by Annie O'Neil
“Did you win medals?”
“Sure did!” She feigned an in-chair running move and crooned, “Lean, mean Maggie Green gets gold!”
She made fake crowd cheering noises and Jake joined in. She didn’t dare look at Alex. She didn’t want him to think she was bragging. It was just fun to bring a smile to Jake’s face. He was so earnest. It felt like being interviewed for The Times.
“Were you born like that?”
“Jake!” Alex scrubbed his hand across his face and sent an apologetic grimace through his fingers.
She waved it off. Kids’ questions were open. Honest. It was good old-fashioned curiosity and nothing more.
“I got sick when I was thirteen with something called bacterial meningitis and my lower legs had to be amputated.”
His mouth dropped open. “You mean they sawed them off?” He looked equal parts horrified and delighted.
“Jake!” Alex half rose in his chair in warning.
Maggie laughed and indicated for him to sit back down again. “Honestly, it’s fine. And, yup, that’s pretty much what happened.” No point in glossing over it. Kids weren’t judgmental. They just thought it was cool she’d been sawn up.
She looked down at her knees, grateful her parents had made the call when they had. If they’d waited any longer...well, life as an above-the-knee amputee was perfectly acceptable, but she wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of the things she could if they had waited.
“My parents encouraged me to get back to my horse riding and when I saw some of the Paralympians riding, I was so excited. And as for running...” she gave them both a How could I not want some of those? grin “...I had to get me some of those blades, right?”
Jake popped his chin into his cupped hand and stared at her for a moment. Alex rose and fetched the apple pie from the counter.
“Since you can change your legs, does that make you like a superhero?”
Jake was, she saw, completely serious.
So she took the question seriously. Just as she hoped all of her patients took her seriously when she told them at the beginning of whatever program they were pursuing that all of the sweat and tears would be worth it. That no one could ever tell them what they could and couldn’t do as long as they put in the work. That they would be masters of their own destinies.
Which, now that she thought about, did make her a bit of a superhero.
“Yes. In some ways it does. But remember, all superheroes also have their kryptonite.”
Jake nodded somberly. She’d known him for less than an hour and already it was pretty easy to see the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Serious, like his father. Considered. Considerate. It was like meeting a mini-Alex minus the heated looks and the big broad shoulders.
Okay. There were actually quite a few differences, but she really liked this kid. And if Alex had raised him pretty much on his own, it spoke highly of both of them.
She swallowed down a lump of emotion that lodged itself in her throat as she thought of Jake growing up with a father dealing with one of life’s most unimaginable griefs. The loss of a loved one.
Her own parents had been her bedrock when she’d become ill. They were gone now and she felt their absence every day, but she also knew their lives together had been rich and full. She’d appeared as a welcome surprise when her mother had been in her late forties and her father in his late fifties. Her father had been a professor of poetry and her mother had taught children how to ride horses at their small farm just outside the city. They had loved life. Found it beautiful, in fact. And had taught her to do the same. There was, after all, only one chance to be yourself. So, they’d reasoned, you may as well live it to the fullest.
The emotion she thought she’d swallowed did a U-turn and returned as a sting of tears.
Twice in one day. What the heck was in the water on this island? High-density emotion particles?
She ignored the inquisitive look Alex sent her when she did a weird throat-clearing thing and focused on Jake. He still had his chin propped in his little hand and was staring at her, maybe trying to see if she’d been hiding any other superpowers.
“Any more questions?”
“When you and Dad were in the shower, did I interrupt you kissing?”
Alex choked on his garlic bread and Maggie did a strangled version of her as if laugh.
“No!” they both said in unison. And then, “We weren’t kissing!”
“Yes, you were.” Jake looked confused. “Or, at least, that’s what it looked like to me.”
There was a note of hope in his voice that pierced straight through to Maggie’s heart.
It must be hard, being the kid without a mom.
She got it. For a short while she’d been like that with legs. “But, Mom! Everybody else has them!” Her mother had swiftly reminded her that everyone else did not have the ability to pick and choose as she did. That had made short work of that argument. She supposed it didn’t work that way with mothers.
And it didn’t always work that way with legs.
Alex’s quick glance in her direction hit her with pinpoint accuracy. The idea of his son seeing them kissing was clearly absolutely appalling to him. After scrubbing a Don’t be ridiculous, son hand through Jake’s hair, he looked back at her, lingering this time. Oh...wait a minute. It wasn’t revulsion. That was her own paranoia at work. It was being caught that had him looking so horrified.
Did it happen like this? Lust at first sight? It couldn’t be anything more than that. At least on his side. He’d not even known who she was when he’d woken up this morning.
What she felt wasn’t anything more than a grown-up’s version of a schoolgirl crush. It couldn’t—wouldn’t—be anything more. Not after what she’d been through. And certainly not with her boss.
Jake stared at the two of them for a moment, shrugged and moved on, mercifully unable to sense the forty zillion kilowatts of discomfort that were now zinging through the air.
