Their Barcelona Baby Bombshell
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Traci Douglass
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16.9K
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15
PROLOGUE
EVENING GLASS-OFF had arrived.
Isabella Rivas dug her toes into the still-warm sand of Playa de Bogatell and stared at the gorgeous sunset, the horizon streaked with vivid oranges and pinks and purples. This was her favorite time of day—when the Barcelona tourists had cleared out and the wind and waves had died down. Water smooth enough to skate on. So quiet and peaceful and...
“Help!” a woman cried from down the beach. “Help! My husband!”
Dropping her surfboard to the sand, Isabella sprinted toward the woman. “Señora, qué pasa?”
The woman, white as a ghost and frantic, waved her hands at Isabella, saying in a British accent, “I don’t speak Spanish. Please, you must help my husband. He’s drowning out there!”
“Got it, ma’am,” Isabella said, switching to English as she raced for the water. “I’ll get him in. Let the lifeguards know!”
She ran into the shallows, then dived into the deeper water just beyond the sandbar, swimming hard in the direction the woman pointed. Black water surrounded her in the night, the neon red of the bobbing buoy ahead glowing like a beacon in the shadows. As her head surfaced between strokes, she spotted a vague white blob on the surface, and her adrenaline skyrocketed. In her periphery another person swam in the same direction. Too soon for the lifeguards on shore to catch up.
“Sir!” she yelled, treading water as she reached the man. “Sir! Can you hear me?”
No response.
His complexion was gray and lips bluish, and Isabella knew from her years as a paramedic that things were not good. Impossible to know exactly what had caused this, but one thing was clear—the man wasn’t breathing.
“What can I do to help?” an accented male voice asked from beside her.
“Help me get him to shore, then he’s going to need CPR.” Isabella got on one side of the man, supporting his head while the other guy took the man’s other side, and together they got the victim to dry land. The lifeguards met them there with a medical kit, and Isabella quickly told them who she was and what she needed while the Good Samaritan who’d joined her in the water began chest compressions. He seemed competent—more than competent—which was handy.
“My name’s Isabella Rivas. I’m a licensed paramedic with Ambulancias Lázaro. We found this man unresponsive in the water by the buoy there, and he needed immediate medical attention.” She turned to the man doing CPR. “Does he have a pulse? Respirations?”
“No,” the man said, his focus on the patient. “Still nonresponsive.”
“Do you have a portable defibrillator?” she asked the lifeguards in Catalan, the local dialect. “Call 061 now, please!”
One of the lifeguards pulled the machine out from their medical pack while the other went to comfort the frantic spouse and call emergency services. Isabella grabbed a nearby towel to dry the victim’s chest before attaching the sticky defibrillator pads while the man across from her continued his compressions. Their eyes met briefly, his dark and chocolate brown, and she absently registered he was handsome, but now wasn’t the time.
Once the pads were in place, she turned to the machine and pushed the button to cue it up. When the light came on and it beeped, she yelled, “Clear!”
The man across from her immediately lifted his hands away and scooted back, as if it was second nature. Isabella pushed the button, sending a jolt of current to the man’s stopped heart. His body jerked but then returned to stillness.
“Any cardiac signs yet?” she asked as the other man pressed his fingers to the victim’s carotid.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Right.” She readied the machine again and hit the button. The man’s body jerked again, then flopped back onto the sand. His color turned grayer, and Isabella didn’t like the look of it. In the distance, sirens wailed. Help was on the way, thank goodness. Whether the man had drowned or had a cardiac arrest, he needed to get to a hospital ASAP or he’d be dead. She cast the machine aside and took over compressions from the man to avoid tiring him out. He moved to the air bag the lifeguard had attached to a mask over the victim’s nose and mouth to help him breathe. They got into a rhythm then, her with the compressions and him with the breaths, like they’d been working as a team for years. Nice to have someone she could depend on.
Eventually, the ambulance arrived, and Isabella turned the case over to her colleagues, giving them a rundown of how she’d found the man and what they’d done to assist him up to that point. The victim now had a faint pulse and breathed on his own and responded to calls, though mostly incoherently. Isabella guessed cardiac arrest, because of the still, smooth water. There were still rip currents, but none really to speak of where they’d found the man. For treatment they were taking him to St. Aelina’s, the new, state-of-the-art training hospital nearby, so he was in good hands.
