An Apple Away

By Kate Richards

Aislinn never wants to see another doctor. Their painful and pointless treatments have done nothing to improve her rapidly deteriorating health. She hopes that the staff of Wiccan Haus can at least offer a change of scene, if not a return of a little of her former strength. She's delighted to meet Punda, a masseuse, on her arrival and charmed by the cottage in the apple orchard where she will stay.

Dr. Hugo Peralta visits the island at the insistence of his boss. The distinguished brain surgeon is in desperate need of a respite before overwork makes him one of his own patients. He is surprised but pleased with the privacy and serenity of his cottage--across the orchard from Aislinn's. An idyllic location on a magical island where love can blossom--if the Rowans can help the trio save Aislinn from whatever is killing her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Decadent Publishing
• Release date: Aug 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781613338292

Kate Richards

Kate Richards is a SoCal dweller with a beach-loving family. She spends as much time as she can in the Pacific waves, but when surf’s not up she enjoys writing, reading, and growing vegetables in the only warehouse garden in Los Angeles – that she is aware of.

Book preview

Chapter One

Dr. Hugo Peralta rested his forearms on the ferryboat railing, staring over the bow at fog. They’d pulled out of port in brilliant sunshine, a glance over his shoulder revealing the winding Maine coastline even now basking in the clear afternoon. Facing forward again, his eyes met a wall of gray so dense he couldn’t see an inch through it. Not menacing, precisely, but not indicative of a refreshing interlude of sun and sea. He rubbed at the goose bumps rising on his arms, surely from the weather and not the sense of unease engendered by the sight.

Traveling for nearly twenty-four hours, straight from twelve at the hospital performing an emergency procedure on a brain-trauma victim, exhaustion weighed his shoulders down, the aching tightness in his calves a sure sign of too much time standing in the operating room. The accident victims salting his schedule of regular patients had allowed little time to recover between long hours in surgery.

The squalling child in the row in front of him and the jabbering female next to him, determined to share her life story, had kept him from resting between Buenos Aires and New York. The layover at frenzied JFK, turbulent flight to Boston…he’d finally fallen asleep in the limo to the godforsaken fishing village in Maine.

Rolf Quinones, the hospital administrator, had an odd idea of how to get away from it all and recover his vitality. Forced to take a vacation or lose his position as chief of surgery, Hugo had been deciding between climbing Mount Everest and signing up for a space tourist flight when his boss shoved a packet of papers into his hand.

You leave tomorrow. Go pack. The short, earnest man grasped his arm. And, Hugo, try to have fun…maybe even meet a nice woman. You’re alone too much; it’s not good for you.

He’d snorted. Sure, he lived alone, but he liked it. The housekeeper came during the day and left the place immaculate, some sort of dinner ready to be reheated at whatever late hour he returned from the hospital. People thought surgeons worked bankers’ hours, but his charity hospital had too many cases coming in at all times of the day and night, and his skills were too needed. He couldn’t leave a child who’d fallen from a tenement balcony or make a woman with a head injury threatening to rob her family of her presence wait until regular business hours.

He’d only been persuaded to leave when given the names of the two surgeons who would fill in during his absence. Excellent men he’d trained with, now attached to prominent facilities. Rolf must have pulled in every favor he had to get them. And in a short time, the ferry would dock at the isolated island his boss had selected for his restful vacation.

The Wiccan Haus Spa and Resort off the coast of Maine in the US. The thin brochure promised full spa facilities. Tennis and golf. Healing treatments of all kinds. The last rang ominously. What kind of crackpot cures would he encounter at the back of beyond? He suffered from no malady other than irritation at Rolf’s high-handed behavior. But without a doubt, many poor fools went there expecting alternative and untested treatments to heal their real or imaginary ills when medical science could not.

Or worse, when they had not even given medical science a try.

Take the girl in the cabin. Wrapped up in layers of heavy clothing, her transparent pallor surely indicated a state of advanced illness. What was wrong with her? He fought the urge to go ask.

I am on vacation. I am not even licensed to practice in this country—and it is none of my business. Maybe if he said it a hundred more times, he’d believe it, but the compelling ultramarine, almost-violet eyes looking out of her thin face called to the medical man he could never leave behind. Sighing, he returned his focus to the fog bank as it wrapped around the ferry and visibility dropped to near zero. I hope the pilot knows what he’s doing.

***

Aislinn Gallagher started at a touch on her arm and jerked out of her misery at a heavenly aroma. The woman proffering the cinnamon-scented brew stood no more than three feet tall, but perfectly proportioned, and wore the oddest combination of clothes Aislinn had ever seen. A long tunic in forest green over russet pants and boots curling up at the toes. Her brown hair coiled on her head lent her an extra inch or two in height.

She took the drink with a nod of thanks and held it to her nose, inhaling its exquisite fragrance and savoring the pottery cup’s warmth between her icy hands. A tentative sip identified it as spiced apple cider that sent heat all the way to her toes.

Thank you, how much…?

The little woman smiled and shook her head. As she slipped out of sight behind a bulkhead, Aislinn shrugged and settled back to enjoy her drink. I guess it’s just part of the package.

If only I could get warm. Her fingernails held a blue tinge her pale skin did nothing to disguise, and she feared her mother had been right. This trip would tax her strength. But Aislinn had tried everything the doctors had to offer and still failed more every day, weakening until she’d had to quit work and move home. The Wiccan Haus might not offer a cure for whatever mysterious disease held her prisoner, but it offered lovely accommodations and interesting amenities according to her childhood friend who had spent a couple of weeks there the previous summer. When she’d learned the health insurance she had under the new government plan would cover part of her stay—to her great surprise—she’d made reservations.

She sipped her cider and examined the cup. Unusual in design, it had no handle and a rim was decorated with an odd pattern in dark blue reminding her of hieroglyphics. Turning it in her hands, she examined the tiny pictures but couldn’t quite identify any of them. Still, they were pretty against the terra cotta, and as she finished her drink, warmth suffused her for the first time in months.

With the welcome heat came energy. And interest in her surroundings. She’d sat inside the cabin the entire trip and now, decided to venture out on the deck and get some fresh air. She wore enough outer clothes to face anything the Atlantic could offer anyway. Opening the door, a blast of cold air hit her face and she almost changed her mind, but the rush of well-accompanying her toasty fingers and toes made her adventurous for the first time in a long while. After all, how long might she have, with her unidentified illness? She stepped out the door into the thick fog.

Chapter Two

Either the skipper was a navigating genius or perhaps the ancient ferryboat had been equipped with modern computerized controls. Seemed unlikely, but they had not reduced speed, indicating a level of confidence beyond what Hugh would expect. A shiver ran over him, and he decided he’d had enough of the damp, cold deck. Time to return to the cabin for some hot coffee.

Turning on his heel, his arm slammed into something that oofed. The woman from the cabin wobbled, and he grasped her elbows to steady her.

I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone else was out here in the chill. Meeting her gaze, he found her grinning and a hint of color in the thin cheeks, her violet eyes still too large in her thin face but sparkling with life.

Completely my fault. I should watch where I’m going, but I was so excited to see the island. She leaned to the left, peering past him.

He faced the bow again to find the fog thinned into straggly wisps, and sunlight more brilliant than they’d left behind sent its first beams onto the boat, golden against the white-painted deck. Puzzled, he looked behind to see the fogbank intact.

Isn’t it lovely?

Her hushed voice echoed his sentiments. Despite his intentions to use the time to rest and work on a paper for an industry journal—as well as catching up on a sheaf of others in