Against the Wind (Wayward Sons #3)

Chapter 1

ONE

GABI

Nina Lambert, the office manager and general keeper of all records for Island Medical, threw the lock on the front door of the clinic. “Survived another one.”

I fought the urge to wilt into the nearest chair.

If I did, chances were I wouldn’t be getting up again anytime soon.

“Couldn’t have done it without you. Why did no one tell me what a terrible idea it would be for me to run the clinic on my own with Dr. Sibley on vacation?

If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was his version of hazing the newbie. ”

I’d been back on Hatterwick for just a month and a half since I’d completed my residency down in New Orleans. I’d harbored delusions that the pace of my small hometown of Sutter’s Ferry would be slower. In reality, I felt as if I’d hit the ground at a dead sprint and hadn’t stopped yet.

Kristie Turner, one of our nurses, scraped the hair back from her face and redid her messy bun. “To be fair, I don’t think Doc deliberately planned his vacation for when a hurricane was gonna hit the island.”

“Well, even if he had, not like he could get back from Cancun in time to help.”

For a few days, we’d thought the storm might skew out to sea, but weather reports from this afternoon quashed that possibility.

The hurricane warning had been issued, and everyone on the island was behaving accordingly.

Which meant we’d had a spate of injuries and accidents around hurricane prep, in addition to the usual fare of summer colds, swimmer’s ear, and sprains.

It also meant that my team of nurses and I were the only official medical professionals on the island, other than the EMTs and paramedics with the fire department.

I’d have been lying if I didn’t admit that prospect was intimidating as hell.

I scooped a hand through my hair. “Let’s get out of here, y’all. I suspect tomorrow’s gonna be even worse.”

We rushed through the end-of-day close-up routine.

I waved my staff on out, while I made a few last-minute chart notes about some of today’s patients.

I found them easier to do in the quiet, and I needed a little time to file the rough edges off my day before I headed home to my sister’s house.

I was staying with her and her family until I found a place of my own—something I hadn’t expected to take quite this long.

But with my full attention going to getting settled in at the clinic, there’d been no time.

Not to mention everything else going on in the past month.

By the time I locked the back door of the clinic and walked out to my car, it was getting on toward suppertime.

Caroline would have something ready, but much as I adored her and the rest of the family, I wasn’t yet up for dealing with the enthusiasm of my niece and nephew.

Sliding behind the wheel, I made the snap decision to stop by OBX Brewhouse for a drink before I headed home.

Caroline’s husband, Hoyt, was a firefighter, so the rule of the house was that you ate when you could.

Dinner would be there whenever I made it home.

The two-story wood building housing OBX Brewhouse stood open for business as usual, with the awning windows propped open to take advantage of the cross breezes.

Quite a few patrons nursed pints of custom brews in rocking chairs on the wraparound porch or scattered at various outdoor tables.

The industrial-meets-beach aesthetic had been all Bree’s vision when she and her grandfather, Ed, rebuilt after a fire destroyed the original building that dated back to the 1920s, when it had been used to process fish coming in off the docks.

Now gleaming copper brewing tanks stretched up two stories behind walls of reclaimed windows hung to create a division of the space without blocking the view of the process going on beyond.

Reclaimed heart pine floors spread throughout the taproom, and big industrial fans above made lazy circles, stirring the faintly salty air.

The mingled aromas of beer, fried fish, and wood polish tickled my nose as I paused in the entryway.

The dinner crowd filled maybe half the tables inside—mostly locals taking advantage of the calm before the storm slated to hit day after tomorrow.

A cover of “Southern Cross” drifted from the sound system, not quite drowning out the rhythm of conversation and clinking glasses.

Bree stood behind the bar, her blonde hair pulled back in a messy knot as she filled a flight of taster glasses.

She looked up as I stepped up to the bar, a smile tipping up one corner of the mouth perpetually set in a sarcastic smirk.

"If it isn't my favorite doctor." She slid the flight across to a couple I didn't recognize—tourists who either hadn't gotten the memo about the incoming hurricane or didn't care—and made her way over to my end of the bar.

The polished wood surface gleamed under the warm Edison bulb lighting, and I could hear the subtle hiss of carbonation from the taps behind her. "You look like you need a drink."

"That obvious?" I settled onto one of the worn leather bar stools, letting my shoulders finally drop from where they'd been hunched up around my ears for most of the day.

"Only to someone who's known you since middle school." She reached for a glass from the rack overhead. The familiar ritual was oddly comforting after the chaos of the clinic. "The usual?"

I nodded, claiming the spot and letting the ambient noise of the brewhouse wash over me.

The usual was the house IPA, which I'd helped Bree test and refine during a visit home back when she'd first started brewing.

It had taken us three tries to get the hops balance just right, but the result was perfection—crisp and citrusy with just enough bite to cut through the humid coastal air. "Your grandfather's not in tonight?"

"Nah, he's battening down the hatches at home.

Though knowing Pop, he'll show up tomorrow anyway, storm or no storm.

" She set the beer in front of me, the glass frosted and perfect, a thin head of foam crowning the golden liquid.

The condensation immediately began beading on the outside in the humid air. "You eaten?"

I wrapped my fingers around the cool glass, savoring the contrast against my warm palms. "Not yet. But Caroline will have food at the house when I get back. I just needed a little more decompression first. It was a hell of a day at the clinic."

"Storm shit?" Bree asked, already knowing the answer as she wiped down the bar.

"Of course. Last-minute checkups, prescription refills, people panicking about whether they have enough insulin or blood pressure meds to ride out a potential evacuation.

" I took a long pull of the IPA, feeling some of the day's tension start to unknot in my shoulders. "Y'all ready for what's coming?"

