Tempted by Her Single Dad Boss

by Annie O'Neil

  Maggie actually laughed.

  “What?”

  “You sounded just like my father when I wanted to go bungee-jumping.”

  Bungee-jumping? What the—? Focus.

  “I am a father. So perhaps addressing foolish behavior comes naturally. Or maybe you’re accustomed to being told off for it?”

  Too sharp. Why was he being such an ass?

  Maggie thought his response was hilarious.

  “Something like that.” She let out a low whistle. “Suffice it to say I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of your cranky stick when the mud-pie recipe went wrong.” She snorted then paled. “Gosh. I’m sorry. I mean, I know you’re a widower, so I’m not making any judgements about your parenting skills or anything. Or trying to be personal. Because I hate that. You know, when people try to go all ‘I get your misery’ so let’s tell each other our life stories.”

  They stared at one another in horror.

  “Just a little bit like I’m doing now. At least I’m not over-sharing. Sometimes I can go straight off the barometer on the TMI front. You ever do that? Tell someone too much? No... I’m guessing no. From the look on your face I’m thinking...just about never...”

  She looked as mortified as he felt.

  Why was he responding to her like a combination of abominable snowman and robot?

  Why did he keep staring at her mouth?

  No prizes for coming up with an answer for that. She had the fullest mouth he’d ever seen. And not bright red either...more of a...dusty rose color. Extraordinary. All her features were striking—creamy skin, a smattering of freckles that complemented her feisty approach to life, the dark brown eyes that asked a thousand questions all at once—but those lips of hers...especially the upper one. He wondered what it would be like to trace a finger along—No, he didn’t. He didn’t wonder anything of the sort.

  “Alex? Dr. Kirkland? Yoo-hoo! Eyes are up here...just above the nose. Can we just...you know...start over? Pretend the last few hours didn’t happen? I’m really looking forward to working here and I’m not entirely sure we’ve gotten off on the best...er...foot.”

  A normal person would have laughed, reached out a conciliatory hand and welcomed her to the fold. A normal person would have apologized for reacting so strangely. A normal person wouldn’t feel as if his entire emotional vault had been blasted open and exposed parts of him he’d never thought he’d see again.

  “No,” he said. “I think it would be best if you stayed at my house.”

  Oh, good grief. The blood really had left his brain.

  Maggie clearly thought so, too. Her eyes widened and her hands went up in protest. “Sleeping with the boss? No, thank you.”

  That surge of blood missing from his brain had clearly shot directly to an area he had been hoping to keep out of this discussion.

  He yanked the zipper up on his winter coat, feeling a hell of a lot more like a teenage boy than the founder of a state-of-the-art medical clinic. “Miss Green, may I kindly remind you we run a professional establishment here. This is not spring break in Florida.”

  What the...? How had his thoughts leapt from housing a colleague to Maggie Green prancing about amidst sunlit waves in a bikini? Not that the idea of seeing her in a bikini was unappealing. Quite the opposite, in fact. Another blast of red-hot desire blasted in below his belt buckle.

  She began shifting from foot to foot and he didn’t think she was waiting to go to the ladies’ room.

  “For a night or so,” he clarified. “Not for the duration of your contract.”

  “I’m sure I’d be fine in a hospital bed.”

  “I’d feel better if I knew you were being properly looked after.” See? He had valid reasons. It was smart. Sensible.

  Maggie flicked her thumb toward the wards. “I’m pretty sure I saw an entire medical team in there.”

  “Who have patients to look after.”

  Why was he was pressing this? Insisting she stay at his house? He had stairs. Only about ten compared to the thirty-odd she’d have to negotiate on the switchback stairwell up to the top of the barn apartment, but...

  She was looking at him expectantly. Clearly hoping for a real reason.

  C’mon. Why are you doing this?

  Because she spelled trouble and he wanted to make sure she stayed out of it?

  Maybe. That was definitely a component.

  Because she’d unleashed a billion questions in him and he wanted to find out the answers to at least a few of them before she started work here?

  He was getting warmer.

  She scared and intrigued him in equal measures, but...against all the odds...he liked her.

  Bingo!

  “So, how about we get you warmed up over at the house?”

  Maggie was still looking at him through dubious eyes cast to half-mast.

  Why wasn’t she answering? It was a nice enough invitation, wasn’t it? A night at the boss’s house. What more could a woman who’d just risked life and limb to cross to Maple Island want after she’d admitted she was chilled to the bone and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed on her own?

  Her own space, you idiot.

  “We have apple pie.”

  Good grief. That had sounded about as desperate as it got.

  It got her attention, though. Brown eyes all doe-wide and blinking with disbelief.

  “You made apple pie?”

  Even he had to concede this did stretch the realms of believability. “No. It’s a Brady Bistro and Bakery special. Tom Brady’s wife, Fiona, made it.”

  “Is that bakery the one with the huge gingerbread houses at Christmas?” Her eyes glittered as she clapped her hands together then quickly drew the blanket back around herself.

  “The one and only. Look, you’re obviously freezing, so we should sort this out.” He held a hand out in the direction of a seating area. “Perhaps you’d like a moment to consider the proposition on your own?”

