Caribbean Heat Read online

  “Caribbean Heat”

  M/M Gay Romance

  David Horne

  © 2018

  David Horne

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.

  Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life. If you’re not sure where to start, see here: http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com/safe-sex-resources/ (courtesy of Jerry Cole).

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images and are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  Edition v1.00 (2018.03.14)

  http://www.DavidHorneauthor.com

  Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: Elryc Caledon, Jacy, Judy M. and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Epilogue – Two Years Later

  Free Book “Princes of Westlake”

  Chapter One

  When the helicopter landed on the beach of the Caribbean island with the unpronounceable name, Dr. Lawrence Jones already felt sick to his stomach. His father would have said that it was his conscience, that he knew better than to go, but he quickly shook the image of his father out of his head. The last thing that he needed to deal with right then was his father’s disapproval.

  The flight to the island itself hadn’t been too bad, because it had, at least, been a real plane. But the bumpy ride in and out of the mountains that peppered the lush island had made him dizzy. He thought that he was supposed to think that the helicopter having no doors was fun. Instead, he hated it.

  He was supposed to get there and to start helping people straight away. He didn't think that he was going to be able to unless he took an antihistamine. It hadn’t occurred to him to have one before he got on the helicopter because the pilot had assured him that it was a short, five-minute flight, which might have been true, but if so, it was the longest five minutes of his life.

  They finally landed on a beach and Dr. Jones stumbled out of the helicopter onto the sand with minimal help. For a second, he was sure that he looked comically incompetent. He seemed to be taller than everyone who had taken him there, which made his face-plant feel even more embarrassing, and his balance was off when he got up and tried to brush the sand off his perfectly acceptable Caribbean island clothes. His brother-in-law was Cuban, so he had taken it upon himself to teach Lawrence how to dress for a hotter climate. Lawrence had thought that he was ready, but as he tried to brush the sand off his guayabera, which was surely stained, he couldn’t help but want to go back home for a bit more training.

  A man cleared his throat in front of him. Lawrence set his gaze on him and tried for a smile. He couldn’t see the man that well—the sunlight was shining in his eyes and despite the sunglasses that he was wearing, his eyes were sensitive to the Caribbean sun still. The man took a step closer, extending his hand to shake it.

  Lawrence wiped his hand on the light-brown linen pants that Pancho had insisted he buy before he went on the mission. Still, when he shook the man’s hand, his was sticky and warm. It was a good, solid handshake, at least when sweat wasn’t taken into account.

  “Hello, Doctor Jones?” the man said, in the hottest American-accented British English that Lawrence had ever heard in his life. “We've been expecting you.”

  Lawrence could feel his heart start to beat faster, but he was sure it had to do with the heat, and nothing to do with the man in front of him. “Well, I'm here,” he said, smiling back at him, feeling a little silly when he heard his cookie-cutter Midwest American accent coming out of his mouth. “Sorry about that entrance, but you should know that I like people to remember me.” The man smiled back at him then. Now that Lawrence’s eyes were used to the sun and that the man was standing so close to him, Lawrence could see what he looked like, and he was gorgeous. He was glad that he hadn't noticed his looks before he had made a joke at his own expense, because he often got nervous around men who he liked. He wasn’t too much shorter than him—maybe a couple of inches—with dirty blond hair, big brown eyes and an easy smile. He had a slight tan, probably the most that he could tan because of how pale his skin normally was, and beautiful cheekbones. A long, straight nose with a slight bump made an otherwise perfectly classically beautiful face look strong and full of character. Lawrence could have spent all day looking at his face and doing absolutely nothing else, the man was that gorgeous.

  “I’m sure people are going to remember you for other reasons.”

  Lawrence smiled, his cheeks red. He hoped that this person would think it was because of the sun and not because he thought that he was handsome. The last thing that he wanted to do was reveal himself as being gay when he had just arrived in a new place. He didn’t hide that part of himself, but he didn’t want people to start thinking of him as the “Gay guy” rather than “the doctor.” He knew there was a danger of that in a place as small as this island.

  “Sorry,” the man said. “I never did introduce myself. My name is Graham Self. I will be your executive liaison while you’re here.”

  Lawrence raised his eyebrows. “My administrative liaison?”

  “Executive liaison, and yes, I'm basically the person who handles everything administrative around here. Mind you, I have a secretary, but it’s my job to make your job easier.”

  “Just my job?”

  “No, all aid workers. I handle their schedule, their food, their lodging… if you have an emergency at any time, your toilet doesn't flush, you need food or you need to leave the island for any reason, you come to me.”

  Lawrence nodded. “I was under the impression that I would mostly be left to my own devices.”

