Chapter 1
Skylar
Eighteen Years Later
“Put that under your pillow.” I handed the teddy bear to my patient.
Kendrick was eight and about to have his appendix out.
“If you get scared, tell the teddy. He’ll keep your secret.
” The little guy was nervous, but his big brother was out in the hall, waiting for me to finish my presurgery exam.
I was fairly sure Kendrick was too worried about his big brother thinking he was a sissy to be honest about how terrified he was about the surgery.
Kendrick grinned at me with a couple of missing teeth. “Thanks, Nurse Skye.”
I winked at him and went into the hall, typing the info into my tablet. It would notify the surgeon that I’d completed the forms needed, and his mother had signed everything.
“That’s it for me.” I plopped the tablet down on the charging station and plugged it in. “All the paperwork is caught up, and I’m going to lunch.”
The ward clerk gave me an amused look. “So eager to escape the floor?”
Laughing, I held up my hands. “Of course not. But I am starving.” Normally, I worked in the primary care clinic on the other side of the hospital. When the peds floor had requested an extra half-shift so their head nurse could go to yearly sexual harassment training, I’d volunteered.
Why not? I had nothing better to do, and I loved my job.
After telling the rest of the team goodbye, I headed to the cafeteria.
There was a cafe on my side of the hospital, and I almost always stopped there.
Today, I’d come to the cafeteria on this side.
Someone had mentioned they had taco salad, which I loved.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see anyone I knew, so I grabbed a small booth and played a game on my phone while I ate. This was preferable to going home and cooking for one.
A woman’s voice behind me had my ears prickling. “Have you seen him yet?”
I didn’t mean to listen in, but they were in the booth directly behind mine. I couldn’t help it.
“No,” a new voice said. “But I heard he’s gorgeous.”
I took a big bite of my taco salad and tried to mind my own business. It wasn’t easy.
“Dr. White had to go on emergency leave this morning, and…” Someone dropped a tray nearby and I missed the new doctor’s name. “He was already in town and had applied at the hospital, so he got brought on immediately.”
“What’s wrong with Dr. White?” the second voice asked.
“His mom fell and broke her hip. He’s going to take some time off to take care of her. Must be nice to be able to do that. When it happened to my Nana, we had to put her in a state-funded home.”
She sounded a little bitter, but I didn’t blame her. I would’ve been in her shoes, too. But I never had a Nana, so what did I know?
“He used to live in Bluewater, apparently, and decided to move back home. That’s all I got from the nurse that scrubbed in with him on surgery this morning.”
So, the new doctor was a surgeon. That was fine. It meant my schedule wouldn’t change. Dr. White worked in the primary care clinic a lot but wasn’t a surgeon. I wondered how they’d revamp the duties to make it all work, but that was way above my paygrade.
I wondered if I’d known him before. We’d had several doctors come and go from Bluewater Memorial since I started here long ago as a CNA. It was probably one of them. I couldn’t think of a single one that I had any issues with, so whoever it was would be fine.
I’d intended to go straight home, but as I passed my dad’s body shop, I decided to pull in at the last second. My shift had ended at five, but he kept the shop open until at least seven. I knew he’d be there, working away.
“Dad?” I called as I walked into the bay. “You working?”
“Hey, sugar!” Dad popped his head out from under an old truck. “It’s about time you stopped by to see me.”
“Yeah, snookums, where’ve you been?” My dad’s right-hand man, Cooter, walked in from the office. “Working yourself to death?”
Dad looked at me with his eyebrows raised. “He’s not wrong.”
I rolled my eyes and walked over to the toolbox beside the truck. “Says the man who will probably be here banging on these cars until it’s dark.”
He rolled back underneath the truck. “Hand me the ten!”
I snorted and got the socket for him. “Sure, sure.” I’d been handing him tools since I could walk.
“How’s work?” he asked over the clanks of whatever he was doing with the socket I’d handed him.
“Fine. Nothing new. There’s some new doctor I haven’t met yet.” I leaned against the truck and about five seconds later jerked upright when Dad smacked my leg. “Sorry!”
I knew better than to lean against vehicles while they were jacked up.
“What’s in your head?” He rolled out from under the truck and sat up, handing me the tool to put away.
I shrugged. “I just wasn’t thinking, is all.”
Cooter snorted. “You look like you’ve got a bug up your butt.”
I shot Cooter a glare and pointed at him. “You hush.”