"There will be some prep still to do around here tomorrow morning.

Boarding up the big windows, securing the outdoor furniture, making sure the generators are topped off.

" She gestured toward the wall of reclaimed windows that separated the taproom from the brewing area.

"But we've been through this dance before.

You ready for your first hurricane back on the island as the only medical professional? "

I sipped my beer, considering the weight of that responsibility. "Ready might be a strong word. But I'm here, and I signed up for this when I decided to come back. The only doctor on-island, so far as I know."

Bree's eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. "Only? What about Dr. Sibley?"

"He's on vacation in Mexico with his wife. Twentieth wedding anniversary, apparently." I couldn't keep the slight edge of frustration out of my voice. "Booked it months ago, long before anyone knew we'd have a Category 3 bearing down on us."

"Shit timing on his part. But I have faith you're up to the task. You always were the smartest one in your class."

"Glad somebody thinks so." I traced a finger through the condensation on my glass, watching the droplets reform.

She swiped at a wet spot on the bar with her towel, then looked up with the kind of casual expression that usually meant she was fishing for information. "Hey, have you heard from Willa lately?"

Willa Sutter, one of my oldest friends and Bree's former roommate, had just eloped last week with her lifelong crush, Sawyer Malone.

Prior to news of the hurricane, their spontaneous wedding had been the talk of the town gossip chain, with everyone from the grocery store checkout ladies to the guys at the marina weighing in on the romance of it all.

"She popped in a couple of days after the wedding to get a prescription refilled.

" I smiled, remembering how absolutely radiant she'd looked, practically glowing with happiness.

That spontaneous elopement meant she hadn't gotten around to birth control before the wedding, but I'd handled that discreetly.

"But not since then. I think she's trying to live her best newlywed life, holed up at Sutter House. "

"God knows, she deserves it after everything she's been through." Bree's expression softened with genuine affection.

Willa was the poster girl proof that coming from money and privilege didn't mean she had a good family.

She'd been estranged from her parents since she'd turned eighteen, and while she'd never talked openly about the specifics, the emotional scars were easy enough to see if you knew what to look for.

"Gotta be weird for you not having her at home anymore. Y'all roomed together for several years, right?" I asked, genuinely curious about how the transition was going.

"Yeah, ever since she moved back to the island full-time. It's stupid quiet at the cottage now. I even miss that big lug of a dog following me around, begging for scraps."

Willa's pit bull, Roy Kent—named after the character Ted Lasso—was her well-known shadow. She seldom went anywhere without him, which I knew was as much because she genuinely loved dogs as because of her social anxiety. The massive black dog was something of a town mascot.

"Did you see this coming? Her and Sawyer, I mean." Since I’d been away for medical school and residency, missing years of the subtle social dynamics, I wanted Bree's perspective on the romance that had apparently been brewing under everyone's noses.

"Oh, I've suspected they had a thing for each other for years. The way they look at each other when they think nobody’s watching, the way he always finds excuses to check on her.

" Bree smiled, but there was something wistful in it.

"I confess, I didn't quite expect it to go down the way it did, but so long as she's happy, that's what matters to me. "

"No question about that. Sawyer's been such a big support, helping her out with her grandfather's funeral arrangements and facing down her parents when they tried to interfere.

" Part of me wondered how much all of those traumatic events had pushed them to take the leap and tie the knot so they could be their own family, their own support system.

I sighed, thinking of all the ways he'd stepped up to protect Willa when she needed it most. "It's nice to know at least some people have better luck in love. "

It was more than I meant to say, the words slipping out on a tide of beer and exhaustion.

Bree's gaze sharpened at the bitter undertone. "There a story behind that comment?"

I took another long sip, buying myself time to decide how much I wanted to share.

"Not one worth telling, really. I was involved with this guy back in New Orleans.

Thought it was serious, thought we were building toward something real.

" The memory still stung, even weeks later.

"Turned out it was more of a situationship than a real relationship. More fool me."

I washed down the bitter taste in my mouth with more of the excellent IPA, not wanting to dwell on the shadow that had cast a pall over the last weeks of my residency.

"What's going on in your love life?" I asked, deflecting the attention back to her. "Anyone interesting on your radar?"

Bree scoffed, the sound sharp in the ambient noise of the brewhouse. "What love life? Between running this place and keeping tabs on Pop to make sure he doesn't overdo it, I don't have time for anything other than the occasional casual hookup."

I wasn't a hundred percent sure that was the whole truth.

Even as busy as Bree was running the Brewhouse and managing her grandfather's stubborn independence, if there was someone truly worth it, I thought she'd make the time.

But I also knew she had old wounds that ran deep—everyone on the island knew about the falling out with Ford Donoghue years ago, even if the details remained frustratingly vague.

Way back before I’d left for college, Caroline and I had thought for a bit that Bree was finally going to get together with her long-term best friend, Ford Donoghue.

Ford was also best friends with our brother, Rios; Willa’s husband, Sawyer; and Willa’s elder brother, Jace.

They’d been thick as thieves from elementary school on.

The Wayward Sons, they’d dubbed themselves.

All four of them had enlisted in the Navy at the end of that summer, and something had gone horribly wrong between Ford and Bree, ending their years-long friendship.

I had some suspicions about what that might have been, but I’d never asked.

Bree and I were friends, but not that kind of close.

And even if we were, I wasn’t sure she’d actually tell.

Lord knew I wasn’t in any position to judge anybody for the way they chose to run their love life.

“Fair enough.” I drained the last of my IPA. “I need to be getting on.” I stood, shouldering my purse. “It’s good to see you. Take care of yourself and Ed during the storm.”

Bree saluted. “Same goes. See you on the other side.”