FOURTEEN
RISING EARLY WASN’T A CHORE in August. That far north, morning filtered milkily through Hazel’s window before five-thirty. She was waiting at the hospital dock by six, long before the rest of the crew. She’d lain awake long enough.
In spite of the fact that she’d tried to talk herself out of it for a variety of reasons, daydreams about a trip on the survey boat had continued to surface. Lachlan’s comment was not so much insincere as unthinking, she’d decided; he hadn’t mentioned it since and so neither had she. It would have to stay that way. She couldn’t risk the humiliation of being wrong about this.
But then the flu struck two days before a scheduled trip to Rupert’s House. Not one of the x-ray assistants was well enough to go. She was a natural choice, Lachlan said, given t
