Tempted By Her Single Dad Boss

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 (#u6f61ceaa-1d74-5b2d-9c8b-4a613fd351b1)

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.