“So, what’s your kryptonite, then?” he asked after finishing his milk at his father’s request.
Alex’s eyes zapped to his son. “That’s a bit personal, Jake.”
“No, no. It’s all right.” She liked this sort of straightforward talk. At least from little kids. Besides, she wasn’t going to tell him what it really was. She had a stock answer that seemed to satisfy most people. Stopped any follow-up questions. “Having to ask people for help.”
It was kind of true. She never liked it, even though she knew people with two legs, two arms and a head screwed on straight asked for help, too. But she wasn’t going to tell a little boy that she’d actually stared her kryptonite in the face earlier that evening when his father’s lips had been close enough for her to kiss. And she’d fallen at the first hurdle.
Making out with her boss could not be a part of her time here on the island. Intimacy was off the cards. Eric had made sure of that in one swift, nasty strike. Nothing physical. Ever again. That had been the deal.
How about that for ripping a credo to shreds.
Alex shot her a funny look. One that made her think kissing each other might not be on the menu again anyway.
Maybe she could tape her credo back together.
“Should we have pie now?” Jake beamed at her. “I like mine with ice cream.”
I like mine with green-eyed doctors in a picture-perfect country kitchen.
“Sounds amazing.” She nodded, pleased to catch the slight twitch of a smile tweak at the corners of Alex’s mouth. Something about bringing a smile to that man’s lips felt rewarding.
“So, tell me, Jake. What’s life like here on Maple Island?”
He shot a look at his father and Alex nodded that he could go ahead, say what he liked. She smiled.
Alex was a big old ball of mystery wrapped up in a very male package. When they’d firs
t met she’d thought, Uh-oh, here we go. Another uptight, regulations first, reality later, non-emotive, surgical type. But those types didn’t sweep girls off their feet, float them up the stairs and put their favorite work chair in the shower and help them undress.
Well.
Watch her undress?
No, help.
Definitely help. That’s what he’d been trying to do.
Either way, it had been just about the most erotic thing that had happened to her in years.
From the heated look that had been in his eyes and the smoking-hot kisses he’d laid on her lips, she was guessing Alex was in the same camp.
As he handed her a generous triangle of cinnamon-laden pie, the current look in Alex’s eyes was almost as intense as it had been in the shower. Telling her she was safe whilst teasing her to take a risk. Reach out and tug not just his shirt collar but at the tight fabric holding the complex layers of his personality together.
“...ride a horse, but Dad won’t let me.”
“What? Beg pardon? I was in a rapture over this pie,” Maggie lied, to cover up the fact she’d actually been daydreaming about teasing apart the layers of his father’s hidden depths. And maybe his shirt buttons too.
“Now, that’s not strictly true,” Alex cut in, a small bite to his otherwise gentle admonition. “I only wanted you to wait until there was someone running the stables who I thought might be more appropriate for you to learn to ride with.”
“But Randy worked in the rodeo!” Jake held out his hands as if that clearly made Randy the best possible choice.
“Not to brag or anything, but I think we’ve established that I know my way around a horse.” She blew on the tips of her fingers and shook them.
“Like a cowgirl?” Jake asked.
“A bit.” She was just about to tell him about the handstands and other tricks she could do but caught a warning glance from Alex. “I used to ride dressage competitively.”
“What’s that? Putting clothes on the horse?” Jake’s confused expression was so freaking cute she had to sit on her hands to stop herself from reaching out and ruffling his hair.
Not her son.
Not hers to become besties with in front of the boss after an unexpected kissing session.
“Let me put it this way, compared to barrel racing or some of the other things your friend Randy did, dressage is about as pernickety and exacting as you can get.”
“It doesn’t sound as fun as barrel racing.” Jake’s shoulders sagged.
“It sounds safer,” Alex commented.
Maggie made a that’s one way to look at it noise. “My mom thought it was a good way to teach me how to use a different kind of strength to get what I wanted out of a horse.”
Jake screwed up his face, confused. Alex leaned in.
Oh, jinks. They were expecting something wise and insightful.
“Honest truth?” She crossed her heart and looked Jake straight in the eye. “My parents thought I could do with dropping my ego. Using common sense instead of frustration to get what I wanted. Horses don’t respond well to pent-up teenage angst. They go in for teamwork.”
Alex leant back in his chair as if he’d just understood something fundamental about her. She hoped he did. That she wasn’t all bells and whistles. She did this work because she cared. She truly cared about her patients and not just their physical welfare but the emotional foundation that they would need to see them through the many hurdles they had to confront as they healed.
“Is that why you came to Maple Island? To work with my daddy’s team?”
She swallowed against the real reason and nodded. “Sure is.”
“Why would you want to be here, though, when you could be in the Paralympics?”
She laughed. “As much as I would like to have done it forever, I thought it’d be a good idea to pay back some of the kindness I received when I was in training.”
Jake gasped. “You gave away your medals?”
