JO WAS TRYING to ignore the little stick on the edge of the bathroom sink. It just confirmed her thoughts that doctors do indeed sometimes make the worst patients. All she wanted to do was hurry the test up. She needed the answer right now.
And she was feeling very antsy waiting for that timer to go off.
It couldn’t be positive. It just couldn’t be.
Jo worried her bottom lip and stared at her watch. Only a minute left.
It had to be a stomach bug. There was a stomach bug that had been going through Nubbin’s Harbor, thanks to a tourist who had spread it to the unwitting residents en route to Tilting. For the last couple of weeks Jo had been dealing with a stomach virus that had run rampant through all her patients.
Not much to be done except prescribe fluids and rest.
Everyone seemed to be sick, but Jo thought it had been tapering off; then she’d started to feel nauseated and dizzy at times. Some niggling thought told her it wasn’t the virus, and yet she had never been so busy: she was even getting patients in from farther afield because the hospital emergency room was full. It couldn’t be pregnancy. It just couldn’t be. The only time she’d had sex since David died was a month ago with Henrik.
A warm flush spread though her body at just the thought of Henrik. Her mysterious stranger with the blue, blue eyes and kisses that made her melt.
Even though it had been a one-time only thing, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. The way his lips felt on hers, the touch of those skilled hands on her skin.
She tried not to think about him, but every time she walked through Nubbin’s Harbor she’d look for him, hoping to see him again, which frustrated her. He’d told her he was leaving. Had she expected him to come back for her?
She wasn’t here for romance. She was here to work.
Still, their one night together had been electric, but that didn’t mean she was pregnant. They had used protection.
Protection isn’t one hundred percent reliable.
Jo cursed under her breath. She had told that to so many others before.
She knew one thing: if she was pregnant, then she was pregnant. It was as simple as that. She’d always wanted children. It was something she and David had always planned for. It was something they had tried for, for over a year, but it turned out that they had unexplained infertility. Every month her heart was broken, and David would remind her that everything was okay. All through the pain from IVF that she’d endured, he had held her hand.
She’d known it would happen for them one day. It was what she’d held on to.
And David had always convinced her of that. When he died, Jo really thought that was it. She would never be a mother now, because she couldn’t see herself being with anyone again.
Until that night with Henrik.
Who’d left the next morning.
Jo hadn’t regretted that act of impulsivity. It was one more step toward getting her life back, and that night had been wonderful.
It just tore at her heart that the baby wasn’t and couldn’t be David’s the way she’d hoped for from the moment she’d married him.
The baby she’d mourned when she’d buried her husband.
You’re getting ahead of yourself. It’s probably just a stomach bug.
The thought of a baby made her stomach flutter with hope and excitement. No, a baby with a stranger wasn’t ideal or anything close to what she’d imagined for herself, but she would still be ecstatic if she was pregnant.
A child. Her son or daughter.
Something she’d always wanted yet tried not to wish for too often.
The timer went off, and she picked up the pregnancy test. Her hand was shaking, and it took her a moment to register the fact that there were two pink lines staring up at her, rather than one.
It was definitely not a stomach bug. Although right at this moment a part of her wanted to throw up, there was another, much larger part that was absolutely thrilled that she was going to have a baby.
Before David died, they had used their last embryo, and it hadn’t been viable.
They were going to try again, but he’d died before they could, and with his death her dream had sputtered away.
This pregnancy felt like a miracle.
Tears stung her eyes, and she smiled as she stared down at the stick.
She knew when she came to work in Newfoundland for the year that she was looking for a change, she just never expected that it would be this big. Her mind started to whirl about what she was going to do, but she was sure that her mother would come up from Arizona and help her for a bit.
She chuckled softly to herself that her father’s dreams about retirement in Arizona might come to a screeching halt with the impending birth of a grandchild.
You’re getting ahead of yourself.
Jo took another calming breath and lay the stick down, washing her hands and then splashing some cold water on her face. She was only a month in; something awful could happen. It had happened to her before, when she and David had first started trying...
“Jo?” David had opened the door to the bathroom, and his face had fallen when he’d seen her on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” she’d cried.
David had knelt down. “It’s okay. I told you, when it happens, you’re going to be an excellent mother. I know it.”
“I’m not sure about that,” she’d sniffed.
David had touched her face, wiping away her tears. “I am.”
Jo swallowed the lump in her throat. It was too soon to get her hopes up.
She reached down and gingerly cupped her abdomen.
Stay with me, little one, she begged. Just wanting to hold on to something which still seemed so intangible.
