11. The Solution
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Brooke
The Solution
T he next day Brooke woke up with a burst of energy, like she had known the solution to her Dalton problem all along. There was no need to even worry about the kiss, because she knew for sure: first, Dalton would leave again soon, and she didn’t have any emotional room for a man who had a great track record of leaving. So she was going to pretend that the kiss didn’t happen and that she didn’t still have a girlish crush on the boy she once loved.
What she really needed to do was recruit a new doctor to work at the hospital. Dr. Jones was retiring and they had to replace him, but they also needed a third doctor. She’d convinced herself that working the extra hours was necessary as a single parent, but she was missing out on valuable time with Max. She relied on her parents and was lucky to have them, but she wanted to be the one doing parent pickup every day and volunteering for field trips. And she wasn’t going to miss any more.
Sometime during her restful night’s sleep the solution came to her: she was finally going to petition the court for child support. When she’d divorced Tyler, she was still pregnant, he’d had a team of lawyers, and she just wanted out of their bogus marriage. When she’d had to go through their lawyers to tell him she was pregnant, they’d said that she could file for child support once the baby was born, and that Tyler would want a paternity test. She’d been so offended and disappointed that she never went back and filed for the child support.
It had shocked her that Tyler wouldn’t acknowledge their pregnancy or birth of his own son. But then it surprised even more when Tyler’s oldest brother, Miles, sent her a baby gift and birthday presents each year, then showed more interest in Max as he got older. Meanwhile Tyler wanted to play a minimal part in their son’s life. She assumed that was best for Max—if Tyler didn’t want to spend time with his son, why try to make him?
But the reality was, it was Tyler’s responsibility to at least financially provide for his son, and with those funds Brooke wouldn’t have to work so much to make ends meet. She could spend more time with Max. And if they hired another doctor, she could see fewer patients and work fewer shifts. She could focus on being the administrator of the small hospital, and occasionally even work from home.
She was determined to convince at least a few doctors to come tour the hospital today and get an idea of what it was like to work in a small-town facility. She needed doctors who liked the idea of having a lot of responsibility and the challenge of working with minimal resources, young doctors who weren’t used to making huge salaries yet. Which was why she’d sent out a call to several medical programs and invited the graduating classes to visit Sandy Point to tour the hospital. Eight of them were set to arrive today.
“Your field trip has arrived,” Nora groaned as Brooke walked through the hospital doors with balloons, a box of donuts, and a bag of freshly ground coffee.
“Oh thanks, where did you stick them?”
She spun to the left of the entry and spotted eight well-dressed young men and women in the waiting room. She smiled big then turned back to Nora.
“Put on your smile. We’re finding a new doctor today.”
“I doubt that very much, but I’ll smile for one of those donuts,” Nora said, reaching for the box.
“Oh no you won’t!” Brooke said, moving over to greet the doctors.
“Good morning!” There weren’t any patients in the waiting room so it was easy to spot the doctors. “Thank you all for coming out today to our small but mighty town hospital. I hope you’ll all seriously consider the power and responsibility that comes with practicing in a small-town hospital. Consider the type of career you want and the kind of life outside of work you’re hoping for in the next five to ten years and beyond.”
They all looked at each other with weak smiles.
“We can’t afford to hire all of you, so you can think of this tour as your interview alongside your competition. But first things first: we need coffee and donuts before we start to get busy. Follow me.” She led them to the surgery suite that doubled as a doctors’ lounge.
“Alright, we should all be able to fit in here. Help yourselves to a donut, and I’ll take any questions you have to start. Then I’ll give you some stats on how many patients we see in a year, our threshold to send a case to the city, and salary.” She set the donuts down with a stack of napkins on the small table they had, then opened the fresh bag of ground coffee to make a pot.
“Excuse me, Nurse Garcia, I don’t want to be rude, but I think I’ve seen enough already. I don’t think I could live in a town this small. But thank you for the invitation. It’s a great opportunity for someone, I’m sure,” a young woman said, and dropped her visitor badge on the table by the donuts.
“Thank you for coming,” Brooke said with a forced smile.
“I’ll have to second that,” said another young man.
They both looked like they’d barely graduated high school. In fact, they all looked young, which made sense since they were just finishing up their final years in medical school.
“Now that we’ve made the first cuts in the competition, who wants to tell me why they became a doctor?” Brooke asked.
The next two hours were terrible. With the six remaining recruits, Brooke gave an extensive tour of the hospital, they talked about the airlifts from the beach and to the city, and they reviewed the types of cases they could handle and which went to town. She thought she had at least two of them seriously considering the job, but then Dr. Jones arrived with his surly personality, making it abundantly clear that whomever took the job would be answering to him for at least six months to “learn the ropes and relieve him of guilt when he retired.” Interest had clearly waned as she walked them all to the exit. Then a mom arrived with her twin sons who were experiencing upset stomachs, and the tour ended.
