Tempted By Her Single Dad Boss
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They might be poor, but the last thing the Walshes were was negligent.
“Maybe a helicopter will come rescue us,” Connor suggested.
Maggie made an “Ooh” noise, followed by an I don’t think that’s gonna happen frown.
“The weather isn’t good enough for a helicopter to fly in, dummy,” Peyton snapped at her brother.
At least Peyton was feeling good enough to name-call. It was when fear became silence and then silence became acceptance that it swallowed you whole. Maggie had fought that battle thousands of times in her own life and had found that smiling at adversity really was the best way to deal with life’s challenges.
Right. Operation Positive Thinking!
“We’re going to be fine. Probably just stopping for a pod of harbor seals or something.”
“It’s a pod of whales. Seals are bob, harem, colony or rookery. Besides, the harbor seals don’t come round the cape in winter. It’s harp and hooded seals in January.”
“Well, that’s very interesting, Connor. What else do you know about seals?” Distractions. Perfect. Maggie put on her best interested face as Vicky jumped into the front cab of the ambulance, along with a howl of wind.
“Is the ferry sinking?” Peyton’s hands strained against the straps holding her onto her tray gurney.
“Ha! No.” Maggie threw a quick Will it? look at Vicky, whose return expression wasn’t very reassuring. “It won’t sink. Even if it does, you’re with a hydrotherapist. Perfect person to be with.”
The ferry lurched again. This time it was obvious the boat was tipping in the wrong direction.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
“I thought your therapy used horses, not water.” Connor’s voice wobbled as he spoke. “You said we could ride with you one day.”
“Absolutely. We will ride together and swim together. I do all sorts of different things.” Including screw up her life so much she ended up on a sinking ferry on New Year’s Day with two kids who seriously deserved a break but who weren’t getting one.
Adrenaline was normally her friend. She was going to have to make it her best friend today.
“Lay it on me, Vick,” she whispered out of the children’s earshot. “What’s going on?”
Vicky grabbed a couple of reflective vests out of the glove compartment and turned to her, looking utterly terrified. “Billy’s helping with the lifeboats. We need to get the kids out of here right now.”
No news was good news.
That’s what Alex was telling himself anyway. He stared at the phone again. Twenty attempted calls and each time it had cut out.
No news is good news.
When it involved a sinking ferry? No news could be the worst possible kind of news.
He’d already had enough of that in his life, thank you very much.
He pulled off his woolen hat and gave his sandy blond hair a scrub. Every nerve ending in his body was crackling with barely contained frustration. If jumping into the sea and swimming would have got them through the storm faster, he would’ve done it.
The urge surprised him. Particularly given the barely disguised nickname he knew his staff had for him.
Dr. Protocol.
His fingers tightened round the brass railing in the small enclosed helm area Salty kept in immaculate condition.
There were rules for a reason.
Rules Mother Nature didn’t feel inclined to pay much attention to.
It was insane to be out in this weather at all. He had a young son to look after. A clinic to run.
She needs your help.
They all needed his help.
He pushed the thoughts away. This wasn’t some magic chance for him to leap in and change history. His wife had been killed in action. There hadn’t been a single thing he could’ve done about it.
She could’ve followed orders and she’d still be alive.
His preference of fact over the futility of what-might-have-been laid the argument to rest. What’s done was done.
Right here, right now? He had patients who needed his help and Maggie Green had better be following emergency guidelines to a T.
He looked across at Old Salty, the island’s resident commercial fisherman who had volunteered to bring him out here. His last name was Harrington. Alex had never learned his first. All the islanders called him by his nickname, so he did, too.
The septuagenarian’s piercing blue eyes popped out beneath the navy captain’s hat he near enough always wore. A snow-white beard. Bit of a pot belly. He’d look like a nautical Santa if he wasn’t so damn grumpy all the time. Then again, there weren’t all that many folk willing to risk it all for a pair of young patients stranded on a sinking ferry off Boston Harbor. The man was made of the stern stuff of previous generations. The type who actually had walked to school through three feet of snow.
In fairness, Maple Island virtually overflowed with helping hands when needed. It was a proper community looking after its own. It was one of the reasons he and Cody had picked it for the clinic.
Three years he’d been on the island now. Given the fact the island was home to descendants of the Mayflower, he didn’t know if he’d ever feel anything other than brand new.
But he knew he’d stay. He felt welcome. And that made all the difference.
Didn’t mean the learning curve wasn’t steep. Cody was from California and Alex was from Alabama. A New England storm was still about as foreign to the pair of them as calling a place home for over two hundred years. And with temperatures below freezing, snow predicted and winds howling in from the Arctic Circle he was in completely new territory.
“It was good of Marlee to get in touch with you.”
“She didn’t,” Salty said.
Alex gave him a sidelong look. He obviously wasn’t going to offer up any more information.
Marlee was one of the clinic’s biggest assets and he wasn’t just talking about her bear hugs. If she wasn’t related to someone who could help, she’d gone to kindergarten with them, or had baked cookies with them or had raised her kids with them. The instant she sniffed trouble, she went into turbo drive and before he’d pulled on his first layer of thermals Alex had found himself being bundled into a four-by-four en route to the harbor, along with a set of thick waterproofs. When they’d arrived, Old Salty had already been untying his fishing boat’s thick bow lines off the dockside cleats.
