CHAPTER ONE
RICK FLEMING FELT as if he was more than two weeks away from London. Much more than an ocean away. His old job and his family and friends seemed as if they were a world away.
Coming to the Maple Island Clinic was much more than just a new job. The island itself, situated two miles off the coast of Boston, was more than just a new place to live. It felt as if it just might be the end of a journey, one that had taken on the quality of a pilgrimage in his mind.
He’d promised his wife this before she’d died, four years ago. Their daughter had been just a baby, and all Ellie knew of her mother was what Rick could tell her. This was a chance for Ellie to see more of her grandparents in Boston, and for her to call America home, the way that Lara had done. And it was Rick’s chance to learn whether he might call somewhere home, too.
“I hope you’re settling in.” Alex Kirkland, the director responsible for rehabilitation, was ensconced in one of the easy chairs in his office, clearly the spokesperson for the two-man welcoming committee. His co-director, Cody Brennan, who led the surgical team, sat silently to one side.
“Yes, thank you.”
“And how’s Ellie?”
“She’s good. I brought her in to visit the clinic’s daycare center yesterday, and this morning she didn’t even look back to say goodbye to me when I left.”
Alex chuckled. “I know that feeling. I’m really happy that Jake looks forward to spending time in daycare after school while I’m still at work, but he might spare a thought for his dad’s feelings and pretend that he’s sorry to see me go. You’re both settling in at the lighthouse?”
“Ellie loves it. We stayed with her grandparents in Boston for a week before we came here, and on a clear day you can just see the tip of the lighthouse from the roof of their apartment block. She’s been insisting on going up to the viewing gallery every evening to wave them goodnight before she goes to bed.”
Alex and Cody both smiled. Being able—no, encouraged—to talk about Ellie’s needs as part of his own work experience was novel, but Rick had already realized that it was the norm here at the Maple Island Clinic. Two single fathers, who’d wanted to give their children the best, had founded a clinic that combined professional excellence with the very best daycare facilities. This was Rick’s dream job, in more ways than one.
“I’ll be going through your case-load with you over the next couple of days.” Alex picked up a patient file from the coffee table in front of him, slipping effortlessly from childcare to clinic business. “But I’d like to draw your attention to one of the patients I’m considering adding to your list. I think that your background in counseling, as well as physical rehabilitation, might put you in a unique position to help her.”
Rick took the file, opening it and scanning the details quickly, before his eye was drawn to the photograph stapled inside the front cover. One look at the blue eyes, staring candidly at the camera, and he forgot about everything else. Long, dark hair framed a face that no one in their right mind could fail to consider beautiful, but her eyes held something more. The promise that this woman was a force to be reckoned with.
“Fleur Miller came to us before Christmas.” Alex’s voice cut through the spell that seemed to bind Rick to the image. “She was part of a theater group—See the Beat.”
“I think I’ve heard of them. They specialize in theatrical dance and acrobatics.” He remembered them from one of those late-night arts programs that he’d had a habit of dozing through, instead of going to bed.
“Yes, that’s right. Fleur had a bad fall and sustained extensive injuries. They’re all in the file.”
Rick concentrated on the print, trying to ignore the photograph. Severe concussion, a broken shoulder and collarbone, a fractured hip and a knee that had been so badly damaged that the joint had required replacement.
“Is all her surgery complete?”
“Everything major. She has a ganglion on her wrist, probably caused by the trauma of the fall, but that’s relatively insignificant and we’ve decided to wait until she’s moving around without crutches. Cody will take care of it then.”
“She should be almost recovered by now, though. Eight weeks at the Boston Harbor Hospital, and then several more weeks here.”
“Yes, physically she’s doing well. Emotionally, not so much. She’s a model patient, smiles at all the nurses, does what she’s told when the physio’s watching her. But when she’s alone, she just lies down on her bed and stares at the ceiling. We reckon she’s having a good day when we find her staring out of the window.”
Rick frowned. He wasn’t usually mistaken about a face, and he thought he’d seen determination in Fleur’s. “Has the clinic’s mental health team been involved?”
“Yes, they have, but she’s stonewalled them. Her attitude is that loss is a perfectly normal thing for a person to feel, and that we should just leave her alone while she deals with it.”
“She has a point. With these injuries it doesn’t look likely that she’ll be returning to a career in dance anytime soon, if ever. Everyone needs a bit of time to grieve, whatever the nature of their loss.”
Alex and Cody knew that too. And all three men knew that there must be a time for moving forward as well. In the time it had taken Rick to kick-start his own life, after Lara’s death, he’d almost lost everything else that he’d cared about. It sounded as if Fleur was in danger of making the same mistake that he had.
Alex broke the short silence. “We think that Fleur has found herself a comfort zone, and she won’t venture out of it. She’s made up her mind that she can just sit her time out here.”
“Which isn’t what the clinic’s all about,” Rick mused. It was one of the topics that Alex and Cody had discussed with Rick during a series of in-depth video interviews. The clinic aimed to prepare its patients for life, and not just attend to their medical needs.
“No, it isn’t. We’d like to hear some ideas on how you think you might get through to her.”
“Everyone else has failed,” Cody interjected with a frown. It was clear that both Alex and Cody were taking this personally. Committed doctors had a habit of thinking that way.
Rick took a few moments to read through the patient profile. Fleur had grown up on the island, leaving when she was fifteen to go to theater school in Boston... Her parents were still on the island, visited every day and were supportive... No financial issues...
Almost against his will, his gaze was drawn back to the photograph. The confidence in Fleur’s gaze suggested that this was someone who knew how to meet the world headlong. Someone who could fight. Rick dismissed the thought that if she could be persuaded to fight him there was the strong possibility that he might enjoy every moment of it, and then come crawling back for more. Fleur Miller would be nothing more than a patient who presented him with a medical conundrum.
“If Fleur’s reached the kind of standard she has in dance, then she’s clearly no stranger to meeting a challenge.” Rick ventured an opinion. “Perhaps the difficulty for her now is that she can’t see any challenge ahead of her. I can imagine that for someone like her, that must be very demotivating.”
“And your solution?” Alex pursed his lips.
Rick grinned. “This is a wonderful place, but maybe that’s just the problem. It’s making everything a bit too easy for Fleur. We need to find something that will confront her and give her a reason to start fighting. I think that then the underlying emotional issues that are getting in the way of her recovery might become more apparent and we’ll have a chance to address them.”
Alex exchanged a glance with Cody, and then nodded. “Agreed. And we can rely on you to pursue that approach?”
It made sense. He was a new face, and that meant a fresh start and a chance to succeed where others had failed.
“Yes. I’d welcome the challenge.”
* * *
The next hour was devoted to a bombardment of names, smiles and handshakes as Alex and Cody took him on a whistle-stop tour of the clinic. This place had everything. But the smiling faces, the state-of-the-art gym equipment and the beautiful setting didn’t provide the one thing that he guessed his newest patient might need.
He spent half an hour with Ellie at lunchtime. She had obviously been exploring her new surroundings, and excitedly showed him around the daycare center. Their second goodbye of the day was only marginally less harrowing than the first, but Ellie took it in her stride, running back to the play area where she’d already made some friends.
Rick walked determinedly to the private room marked on Fleur’s notes. The door was open, and he could see a figure lying on the bed, her back to the door. She didn’t move when he knocked so Rick walked inside.