The door chimed as someone walked into the clinic.
“Doc?” they called.
She recognized Lloyd’s voice.
She brushed away the tears and straightened her hair. “Coming!”
Jo left the bathroom and smiled at him.
“Lloyd, how can I help you?” she asked.
“It’s not me, but there’s been an accident in Tilting. A bad one, out at sea, and they’re requesting all medical personnel to come as quick as they can. I’m with the volunteer firefighters here, so I can take you.”
Jo nodded. “Of course. Just give me five minutes to grab what I need, and I’ll meet you outside.”
Lloyd nodded grimly and left the clinic.
Jo grabbed all the emergency gear that she had prepared for when the village would be inundated with tourists for iceberg season.
When Gary had talked to her about his practice, he’d mentioned that there were often tourists that would get too close to these massive behemoths of ice and slip. Just trying to get that perfect picture.
And then there were the fishers who were out shrimping and crabbing. Some of the locals even harvested sea cucumbers, and the sea was not always a kind mistress. The sea didn’t care what you fished, legally or illegally when it claimed lives.
Gary had told her it was wise to have emergency kits prepared.
So that’s exactly what she did.
Fogo had a hospital, but it was always best to be prepared. She’d learned that during her years as a trauma surgeon. She had first learned family medicine, but liked the fast pace of the hospital emergency room more.
Both her experiences would come in handy today.
Jennifer, her receptionist, came into the supply room to help her with the bags.
“I’ll cancel the rest of the patients for the day,” she said.
“Thanks, Jenn. I appreciate that.”
“There weren’t that many, really. Most are still out sick with that stomach bug and called in to reschedule.”
“I would be lost without you.” Which was true. Jennifer was a native to Fogo and had been a huge help in welcoming Jo here.
Jo was thankful for the friend.
Jennifer helped her carry the bags outside.
She shut the door to her clinic as Lloyd took the trauma bags and hefted them into the back of his small truck.
“Will there be paramedics there?” she asked, climbing into the front seat.
“Aye, and the coast guard. When I got the call, I told them that I would be bringing you.”
“Do you know what happened?” she asked, as Lloyd drove the short distance to Tilting.
“Aye, pirates.”
Normally, if anyone else would’ve said that to her, she would’ve given them a look of derision, but Lloyd was stone-cold serious.
And after kissing a cod a month ago, it didn’t seem too far-fetched.
“Pirates?” she echoed.
“Well, not real pirates, but boys that were out fishing illegally. Jigging we call it. There’s a moratorium on who can fish cod here. They’re not from Fogo but were going to sell it on the black market. They got into a chase with the coast guard, and their ship exploded.”
“Exploded?” she asked, trying to process in her brain how a ship could explode at sea.
“Aye.” Lloyd nodded. “The paramedics and the coast guard are a wee bit overwhelmed, pulling the bodies from the water and dealing with the wreckage.”
Jo pursed her lips.
A sea faring vessel exploding was not a trauma that she was familiar with, though she had seen her share of combustion injuries. They were probably dealing with drownings, burns and most likely internal or shrapnel injuries.
Going over what she could possibly have to deal with helped her focus on what she had to do. Trying to always think three steps ahead was why she was one of the best trauma surgeons in Toronto, but it was the fast pace that had also threatened to burn her out.
When they rounded the corner, she could see the smoke rising over the rocky outcrops. She actually gasped out loud the closer they got to the shoreline. The coast guard was out there dealing with the fire, but there was also a stream of smaller boats and divers dealing with the injured and the bodies.
There were several ambulances and makeshift trauma and morgue areas set up. She could see bodies covered in blankets on the beach.
“How big was the boat that exploded?” she asked.
“Large. Such a waste of life. And a waste of cod too,” Lloyd grumbled.
Lloyd might lack tact, but since cod fishing had been their way of life for so long and it had been taken away, she could understand his bitterness at the loss of the fish. “Who should I report to?”
“I’ll find ma b’y, Rik, who is in charge of this. He’ll get you sorted.”
Lloyd parked, and they got out of the truck and grabbed the gear. Lloyd started gesticulating and shouted, “Whaddaya at, Rik! I’ve brought the doc!”
There was a group of coast-guard paramedics on shore. Rik turned to wave back to Lloyd, and that’s when her world stopped turning as she stared at the paramedic who was in charge. A lump formed in her throat, and she felt again like she was going to be sick.
At least he looked as shocked as her, as he came closer.
Her one-night stand.
The father of her baby.
Henrik.