“Should be any minute now.” Salty squinted into the mist, not an ounce of concern about him.
How did he do that? There was a broken-down ferry, possibly taking on water. Two patients on board who should already be in the clinic’s small but up-to-date intensive care unit. And a new employee he had absolutely no information about. Cody had handled the interviews with her so he had no information on what she’d be like. Scared. Capable. Bewildered. Dead?
His phone buzzed. Cody. His human wall to bounce ideas off. Half the time he never knew if Cody was even listening to him. The other half? He’d never met a smarter, more committed surgeon in his life. Two single dads doing their best to bring their children up in a world they never thought they’d be navigating alone.
Or, as Cody had pronounced when they’d finalized their building plans, “Life’s a bitch, and then you build a clinic.”
“Any news on your end, Cody?”
He heard a slapping sound. No doubt Cody’s hand against the counter. Frustration was definitely getting the better of both of them. “No. I was hoping you’d have some. Hey, listen, there’s something I need to warn you about Maggie—”
The line cut out.
Alex stared at the phone. What did he mean? Way to end on a cliff hanger.
“Look over there, boy,” Salty ordered.
Boy?
Alex bit back a mirthless laugh. It had gotten a bit too much use of late.
He hadn’t been a boy let alone felt like one since...far too long.
No point in pretending he couldn’t remember. The last time he’d felt properly young had been the moment he’d fallen in love with his wife. And that had been a long time ago. Best-looking woman in boot camp. Smartest, too. Had known her way round combat medicine as if she’d been born on a battlefield. A heart the size of the whole of New York City. Six years after her death, and he still struggled to believe someone so vital had been snuffed out in an instant. That was the only mercy. She’d never seen it coming.
“You can just make them out there.”
He tugged his wool hat back on and followed the line of Salty’s thick finger as he pointed toward a dark object in the distance largely obscured by the murky weather.
“Got it. Let’s get those children on board this boat and get them back to the clinic before anything else goes wrong.”
CHAPTER TWO
DOCKING A BOAT to an engine-less ferry perched on a jagged rocky outcrop in the midst of a winter storm was no mean feat. It wasn’t sinking at the moment—but it certainly wasn’t sitting at an angle that was going to hold for much longer if the waves grew any fiercer.
With each surge and lift of the fishing boat he could see the ambulance. He’d half expected to see it on its side, doors flapping and a whole lot of other things that weren’t very pleasant.
It was upright and solidly strapped to various posts by four thick docking ropes. Someone was a clever-clogs.
“Right, boy. That’s the Flying Cod cinched in. You want to get these little ’uns on board and back to the island?” Salty nodded at the rope ladder one of the ferry’s crew had just flung their way.
“Absolutely.”
Alex pulled himself up and over the railing and ran. He only just managed to pull himself to a halt as the double doors at the back of the ambulance swung open.
The storm, the high-octane adrenaline that came with the insane rescue mission, Old Salty’s salty language...none of it had the impact she did.
Hair like spun gold and flames. The biggest pair of brown eyes he’d ever seen. There were probably flecks of gold in them if the light was right. Pitch-black lashes giving them that added visual punch. Cheeks pinked up with the cold or...hell, he didn’t know why a woman’s cheeks pinked up. All he knew was that he’d better get some oxygen back into his lungs so he could speak.
She had a rope on her shoulder coiled up like a lasso.
“Hope that’s not for me.”
Kicking himself would be a good option about now.
She gave him a sideways look and a quick up-down scan. “Could be if you play your cards right.”
Was he—? Were they—?
This wasn’t flirting, was it?
“We should get a move on.”
Nice one, Alex. Way to roll out the charm.
“Absolutely.” She gave him a bright smile. “We probably need all hands on deck—like a human chain—in case the sea goes all bouncy-bouncy on us again. Although that’s why we put up the guide lines.” They both turned and looked at the ropes holding the ambulance in place. He saw now that there were more ropes tied at a higher level, serving as hand grips.
“You did this?”
She shrugged as if tying a vehicle with two extremely injured children inside of it during a freak winter storm was an everyday sort of thing for her. “With help from the ambo team and the ferry crew. You’re Dr. Kirkland, right? Maggie Green.”
She put out a hand.
He ignored it.
There’d only been one other woman who’d sucker-punched him into sensory overload quite so fast and the only place he could visit her was at her graveside.
Maggie’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if trying to get the measure of him. She withdrew her hand and gave him a nod in a way that suggested she saw him for what he was. A man at war with himself.
That made a change. Most people thought he was an uptight stick-in-the-mud. Rules. Regulations. The world’s most boring man.
He wasn’t that guy.
He hadn’t been, at least.
“All right, doc?” Billy appeared from around the corner, pulling on a reflective waterproof with the Boston Harbor logo sewn onto the front.
A wave bashed the side of the ferry and threw them all off balance. Maggie fell forward from her perch in the ambulance door. Alex lunged forward, just managing to keep the pair of them upright.
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.