Fleur handed him the crutch. Rick wouldn’t let her fall over, particularly if she was holding his daughter’s hand. Rick got Ellie into her coat, and grabbed the pen and writing pad from the bed.
“You’ll look after Fleur’s pen for her, won’t you?” He put the pen into Ellie’s pocket, zipping it up so she didn’t lose it. “And remember to walk very slowly. No jumping around.”
“No, Dad.” Ellie slipped her hand into Fleur’s, looking up at her. “I’ll take care of you...”
They drew up outside the library, and Rick unstrapped Ellie from her seat while Fleur eased herself out of the car. Weight and balance. All the things that she knew from dancing suddenly made Fleur feel stronger, the way they had when she’d been a teenager. She made sure that she was steady on her feet, and then took Ellie’s outstretched hand. The little girl was clearly taking her responsibilities seriously.
* * *
Pam was waiting behind her desk, and when she greeted Ellie, that special mischievous smile that she kept for the kids, and a select few adults, surfaced. “Hi, Ellie. You’ve come all the way from England?”
“Yes.” Ellie was looking around as if she’d just walked into a wonderland.
If Fleur knew Pam, she’d be persuading Ellie, any time now, that she actually had.
“And what do you think of Maple Island?”
“I like it. We live in a lighthouse.”
“Really?” Pam’s face reflected every bit of the magic of that statement. “I think I’ve got a story about a lighthouse somewhere...”
Ellie took the bait, and followed Pam over to her desk. Pam produced a book from her handbag, showing it to the little girl. “Would you like to have this?”
Ellie nodded vigorously, and Pam handed over the book. “Perhaps your dad will read it with you.”
Rick was smiling. That seemed to be pretty much a constant state when he was with his daughter. “We’ll read it tonight at bedtime, shall we, Ellie? Say thank you to Mrs. Vandenberg.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Vander...” Ellie tried to get her tongue around the name and failed.
“Call me Pam. That’s a darn sight easier. We’ll put the book into a bag, so that you can carry it home with you.”
Pam selected a child-sized pink bag from under her desk, holding it open for Ellie to slide her book into it and then looping the straps over her shoulder. The little girl thanked Pam again without having to be reminded, and ran back to Rick to show him what she’d been given, while Pam turned her attention to chivvying the last of the library’s patrons off the premises and closing and locking the doors.
“I should put something in the box...” Rick murmured, reaching for his wallet, and Fleur laid her hand on his arm. Something tingled between them. Something warm and... She snatched her hand away.
“It’s okay. Pam won’t hear of it, she likes to give all the kids something. The Vandenberg millions can stand it.”
“Millions...?”
“Pam might not look much like a society lady, dripping with jewels, but she could be if she wanted it. She prefers the library, though.”
“Right. Lot to learn. Still.” Rick grinned, putting his wallet back into his pocket.
“Yep. Me too. Still.”
He shot her a smile, and then turned to follow Ellie, who had run off to look at one of the display stands. Pam returned, looking around with one of her Everything’s as it should be smiles.
“I’ll show Rick and Ellie to the children’s library. We’ll go to the reading room, I think.”
“The reading room?” That was where Pam kept the Emergency Tequila.
“I think it warrants it, don’t you?”
* * *
Rick sat on one of the low benches in the well-stocked children’s library, watching as Ellie sorted through the pile of books that they’d selected together from the shelves.
“Dad... Is Fleur your girlfriend?”
It was a reasonable enough question. Ellie knew all about girlfriends. The kind who were little more than just friends, who accompanied them on days out and sometimes spent the evening at his place, but never the night. The kind who understood when Rick told them that Ellie had to come first in his life.
“No, sweetie. I’m Fleur’s doctor, so I’m not allowed to be her boyfriend. It’s against the rules.”
“What rules?”
Just about every rule there was. The one he’d set himself that any relationship that looked as if it might impact on Ellie’s life was forbidden. The one that said he was happy living without a woman’s touch. Rick concentrated on the more obvious one.
“When you start being a doctor, you make a promise...”
“Like the Girl Scouts...?” Ellie’s face lit up. Someone had told her about the island’s Girl Scout group and she’d been talking about it ever since. “I want to join when I’m old enough...”
“Um...more or less.” It was what Ellie understood, so the comparison would have to do. “A doctor has to make a promise and keep all the rules. And one of those rules is that I’m not allowed to ask any of my women patients to be my girlfriend.”
“What if she asks you?”
“No, Ellie. It’s really important. It doesn’t matter who asks who, I’m not allowed to go out with a patient.”
“Oh.” Ellie was obviously thinking it over. Rick braced himself for whatever was coming next. “When Fleur isn’t at the clinic anymore she can be your girlfriend, though.”
Rick had tried not to think about that. “When Fleur leaves the clinic she’s going back to Boston.”
“But she could be your girlfriend in Boston.” Ellie could be relentless at times. Rick just wished she’d pick on something else to be relentless about.
“No, sweetie. She might be a friend, but that’s not the same as a girlfriend. You know that, don’t you.”
Ellie nodded. “Can she be my friend too?”
