“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.
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.