The man who’d told her he was leaving the island for work, and she’d assumed he’d meant he was gone for good.
“Rik, this is Doc Jo, as we all call her now, but then you should know her. You were there the night she came to Nubbin’s Harbor.”
Henrik’s blue eyes settled on hers, and her heart skipped a beat. Her body reacted viscerally to the sight of him, warmth spreading through her as flashes of sensual memories of that night raced through her mind.
It was hard to find any words.
She’d only wanted one night with him, yet standing here now all she wanted to do was leap into his arms and melt.
You can’t. That’s not why you’re here.
“You’re Doc Jo?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts with the intense shock in his tone.
“The one and the same,” she said, finding her voice.
It looked like he wanted to say more. A lot more. “Good, we need all the help we can get. I’ll show you where to start.”
“Lead the way... Rik.”
There was no time to talk about what had happened a month ago, or how she’d thought he wasn’t coming back, or why she hadn’t seen him since that night, or how she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
None of that mattered now.
She had a job to do.
Henrik was completely floored to discover the doctor he’d heard so much about was not called Joseph, as he’d assumed, but rather Josephine, the woman that he had been thinking about for the entire month he’d been away.
It had bothered him that he couldn’t get her out of his head. Usually one-night stands were just that—done and dusted.
It had been some time since he’d been this preoccupied thinking about a woman he had been intimate with. Dreaming about her kisses, the way she’d sighed in his arms, her velvety-soft skin and the scent of her hair.
Even just recalling it again now made his pulse quicken.
He’d planned to throw himself into his work when he arrived back home and forget all about her. He’d thought she was a tourist and would be long gone, and usually work helped to get his mind off his paramours. It always had with the others, even Melissa.
Seeing Josephine, he knew his plan was obviously not going to work. The siren that had been haunting him for weeks while he was at sea was here.
In the flesh.
The new doctor of the community. Someone that he would have to deal with on a regular basis, given that he was a first responder here. Was karma finally getting back at him? His gran always used to say that his recklessness and his hardened heart would bite him in the backside one day. Not that he’d ever been mean or cruel to anyone. His gran had just never approved of his philandering ways, as she’d called it.
He’d thought it was just her usual ramblings, but then, his grandmother had never really been wrong.
“The arse is gone out of ’er, my boy, if you keep at this with the come from aways!”
Basically, she was warning him that all was going to go to hell in a handbag if he kept playing around with tourists. He knew that Gran had wanted him to settle down, but after Melissa it was far too hard to even contemplate opening his heart to a woman again. And he certainly was never going to settle down with someone east of the Rock.
His home was here.
This was where he’d been born and raised. Everyone else had left to find work on the mainland, and he wouldn’t risk his heart on another person who would leave.
Fogo owned his heart.
Still, Josephine had been in his thoughts, and for one brief moment he’d even wished that she hadn’t been a come from away. He’d wished she was staying.
Now, here she was, staying. She was the new doctor, and part of him was incredibly happy about that, but the loudest part of his soul was telling him to run. To keep away. Josephine was a serious threat to his damaged heart, and he wasn’t sure that he could deal with such heartache again.
There was some shouting, and he shook his head, snapping himself out of his thoughts. Josephine was standing in front of him, her finely arched brow cocked, waiting.
Right.
Accident.
“Follow me,” he said, gruffly, annoyed at himself for zoning out. That was not something he did in situations like this. He had to get control of himself and his emotions. There was a job to do here, lives on the line.
He made his way down to where they had set up a triage area for those who’d survived the explosion. There had apparently been a crew of twenty onboard, and only ten had been recovered so far, with five of them having perished.
“We’re tagging those that need to be taken by ambulance right away.” He handed her some tags. “Do what you can, as we only have so many ambulances on the island to take them to hospital. The diving teams are still working on retrieving those in the water.”
Josephine paled. “Right.”
“You okay? Have you worked trauma before?” he asked.
“I was a trauma surgeon in Toronto,” she said stiffly, pulling on her rubber gloves. “I can handle this.”
“Are you sure? You looked like you were going to be sick.”
Her spine stiffened. “Oh? And you can diagnose that from a glance?”
“Some people can’t stand the sight of trauma.”
“I’m a physician and a surgeon, and I’ve seen explosions before in the city. I can deal.” Josephine made her way to one of the injured on the ground and started her checks on the survivors. Henrik headed back to the shore as another dinghy came in.
He helped another paramedic as they took a backboard down to the dinghy. The moment he got close he could see the survivor was bleeding out, his femoral artery cut, and the diver was applying pressure to the wound with a towel.