  “You will be,” Graham said. “Unfortunately, we don't have enough manpower to give you a fully staffed office. You have a nurse, Ms. Karen Lloyd. She’s incredible, and she will obviously assist you. She has been on the island longer than I have.”

  Lawrence nodded once more. “Okay.”

  Graham continued. “You’ll also have a secretary. There is a small clinic where you're expected to practice, and there's an apartment on top of it. It’s not very big, but it’s fully outfitted. I made sure that they put a portable air conditioner unit in there for you before you arrived. The island’s houses are built in a way that allows for windows to be open and for air to be let through. So your apartment should, in theory, never get too hot.”

  “But?”

  “We want you to be as comfortable as possible,” Graham Self said, his tone changing. Lawrence t
ried not to wince. He understood that his position was often filled for only months, sometimes only weeks, before the doctor on site would get sick of living on the island and would decide to go back home. That wasn’t enough to deter him when he was making arrangements to go to the island, but now that he was faced with the reality of it, he worried about it a little. He had been told what to expect, but it wasn’t the same as being there, living among the people, trying not to die in the heat. That wasn’t what discouraged most people, but Lawrence didn’t want to think about statistics. His philosophy was that of compassionate care and he liked the idea that if he made one patient’s life better, then he made the entire islanders’ lives better, but he wasn’t sure that it would hold true in the face of such adversity.

  “So the apartment is part of the clinic?” He asked, trying to sound less panicked than he felt.

  Graham shook his head. “No, the apartment is attached, but it’s upstairs and no one but you will have access to it. Let me show you.”

  Lawrence followed him into the island. He didn't even look back once, not at the helicopter, which had now quieted down, or the people lugging his bags around. He had understood that they would drop his stuff off at his new apartment later. Behind a wall of trees was a small, unpaved road and a little two-seater car that looked about forty years old.

  “Most people don't live near the beach here,” he said as he held the door open for Lawrence, as if they were on a date. Lawrence got into the convertible, listening to Graham. He never seemed to stop talking, not even when he was walking around the car to get in the driver seat.

  “Sometimes, there are tourists. But they are few and far between. Getting to this island is difficult and expensive, and with the earthquakes over the past two years, people are doing what they can to avoid it.”

  “There have been more?”

  “Yes, but they haven’t been too bad,” Graham said. The car purred under him, the sound of the engine the only thing that Lawrence could hear other than his voice. Lawrence noted that it was a stick shift, so even if he had wanted to drive it, he wouldn’t have been able to. “The cure for earthquakes is expensive and it takes a long time, so it’s been… difficult.”

  “What happens when there’s another earthquake?”

  “We have shelters set in place, but the infrastructure isn’t there to handle a big disaster. Anything over a 6.0 on the Richter scale is a huge concern. Traoms is right on the Caribbean Plate and the ground is soft and wet.”

  Lawrence stared at him when he didn’t elaborate. “I don’t know much about earthquakes.”

  Graham smiled, a little humorlessly. “That’ll change. It means that the soil amplifies shaking, so buildings are more vulnerable, even if the epicenter of the earthquake isn’t technically here.”

  “Tra—tra… is the island prepared?”

  Graham shook his head. “Most people call Traoms the skerry. It’s technically too big to be a skerry, but it’s rocky enough, and locals say that no one wants to come here so technically it isn’t fit for human habitation.”

  Lawrence leaned back into the passenger seat of the car, his shoulders slumping down.

  “It’s rough,” Graham said. “The people here feel abandoned, and while there’s quite a few of us, there’s only so much we can do to help. Humans are powerless in the face of the Earth.”

  “Right,” Lawrence said.

  Graham turned to him and smiled. “Relax, though, it’s not that bad. I mean, the weather is great, the food is incredible and the locals are super nice.”

  “How long have you been here for?”

  “Around three years,” Graham said. “A little longer than any of my other assignments, but the skerry is a very particular case. They need help, they’re not getting much international aid, so the fewer workers they get, well, they need to be well-organized.”

  Lawrence nodded. “And that’s where you come in?”

  Graham shrugged. “I try, but it’s difficult sometimes.”

  Lawrence licked his lips. “Yeah, well, you’re only human. Not to besmirch your administrative skills, which I’m sure are spectacular.”

  That seemed to take Graham by surprise. He moved his head back and forth and then smiled. For a second, though Lawrence was sure that he was imagining it, Lawrence thought that he might have winked at him. He was sure that he was making it up, though, that it was little more than wishful thinking. He cleared his throat and continued to look ahead, giving himself a break from this man’s beautiful face. He couldn’t focus too much on him, he couldn’t think about him like that too much. He was there to work, not to fall for the administrative liaison, or whatever it was that Graham was supposed to be.