  Why was he speaking like an uptight nineteenth-century British butler?

  “No, thank you, Jeeves,” she teased.

  Something tightened in his chest and the shock of figuring out what it was nearly made him follow through.

  He’d almost laughed.

  Just like “old Alex” would’ve done. Would have found the ability to see the lighter side of a pretty insane situation. He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that. Walls and defenses and inscrutable expressions were...protective. Not that he was hiding away from life or anything. He was living life. Choosing life. More importantly, he’d built a quality life for his son, whose daycare was on site, who could walk to school and bring home an apple pie when his dad remembered to call ahead to the bakery.

  Who wouldn’t want that for their child when they’d already endured the greatest loss imaginable? Safety. Security. Protection.

  Oh, God.

  He was hiding from life.

  The revelation hit him harder than any physical blow ever could.

  What the hell was this woman made of? Ordinary flesh and blood she was not.

  He’d known her, what? A handful of hours and already he didn’t know if he’d rather never lay eyes on her again or...a whole lot of other things he hadn’t considered in a while.

  Maggie Green was a whole different variety of sugar and spice. But it wasn’t just her physical beauty that had him by the throat. It was the aura of strength that virtually glowed around her.

  She exuded life. Vibrancy. And everyone else but him seemed immune to it.

  Chemistry.

  That’s what it was. Good old-fashioned chemistry.

  The power of it crackled through him like an electric shock. Empowered rather than diminished. A sensation he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced before.

  Maggie finally broke the silence fizzing ex
pectantly between them. “Shall I just say yes to make this all seem a bit less weird?”

  “I think that would be wise.”

  * * *

  Maggie held out one of her hands and watched the big, fat flake settle onto her palm. “Is that snow?”

  Alex turned and looked up to the sky.

  He had the kind of profile a girl could stare at for days and still find something new.

  Solid. Kind.

  Not that she’d made him look away from her just so she could stare at him or anything.

  Maybe a little?

  She dropped her gaze to his shoulders. Broad. Not bulky or anything. A solid line of strength. They hadn’t even sagged as much as a millimeter when he’d hoicked up her duffel bags whose weight had thwarted any number of previous would-be gallants. Not that he was being gallant or anything. Or that she had a herd of suitors following in her wake. She’d made sure of that for quite some time, thank you very much.

  Her credo for the past three years had been to focus on work and abandon any attempt at having a personal life.

  So crushing on her new boss? Totally verboten.

  She went back to weather talk.

  “I thought this wasn’t meant to come until tomorrow.” She’d have to dig those snow boots out sharpish.

  “Looks like everything’s coming early this week.” He flicked her a quick look, those green eyes of his taking in so much more than her delight at a handful of snowflakes.

  Okay. She wasn’t entirely sure if he meant that as a good thing or a bad thing.

  She held out her hand again and watched another fat flake descend on it. Snow meant a lot of things for her. The beauty of it, of course. But it meant her crutches would probably have to come out to provide a bit of extra balance in case it froze. She never liked showing off all the things she couldn’t do at a new workplace. She could pull her cane out. She had a really cool one with a jigger of rum hidden in the handle in lieu of a St. Bernard to carry round a little barrel for her. Not that she was an alcoholic or anything. Far from it. She liked control and getting drunk wasn’t really the best means of keeping one’s grip on reality. She only had the one experience to hold up to the light and suffice it to say she didn’t like holding up her darkest days for re-examination all that often.

  Alex narrowed his eyes.

  She shivered again and this time it wasn’t because she was feeling cold.

  Damn.

  She was going to secretly start calling him X-Ray Eyes. Or Jeeves, as it betrayed less paranoid vulnerability on her part.

  “All the more reason to get you inside and warmed up.”

  Big Bad Wolf?

  Was the big bad wolf meant to be sexy?

  Maggie tried to scrunch away an image of Alex the Wolf luring her into his lair as the real Alex nodded toward a path leading out from the clinic’s picture-perfect wraparound porch. He picked up his pace as the snowfall increased.

  Right. Operation Get Warm. Just follow the man and banish the saucy ideas. She pinned her eyes to his back and promptly skidded on a bit of ice. A searing shot of pain obliterated all other thoughts.

  Maggie clenched her jaw against the throbbing in her knees. Now that the adrenaline of getting the children across to the island had passed and, of course, Salty being all trussed up by the island’s other cheer bomb of a doctor, Cody Brennan, the pain and cold of the day were beginning to seep well below the surface.

  “Maggie, heads up. We’re just going to take a left down this path here.”

  She scanned the paved path bordered by a sprawl of lush lawn and a low hedge of something she imagined would burst into flower come springtime. A cluster of trees blocked any view of his house. Bummer. If she knew exactly how long it was—

  Ten-second windows of time.

  She could do anything for ten seconds. And then she could do it again. It’s how she’d gotten through her own rehab and how she got scores of her own patients through theirs. Step by step. Day by day. Living each day as if it were her first and her last. No regrets.

  Well.

  There was one, but...it was harder to appreciate the ups in life if there weren’t some downs.

