by Annie O'Neil
His breath caught as she steadied herself, using his chest as an anchor. It was the first time he’d ever been grateful to be wearing five layers of clothes. Her hand on his bare chest? Just thinking about it shot his temperature up to the stratosphere.
Her eyes widened as they met his. A hot, intense connection froze the pair of them in place.
“You all right, you two?” Billy stepped forward.
As quickly as she’d fallen, Maggie pulled herself back into the ambulance doorway.
What the hell just happened there?
“Right.” Alex needlessly clapped his hands together. There was hardly a cast of thousands standing at attention. “Everyone we need here?”
Billy nodded. “Vicky, me, and Maggie, of course.”
As if he wasn’t aware of the flame-haired beauty who’d burst out of the ambulance like a film starlet ready to take the world by storm.
Billy pointed toward Salty’s boat. “There’re a couple of ferry crew over there by your fishing boat. Should be enough. A few passengers upstairs if we need ’em, but I would say they’re more hungover than helpful. We’ll take your lead.”
Alex’s years in the military kicked to the fore. He walked with Vicky and Billy toward Salty’s boat, issuing sharp, exacting instructions about how they’d load the twins onto the vessel using Maggie’s pre-established guidelines. He knew he sounded curt, like an automaton, but it helped blinker his thoughts. Right up until Maggie jumped down out of the cab and walked toward him. She was all legs and then some. From the tips of her high-profile athletic shoes to the farthest reach of her sprawl of flame-colored curls, she moved like a cross between a jungle cat and a supermodel, as if walking along an unsteady ferry deck with a storm raging around her was the most natural thing in the world.
“Dr. Kirkland? Where do you want me?”
All sorts of places it wouldn’t be appropriate to go into right now.
He shook his head. He felt like he was being invaded by an Alex he had never met before. One part Viking and one part Don Juan. In other words, one hundred percent opposite from the man he needed to be right now.
“Dr. Kirkland?” Maggie held up her hands and gave her fingers a wiggle. “Where do you want them and what do you want them doing?”
An explicit image of Maggie raking her colorful nails down his naked back blindsided him.
Her presence was more than distracting. She was lighting up all sorts of primal sensors he’d long thought were dead. Sparks and shocks were crackling against his insides as if someone was trying to start up an ice-cold truck in his privates.
He pulled off his hat again and scrubbed his hands through his hair. Half of him wanted to send her back to Boston on the bright yellow rescue boat he could see approaching at the far end of the ferry. The other half? He crushed the thoughts into the darkest corner of his brain he could find. He’d deal with that later.
“Stay with the ambo. We’ll sort out the swiftest transfer method and let you know when we need you.”
She pushed herself up to her full height, eyes flashing with something he couldn’t put a name to. Anger? Frustration?
“Listen here, Mr. Southern Drawl. That cute little accent and sexy hero act of yours isn’t going to work on me. I’m here to help, not stand around and look pretty.”
She did that all right. Without even trying.
Wait a minute. Sexy hero? Hardly. Work-focused single dad with about as much fun in his entire body as Maggie looked to have in her pinkie finger would be a better description. And a “cute” accent? Where he came from, all his accent did was ensure everyone knew he was from the wrong side of the tracks. It was why he’d joined the military. Which side of the tracks a person came from didn’t hold much sway on a battlefield.
Alex cleared his throat and readjusted his stance to that of commanding officer—a role he’d relinquished the day his wife had been killed. “Precisely why I need you to stay at the ambo. We’re loading the patients one by one. At my clinic we don’t leave juvenile, post-operative spinal injury patients on their own.”
What the—? Who’d drained his personality and refilled him with formaldehyde?
Maggie’s dismissive shrug confirmed she didn’t think much of his behavior either. “I wasn’t planning on abandoning them. And in my world? We call patients by their names. They have them, you know. Peyton and Connor Walsh. They’re kids. And they’re scared. Might be a good idea to come over here and introduce yourself before you carry on barking orders at everyone.”
