by Annie O'Neil
Which was precisely why, when he’d found out his wife had inherited an eye-watering sum she’d kept socked away “just in case”, he had immediately decided to use the money to build the clinic. It had been their dream. Seeing so many soldiers return to civilian life having to deal with disabilities had drilled home their true passion. Creating a state-of-the-art rehab clinic. He just hadn’t ever imagined he’d be living the dream without her.
Jake had only been a year old when her tour in Afghanistan had returned her to him in a flag-covered casket. A few days earlier she’d missed her little boy’s first birthday. They’d had cupcakes from her favorite Boston bakery in a poor attempt to make it seem as if she had been there. Not that Jake had really known what was happening or remembered her calling in on a military video line that had lasted about thirty seconds before cutting out. “Mommy will be here next year,” Alex had said, and then together they had blown out the solitary candle.
He tried to rub the tension out of his jaw and failed. His grief may have become manageable. But there was a bigger part of him that was still blazing with anger.
She’d been told not to disobey orders. Everyone in the military was. Before she’d left, they’d agreed parenting was to be the most important part of their lives. A direct contrast to her childhood at boarding school and his standing outside the local roadhouse, asking strangers if they wouldn’t mind seeing if his mom and dad were still propping up the bar.
“I read somewhere it was your wife’s legacy that paid for all this. Is that right?” Maggie asked.
He almost laughed. Amy’s legacy was leaving behind a son and a husband. “Her inheritance. Yes.”
He suddenly became aware that Maggie had inserted her arms into one of the support harnesses and was precariously swinging herself back and forth over the meticulously designed obstacle course.
“Please don’t play with the harnesses. They’re not circus swings.”
“Okay.” She pulled herself out of the sling and steadied it.
After a few moments of awkward silence she tried stoking the barely-there sparks of conversation. “So, I guess you’re pretty much a local. Having been here...three years in total, then, is it?”
“Not so much by island standards. That takes hundreds of years, not a handful.”
“Wow. Those are some standards.” She rubbed her hands together and grinned as if she was accepting a challenge. Was there nothing that didn’t shine with possibility in this woman’s life?
He made himself say something positive so she wouldn’t think he was all doom and gloom.
“You should see the place in the autumn. There’s a covered bridge down the way. With the trees and leaves...and...” He swallowed. The autumn leaves looked like Maggie’s hair. Wild and alive. He could almost recapture how silken it had felt as it had brushed against his cheek when he’d carried her up the stairs. He cleared his throat. “The color makes a difference.”
“That’s a shame. My contract’s only for three months. Takes me up to the end of March.”
“Ah,” he said, when what he really wanted to say was, So soon?
She flashed him a bright smile then started pulling herself up on the small climbing wall they had for the pediatric patients. Or was it a cover for the flicker of hurt he thought he’d seen in her big brown eyes? Did she want to stay longer?
His ability to read people in anything other than a professional capacity had long been shot to blue blazes. So he did what came naturally and reverted to talking about work.
“You know, we’re one of the first clinics in the country to put in an obstacle course like this.”
“It’s great,” she said with utter conviction as she clambered back down the wall and began putting herself through the obstacle course with exacting movements. “I could’ve done with one of these. And that over there. The multi-surface platform? Awesome. Switching from pavement to grass to gravel...they’re all challenges people learning to walk again have to face, and to be able to do it with this great sling? Amazing.” They both looked up at the tracks that ran the length of the two-story lab and then back at each other.
“Glad it suits.” Anything would suit her. A set of scrubs. The athletic gear she wore now. Nothing.
He pressed his fingers against his eyes, trying to erase the picture of Maggie in his shower, and failed.
“Yup.” Maggie nodded, taking a scan of the area. “It’s all...very...clean.”
So he gave her a little lecture on the importance of hygiene. As if she didn’t already know the essentials of it. Yet another open-mouth-insert-foot moment to chalk up on the Alex Isn’t Actually Human board.
