style="font-size:15px;"> Her hands flew out to brace herself and in the process knocked a supplies basket off the wall. She arched her body so the small boxes of gauze would fall on her and not Connor. The last thing he needed was more things falling on him.
“Maggie, where is Dr. Valdez now?”
She inched her way back to her seat and buckled herself in again.
“He had to stay in Boston to do an emergency surgery. The children are fine, but a fierce storm’s blown in unexpectedly and the ferry seems to have run into some trouble.”
The back door to the ambo flew open, along with a huge gust of wintry air. It was Billy. His features had turned ashen. “We’ve hit a rock. A big huge—”
Maggie drew a line across her throat and pointed at the children. She mimed closing the door as she tried to keep her voice steady. “We appear to have had a bit of a collision.” As she watched Billy struggle to close the doors behind him, her mind reeled with ways to get the children off safely. The wind was obviously too strong for a helicopter. Not to mention that their clear day had turned into one with zero visibility. They must be halfway between Boston and Maple Island. Only half an hour on a good day. On a bad one? She didn’t have a clue.
The ferry was being bashed around by the waves so there wasn’t a chance in the universe the tiny lifeboats would be of any use. Unless they were sinking.
Oh, jeezy-peeps. They’d better not be sinking.
“Can you send anyone to fetch us? We might be in somewhat of a pickle here.” The biggest type of pickle, actually. The life-or-death kind if this was going the way she feared. Maggie bit down on the inside of her cheek so hard she drew blood.
“Leave it with me.” Alex’s rich southern voice was exactly the solid reassurance she needed to hear. “Your priority is the children.” Then the phone went dead.
She stared at the phone. The man certainly wasn’t one for small talk.
Right now isn’t the time for pleasantries, you idiot!
Besides, he was ex-military, wasn’t he? All the doctors she’d worked with who had served were more about action than chitchat.
“You two twin berries all right?” Maggie started taking everything down from the sides of the ambulance that could fall, doing her best to sound calm when everything inside her was freaking right the heck out of Dodge. Chances were they were going to have to get out of the ambulance asap.
An obstetrics kit fell off its wall hook. She grabbed it just in time.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
She swept a lock of black hair away from Peyton’s face with one of her rainbow-color painted nails. “How you holding up there, hon? You okay?”
The ten-year-old was looking pretty pale, but then again blunt trauma to her spinal column was no laughing matter. Neither was the resulting Brown-Sequard syndrome. The rare spinal injury could have been deadly. A wooden shard from the scaffolding that had collapsed on her and her brother had pierced her spinal cord, triggering the neurological response. Dr. Valdez had stopped the spinal fluid from leaking and, whilst she still was experiencing some numbness and sensory loss, it looked as though she would not suffer permanent paralysis.
The minor fractures she’d received to her spinal column? Well. Time and a positive attitude were going to be both the twins’ best friends for the next few months. An amazing surgeon from Spain had helped, too. And not sinking in an ambulance on a ferryboat just off the coast of Boston? That would also be a factor.
She pinned on a smile. “It looks like New Year’s Day is a bit more wild than we thought.”
“I’m okay if Connor’s okay,” Peyton whispered.
Boom!
This time it was Maggie’s heart that took the blow. These two kids. They tugged at just about every single one of her heartstrings. She’d been in the hospital when the twins had been brought in on Christmas Eve.
A few days later, once she’d connected the dots—low-income backgrounds, parents embroiled in a legal tangle with a reluctant insurance company, the charitable offer from the Maple Island Clinic to cover the long-term rehab—she’d realized they were headed for the same place and had volunteered to oversee the transfer to the island when Dr. Valdez wasn’t able to make it, even though it meant she’d arrive a week earlier than she’d been contracted for.
Not that it was the best excuse in the universe to get out of Boston fast.
She gave Connor’s dark hair a gentle scrub. He’d also taken a severe blow from the scaffolding, but at least he’d missed out on getting a spinal puncture wound from the splintered beams that had shattered when the scaffolding clamps had given way. Peyton had really taken the brunt of this one.
Their recovery after surgery at Boston Harbor had been one of those “wait and see” issues. Never nice for the patient. More traumatizing for the parents.
Her own parents had just about had a meltdown when...well... They’d eventually got over it and she was getting on just fine now. All things considered.
She smiled down at Connor. “You all right, bud?”
“Wicked cool.” Connor gave her a double thumbs-up, even though his arms were strapped down along with the rest of his body. Any sort of movement could compromise the exacting surgery he’d just had. She gave herself a fist bump within his eyeline then returned his thumbs-up.
How was she going to get these kids safely off this boat?
The ferry shifted and groaned again. Her insides went liquid with fear. Was this their Titanic moment?
“All good, kiddos. Everything’s okay,” she lied. “Thank goodness you two are strapped in, right?”
They probably ought to get them out of the ambo and upstairs, where they stood a better chance of not being sucked into the icy Atlantic waters, but...with the ferry moving around so much, what if they dropped them?
It’d be like walking around with unpinned, kid-shaped grenades.
She shot Billy a look. One she hoped asked, Any bright ideas?
Billy mouthed something about finding the crew and climbed out of the ambo with another gush of wintry wind.
In a vain attempt to make this seem fun and not terrifying, Maggie took two big fistfuls of her flame-red hair and held them out whilst making a goofy face.
Total failure.
At ten years old, Peyton and Connor were old enough to roll their eyes at adults trying to be cool and still young enough to be scared.
“You two hold steady there.” Maggie winced. As if they had a choice. She knew more than most how hard it was to be told not to worry when the only option was to rely on other people.
“Maybe you should call Dad.” Peyton’s eyes were still red-rimmed from the emotional farewell with their parents at the hospital.
“That’s