He glared right back. “You need a life.”
“Hey,” I said defensively. “I have a life.”
Dad had to chime in, too. “A life outside work.”
Oh. Yeah. Maybe.
“You’re going to end up like me, working until you exhaust yourself before falling into bed and getting up the next day to do it all again.”
I didn’t tell him I’d already been doing that. It wasn’t like I had a lot of friends to go out with or a boyfriend or anything.
“It’s fine. It’s not like I want to be a grandfather one day or anything.” Oh, great. He was bringing out the big guns. “I mean, you’re my only daughter. I guess I could always sign up for one of those programs where kids come to visit the elderly.”
I dropped my hands beside me and threw my head back. “Dad.” He was laying it on thick. If he said one more thing about it, I was going to end up biting his head off.
“Oh, you know I’m not serious, sugar. I’m happy if you’re happy.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I smiled at him until he rolled himself back under the truck. He never had put pressure on me like that. If, one day, he died without grandkids, he’d never make me feel bad about it.
I would, though. I’d never told him about my PCOS.
Somehow, I just never could bring myself to.
How could I tell him that he’d never have grandchildren?
I supposed that wasn’t true though, I still could adopt.
I’d been feeling the biological tick. Not to get pregnant, necessarily, but to decide one way or the other.
I didn’t even know if I’d make a good mother.
I’d never had one myself, how would I know if mothering would come easily to me?
And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give up my independence, such as it was.
I mean, I didn’t go out often, but when I did, I called up my best friend, Kaylee, and we went out. Or stayed in, depending on our mood.
But oh, what joy I saw on my patients’ faces when they held their little babies in their arms. And goodness knew I’d tried to get pregnant, for a long time. I’d been hoping it was Bret that was firing blanks and not my PCOS, up until he got his side chick pregnant.
“Dad,” I called under the truck. “What are your dinner plans?”
“Cooter made chili,” he yelled back. He’d slid quite far underneath.
Cooter’s chili was pretty damn good. I turned to find the older man grinning at me with a knowing look on his face. Dad and Cooter had been best friends all my life. When I was younger, I’d called him Uncle Cooter. “Save me some?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes and looked down at the table full of tools in front of him. I followed his glance to find a grocery store bag on the side of the table closest to me.
Cocking my head, I gave him a sly smile. “Uncle C, is that what I think it is?”
“If you think it’s a baggie of corn chips and a baggie of cheese and a baggie of sour cream plus a big bowl of chili, then you’re as smart as I think you are.”
I squealed, playing it up a little, because I knew how happy it made Cooter. This was how he showed love to me, Dad, and the other guys in the shop. He cooked for us all the time. He wasn’t quick with the words of affection, but he made a damn good roast.
He was covered in oil and grime, so I didn’t hug him, but I did give him a huge grin. “Thanks. I’ll take it to work with me tomorrow.”
He nodded. “Good. Get out of here.”
Dad rolled out from under the truck again and stood. “We don’t like you driving at night.”
I shook my head at both of them. “You’re worse than a couple of old hens.”
Dad shot Cooter a glare. “Maybe he is.”
I waved at them and left them arguing. They’d be arguing until they were old and frail.
Hopefully, anyway. If something happened to one of them, I wasn’t sure what the other would do.
They’d been working together for so long, they were like a staple in our small town.
Everyone came to Will’s to get their cars fixed.
And everyone thought Dad’s name was Will and called him that.
Only people who knew me knew that our last name was Wills, and Dad had used it in a bit of word play for the shop name.
When I turned on my car, I used the fancy-schmancy voice feature to call my best friend on the way home. “Call Kaylee,” I said in a clear, firm voice.
“Hey, biatch!” Kaylee always answered with some inappropriate phrase or another. “What’s going on?”
“Should I have kids out of obligation?” I blurted. Kaylee was the sort to lay it all out there with.
She burst out laughing. “Leave it to you. You know the answer to that.”
I sighed and turned on my blinker to head away from town and Dad’s shop. “I know.” I wasn’t trying to sound sullen, but that’s how it came out.
“What’s brought this on?” A thumping sound came through the car’s stereo speakers and when her voice came back on, it was apparent she’d put me on speaker. “Why all the sudden interest in having obligatory babies?”
“I don’t know. Dad said something about wanting grandkids one day.” The light turned green, and I turned onto the coastal road that led to my small cottage home.