Once they’d finished up in the walking lab, he showed her to the hydrotherapy center.
“I suppose this is the ‘buoyancy and aquatic submersion lab’?” She waved her hands in the style of a New York showgirl.
“No,” he continued dryly. “We went out on a ledge with this one and call it the hydrotherapy center.”
She laughed then gave the place a second look. “It’s big. Hey!” Her brown eyes lit up with excitement. “This’d be a fun place to have a pool party in the winter.”
“Or perhaps rehabilitate patients who’ve suffered life-altering injuries.”
That one earned him A Look.
Not judgmental. More as if she were trying to find the place where all his uptight responses were coming from. Figure out what made him tick. He suspected her patients saw a lot of The Look.
It was strangely powerful.
He felt a pounding against his chest, like his soul had been kept prisoner and was trying to break free now that he’d found someone so unbelievably...right.
And wrong.
He wasn’t all rules and regulations this, or rip off the silver lining that. Hell’s bells. Old Alex would’ve pulled off his shirt, grabbed Maggie’s hand and jumped in the pool right this very minute. With a whoop.
A pool he wouldn’t have if his wife wasn’t dead.
Precisely why his responsible self had been forced to take over. He had a son to look after. Patients to protect. So, yeah. “New Alex” certainly wasn’t as fun as the man he’d once been, but at least he was alive.
Which was, he realized with the swift cruelty of a knife entering the gut, not remotely the same thing as living.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He turned away from Maggie and stared out the window at the thickening snow while he took the call.
Work. That’s what gave him structure. The framework of the clinic enabled him to make sure Jake had a reliable, safe childhood. He didn’t need any flame-haired daredevils poking away at parts of himself he’d long since locked away.
“I’m afraid we’ve got a slip and fall arriving at the hospital. One of the Brady kids.”
Maggie’s eyebrows scrunched together then arrowed up. They were very expressive eyebrows.
“A suspected fractured wrist.”
“Youch. Out in the snow?”
“Outside the bakery. Apparently there was some sliding on the ice going on and ‘mayhem ensued.’” He was quoting their receptionist, Marlee. She was a Brady by birth and the auntie of Tom Junior, known to all as Tommy. Or was it Tina? Three years and he still hadn’t straightened out the four Brady kids. Obviously, he knew the difference between the boys and the girls but Billy, Brigid, Tommy and Tina had all spent their fair share of time in the clinic’s various exam rooms. Bright orange hair and clear blue eyes. Each and every one of them. Even the family dog. An Irish setter. What else?
“Remind me who the Bradys are again?”
“Tom and Fiona Brady run the island’s more...traditional bakery.”
“With the apple pie?”
“Precisely.”
“Ha! I love the way you say that all slow and southern. I feel like I’m in a costume drama.”
He furrow
ed his brow.
Maggie skipped over his lack of response and tossed him a new question. “What’s an untraditional bakery?”
“Oh, you know, all of that chia seed and goji berry nonsense.”
“You think nutritious food is nonsense?”
He smiled. She was obviously a super-foods fan. Most athletes were. “No. Not really. The only time I truly protest about the island’s vegan café is when a leaden lump of mashed-up dates is sold with a mandatory sage smudging and passed off as a brownie.”
She barked with laughter, pointed her fingers at him as if they were little pistols and made the clicking sound one usually made to tell a horse to get a move on. “Gotcha. When it’s an affront to actual taste buds.” She abruptly pulled a confused face. “Isn’t a slip and fall a bit below your pay grade?”
He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. Now, this was something he could enthuse about. “Not in the slightest. It’s one of the reasons we structured the clinic the way we did. We wanted to be part of a community. So to do that we also care for the community.”
“Sounds great. Mind if I tag along?”
He stiffened.
She read his mind. “If I promise to adhere to the boundaries of safety and health regulations?”
He stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “Fine.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAGGIE WORKED HER way back to the central reception desk while Alex jogged off to make sure the imaging room was set up. He told her to meet and greet the patient and he’d find them.
The front desk was run by a woman with an amazing swirl of orange plaits circling her head, but there wasn’t as much as a glimpse of Alex disappearing into an exam room.
“You must be Maggie Green. I’m Marlee Paynter. I had a peek at your file and I was thrilled to see there was another redhead joining the team.” She glanced at a colorful wall calendar beside her. “You’re a week early, aren’t you?”
“Long story.” She gave her a quick rundown of the twins, the transfer, the decision to come early, leaving out the part about her ex being the spur in her side. “Alex seems all right with it.”
It was a lie that would fly, as her father used to say.
Marlee gave her a quick scan then tutted. “Looks like Cody hasn’t managed to get you all sorted out with the Maple Clinic gear yet. Sweatshirts, winter jacket and whatnot?”
“I haven’t met with Cody yet.”
“No?” She tutted again. “I suppose he would’ve been out with his children when all of the kerfuffle was going on with Salty yesterday.” She shook her head. “Honest to goodness. A couple of brainboxes, the pair of them, but did either of them come equipped with meet-and-greet skills?” She didn’t pause for an answer. “Did Alex get you a security pass? It allows you into the storerooms, staffroom, secret nap room that we all know about. That sort of thing.”
Maggie shook her head.
“That man...” She rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue again. “Oh, c’mon over here, honey. You are a tiny little thing, aren’t you? Let me give you a Maple Island welcome. We’re huggers. Apart from Old Salty, of course, but I suppose that goes without saying. I hope you’re not averse?”
“Not in the slightest!” Maggie let herself be enveloped in a big old bear hug. Marlee smelled of sugar cookies and frosting. “Whoops!” She reached out to steady herself on Marlee’s ample arms.
“Did I knock you off center, honey?”
“Oh, that’s easily done.” Maggie lifted up her trouser legs and showed off her prosthetics.
Marlee let out a low whistle. “Well, I never.” She snapped her fingers. “Of course. Maggie Green of sporting fame. Equestrian, wasn’t it? A bit of running too?”
Maggie nodded.
She felt someone approach behind her.
“Two golds and a fistful of silver medals behind her.”
Mercy. Her tummy flipped. Alex really had been trawling the internet.
Marlee gave her forehead a theatrical thunk. “Can’t believe I didn’t put two and two together. Must be that cold front blowing in. Total brain freeze if you step outside.” She let out a whoop. “You can be Maple Island’s very own Calamity Jane! Is it all right if I call you that? Calamity Maggie?”
Maggie winced, wishing the words Calamity and Maggie didn’t go quite so hand in hand, but she had to admit, which she did, that it would be a pretty accurate moniker.
“I think Miss Green or plain old Maggie would be more appropriate, Marlee.”
Marlee laughed and shook her head. “Okay, Dr. Kirkland. Whatever you say.”
“Any sign of the patient?” Alex looked at Marlee, eyebrows raised in a silent query.
“It’s Billy. He was the one down helping with Salty’s boat yesterday.” Marlee continued unabated. “Well, this is just wonderful, Miss Green. I’m going to tell my brother, Tom, who runs the bistro and bakery, that you’re here and mark my words—there will be a breakfast scramble named after you in no time flat.”
Maggie full on belly laughed at that one. “Well, tell him to make sure there are lots of jalapeños in it. I like things hot and spicy.” Maggie felt Alex’s gaze land on her with a thud. She backpedaled as quickly as she could, doing her best to ignore the heat creeping into her cheeks. “And hash browns,” she added. “Plain old potatoes sure are good too.”
Oh, jinks. Here she was, on a babble-a-thon again!
