Chapter Two
A Trial Run
“You know,” Troy said when the good-looking doctor walked away leaving her some sugary treats, “Dr. Mills is a great guy.”
“So you made it seem,” she said, moving over to look at the box of donuts. There were six in there and only she and Troy working right now. Another tech would be in soon.
She found a jelly and pulled it out.
Troy laughed. “He’s great with the patients, but it’s not an easy job.”
“Oncology,” she said. “Got it.”
When she’d heard the name Mills, she knew there were several doctors with that last name in the hospital. But she’d been lost in his dark blue eyes too much to register he was probably a doctor and not some administrator coming to kiss up and tell her how it was going to be.
Nothing on him shouted a doctor, no badge she could see, no lab coat, scrubs, or stethoscope. His close-cut beard, charming smile, and deep voice didn’t come across as someone treating patients but more likely a man causing a woman’s heart to stop.
When she finally pulled her eyes away from his face, she saw a gray Oxford shirt that had black stripes in it. She didn’t even know he had donuts until he moved them onto the counter. For all she knew he rode a desk and that was what she assumed.
That assumption bit her in the rump and most likely made her look like a cold jerk in his eyes.
Not the best way to start her first day.
“My cousin is a nurse back there,” Troy said. “Part time. She’s part time in the hospital too. She said Dr. Mills is awesome to work for. He’s been here for years filling in, but is now on the island for a year temporarily.”
“Gee, did he get stuck like me?” she asked. She wasn’t even being sarcastic about it. More like sympathetic that it was twice as long as her.
The apartment the hospital was supplying for her was bigger than the one she had in Boston. She was a five-minute walk from the beach and it was a quiet area.
She didn’t have a ton to complain about there.
Her biggest complaint was that she moved over on Saturday and only had two days to unpack and get food and settle in.
She was more tired than anything in the past three weeks since she found out. She hadn’t had more than one day off in a row and not enough time to come here and look around at her new temporary home.
But hey, the commute to work was pretty sweet. Ten minutes compared to fighting traffic or mass transportation.
So yeah, so far, it wasn’t too bad for forty-eight hours.
Troy frowned. “No,” he said. “He volunteered for it.”
“Why?” she asked.
Someone like him had to have a significant other. That would make life harder if that was the case. Or even kids.
“He has family here. And a home,” Troy said. “You know about this island, right?”
“Not really,” she said. “I moved to Boston from Indiana a few months ago.”
“Oh boy,” Troy said, rubbing his hands together. “Let me fill you in on the history of Amore Island and the Bond family.”
“I’ve heard about that,” she said. “What does that have to do with Dr. Mills?”
“He’s from the Bond family,” Troy said. “Catherine’s side. They are pretty much all doctors.”
“Oh,” she said. “I did see a bunch of Mills on the doctor registry.”
“His sister and father both work in Boston but do rotations here like Garrett used to. Then he’s got three cousins that are here full time. Their father, Garrett’s uncle, is semi retired, just kind of filling in when needed.”
“Makes sense,” she said. “And I wasn’t trying to be a hard ass to him about procedure.”
The last thing she wanted to do was start off on the wrong foot. Or rub people the wrong way.
“I figured as much,” Troy said. “And trust me, there will be plenty that will come in here and try to sway you to put them first. But we do have an unspoken rule to get the oncology department out of the way. They only do treatment three days a week and never have more than six patients. By ten, all their patients are set and going. We don’t get much more from them after that unless there is a problem or someone needs a script refilled, but it’s not a rush either.
“That is slow,” she said. She expected to be slammed more with that, like in the Boston hospital.
“It’s a small office. The people getting treatment here live on the island. Many don’t even have Dr. Mills as their actual doctor, but go to a specialist in Boston. What he is doing here is monitoring them and signing off on their treatment while keeping their specialist in the loop. It’s too much for people to take a ferry over for treatment and back if they can avoid it.”
“I guess I’ll learn those things on the island,” she said.
“I love it here,” Troy said. “But it’s not easy for most. Or many don’t make it. You’re lucky.”
She heard her computer going off and moved back to it to see the scripts coming in while she ate her donut. “Why is that?”