“That was a colossal waste of your time, and now you have patients to see,” Nora said.
“We’ll see.” Brooke sighed before taking a big bite of a donut. “Several of them were planning to stay in Sandy Point tonight and get a better feel for the town. You never know.”
“I always know, and I can tell you, none of them are ever coming back here unless they’re patients.”
Brooke spent the next two hours seeing patients. A stomach bug was working its way through town, one man needed stitches after trying to remove an old shed in his yard, and then an unexpected visitor arrived.
“Oh hello, Mrs. Barbara, how are you feeling?” Brooke asked when she found Dalton’s grandmother at the front desk. Nora had stepped away, and the woman looked a little surprised to even be there.
“Hello, Brooke, I was hoping to see Dr. Jones.”
“He’s with a patient now, but you can sit in the waiting room or maybe there’s something I could help you with?”
“Actually, you probably are the right person I need to talk to—we all know you run this hospital.”
“Why don’t we head over to the lounge, grab a coffee, and you can tell me what’s going on.”
She poured them both a fresh cup of coffee and offered Mrs. Barbara a donut, then watched her sit like a proper Southern lady and stir cream into her coffee.
“Brooke, you know I don’t tend to dress things up when I have something to say, so I’ll just get on with it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’d like you to give my grandson a job here.”
Brooke nearly spit out her coffee and Mrs. Barbara looked her dead in the eyes. One of her eyebrows rose as if she could tell Brooke had no intention of ever offering Dalton a job.
“Mrs. Barbara, I’m sure your grandson is a fine doctor, but we need a permanent solution, not a temporary bandage. And he hasn’t applied or even inquired about a job here.”
“Not yet, but I think he’s coming around to the idea of making Sandy Point a more permanent move. He just needs a nudge or a reason to stay.”
“That might be true, but he also might be ready to head back to the big city the minute his business is done,” Brooke said. “I wouldn’t want to leave the town without proper care when he’s ready to move on again.”
“Now I know you’re aware why Dalton left the first time, so I’m not giving away any of his personal business, but I think he needs to stay so he can heal. This town will always hold bad memories from when his parents died. But I believe there was some other reason he didn’t come back, and maybe enough time has passed that he’s ready to face it.”
Brooke had no idea what Mrs. Barb was talking about. She was certain the only reason he left was because his parents had died, and he didn’t come back because, like those young doctors, he wanted to be out in the world. Living in a small beach town was a different kind of lifestyle.
“If Dalton wants a job here he’ll need to apply, but I can certainly ask the doctors to mention to him that we have a vacancy.”
A big sly smile spread on her face. “Thank you, Brooke. I do think we can convince Dalton there are more reasons to stay than to leave.” She sipped her coffee. “Now tell me about that boy of yours. I read in the gazette he’s the team captain on his baseball team.”
She felt like she’d fallen into a trap but at the same time couldn’t help but enjoy Mrs. Barbara’s visit. There were several women in town who were thought of as the Sandy Point matriarchs. They were always planning community events and making sure the town stayed on the right path, which was their path. Somehow these women knew every family’s business, and Mrs. Barbara Hart had long been the queen. The Hart family was one of the few original pioneer families in Sandy Point. But the small beach town also had coastal families who owned a lot of the land and businesses in town. It was like the townies versus the coasties at times when they were growing up—Banks kids with flashy cars, and the working-class kids riding bikes to school.
Brooke hadn’t really understood how rich some of the families were until she’d fallen for Tyler. As he liked to point out during their divorce, he was from the wealthiest family in Sandy Point, and she’d been lucky to be with him. Brooke loved Sandy Point, where she and her younger sister had an idyllic childhood and her parents owned a home remodeling business. When she fell for Tyler he’d easily convinced her to get married and move away. She thought all her dreams had come true.
A year later she was married and living in a big, fancy house, but then one day she walked in on her husband cheating on her, in their bedroom. She realized that day that she’d just been like a trinket he’d picked up that summer, a conquest, and once he’d had enough, he’d cast her aside. She’d returned home to Sandy Point humiliated, and the wealthiest family’s reputation for being rude and cutthroat was amplified. The Banks family lived on the outside of town along the beach, there were three brothers, one younger sister, and their father owned a wealth investment firm among other things. So Brooke knew she was going to need a good lawyer if she was going to take a Banks to court for anything. It wouldn’t hurt if Mrs. Barbara Hart was on her side.