  “They are fine,” Graham finally said. They had pulled up to a street which was lined with colorful houses and a ton of trees, every wall covered with colorful plants that Lawrence didn’t know the names of. “We’re here. The island is about five minutes away by car, and obviously you can go out to the beach for a swim or whatever whenever you want to. You won’t have a car, but there is a bus that comes out here every day.”

  Lawrence raised his eyebrows, looking around the island. It was one street that went up and down from one edge of the island to the other, and he supposed there was another beach on the far side of the road. He got out of the car and walked to where Graham was standing. “There's a bus?”

  Graham nodded. “Yes, but there's only one. It circles the island every day, just once per day. It's mostly for the most vulnerable, for the elderly, and for the children. It also stops by both churches, and yes, there are two. One Catholic, one Anglican.”

  Lawrence smiled as he looked at both sides of the island, at the only two bits of architecture that stood above the otherwise rectangular, two-story homes.

  “Are you religious, Doctor?”

  “I’m a lapsed Catholic.”

  Graham nodded. “Aren’t we all? Nevertheless, the locals are religious. I recommend you go to church at least once to meet Father Meneses. He’s very kind and has the ear of everyone here.”

  “Noted,” Lawrence replied as he tried to swallow down the knot forming in his throat.

  “Don’t worry,” Graham said, as if he could read his mind. “They aren’t judgmental or anything. It’s just that he’s a pillar of the community and you will be too.”

  Lawrence laughed quietly.

  “You might have been one of many back in Ohio, Dr. Jones, but here, you’re the village doctor. Get used to the prestige that comes with that.”

  Lawrence nodded. “Hey, the first one of my jobs that comes with a house. Even my rural residency didn’t.”

  “You did a rural residency?”

  “Yes, but nowhere quite this… remote,” Lawrence replied.

  Graham nodded. They had walked far from his car and were now standing in front of a pale pink two-story home with bars on the windows.

  “The place is safe,” Graham explained when he saw the look in Lawrence’s eyes. “The bars are there so that the glass doesn’t shatter and fall out during an earthquake.”

  Lawrence blinked.

  Graham shrugged. “It doesn’t work. That’s not the way bars work. But there’s a psychological component to making people feel safe, and if the people here will feel safe with bars on the windows, then I’m going to fit bars on the windows.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Doctor—”

  “You don’t have to call me that.”

  “In public I do.”

  Lawrence could feel himself blushing. Graham ignored the effect that he had on him, or maybe he didn’t notice—Lawrence hoped that it was the latter one—as he grabbed a wad of keys out of the pockets of his black shorts. It was a vintage iron knob that required a vintage iron key and Lawrence couldn’t help but marvel at the way that the long, slender key looked in his hands. He hadn’t even realized that people could hold keys gracefully, not until he had seen Graham holding a key as if it were a freaking instrument
. Lawrence resisted the urge to sigh. He thought that he should have gotten laid before he decided to take this job, so at least he wouldn’t be thinking so much about Graham Self instead of his job.

  “This is your clinic,” Graham said as he walked into the room, turning on the light and stepping off to the side when he did so. Lawrence would hardly call it a clinic, but at least it was trying, which he supposed was better than nothing. It was a long room with the one barred window and a door in the very back.

  “That’s a bathroom, not a private room, I’m sorry to say,” Graham said when he saw Lawrence eyeing the door. “You have a screen, but it only affords you with a little privacy.”

  “There’s no consultation room? The privacy of my patients—”

  “Is important, I know,” Graham said, waving his hand in front of his face. “When we do reproductive health clinics, we usually do them at the churches.”

  “When we…”

  “Karen and I,” Graham said, smiling at him.

  “Is that something you do a lot?”

  Graham nodded. “When we have time so the answer is, unfortunately, sometimes. The pregnancy rate for teenagers here on the skerry is pretty high, plus there is a big problem with people in the service and STDs. It’s not as bad as maybe ten, twenty years ago, but still. We try to educate people about reproductive health, but there's only so much we can do.”

  “I thought you were an executive liaison.”

  “Administrative,” Graham said. “And yes. But there aren’t that many sexual education teachers around here and it’s my job to make things for the population here better.”

  “I thought it was your job to administrate.”

  “It is,” Graham said. “That’s one way I make their lives better. Come with me.”

  Lawrence followed Graham outside once again. Once outside again, Lawrence noted the heat streaming from the Caribbean sun and hitting off the asphalt sidewalk, and how much cooler the clinic, as small as it was, was. The fact that it barely got any sunlight certainly helped and Lawrence had already noted that many people kept their doors open, surely to let whatever wind the island got come through their houses. They were soon standing in front of another wooden door, this one right next to the clinics.