  She shook her head and looked up when she realized Alex was speaking to her. “It’s a short walk. Forty seconds. A minute tops. Hidden behind that copse of trees there.”

  What the—?

  Ah. The penny dropped. He’d seen she was in pain. He was a doctor. He had a walking lab in his clinic. He was giving her goals without patronizing her.

  He understood.

  An emotion bomb exploded in her chest so fast and furious she didn’t realize she was wiping tears off her cheeks until she blinked away another set. The only blessing was that Alex hadn’t seen them. She blamed the fatigue because the last thing she had ever been was a crier.

  Ever since she’d lost her legs, her parents had drilled into her that she was neither handicapped nor was she “handicapable”, or whatever other positive affirmation phrase was currently in use. They changed so often it was hard to keep up.

  To her parents? She was their daughter. To the high school she had just entered? She was plain ol’ Maggie Green. No special treatment. No hiding out in a classroom at lunchtime. No giving up the sports or horse riding that she’d loved for just about forever. Nothing. Just an ordinary kid living an ordinary life.

  Obstacles weren’t roadblocks. They were opportunities to find solutions. Again and again her parents reminded her that the Grand Canyon had begun as an itty-bitty stream. Mt. Rushmore had started with one solitary chink of a chisel. New York City had not been built in a day. Yeah. They’d laid it on thick.

  When she’d discovered para-equestrianism? She’d learned about the joy of goals. And with all of the other kids at the specialist camps who had been dealing with a huge array of disabilities, she’d finally begun to feel just like anyone else. Maybe she’d been a little bit more intense. Once she’d really settled into the disability riding circuit she’d spread her wings and become captured by the idea of joining the American Paralympics team and had set herself the goal of becoming a sprinter.

  A sponsor had taken interest in her and had bought her her first set of running blades. Then a fashion designer had made her some high heels. Another had hand-sewn her some fabulous riding boots. She’d vowed to make good on the investment each of those people had made in her. But mostly she’d done it to prove to herself that she could.

  After she’d won equestrian gold at a national level, she’d then moved on to the international playing field, and all sorts of other opportunities had come out of the woodwork. More running. Gold medals had come there, too. Ways of reinventing herself so that people had thought of her as powerful rather than pitiful.

  Being Maggie Green didn’t mean dealing with humdrum teenage problems of acne and the freshman fifteen. With the new legs she had been offered she could change her body in ways no other teen at her school could. Taller. Shorter. Faster. Steadier. Whatever she’d wanted had been within reach. And that was how she’d lived her life.

  Until three years ago when she’d met Eric.

  She swallowed hard.

  That bit of personal history would always be an incredibly bitter pill to swallow. Proof, if she’d needed it, that she was just as mortal as the next girl.

  “Here we are.”

  Without her having even noticed—score one to thinking deep thoughts—they’d arrived in front of a picture-perfect New England farmhouse.

  It was absolutely gorgeous. Not pretentious or oversized. Just the right amount of porch and house all kitted out with big old country windows aglow with enough floor lamps to make the place look unbelievably inviting. Funny. She hadn’t really imagined Alex living in a place any more cozy than an exam room.

  Not that the clinic hadn’t given her an indication of the “personal style” h
e might lean toward.

  The Maple Island Clinic was a former colonial mansion lovingly restored to postcard perfection. The interior was an immaculate, up-to-date medical facility. Light. Bright. Beautifully laid out. A piece of living history. She had yet to have a full tour, but wandering through in wet clothes and shivering like a greyhound in a blizzard didn’t seem the best of times to suggest having one.

  But this house? His house?

  He might have to tear her from the doorway once they’d found somewhere else for her to stay.

  White clapboard. Wraparound porch. Ramps. She wasn’t sure why they were there, but she was grateful. Her knees were actually killing her and stairs were a genuine bugbear at moments like these.

  Not that she was going to admit that to Alex.

  He put her bags down, opened the already unlocked door, swung her duffel bags inside the entryway and tipped his head toward the stairwell she could see shooting straight up to the broad second floor landing.

  He popped his coat onto the row of cast-iron hooks by the door and said, “Let’s get you in the shower.”

  Maggie flushed from her décolletage straight up to her hairline.

  “What? No. I’m good. I can do that on my own. Pretty seasoned in that department.”

  “I meant alone,” he intoned dryly.

  “Ah. Yes. Of course, Doctor.”

  She grinned, stepped across the threshold, her foot snagging on the corner of her blanket as she did so and upsetting her already tenuous balance to go flying. Straight into Dr. Alex Kirkland’s arms.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ALEX DIDN’T EVEN stop to think.

  He scooped Maggie up and into his arms and carried her straight up the stairs. She was freezing, exhausted and didn’t need another hurdle to leap. Or, in this case, a set of stairs to climb.

  “Set me down! I’m not some damsel in distress.”

  He kicked open the bathroom door.

  “Are those waterproof?” He nodded at her prosthetics.

  “Up to ten feet,” she confirmed through chattering teeth.

  “Right.” He scanned the room for a minute, surprised at how light she felt in his arms. A rod of steel disguised as a butterfly.