Irritation flared in him hot and bright. He took patient care immensely seriously. He’d set up the clinic with the highest of standards for precisely that reason, and here she was giving him How to Treat a Patient for Beginners tips.
She was right, of course. Infuriating. But right.
“Hello...” Maggie waved a hand in front of his face. “Anybody home?”
Alex frowned. “There is a procedure to be followed. Chitchat can come later.”
“Wow.” Maggie didn’t even try to hide her distaste at his response.
He held up a hand and started ticking off questions on his fingers. “Have you checked on their life vests? The cover for transport? The waterproofing. The transfer protocol?”
“Obviously. We kind of saw to that when the ferry smashed into the rocks and we all thought we might drown.” She stared at him for a moment then started to laugh. “Omigawd! I didn’t put two and two together, but you’re him.”
“Who?” He was her boss, for one. That should be clear enough. His name was stitched onto his jacket. Made it easy to identify staff in moments of chaos. Just like this one.
“Dr. Protocol.”
He winced. Nice to know his reputation for exacting adherence to procedure had preceded him.
“Sorry. Sorry. That was meant to be my inside voice.” She teased her shoulders into performing an impish shrug of apology to match her rueful I really messed that up face.
Alex gritted his teeth.
She quirked an eyebrow at him.
I’m waiting, it said. And a whole lot more.
Everything about Maggie Green spoke to that perfect triple of determination, energy, and willingness to take risks. That sort of optimism wasn’t something you learned. It was something a person embodied. And Maggie positively glowed with it. A stark contrast to the cloud he was pretty sure shadowed him on most days.
In other words, if he was the phoenix burned to ashes, she was all flame.
Exactly the type of person they needed working with patients teetering on the ledge between despair and recovery.
Annoyingly.
The idea of three months working with Maggie Green was settling in about as easily as he’d taken to the mandatory grief counseling after Amy had been killed. Very. Poorly.
Maggie looked at him for a minute, arms crossed, jaw twitching with expectation. “C’mon, Dr. Kirkland. Come say hi.”
She turned without waiting for a response, those long legs of hers taking the few yards between him and the ambulance in a handful of strides. She turned around and crooked her arm, a smile teasing at the corners of her mouth as she beckoned him to join her. “I promise they don’t bite.”
Then she winked at him.
CHAPTER THREE
MAGGIE CLAMBERED INTO the back of the ambulance hoping her expression read more Hey, kids! We’re about to have an adventure rather than the more horrifying alternative.
Had she really just winked at her new boss?
How completely and totally mortifying.
She wasn’t a winker. She wasn’t even a flirt. And yet just five seconds in Alex Kirkland’s presence and for some insane reason she’d thought she’d had a little glimpse into his soul. Seen a kindred spirit. Which was completely insane. Bring on the straitjacket! Maggie Green’s finally lost the plot!
If only his
gorgeous southern accent hadn’t wriggled its way down her spine the way it had. The man wasn’t just sexy. Less than a handful of seconds in his arms and he’d dug up all sorts of sensations she hadn’t banked on feeling ever again. Since when did she get all tingly in her fastidiously padlocked magic garden?
Mercifully, Vicky stuck her head into the back of the ambulance instead of Alex and the proverbial ball started rolling.
Twenty hair-raising minutes later the impressive seadog manning the fishing boat was pulling up to a classic old-fashioned marina on Maple Island. The tide was high and docking was no easy feat as the waves kept were bashing up against the fishing vessel.
Despite the relative silence in which they had traveled back to the island, she was as aware of Alex Kirkland as he seemed to be of her.
Which was why focusing solely on her charges had made the bumpy journey easier. The last thing she needed was to be going all doe-eyed on her new boss. She didn’t do romantic relationships. Not even for cantankerous, butterfly-inducing, green-eyed procedure devotees whose delicious personal man scent was now embossed on her memory...forever.
