Free Caution to the Wind by Mary Jean Adams Page A

details.
    “He did a good job, didn’t he, Doc?” Simon suggested.
    “Yes, he did, Simon,” Doctor Miller agreed. “I doubt you’ll even have a scar.”
    Doctor Miller turned to Amanda. “How would you like to be my assistant?”
    Amanda opened her mouth to respond, but didn’t know what to say. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the captain leaning against the wall, his arms crossed. He, too, waited for her response.
    Did she even have the option to accept the doctor’s proposal? She didn’t think so. That decision belonged to the captain. Didn’t it?
    Besides, he had just assigned her to a new role serving as his personal cook. She couldn’t do both, could she?
    “I don’t think I can, sir. I’m already Cookie’s assistant, and I have my regular duties to attend to.” Her face heated at the reference to the duties she had so recently neglected.
    “Cookie doesn’t cook anything when there’s a battle going on.” The captain pushed away from the wall. “If you think you are up for it, you can be Doctor Miller’s assistant. Bull will just have to do without you during battle.”
    Amanda thought she detected a hint of sarcasm in the last, but before she could be sure, the captain was gone.
    The doctor gave Amanda’s shoulder a squeeze. “Well, I guess we won that battle, didn’t we?” he said, a touch of wry humor in his voice.
    Amanda stared at the doorway through which the captain had departed. “I don’t suppose the war is over, is it?”
    The doctor laughed. Shaking his head, he returned to his patients. “No, I don’t suppose it is.”

Chapter Five
    “Doctor, do you have a moment?” Will hesitated at the door to the doctor’s quarters, not certain whether he wanted his surgeon to invite him in or send him away.
    The doctor looked up from his papers. “Certainly, Captain. Please come in.” He stood and offered his chair to Will with a wave of his hand. “Would you like a seat?”
    “No. No, thank you, I’ll be fine standing,” Will said. He mustn’t get too comfortable. He might stay too long, reveal too much.
    Will leaned against the wall. Then again, what did it matter if he availed himself of the doctor’s counsel? He had nothing to hide. Besides, Doctor Miller’s professional ethics would not allow him to disclose the details of their conversation to anyone. If there was anything he could be certain of in this world, it was the doctor’s capacity to guard matters of a personal nature.
    Doctor Miller regarded Will with a quizzical look. “I hope you don’t mind my saying so, Captain, but you seem troubled. Are you ill?”
    “Oh, no.” Will gave a choked laugh. “Nothing like that.”
    “Then what did you wish to speak to me about?”
    Will shifted his stance. He really had no idea where to begin. Perhaps a direct tack. He cleared his throat, “I wanted to thank you for the books.”
    So much for being direct, but his thanks had been overdue. At the beginning of the voyage, Doctor Miller had given him several small crates of pamphlets and treatises written by great men like Franklin, Paine, and Dickinson. That he hadn’t found time to read them was no excuse for being lax in his manners.
    “Oh, I’m glad you’re enjoying them.” Doctor Miller searched Will’s face. “But that’s not why you came to see me, is it?”
    “Well, no,” Will folded his arms across his chest. His ship’s surgeon was a most perceptive man. Leave it to him to see through any pretense. “I thought I might get your opinion on some of the crew.”
    “Anyone in particular?”
    “No, no one in particular.” Will’s forced the words, scratchy and uncertain, through his dry throat.
    What was wrong with him? It’s not like he had never asked the doctor to offer his opinion on a man’s fitness for duty before. Why should this time be so different?
    He licked his lips and began again. “Let’s start with the new recruits. What do you think of Adam, for example?” His words