As she watched the ambulance pull away and the lifeguards return to their post tower, the mystery man beside her finally introduced himself.
“Carlos Martinez,” he said. From his dark good looks, she’d say Spanish, but his accent wasn’t local. “Good work on that victim.”
“Same to you,” she said, shaking his hand, doing her best not to glance down at his, tanned and toned almost-naked torso. “Isabella Rivas. Where are you from?”
His grin grew wider, his teeth white and straight in the gathering darkness. “Havana, Cuba. I just moved to Barcelona recently.”
“Well, benvingut a la meva Ciutat,” she said in Catalan, then chuckled at his slightly confused look. The local dialect wasn’t much different from regular Spanish, but considering most people spoke Cubano, a form of the language, in his homeland, it made translation unnecessary, especially since they both had spoken English during the rescue. She laughed then smiled at him. “Welcome to my city.”
He nodded, his widening smile doing all sorts of naughty things inside her.
Whoa.
Romance wasn’t on her to-do list. She loved a good rom com with a happily-ever-after as much as the next person, but after spending years taking care of everyone else in her family, this time now was just for her.
Even with her off-the-charts attraction to this guy. And it wasn’t just his gorgeousness that drew her to him. It was the cool, calm proficiency he’d shown during the rescue. She had a thing for men who knew what they were doing at work and at play, and this guy had competency written all over him.
“So, Isabella Rivas,” Carlos said as they started walking back to where her surfboard still rested in the sand. “Would you like to get a drink? I know I could sure use one.”
Taken aback a bit, she was glad to be bending over to pick up her surfboard so he couldn’t see her face. Her cheeks were hot, and her heart slammed against her rib cage like she was a besotted teen instead of an independent thirty-four-year-old woman. She took her time getting the board, tossing her long, damp dark brown braid over her shoulder before straightening. Normally, she’d tell him she wasn’t interested and be done with it. But she was interested. More than she should be. One drink. What would it hurt? Besides, she could use a drink to ease her adrenaline buzz from earlier, otherwise she’d never get to sleep tonight, and she had a shift in the morning.
“Fine,” she said, turning back to him, the chemistry crackling around them like fireworks. “There’s a bar just up the way. Good food, reasonable prices. Want to go there?”
Carlos bowed slightly, giving her a view of the rippling muscles in his broad shoulders and upper back, and her mouth definitely didn’t start watering. “Whatever you desire.”
What she suddenly desired was to climb him like a tree, but that thought only unsettled her more.
Down, girl. Down.
She wasn’t like this. She never flirted or threw herself at guys, but something about Carlos made her melt inside. She swallowed hard past the lump of rising lust in her throat and flashed him a wobbly smile. “Great. This way, then.”
Isabella stowed her surfboard in one of the lockers nearby, then joined him again on the boardwalk.
“Do you come to Bogatell Beach often?” he asked. “You obviously like surfing.”
“I do.” She smiled, looking straight ahead and not at him, for fear she’d do something nuts—like kiss him or something. Seriously. She needed to get over this...whatever this was. Talking about surfing helped. Surfing always calmed her. Her go-to destressor. “I like it because it’s quieter. Less tourists. The waves aren’t great here usually, but every once in a while you can catch some good ones. And it’s close to where I live.”
“Interesting,” he said, frowning slightly. “Some other locals I met in my uncle’s bar talked about a place called Killers for surfing. They said it’s kind of a secret.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve gone there, too, several times, and the name suits it. Good action, but sometimes after work, I just want to relax and get away from people, you know?”
“I do.” He grinned. “I hope I’m not intruding tonight.”
“Not at all,” she said, and surprisingly, she meant it. There was an ease about him that helped calm her. “You said your uncle owns a bar here? Which one?”
“Encanteri,” he said. “Ever heard of it?”
“Absolutely. It’s one of the hottest nightspots in town.” She and some of her friends had been trying to get in there for months, but the lines were terrible. It would likely only get worse with summer on the way and the tourist rushing to the city. “Maybe I’ve got an in then, with you.”