If they could bottle Eau d’Alex Kirkland? The patient load at Maple Clinic would double. Overnight. Not that he seemed like the kind of guy who liked a fan club. Quite the opposite, in fact. When she’d accidentally winked at him he’d looked as though he’d have fled for the hills if they hadn’t been on a boat.
A handful of men and women all wearing thick winter coats with the Maple Island Clinic logo embossed on them were at the docks. Alex jumped out first and rattled off a few instructions. That seemed to be his thing. But something told her he was doing it now because he was unsettled. And it wasn’t the patients who’d been doing the unsettling.
Whatever. She was used to being the elephant in the room.
She was also used to bringing out the worst in people. It was her thing. With patients she could wrestle the fury into submission. With Eric? It had nearly crushed her, but she’d found a way to get back up again. Swinging.
Whatever it was she’d unzipped in Alex, suffice it to say he wasn’t the only one feeling unsettled.
“Are you sure you and Salty can manage from your end?”
Alex’s green eyes pierced straight through to the one area of her confidence she’d thought unshakable. Her ability to follow through physically. It wasn’t as if she had dedicated her whole life to being “capable” or anything.
“Absolutely.” She threw her cockiest smile back at him. “So long as you and your posse are up to being on the receiving end of our superpowers.” She turned to Salty. “You up for throwing some shade on the clinic crew dockside?”
Salty frowned. “I have no idea what you’re saying, girlie, but let’s get these young ’uns up onto the pier and out of the weather.”
Maggie laughed good-naturedly and moved into position at the end of Connor’s stretcher. The ride hadn’t exactly been a barrel of laughs but they’d made it. If Alex’s predictions were anything to go by, in just a few more minutes they’d be nice and warm in the clinic’s A-grade facilities. She strongly suspected Alex’s predictions were fact-based and nothing less.
She looked up at him from her end of the stretcher and tried not to blink as their eyes met and locked.
She knew then and there that he was going to expect the very best from her. Exactly what she was hoping for professionally. Personally? Not so much.
“Miss Green? Any time now.”
“Yup! On it.” She squatted into place, hoping no one called Alex saw her suck in a sharp breath as her knees registered their complaints. She could practically feel his eyes glued to her. The man was unnerving her. Putting her off her game.
Enough with the excuses. Just get on with it.
“All right, Connor. You ready?” The boy gave them a thumbs-up and sucked in a big inhalation of wintry sea air as Salty and Maggie bent and hoisted his stretcher up and toward the pairs of hands waiting on the dock.
The hands that accepted her end of the stretcher brushed against hers. Electric sparks skittered down her arm and swirled round her chest before floating provocatively down to that freshly unlocked secret place of hers.
No guesses as to who had taken her end of the stretcher. She didn’t dare look at Alex again. Instead she focused on getting Peyton up and into the back of the waiting four-by-four. As she turned on the boat’s crowded deck, her foot caught and snagged on a rope, giving her knee a painful wrench.
Ooh, that hurt. Really, really, really hurt. It’s all right. You can take it. Just a few more minutes and then you’ll be taking a load off.
“You gonna stand there daydreaming or are you going to help me get this girlie onto the dock?”
“Right! Sorry, Salty. Can I call you Salty?”
He leant to pick up his end of the stretcher in tandem with her. “It’s ‘may’, not ‘can.’ And I don’t see why not. Everyone else does.”
Ha. Well, that had put her in her place. “Is there something else you’d rather be called?”
His blue eyes flashed brightly. “Nope.” He lifted his end of the stretcher with a bit of a grunt that could easily have been described as a growl.
There was definitely a story there. One she’d have to get before her contract was up.
“We’ve got her.”
“Hang on a minute,” Salty called out to the clinic staffers, who were already heading to the transport vehicles. “Still got these bags for this little lady to load up.”
