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.”
Despite years of hearing the medical term, Maggie winced. She hated that term, “gross deformities.” Whenever she was with patients she always made a joke of it and called them “beautiful variations.” Being injured or in pain was bad enough. No need to add insult to an actual injury.
Alex shook his head as once again Salty tried to lift himself up. The old man gave a grunt of irritation and lay back down on the dock, his eyes closed tight as Alex continued, “We’re most likely going to have to set the bones, Salty. A pretty good reason not to keep trying to get up and test it out.” Maggie pressed her fingers to Salty’s carotid artery. Irritation had ratcheted up his heart rate. Better than thready, but skyrocketing in the other direction wasn’t great either.
Patiently, and presumably as a time-filler until more help could arrive, Alex continued, “Pending a follow through on any soft-tissue damage and splinting you, with any luck, and some proper physio from Maggie here, we’ll have you up and running in a couple of months.”
“Months?” Salty roared, eliciting a few shrieks from the onlookers who’d thought his closed eyes had meant he had passed out.
Maggie could barely hear her own voice trying to tell him an oblique fracture was a good thing such was the roar of blood careering round her own brain.
Broken was so much better than what she’d imagined.
“Chin up, Salty. You’ll be back in action in no time,” she told the old man.
Alex threw her A Look. “If by ‘no time’ you mean possibly having to go through surgery and attend months of rehab after the fractures have healed, I suppose you’re right.”
Alex’s tone made his stance crystal clear. He didn’t “do” optimism. He did facts.
Maggie’s blood shot from ice cold straight up to boiling point. The facts weren’t all in yet and optimism had helped her over more than a few hurdles in her life.
“Your bedside manner stinks,” she ground out through gritted teeth.
“Both of yers does.” Salty tried to push himself up once more, only to have Alex and Maggie press him back down onto the thick wooden dock planks. “Listen up, the pair of you,” Salty persisted. “All I need is a good hot cup of coffee. One of Fiona’s’ll do. I don’t want any cardamom or turmeric or any sort of nut milk anywhere near my cup of Joe. And I’m hungry so I’d a like a cruller to go with it. While I have that you can tape up my leg, then the both of you can get on over to the clinic so I can shut down the Fish Tank for the night.”
“Erm... Salty?” Maggie shot a look at Alex, who was still very busy glaring at her. “I think the Fish Tank needs to be shut down for a bit longer than that. And perhaps by someone who isn’t you. Do you have any family who can help?”
Salty’s already murderous expression turned even darker. “Nope.”
He folded his arms across his chest and stared at the steel-gray sky that was turning suspiciously darker by the minute.
Someone pushed through the crowd. “Utter rot and nonsense, Salty. You’ve got us, whether you’re happy with it or not.”
Salty shifted his eyes to stare at the new arrival. A man with a bright orange crew cut who could’ve doubled as a leprechaun. Brave, too, as he was wagging his finger at Salty as if he’d been a naughty toddler.
“Tom Brady, I hope you’ve got a cruller in one of those pockets of yours, otherwise I’m not remotely interested in what you’re about to say.”
“You know there are crullers on tap for you every day of the week at the bakery, Salty, but perhaps the doc here might like you to wait a couple of minutes. Now, I’ll get Jim down here and he and I’ll see to the Fish Tank.” He nodded to Alex. “Dr. Kirkland. Good to see you, despite the circumstances. You and your son see in the New Year on your own?”
Alex nodded and gave the man’s shoulder a quick affirmative clap. “I imagine the Brady family saw it in with their usual verve.”
“I’ll have a headache for days,” Tom confirmed with a smile.
Alex laughed and shook his head.
Okay. So he wasn’t Captain von Grumpy to everyone. Just her. If there was any sort of record being taken, she would like it duly noted that she found Dr. Alex Kirkland infuriatingly...he turned to her with a soft apologetic smile playing on those lips of his...gorgeous.
He looked back at Tom. “I think Salty could do with a couple of extra pairs of hands today.”
“That’s settled, then. I’ll get the boys down and they’ll clean her up.”
“Not necessary!” Salty growled.
“Definitely necessary,” said another man who looked an awful lot like Tom Brady. “From where I’m standing, you aren’t looking your best.”
That was one way to put it.
All the blood had drained from Salty’s face. His breath was coming in quick, sharp huffs. The body’s way of coping with pain. If they didn’t get him somewhere dry and warm soon they could add hypothermia to his list.
As if by magic, a woman in a Maple Island Clinic jacket appeared with a backboard.
“Can we get a bit of space around Salty, please, folks?” Alex ordered. “Just need to load him up and get him to the clinic.”
“I don’t know what my insurance is going to think of this,” Salty bit out.
“Doesn’t matter,” Alex said matter-of-factly. “You were doing a clinic rescue mission. All your care is on us.”
A shot of respect crackled along Maggie’s spine. Gorgeous and with ramrod-straight integrity. She sniffed. Didn’t mean his social skills couldn’t do with some improvement, but everyone had their crosses to bear.
Salty grumbled but didn’t resist.
Then Alex started reciting another list of instructions so specific she had to hide her smile.
Dr. Protocol, indeed.
He was obviously a good doctor. His neurosurgical skills were highly lauded in all the articles she’d read about him before she’d taken the three-month contract at the clinic. Ground-breaking this and new innovations that. She’d had run-ins with a lot of surgeons in her time. They could be elitist. Reserved. Brusque. Downright rude. Alex obviously had the brains, but now that she’d watched him interact with Salty and the other islanders who were still pitching in as if this sort of thing happened every day, she realized he also had compassion. And that was a game changer as far as she was concerned. Anyone who could put themselves in someone else’s shoes...
This was going to be a funny few months. Whether it was going to be funny ha-ha or funny peculiar remained to be seen.