Marlee peered at her inquisitively, then Alex. They both developed avid interests in looking at anything other than Marlee, whose attention was caught by something happening out front. “There are the boys pulling up now.” She pointed at Maggie. “Make sure you pop by the desk later, honey, and I’ll get you sorted with all of the sweatshirts and things.”
“Thanks. That’d be great.” She meant it, too.
* * *
“Anything complicated? Want me to have a look?”
Cody stuck his head into the imaging lab.
“Nothing that requires surgery, if that’s what you’re asking.” Alex pushed his wheelie chair back from the screens to give Cody room...almost grateful to have someone between himself and Maggie. As ridiculous as it sounded, he suddenly understood what all those shampoo commercials were talking about. Her hair smelled amazing. She smelled amazing. If he hadn’t already made a big show of having her shadow him, he would’ve handed her over to Cody right there and then.
“Looks like a straight-up distal radius fracture to me. Undisplaced.” His friend frowned.
“Normally that’s good news, Cody.”
Cody clearly didn’t even hear his lame attempt at humor and leaned in for a closer look at the anteroposterior X-ray. “Is that—?”
“Yup.” Alex nodded. “He’s fractured the ulna as well. Hairline.”
“Standard stuff for a...” They all looked toward the X-ray room, where Billy was currently trying to fix his hair in the one-way window. “How old is this one?”
“Can none of you tell the Bradys apart?” Maggie laughed. “This one’s Billy, remember. He’s fourteen.”
“Fourteen going on twenty-seven.” Alex checked his tone. It wasn’t as if he’d been jealous of the non-stop flirting Billy was unleashing each time Maggie was in the room with him. More... He checked himself again. The boy was a boy. He was a man. The kiss had been an anomaly. Maggie was a colleague. And this was work.
“Want me to set it?” Cody looked at his watch. “I said I’d pick up the kids in half an hour but it shouldn’t take long.”
“No, no.” Alex stood up and nodded at Maggie. “Just a standard sugar-tong splint, yeah?” Cody nodded. “You go on ahead and pick up the girls. Maggie can assist me.”
Maggie smiled at him as if it were a given that they were a team.
The shot of warmth that burst open in his chest was the total opposite of a professional response.
; Good grief. This whole shadowing thing might be a serious mistake.
“Right!” He held the door open for her. “Guess we’d better let Billy the Kid know his ice-hockey career is on hold for the next six weeks.”
A couple of minutes later he was pulling the splint, padding material and a handful of other supplies out of a cupboard as Maggie got Billy settled onto a stool adjacent to the exam table.
“So, Maggie.” She’d obviously dispensed with the Miss Green moniker and Billy clearly hadn’t finished with his twenty questions. “Do you think a broken wrist warrants some equine therapy?”
She nodded soberly. “Can you just prop your elbow up here? And, yes, there is definitely some equine therapy post-splinting and post-confirmation that the fracture has healed.”
Alex tuned in to their conversation. He’d never heard of horse riding as a therapeutic follow-up to a broken wrist.
The teenage boy sat bolt upright, a smile lighting up his face. “Seriously? What type?”
“I call it the catch and release therapeutic method. You start a week or so after the cast is off. It’s a wonderful strength builder.”
Alex arched an eyebrow. He’d not heard of that. Sure, equine therapy wasn’t his specialty, but...catch and release? Sounded like fishing terminology to him.
Grip. Rotation. Motion. Strength. Function. Those were more along the lines of the terminology he was used to using.
Billy leaned forward on the stool, cradling his wrist in his other hand. “What does that involve? Lassoing the horses or something? Wrestling them to the ground? That sort of thing?”
“It’s a little different than that... Elbow back on the table, please, young man. Can I get you to put your arm at a forty-five-degree angle, please? Yup. Good. Just like that. You can get paid for it, too.”
“What? The therapy? Result! What d’you have to do?”
Alex turned around just in time to catch Maggie miming a shoveling motion.
Billy groaned. “You mean shoveling horse poop out of the stables? Not a chance, sister.”
