The Reef Roamer (The Roamer Series Book 1) (12 page)

“Get them out first,” Jayme whispered to Miguel as he thumbed the control valve, adding air to her BC to keep her afloat. “I’ll be alright. Just get them out.” Miguel nodded and then waved his arm at the boat crew, the sign for distress. He pointed at the novice divers and jerked his thumb, meaning to get them out of the water.

The crew helped the Thomases off with their equipment while Daniel turned his attention back to helping his cousin get Jayme out of the water and safely on board.

“How’re you doing?” he asked gently, taking her fins and weight belt.

“I’ll live, but I think my diving may be over for the day,” she joked with a grimace.

“We’re lucky you’ve got the new style BC, Jayme.” Miguel unclipped her shoulder straps first to free her arm, then the chest straps and cumber bun.

“Forget about the BC, Jayme. Miguel will get it. Give me your right hand and let me pull you up.” Free of all her equipment, Jayme lifted out of the water easily. She collapsed at Daniel’s feet, exhausted.

“What’s the matter with Jayme, Daniel?” Marge asked in concern. Even to a novice, it was obvious something was terribly amiss.

“She’s been snared by a fishing lure,” Daniel replied, appreciating the older woman’s genuine concern. “She’ll be fine, Marge, honestly. This is far from life threatening,” he reassured her as he helped Jayme to her feet.

“It’s a forty-minute ride to Marsh Harbor, isn’t it?” Jayme’s wet face was clouded with pain and memories.

“Yes,” Daniel replied, “but we’re not going to Marsh Harbor. It’s only twenty minutes back to Holm Cay, and we’ve got a pretty good clinic there. One of the doctors thought it would be a good idea to have a series of small clinics throughout the islands for emergencies—like this. The one in Holm Cay is the first. Marsh Harbor can be a long way off if you need a doctor in a hurry.”

“Yes, I know,” Jayme murmured as they sped along, clipping the crests of the waves.

Jayme was soon sitting on the deck, her back up against the dry locker, letting Daniel slosh fresh water over her head, the jostling at a minimum now.

“Daniel, I need you to help me with something before we get to shore and everyone starts making an even bigger fuss.”

“Anything. What do you want me to do?”

After Daniel retrieved the pair of scissors out of a pocket on Jayme’s dry bag, he sat beside her. “What do you want me to do with these?”

“I know you’re not squeamish, Daniel. First, on my right arm, pull the wetsuit sleeve down while Miguel holds my left arm steady.” Jayme groaned as the suit came loose. “Now, at the wound, carefully cut my wet suit up the sleeve to the shoulder and then around the lure. Careful not to cut the dive skins yet.” Miguel took the scissors and made the cuts as Jayme indicated. She stood, and they pulled the suit the rest of the way off of her. Jayme sat down, exhausted.

“Did that hurt too much, Jayme?” Marge was hovering like a mother hen.

“Not as much as if we had waited for the doctor. The suit is trashed anyway.”

Marge grimaced, patting Jayme’s good hand.

“The skins should be much easier to do.”

They went through a similar procedure, only this time just cutting the sleeve off and stretching the material to go over the embedded lure. After freeing her arm, Jayme left the skins on from the waist down for protection from the sun and wind.

Miguel sat down next to her. “Jayme, I’m so sorry this happened. We will find who’s responsible for this.”

***

Dr. Steele was examining a very pregnant and soon to be new mother when Daniel brought Jayme into the clinic’s outer office. The young girl seated at the reception desk smiled brightly at Daniel.

“Hi, Daniel. What’s the problem?” Naomi asked sweetly, eyeing Jayme.

“Hi, Naomi. Is Dr. Steele in? One of my divers got hooked by a fishing lure.” It was clear Daniel was angered by the situation. “When I find out who was out there today, there will be hell to pay!”

“Dr. Steele is with Lana right now. He should be finished soon. Bring her back to, ah, room three.” The young girl glanced over her shoulder to check which rooms were occupied. “Yeah, room three is open.” The young woman eyed Jayme cautiously.