“Because you get the best of both worlds. You only have to stay here for six months. It’s like a trial run. Maybe you’ll love it and want to stay. Guess it depends on if you like life in the fast lane or not?”
She snorted. “Not really.”
“Then who knows? Could be the best thing that happened to you.”
She kept the roll from her eyes.
It was hard to think of anything great that happened in her life in the past several months.
“Time will tell,” she said. “And we need to get to it. I see two orders from Dr. Mills right now.”
“The others will come in soon,” Troy said.
“Do we bring it to them or do they come down for it?” she asked. “You’ll have to walk me through those things.”
“They will send a medical tech down for it normally,” Troy said. “And Marissa will be here at nine. That is when things will start to pick up more. What time did you get in?”
“I started at six,” she said.
She’d been filling scripts nonstop, even though the pharmacist and techs who worked before she came in had most of them done for the morning rounds. She was catching up now.
“Are you going to be covering nights and weekend shifts too?” Troy asked. “I’m not sure how they are doing it. I’ve worked with everyone, but I’ve been here the longest and thankfully have the day shift.”
“For the first month I’ll be days,” she said. “I think they want me to learn the routine this way. But I’ll be working weekends at that time too. Then I’ll have to change shifts to nights and rotate. Twelve-hour shifts, four days a week right now.”
She’d been told there could be times she’d be working five days too. There was another full-time pharmacist on the island working opposite her most times and then two part-time ones filling the rest of the time.
She didn’t have a problem working more. It’s not like she’d do much more with her time than sit in her apartment alone.
“Yep,” Troy said. “That is how it always worked. What shift were you in Boston?”
“Switching around,” she said.
“How about before you moved here?” Troy asked.
Boy, he was chatty. She wasn’t used to this, but since it was such a small department, again, not wanting to butt heads or come off as a bitch.
“I was in a retail pharmacy before moving here,” she said. “So I didn’t work nights but had some later hours or weekends and holidays.”
“You can’t get out of it in this field. There are some of those jobs on the island too. They get filled before the hospital ones, but here you’ll be paid more and assigned housing or a housing stipend.”
“Housing is always paid for?” she asked. Damn, that was a nice incentive. “I thought it was only because this is temporary.”
“It’s been known that they do it for a longer period of time for doctors and other staff. Even nurses. It’s so hard to fill positions here and then find affordable housing, if you can even find housing. The hospital owns a lot of apartments for those uses. I think it’s one of those negotiable things.”
“Good to know,” she said.
She was silent after that and got to work.
Troy seemed content to work quietly too. Though he had put music on and she was fine with that.
Once the orders for oncology were filled, she moved on to the hospital scripts that were coming in.
“Hey, Tess,” Troy said. “Got your orders here so far.”
“I’ll be back for the other two,” Tess said.
Must be the tech with oncology since Troy handed over those two orders.
“I just got the scripts in now,” she said. “For Dr. Mills, right?”
“Yep,” Tess said. “I’ll run these down and get them set up, then return.”
“We’ll have them ready by then,” she said.
“That’s my cousin,” Troy said. “Guess no tech was available to run down.”
“You look alike.”
“Do you think?” Troy asked. “We live together.”
“You do?” she asked. Here they went again, oversharing.
“Yep. I was here first and talked her into it. She couldn’t find a place and I decided to get a two-bedroom apartment, and splitting it with her was cheaper for us both. Hinders our dating life some, but living here does that anyway. What about you? Are you single?”
Urgh. She didn’t want to talk about her life.
“Yes,” she said. “And happy to stay that way.”
“You never know on this island. Stranger things have happened.”
It was the way Troy was wiggling his eyebrows at her and she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “What does that mean?”
“You don’t know anything about this island at all, do you?” Troy said, laughing.
“I haven’t had much of a chance to learn about Boston before I found out I was coming here. I’ve been working the whole time too.”
“Then let me fill you in. There is this thing called the lore or legend of the island.”
“I don’t even want to know,” she said and put her head down hoping he got the hint.
He didn’t.
“Yes,” Troy said. “You do. Because maybe it will hit you.”
“I’ve been hit with enough things in my life lately. I’ll pass on any kind of folklore, thank you very much.”
“Fine,” Troy said, laughing. “I’ll stop. For today.”