“We have a trauma surgeon triaging,” Henrik said, quickly directing the other paramedic to take the man to where Josephine was working. She looked up as they got closer, and he didn’t even have to call her over. She could see exactly what the issue was.
“Femoral artery?” she asked, leaning over to check the patient’s vitals.
“Yes. If he doesn’t stabilize, he won’t make it to the hospital,” Henrik answered grimly.
“Okay.” Josephine pursed her lips. “We’re going to do this in the back of an ambulance. I need lots of light, and it’ll be more sanitary in there than out here.”
Henrik nodded and helped guide the unconscious patient into the back of the ambulance on a stretcher. As the man was secured, Henrik set up a large-bore IV to get fluids into him, while Josephine readied what she needed.
The diver was still applying pressure to the wound, but the towel was soaking through with blood.
Josephine had a clamp ready as they removed the towel.
Henrik leaned over. “Tell me what you need.”
“Hold the light still,” she directed.
She just nodded in acknowledgment as he did and she clamped the vein to stop the bleeding. “I think that I can suture the artery so that it will hold until he gets to the hospital. Can the Fogo Island Hospital handle a vascular surgery?” she asked.
“He’ll be flown to St. John’s from there,” Henrik stated. “He just needs to make it to the hospital.”
“We’ll get him there. You have a suture kit?”
Henrik pulled out a kit, and Josephine went to work, getting her tools ready to sew up the artery so that the patient could be transported.
“Start some antibiotics,” Josephine said as she cleaned the wound. “If he was in the water, he’ll need it, but I’m also concerned about what cut his leg. I don’t know what shrapnel from the explosion did this.”
“I have cefazolin,” Henrik said, going through the medicine that was on hand.
“That’ll be fine.” Josephine continued her careful work. Cleaning and repairing what she could so the patient had his best shot at survival. Henrik watched in amazement. He had seen trauma surgeons before, but not in the field like this.
Not when there was chaos around them, and doing such a delicate repair in the back of an ambulance. It was like they were in this small bubble of their own in the back of the vehicle, just them working together over the patient.
It took him straight back to the first night they met. When their eyes had locked, he’d almost felt he’d been looking back at the other half of his soul.
And now, here, watching her work, it was calm.
A life was being saved right in front of him.
They shared the same passion. He’d never met anyone quite like her before, which was probably the reason he’d had such a hard time forgetting her. She was a danger to his carefully guarded heart.
“There,” Josephine said. “Let’s pack this wound and get him off to the hospital.”
Henrik handed her what she needed to pack and then cover it. He readied the patient for transport as Josephine disposed of the suture kit and her rubber gloves. She climbed out of the back of the ambulance and called the Fogo Island Hospital.
Telling them exactly what to expect so they could call in the correct surgeon or have the air ambulance ready to whisk him to St. John’s.
Henrik helped close the back doors of the ambulance and banged on the back, signaling to the driver that they could leave.
Josephine stepped back as the lights flipped on and the sirens blared.
“That was impressive work,” Henrik stated. “I haven’t seen a femoral repair in the field.”
“It wasn’t really a repair. He’ll need much more work, and he isn’t out of the woods yet. I’m sure the vascular surgeon in charge will cringe at my handiwork. There’s a reason we’re referred to as the meatballers of the surgical world.”
“I’ve always found that distinction quite unjust.”
She smiled at him. “Well, let’s go check on the others. The divers are still bringing victims in.”
Henrik nodded.
He stood there and watched her head back to the triage area, where there were more survivors being loaded into ambulances.
On the other side of the beach, there were far too many bodies, and he was mad that it had come down to this. To this desperation to make money. It cost lives, and he hated it, but the one thing he didn’t detest was Josephine being here.
At first, seeing her there, he’d experienced a fleeting moment of panic.
When he’d first met her a month ago, the come-from-away woman he’d spent the night with, he’d thought she was a delicate flower. How wrong he had been. Just watching her throw herself into the fray of this emergency situation had seriously impressed him.
Don’t think like that. Don’t let her impress you.
He had to be careful.
He had to keep her at a distance.
It was bad enough that he couldn’t stop thinking about her for the month he’d been on his training mission.
Now she was close enough to put his heart on the line again, and that was something he wasn’t willing to do because she wasn’t from here. She’d leave eventually.
Just like Melissa.
Like so many others.
There were no ties for Josephine here, and to protect himself from pain he couldn’t offer her any reason to stay.
Even though part of him secretly wanted to.