Daniel escorted a weak-kneed Jayme to the examination table and then was shooed out by Naomi. “I’m an assistant in training to Dr. Steele,” Naomi boasted. “I man the desk and answer the phones when he doesn’t need my help,” she explained further, feeling the need to justify her presence in the exam room.

“That must keep you busy,” Jayme answered in her throaty voice, deepened with exhaustion.

“Very.” The young girl was clearly startled by Jayme’s reply, as much by the voice as by being answered at all. “I’m going to put your arm in these restraints so the doctor can work more easily to remove that lure, okay?”

“And if it isn’t?” Jayme’s mild voice took on an unusual edge.

“If what isn’t what?”

“If it isn’t okay to restrain my arm, then what?” Jayme briefly closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry if I was harsh. Since I lean toward being claustrophobic, let’s wait to strap me down until the doctor is ready, okay?”

“Sure, no problem.” Naomi smiled widely at Jayme, not use to being countermanded. “I’ll get things ready and get your information and then be out of your way.”

***

When Mark Steele came into room three, he saw a long-legged female, clad in drying diving skins that clung to every shapely curve of her body. She was facing the window, away from him, and he could see her water-darkened hair was starting to dry in salt-encrusted waves at the nape of her shapely neck. He thought he detected a faint hum coming from her direction.

Crazy tourist. Probably was standing too close to some fool who was trying to cast his deep sea line like a fly rod and got hooked in the process.

Mark picked up her chart. “Hello, Mrs. Haller. I’m Dr. Steele.”

Why did that name sound familiar?

Her head turned, and he was startled by the intensity of her green eyes.

“
Ms.
Haller, Dr. Steele. I’ve been a widow for five years. I don’t feel much like a married woman anymore.” Her honesty and bluntness was refreshing if not startling. “At the moment, what I
do
feel like is a pincushion.”

Her comment snapped him out of his daydreaming. “Have we met before, Ms. Haller?”

Jayme gazed into his smoky gray eyes long and hard, trying to steady her increasing heart rate as she took in his nearness. “Yes.”

I knew it!
he thought triumphantly.

“At breakfast last week. I almost spilled my coffee on you.” Jayme was having difficulty breaking away from the look in his eyes.

“No, I mean before that.”

Confound this woman,
Mark seethed.
She knows what I mean!

“Oh, I thought you were pulling a fast line on me that morning. I still don’t recollect meeting you before, Dr. Steele.” He looked disappointed. “Now, could you do something about this thing sticking out of my arm? It really hurts.”

“Oh, of course. Let’s take a look.” He turned her arm over and brought an intensity light closer. “It’s pretty deep. I’ll have to give you a local and then have it out in no time.” He reached for the restraint board and Velcro-ed her arm in position. Swabbing her arm down with a cleansing alcohol, Mark found all the Vaseline. “What in the hell is this?”

“The Vaseline? It stopped the flow of blood.”

“That wasn’t very smart.”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at fifty feet underwater,” Jayme snapped back. “I wasn’t too crazy about becoming shark bait!”

“You were diving when this happened? Don’t you know to stay out of a fishing area? You’re right about one thing, though; you could have become shark food. I’ve seen shark in this area…” He trailed off, leaving his thoughts unspoken.

“Look, just get the damn thing out of my arm and I’ll get out of your way!” There was something about this doctor that was indeed familiar. Maybe they had met before. If that was so, it couldn’t have been a pleasant experience, for Jayme felt the familiarity came with a darkness, and she didn’t like that, not at all.

Mark shut his mouth. What was he doing? He normally didn’t talk that way to his patients. Her eyes. He lost all his senses, including his common sense when she turned those emeralds in his direction.

“I’m going to numb your upper arm. Look at the wall, please. Good.” He moved the needle every few inches, numbing the jagged five-inch tear. It was irregular, nasty, and deep, and had to be causing her excruciating pain. He gentled his voice. “Can you feel this now?” He tapped her arm with the needle.

