Tempted By Her Single Dad Boss. Annie O'Neil

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СКАЧАТЬ ary-scay alk-tay, my friend.”

      He looked at her blankly, then huffed. “I don’t do pig Latin.” He made a gimme, gimme gesture with his hand. “Number for the clinic, please, Mags.”

      Maggie recited it from memory, reminding herself that Billy had valiantly maneuvered the ambulance onto the ferry’s small car deck when Vicky, the original driver, had announced an urgent need for coffee. They could’ve parked diagonally if they’d wanted to. Not one other car had followed behind them onto the dinky car deck. Had every other person in Boston read a different weather report from the one she’d had or were they all just hungover, like Vicky?

      She’d checked the weather about a hundred times. It was meant to be calm today, snow tomorrow.

      The clinic would go ballistic if anything happened to these two. And she wouldn’t blame them. They’d been through enough. The terror of their house’s scaffolding collapsing on them. Spinal surgery. Critical Care. Parents having to wage war with the insurance company and carry on working so they didn’t lose what little money they did have. It had been a horrific holiday season for all of them. The one silver lining had been the clinic taking them gratis. She wasn’t going to let anything stand in the way of them getting the rehab they deserved. Not the weather. Not a cranky paramedic. Not on her watch.

      “Actually...” she pulled out her own phone “...I’d better do it.”

      “Why?” Billy’s arm shot out and only just missed her face as they both sought to stabilize themselves from another lurch.

      “Because Boston Harbor’s put me down as the contact and I’m the one signing the children over. My job. My responsibility.”

      “You’re their physio. I’m in charge of the ambo, which makes me king of everyone who’s in it.”

      She knew Billy wasn’t trying to get one up her, but the caveman approach made her bridle.

       Don’t let fear guide you. You can’t control everything.

      That’s what she’d told herself after that night. The night her blind trust in Eric had exploded into painful emotional shrapnel.

      It was years ago. Move on. Not everyone was judging her. Billy didn’t even know about her...her situation...so...

      It was time to stop tarring everyone with the same brush.

      They both pitched toward the right side of the ambulance as another wave bashed the side of the boat.

      What the heck was happening out there? Armageddon?

      Doing her best to not freak the children out, she tried appealing to Billy’s macho side. “Go on, Billy. Be a hero and find out what’s going on.” She threw in a lame, “It’s my name on the paperwork,” then wiggled her phone between them as if that settled the matter.

      The truth? They did need to find out what was happening and she wasn’t sure her sea legs were up to whatever was happening out there. Besides, if something truly bad was going on, she needed a plan to get the children off the ferry, stat. No way was she losing them or exacerbating their critical injuries. Not when they’d already dodged the entrance to death’s door a little less than a week ago.

      Billy threw the radio cables onto the passenger seat of the front cab. “You know what I think?”

      No. And judging by the narky tone of Billy’s voice she didn’t want to.

      “I think someone wants first dibs on the boss man.”

      “Ha! Hardly.”

      She waited for him to get out of the ambo before she let her yeah, right face drop.

      Okay. Totally. But it wasn’t a factor right now. In an emergency.

      She only did crushes from a distance. The second she stepped on to Maple Island? It would be work only.

      Besides, her “crush” was nothing more than professional admiration.

      Dr. Alex Kirkland was the answer to her prayers, professionally.

      She was good at her job and working for Alex would only make her better. Not that she’d even spoken to him yet. She’d been hired by the clinic’s co-founder, Cody Brennan, when he’d been over visiting a post-op patient she had been treating at Boston Harbor.

      This was the chance of a lifetime and she wasn’t going to let her poor taste in boyfriends destroy her future. It had taken three long years to build herself back up again after what Eric had done to her and no way was she going to let his arrival back in Boston push her back to that soul-destroying emotional precipice again.

      She thumbed through her phone, barely catching her balance as the ferry reacted to another impact. There were high screeching sounds this time. The unmistakable scream of metal on rock.

      Her heart dropped to her knees. Her badly bruised knees.

      Didn’t matter.

      Maggie did another quick check of Peyton and Connor’s stats. All good, despite the fact that being bounced around like this wasn’t strictly on the rehab list. Just as well she and Billy had agreed to keep the children strapped into the ambulance instead of stretchering them onto the semi-exposed passenger desk as one officious cost-cutting administrator at Boston Harbor Hospital had suggested. Er...anyone ever heard of patient safety? She might be a goofball on any number of fronts, but patient welfare was definitely not one of them.

      “You two all right?” She received a pair of dopey smiles. The painkillers were obviously doing their job. Excellent. The last thing she wanted was to add fear to the mix.

      A crisp, efficient male voice answered the ringing phone with the name of the clinic.

      “Hello? It’s Maggie Green here from Boston Harbor. May I speak with Dr. Kirkland please?”

      “This is he.”

      An unexpected trill of anticipation twirled around her heart and squeezed it tight. Alex Kirkland was legendary when it came to rehabilitation. His clinic. His terms. The place was a wonderland for a dedicated rehab physio. A job there was a true professional coup.

       And a great place to hide away from ex-boyfriends.

      The ferry came to a sudden halt then just as quickly felt like it was falling backwards. She yelped and braced herself to avoid falling on the children.

      “Is everything all right?” he asked.

      She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say everything was on track. Instead...she was going to have to set aside her deep-seated instinct not to ask for help.

      “Not really. I’m on the ferry with the Walsh twins and—Whoa!”

      Alex’s voice clicked into the type of quick, professional tone an emergency operator would use. He was calm, assuring. “Maggie, can you still hear me? Are you with the children now?”

      “Yes.”

      “Are they all right?”

      “Yes. СКАЧАТЬ