Rick smiled. Like most children, Ellie was quick to see when someone was genuinely interested in her, and on the way here Fleur had made a point of talking to his daughter, telling her about the island and its inhabitants. “Yes, I think that would be quite all right.”
“Is Fleur in the Girl Scouts...?”
“I don’t know. You could ask her if you liked.” Fleur and Pam had been closeted in the reading room together for a while now. Perhaps he should go and see what they were up to.
“Stay here, Ellie. I’m just going to see whether Fleur and Pam are finished yet.”
Keeping Ellie firmly in the corner of his vision, Rick walked to the reading room door. The door was closed, and he decided he should knock first.
“Come in, Rick...” Pamela’s voice floated through the paneled door. “You’re just in time.”
“In time for...”
Tequila...?
That was the last thing that Rick had expected. The elegant room had the air of having changed very little since Ezra Van Den Berg had lived here, and Pamela and Fleur were sitting on either side of a finely polished table. Between them stood a bottle of tequila and a couple of shot glasses. Salt and slices of lime, arranged on a saucer, indicated that they were taking this seriously.
“It’s a bit of a tradition.” Fleur was eyeing him with the look of someone who had been found out doing something she shouldn’t. “I’m only having a splash.”
“This is a Maple Island tradition?”
Pamela snorted with laughter. “Not likely. My tradition. Will you join us? We’re toasting the prospective success of the Fright Night.” She poured a small measure into each glass, pushing one toward Fleur.
“No. Thanks, but I’m driving. But don’t let me stop you.” Fleur wasn’t on any drugs that stopped her from drinking, and her face was glowing with the kind of enjoyment that Rick wanted to see.
“Of course. Help yourself to lime, then...” Pa
mela pushed the saucer toward him. The two women counted to three together, licked a smear of salt from the backs of their hands and then downed the contents of their glasses, following it up with a slice of lime.
“Oh.” Fleur’s eyes widened, and she shook her head, grinning. “That’s good. I’d forgotten...”
She’d been forgetting a lot of things. But now it seemed that she was clawing her way back, with no less ferocity than Rick would have expected from her. She was equal to the challenge, and he began to wonder whether he was. Her smile and her shining eyes were more intoxicating than a whole bottle of tequila, worm and all.
Pamela rose, collecting up the bottle and unlocking the glass doors of one of the ornate bookcases. When she pressed the panel at the back, another hidden door sprung open, and Pamela put the bottle into the hidey-hole behind it.
“This is our little secret, Rick.” Pamela shot him a conspiratorial smile and Fleur chuckled.
“As if the whole of the island doesn’t know where you keep the tequila, Pam.”
“I’m the one with the key, though.” Pamela closed and re-locked the cabinet. “Has Ellie finished looking around the children’s library?”
“Yes, I think so. I assume you’re both finished?”
“For now.” Fleur closed her writing pad. “I think we’ve got a few ideas to get started with.”
* * *
Ellie was bundled up in her coat again and she carefully took Fleur’s hand, leading her out of the library. As Rick went to follow them, Pamela beckoned him back.
“This is Ellie’s welcome pack.” She handed him a brightly colored folder with Ellie’s name on it. “I hope we’ll see her again soon.”
“I’m sure you will. Thank you.”
Pamela nodded, a quiet smile hovering on her lips. “Good job, Dr. Fleming.”
“You too, Mrs. Vandenberg.”
For a moment, the artifice of it all hovered in the air between them. The doctor and the librarian, both helping a patient. Then the sound of Fleur’s voice smashed all of that to smithereens. Fleur wasn’t just a patient to him, however many times he told himself so.
“Is your bag too heavy for you?” Ellie had been dragging her bag of books across the floor.
Ellie nodded, and Fleur bent toward her, hanging onto her crutch with one hand and taking the straps of the bag from Ellie’s hand to lift it off the floor. A small thing, done to help a child, but Rick couldn’t imagine Fleur doing it two days ago. They were getting somewhere.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE LAST COUPLE of days had wreaked a change. Fleur’s room at the clinic was no longer the tidy, anonymous place that it had been. Plans and drawings littered the bed, and piles of fabric, their colors and textures inviting touch, were stacked on the chest of drawers. Both Alex and Cody had noticed, and commented on it, but neither of them seemed to mind the mess. Fleur was taking a hold on her life again.
“I want to check on those exercises you’re doing today.” Rick made it a habit to oversee all his patients’ physio sessions from time to time. Seeing how a patient moved, how their bodies reacted to stress helped him to assess their injuries.
“Give me five... I just want to finish this, or it’ll all fall apart.” Fleur was running tacking stitches along a piece of silver-gray material.
“Okay.” Rick removed a bundle of fabric scraps from the chair and sat down.
“I’m not trying to get out of it... I’ll be along in a minute.”
“That’s all right, I know. You’re no longer my most awkward patient.”
She shot him a smile. “Really? Maybe I’ll have to try a bit harder.”