“No.” She hadn’t looked at them in a while, though. After Eric, she hadn’t felt as proud of her accomplishments as she once had. “I thought if I became a physiotherapist I could help my patients with a lot of the things I learned over the years.” Grit. Determination. That feeling of overcoming adversity was the best in the world as long as you made sure you picked wisely in the romance department.
Her eyes kept flicking across to Alex, who was thoughtfully scrubbing his jaw as his son continued to pepper her with questions. What was dressage? Were the Paralympics every year or like the Olympics? Could she jump a horse from here to Boston? Where were her medals? Why didn’t she wear them like necklaces? If he had medals he would wear them every day.
Her brain was registering the questions, but her body was tingling with a whole other set of sensations. Her fingertips wished they were his...feeling his stubble. The stippled silkiness of it against her fingers. The softness of his lips. The heat.
Alex barely looked at her as he pushed around the scant remains of pie left on his plate. A feigned disinterest or actually not interested?
Maybe the whole shower incident had been a freak occurrence and that’s why he was letting his son do the interrogating for him. He was taking a clear step back from the obvious connection they’d shared.
Fair enough.
She tore her eyes away and focused on answering all of Jake’s questions.
Tomorrow Alex wouldn’t just be her host, he would be her boss.
CHAPTER SIX
“THEY TOLD ME I’d find you here!”
Maggie knocked on the doorframe again when Salty didn’t turn to meet her smile. She waited, her thoughts drifting to that tingling feeling bubbling in her belly when she heard Alex’s lovely warm voice as he exchanged patient notes with another doctor.
She was excited to see patients and a little bit scared at how much her body went all giggly schoolgirl when she was around Alex.
She thought back to last night’s conversation.
“Are you sure you’ve had enough ice cream?” Jake had finished off his two scoops lickety-split and made to dish more out to them.
“Two scoops is perfect,” she and Alex had said in tandem. Then stared at one another while Jake had laughed and pointed at them.
She’d stretched and yawned, her top riding up as she’d done so, and she’d caught Alex staring at that little triangle of flesh right where her waistline dipped and swooped toward her hip. “Guess it’s time to get on up to bed,” she’d murmured.
She’d said it to make him blush. And it had worked.
Then she’d felt like an idiot because what was the rule? No flirting. If she didn’t flirt, there was no danger of romance and with no danger of romance. She could carry on living with her pride intact.
It hadn’t stopped her insides from swirling around like a happy snow globe when Alex had picked her up to go upstairs then paused, turned toward the sofa, dithering about whether or not to make up a bed there “just in case.”
“Safety first,” he’d said, as seriously as a dentist warned a child who loved cookies to steer clear of desserts.
She’d finally exclaimed she was so tired that if he didn’t let her sleep in the bed he’d already shown her she would teach Jake how to wolf whistle. That’d shut him up. And given her time to take just one more surreptitious inhalation of his lovely man scent right there at the crook of his neck. Mmm....
“What’re you smiling at, girlie?”
Salty’s scratchy voice wiped the smile off her face. Today was a work day. Not a day to go around with your head in the clouds remembering the sexy aroma of your boss.
“Ah!” She walked into his room, rubbing her hands together with a renewed sense of purpose. “You are alive.”
“Might as well be dead for all the use I am in this here contraption.” He began fiddling with the sling that w
as elevating his leg.
“Uh-uh. No, you don’t. That leg is up for a reason.”
“Don’t need more blood in my head than I do in my toes, do I? Otherwise God woulda designed me different.”
“Good point. But I’m pretty sure the doctor is keeping your leg elevated to aid in the healing process and it sounds like you would prefer that to be as speedy as possible.”
Salty shifted a bit in his bed and gave her a long cold stare. “If by speedy you’re talking about the six long weeks the doc said I’d be in for after he’d examined me, I think you might be wise to invest in a dictionary. The word means something different than what you seem to think it does, young lady.” He harrumphed and turned away again, his gaze trailing out to the sea view he’d been thoughtfully given.
“Ah! Miss Green. There you are.”
Alex came striding into the room all businesslike and official. She’d watched him morph from dad to doctor over the breakfast table. She smiled at his officiousness. He almost belonged in another era. One with carriages and footmen and...sexy shirtless men walking out of lakes with nothing but desire in their eyes.
“Miss Green?”
“Yes!” She gave him a quick salute. “Reporting for duty, sir!”
He gave her a dry look. “I left the military some time ago, Miss Green, and, as I’m sure you’ll recall, we go for a slightly gentler approach around here at the Maple Island Clinic.”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Astonishingly, Salty laughed.
Maggie winced an apologetic look at Alex and flicked her thumb toward Salty. “Sorry. I just wanted to make sure he could still do that.”
“Yes.” His green eyes narrowed then blinked. His expression was virtually impossible to read. “You and mirth seem to be good friends.”
She gave him a simple nod. It was what had kept her head above water these last three years so she wasn’t going to apologize for it.
“Shall we take that tour you promised?” She tipped her head toward Salty and said in a stage voice, “I’ll come back and see the hero of the seven seas a bit later. Check on his progress.”
