  * * *

  Mel watched Dr. Layton stride off into the bush. A warning about going into the jungle alone died on her lips with his parting shot. He didn’t see her as he said it, so he had no idea how close to the mark he’d come. At least, she prayed that he hadn’t. She wasn’t perfect. Far from it. And maybe she was being miserable. A miserable bitch at that. It wasn’t her fault he’d signed on while drunk. He’d made a commitment. That was his problem, not hers.

  She took a step forward when she heard him swearing. The threats that lay within the jungle in Belize were real, but the greatest danger was getting lost. Once out of sight of the clearing where the clinic stood, the waxy leaves and thick trees began to look alike, in a way no one but someone native to the area could unravel.