“No,” Jayme answered curtly. If he wanted to be a bully, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of responding, which would also make it easier for her to ignore him. In spite of the dark shadow over her mind he seemed to bring, she was definitely attracted to him and she couldn’t let him know that.

Mark worked swiftly, cleaning the wound of all the jelly. At fifty feet down, it was probably the smartest thing she could have done and was lucky to have the jelly with her. He spread the wound wider to assess the damage. The grappling hook-styled lure was popular in the area, sure to sink into whatever it touched that was soft and fleshy. Right now, Mark could see that it had punctured deeply; only two of the three sharp tips could be seen. He picked up a pair of sterile wire cutters to free the main body of the lure from her tender flesh. Soon he dropped the offending object into a metal dish with a loud clatter. It was large, about eight inches long, and bright yellow with deep blue stripes, made to look like a blue-striped grunt, no doubt. Knowing the local would wear off too soon, he re-anesthetized the area.

“Done so soon?” Jayme queried.

“Not quite.” He kept his voice steady, keeping in check his rising anger at the fisherman who did this to her. “The hooks are imbedded pretty deep. I just cut the lure off to get a better grip on them. There are three tines on each post, like this.” He handed her the lure in the tray. As she examined it with interest, he went on, relieved to have something technical to talk about, though he was sure under different circumstances, they wouldn’t be at a loss for words.

“Two of the hooks passed through the epidermis and dermas; their tips are exposed and should come out easily. The third, however, appears to be still in the superficial fascia layer. I’m going to force it the rest of the way.”

“Of course,” Jayme said, “you can’t pull it back through the skin without causing additional injury. The only logical way to minimize the damage is to continue its path.”

Mark raised his eyebrow, impressed at her knowledge. “That’s right, to a point. No pun intended.” He smiled warmly at her, trying to lighten the tenseness in the room. Jayme could feel herself melt inside as his lips parted over even white teeth.

“Once the third tip is exposed, I’m going to cut the end off where the three tines join, and pull each one out along the path it has already created.” Soon four pieces of metal landed in the metal bowl sitting on the instrument tray at Mark’s side.

Jayme let out a long sigh. “Was there any damage below the fascia?”

“As in the muscle layer? No, it doesn’t appear so. You were lucky. The hooks must have caught on your dive skins, keeping it from getting too deep.”

“The skins are quite thin. It must have been the neoprene wet suit that caught the hooks.”

“You were wearing a wet suit? I didn’t see…” He glanced around the room.

“I had a friend help me take it off. I was afraid you’d probably be less gentle with it than we were, and I wanted to keep
all
the damage to a minimum.”

Jayme gave him a dazzling smile then. His heart skipped a beat, and he momentarily forgot to breathe. He found her more and more amazing with each passing minute. The pain she must have endured to remove the wet suit! Very few people he knew would have been able to stand it. She must have a high pain threshold.

“I’m nearly done. You have a choice, Ms. Haller. Would you like pink sutures or standard black?”

“Neon pink or regular pink?” she teased back, finding it easier to like him than stay angry at him.

“Only regular,” Mark replied. Were they really yelling at each other only a few minutes ago? He couldn’t even remember why.

“Ah, well, regular pink it is then,” Jayme answered, mock disappointment in her voice.

He quickly and expertly stitched up the gaping wound. Mark wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. When he finished, he selected another syringe, this one with a light painkiller. Touching the still-numb arm, he injected her with 10cc of Demerol.

“All done, Ms. Haller. You can take a look now if you want. You took forty stitches, some of them inside,” he informed her as he reached for yet another syringe, this one with penicillin.

Jayme turned her head in time to see the doctor dimple her arm with the needle. “Stop! What is that? I don’t handle sedatives well.”

“It’s only penicillin.”

She tried to jerk her arm away, but it was held fast by the restraint board. “I’m allergic!”