“Maybe you do.” He met her gaze and held it a fraction longer than normal, and her pulse stuttered.
Oh, boy.
“Uh...” Isabella said, fumbling her words and her footsteps, getting her flip-flops tangled and nearly tripping. Thankfully, Carlos steadied her with a hand on her arm to keep her from face-planting on the boardwalk. Zings of fresh awareness stormed through her nervous system from their point of contact. “The, um, bar is just over there.”
Isabella pointed to a glowing neon sign for El Chiringuito. Nothing fancy, but the food was good and the service excellent. They got an umbrella-covered table out on the deck overlooking the beach and the ocean beyond and placed their orders.
“So,” Carlos said, once the server had brought their drinks—cava for her, sangria for him. “You said this beach is close to where you live?” She gave him a look, and he laughed. “Not trying to be a creeper. Honest. Just making chitchat. I want to know more about you, Isabella. You intrigue me.”
She was intrigued, too. Way more than she should be. He was just so charming and nice, and low-key. In her job, she needed good radar for deceit and shady characters, and she got no weird vibes at all. Carlos seemed just what he said—a newly arrived expat from Cuba, looking to find his way in Barcelona. She found it completely endearing and disarming. Still, she wasn’t an idiot. She wasn’t giving some random stranger her address, no matter how hot.
“I live in El Poulenou,” she said, taking a sip of her pink sparkling wine. The bubbles tickled her nose. “And you?”
“I’m actually living above my uncle’s bar at the moment.” Carlos watched her over the rim of his glass. “He’s the one who convinced me to move to Spain in the first place. It’s a nice flat, some might even say luxurious—at least by city standards.”
“Nice.” She smiled. “Is your uncle your only family here?”
Carlos’s smile faded. He set his glass down on the table, his dark brows knit. “He’s my only family period.”
“Oh.” She gulped more wine, the alcohol swirling nicely in her empty stomach, loosening her inhibitions slightly. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to touch a sore spot.” She sighed and sat back, letting her walls down a bit. “There were times when I wished my family would go away.”
He gave a surprised snort. “That doesn’t sound good.”
She waved dismissively. “Oh, I don’t really mean it. It’s just hard, because I’m the oldest of six kids and ended up taking care of my younger siblings most of the time after my mom passed away when I was thirteen. My dad got sick shortly thereafter, too.”
“Ouch. I’m sorry,” he said, repeating her words from earlier. He leaned closer over the table, close enough for her to see the tiny flecks of gold in his brown eyes. Such nice, kind eyes. “Must’ve been really hard on you, taking on so much so young.”
Rather than answer, she just nodded, grateful when their shared order of the bar’s famous nachos arrived, smelling amazing. They each dished up a portion and ate.
“Anyway,” she continued after devouring a mouthful of cheesy, spicy goodness, “one of the reasons I moved to Barcelona was to get away from my siblings once they were all grown and gone.” She laughed. “Ironically, though, my younger brother Diego followed me here. In fact, he works at one of the local hospitals nearby, so I see him all the time now on my ambulance runs.”
Carlos chuckled. “Funny how fate works out sometimes, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking up, their gazes tangling again. A tiny dot of cheese clung to the corner of his mouth, and Isabella licked her lips, imagining licking it off him instead. A wild, reckless sense of excitement had taken hold of her now, one she hadn’t felt in a long time. Too long. From the twinkle in his dark eyes, Carlos felt the same.
It was ridiculous. Silly. And so on.
They had barely spoken a word about anything beyond dinner, but from the casual way his leg kept brushing against hers under the table, they’d be going to bed together. Nothing long-term, nothing more than a one-night stand. Light, fun, no strings attached. Just two lonely strangers enjoying a sudden connection and a moment together. Isabella couldn’t wait to get him alone.
Beneath the table, she slipped her foot out of her flip-flop and slowly ran her toes up the inside of his bare ankle, loving the way he shivered beneath her light touch. Oh, yeah. This was happening. Her widening grin matched his own. “Yes. Funny how fate works sometimes.”