“Try all you like. Mr. Harrington’s got you beaten hands down.” Salty Harrington had been the hero of the hour when he’d taken his fishing boat out into a fierce storm on New Year’s Day to rescue staff and patients who had been stranded on the damaged ferry, which had become marooned on a rocky outcrop. He’d broken both major bones in one of his legs in the process and Rick reckoned that the iron determination he’d shown that day was also what made him the clinic’s most awkward patient.
“I guess I’m not much of a match for Young Salty...” She looked up from her stitching.
“Salty I get. Young...?” Most people called Salty Harrington Old Salty.
“Well, he was young when he first got the name. His father was Old Salty. My dad says that Old Salty Harrington was a force to be reckoned with.”
“Even saltier than his son?” Rick teased, settling back into his seat. Fleur had a million stories, about the island and everyone on it, and he was starting to enjoy hearing them.
“My dad says that Old Salty was a real terror. Young Salty’s a darling by comparison. What’s he done now?”
“He told me he sleeps with his eyes open, so there’s no need to wake him up when I’m talking to him.”
Fleur chuckled. “There probably isn’t. Sleeping with your eyes open isn’t such a bad thing when you’re at sea. I used to love Salty’s sea stories when I was a kid.”
“So does Ellie. Apparently he paid a visit to the daycare center the other day, and told them all a story about sea monsters.”
“The one where the crew danced and sang sea shanties, and it calmed the monster and he joined in? Because he was just lonely?” Fleur grinned, fastening off her tacking and carefully folding the fabric she was working on.
“Nothing quite so positive. I think everyone got eaten in this one.”
“Perhaps he’s easing them all in gently. Young Salty’s not so bad, you know...” She slid to the edge of the bed, reaching for her crutches. “You know the story about him? I think it’s rather sad.”
“No. What’s the story?” Rick was under no illusions that Fleur would probably tell him anyway.
“When Salty was young, he and a girl from the island were in love. Everyone used to say that he was the most romantic young man on the island.”
“Sounds improbable. But go on...”
“They had it all planned out. The Harringtons were a naval family and Salty was going to sign up and when he’d done his first year’s service they were going to get married. They wrote to each other every day, but then suddenly her letters stopped arriving. Salty never spoke about it when he returned, but he also never looked at another woman. Everyone said his heart had been broken.”
“I think I prefer the stories about the sea monsters. They’re not so sad...”
“Yeah. That’s because monsters aren’t real.” Fleur started to walk slowly out of the room. Rick followed her, wondering if she knew that he was just about to disprove the notion. Monsters were real, and today he was going to try to fight one of hers.
* * *
“I want to see you walking, first...” Rick had strolled with her to the well-equipped gym. “No...not the walking machine. Just up and down a bit.”
“Okay...” He could have assessed her gait on the way down to the gym if he’d wanted to. But she was learning to trust Rick’s methods and Fleur started to walk.
“Great. That’s good.” He approached her, reaching for one of the crutches. “You’re steady enough on your feet with just one...”
Fair enough. She’d proved that already walking while Ellie had held her hand. Fleur handed him the crutch and started to walk again. Up and down, trying not to think about what Rick was planning to get her to do next.
“Now give me the other one.”
Fleur’s heart sank. Heidi, her physiotherapist, had suggested this and she’d refused outright. Maggie had tried too. Rick was a harder prospect.
“I...suppose...” The floor seemed to wobble suddenly, beckoning her to fall flat on her face.
“You’re not going to fall. Trust me.” He moved around to face her, holding his hands out.
Right. The temptation to trust Rick was getting a little too much these days. Fleur
had been working on not trusting him, because she wasn’t going to be around for much longer. But one look at his face told her that all the excuses in the world, wrapped in paper and tied with a bow, weren’t going to wash with him.
“Give me the crutch, Fleur,” he said firmly.
“All right!” Fear made her snap at him, but he ignored it. Fleur handed him the other crutch, and he propped it up against the wall.
She didn’t want to hold onto him. Didn’t want to feel the buzz of electricity that seemed to crackle between them every time they touched. But she was too afraid not to. She reached out, putting her hands in his.
“Okay. Here’s my little story...” He was holding onto her securely, and the floor seemed to be under control once more. “My aunt broke her hip a few years back. She had a hip replacement, and went into rehab. When she got out she was back on her feet and walking.”
“And... You’re going to shame me now? By telling me that even your aunt can do better than I can?”
“No. The rehab center did a good job, but they never took her stick away. Even when she was walking around inside the house, she always had her hand on something. The counter tops in the kitchen, the backs of chairs... She had this enormous rubber plant in the hall, and I saw her holding onto one of the leaves one day. It never would have supported her if she’d lost her balance.”
Fleur frowned. “She needed just to hold onto something. She wasn’t confident enough to walk on her own.”
“Yes, that’s right. Letting go is one of the biggest steps. I don’t want you to give your crutches up just yet, but you need to know that you can, and you will. Are you ready?”
No. She wasn’t ready for this. Walking alone into an uncertain future. But Rick wasn’t going to let her wriggle out of it, not the way she had with Heidi and Maggie. He would just keep pushing until she did it.
Slowly she took a couple of steps. Okay. This was good. She felt his grip relax a little until her hands were just resting in his. A few steps more, and their fingertips were barely touching.
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