“Oh, don’t worry about those, Salty. I’ll get them.” Maggie waved for the medics with the twins to go on ahead as she tried to wrestle her duffel bag away from Salty.
Precious cargo. She was a bit touchy about them. Especially with the boat still bucking around like it was. Proof, if they’d needed any, that Salty’s seasoned negotiation of the ocean to the ferry and safely back to the island again had been a feat in and of itself.
“It’s no trouble,” He put one leg on the dock and one on the boat. The man was pretty nimble for a self-proclaimed “old feller.” He flicked his fingers, indicating she should hand him her large duffels that the ambo crew had kindly jammed into the front cab with them, which she did. “What in the blue blazes have you got in here, woman? A dead body?”
She laughed. Near enough. “I don’t travel light.”
That’d cover her bases for now. He wasn’t to know. No one was until she was ready to tell them. She never liked to make her condition “a thing” until it became...a thing.
“Oh, for the love of—!”
With the bash of a wave came an abrupt swing and shift of the boat against the dock. Salty tried, unsuccessfully to find purchase on the dockside but couldn’t. His “boat” leg slipped between the vessel and the dock and the rest of his body flew forward so rapidly his hands were unable to brace him for the fall. Adrenaline took over as she leapt to Salty’s aid.
Gritting her teeth against her own pain, Maggie managed to climb out of the boat and pull his leg up and onto the dock. She told herself to call for help, but wasn’t entirely sure if she had the breath in her lungs to shout.
“Salty? Salty.” She knelt next to him and pressed her fingers to the pulse point on his throat. Thready. But still there. “Come on, you old seadog. You aren’t going to let a little old storm get the better of you, are you? Certainly not on New Year’s Day, all right?”
Her eyes flicked to his torn yellow coveralls that were now exposing a navy pants leg. She couldn’t see any blood coming through, but the fabric was both dark and wet, so not the easiest way to see it. If he’d suffered a compound fracture the wound would need to be cleaned as soon as possible. Infection was an open wound’s biggest enemy.
Other people appeared then began calling out for more help, a stretcher, blankets, a doctor. Salty kept blinking his blue eyes as though they were trying to bring her into focus. From the look
of the bump on his head he could’ve easily suffered a concussion too.
She pulled off her jacket, took off her fleece and curled it round his head like a cushion. “Salty? Can you follow my finger?” She clocked his eye movement as they followed her index finger. It wasn’t brilliant but it wasn’t bad. To distract him from what must be an excruciating level of pain, she kept up her usual bright chatter and carried on performing the handful of neurological exams easily performed on a recumbent patient.
When the clamor of voices fell silent she knew whose body was attached to the solid all-weather boots that appeared in her sightline.
Alex Kirkland.
Much to Maggie’s surprise, Salty tried to push himself up to a sitting position. “Just let me get up, would you? Give me a chance to have a quick run down the dock on it. A couple of laps and it’ll be fine.”
Maggie pushed him back down. “Let’s just hang onto that enthusiasm for a minute, Salty.”
Calmly, steadily, Alex swiftly examined Salty’s leg.
Maggie knew she was holding her breath, but she also knew how bad the injury could be. Soft tissue damage alone could lead to amputation. It had been difficult to tell just how violent a blow Salty’s leg had received, but popliteal artery injury was something to consider. Compartment syndrome. Or infections. Please don’t let him get an infection. There was gangrene to consider, osteomyelitis—
Alex shot her a curious sidelong look. She hoped he wasn’t reading her mind.
“I’m guessing we’re looking at a double oblique fracture,” he said. “Most likely tib and fib, but I don’t want to destabilize it more than it already might be.”
She exhaled. Okay. Better than completely crushed to smithereens.
“I’d rather leave any guesses on the ankle to the radiography team.” The crowd around them collectively gasped as Alex’s comments made the rounds. It sounded bad. It was bad. Alex maintained solid eye contact with Salty. “The good news is nothing’s broken through, but you do present with one gross deformity.”
