Page 47 of Welcome Home to Ivy Falls (Ivy Falls #3)

FORD

More Than A Casual Visit

It’d taken three weeks, but I’d finally found my footing on the ship again.

My first days back were toddlers-running-the-day-care kinds of chaos.

Messages and prescription requests covered the desk in the small clinic office.

Half-eaten Pop-Tarts and empty bottles of Gatorade littered the floor.

More than once I’d had to wrench my sneakers off the sticky linoleum.

The director had undersold the state of the clinic by a mile. According to several nurses, the last doctor had a great bedside manner, a way to put the patients at ease, but his organization and charting abilities sucked, and apparently he also had the diet of a teenage boy.

‘Ford, we can’t tell you again how wonderful it is to have you back.’ Nancy, one of the head nurses who’d been with Humanity of the Seas for over twenty years, gave me a warm smile.

‘It’s good to be here,’ I said as I glanced at the clinic’s white board for today’s schedule.

Nurses moved around the large, sterile white space.

Several beds were set up in a line with dark blue cotton curtains available for privacy.

At the rear of the clinic, a small door provided access to the operating rooms. On the other side of the surgical unit was another bank of rooms that housed the dental and ophthalmology offices.

Today’s schedule left no time for error.

I had back-to-back patients until noon, and then a short break for lunch followed by more appointments until six.

It’d been this way since I’d returned. Work.

Eat. Sleep. Repeat again the next day. More than once at dinner time, Kip asked about Piper.

I babbled about time-zone differences and work schedules.

He shook his head like I was an idiot. ‘Stay up late. Get up early. Stop being so damn afraid.’

Yeah, I heard that in my sleep now.

All the plastic white chairs in the clinic’s waiting room were filled. For a flicker of a second, I thought of Ivy Falls. The way the patients always greeted me with a smile. How I’d slowly learned to love the low bellow of that toy train.

That hollow feeling returned to my chest and I forced myself to look at my first chart. To ignore that incessant ache that swept over me when I thought about everything I was missing by not being there.

I walked back into the clinic, pushing away my feelings and focusing on my first case.

The morning flew by as I saw patients new and old.

Some were follow-up checkups, while others were preliminary screenings before a surgery was scheduled.

As soon as I was finished with my last patient before the lunch break, the intercom sounded in the clinic.

‘Dr Foster, please come to the bridge immediately.’

Nancy glanced in my direction. Lifted her brows. I’d been on this ship off and on for over four years and had never been summoned to the bridge.

I checked out with the nurse at the desk and made my way across the decks.

The heat of a balmy eighty degrees slid over my skin.

Several of the crew worked below me, some straightening out rope lines, others washing the salt and brine off the deck.

I pulled in a full breath, taking a minute to gaze at the sweep of the deep-blue Atlantic before heading in the direction of the bow.

Being summoned to the bridge was odd. The hospital staff was friendly with the ship’s crew, but we stayed out of each other’s way as we all had specific jobs to do.

When I reached the door and opened it, I was greeted by a wide bank of windows and row after row of computers that helped navigate the ship. Captain Alsop was easy to spot with his stark white hair and perfectly waxed handlebar mustache.

‘Dr Foster.’ He waved me toward him and shook my hand. ‘I have a meeting in another part of the ship. Take all the time you need.’

‘Captain? What do you mean?’

Instead of replying, he slid out the solid wood door like he was in a rush.

What the hell was going on?

I took two more steps before I got my answer. Leaning against one of the walls, dressed in a starched Lacoste polo and pressed khaki shorts, Gray looked all kinds of out of place.

‘Surprise,’ he said with a shit-eating grin.

‘What are you doing here?’

He pulled a shocked face. ‘If I remember correctly, you invited me.’

‘I did.’ I gaped at the sight of him. ‘But you couldn’t have called? Given me a word of warning?’

‘And give you a chance to blow me off? Hell no!’

‘I wouldn’t have done that.’

He pulled me into an awkward side hug, glancing around the room at all the whirring machines and the crew performing their late-morning duties.

The bastard had actually done it. Flown halfway across the world to see me.

‘Are we gonna hang out here all day or are you going to show me around?’

‘Yeah, of course. Come on.’

For the next hour, I gave him a tour of every inch of the ship.

We traversed up and down the decks, and his mouth hung open as we walked past the bank, chapel, library, convenience store, gym and swimming pool.

Every few minutes, people stopped me along the way, shook hands and smiled as I introduced Gray to not only the medical staff but to the rest of the crew.

He was quiet for the loud-mouthed Gray, and I worried his arrival was about more than a casual visit.

Once the tour was over, I took him into the dining hall. He immediately caught sight of a few nurses near one of the serving bars and went into playboy mode, introducing himself, asking their names and jobs on the ship.

Okay, so maybe he was still Gray.

After we finished eating, I dragged him to the clinic.

Once we passed through the steel door, I guided him around the space, explaining how the hospital portion of the ship had over one hundred acute beds, six ICU beds and fifty self-care beds.

We walked through the surgical center, stopping at the teaching areas before moving on to the conference rooms and training simulation labs.

By the time we were finished, I had to go back to seeing patients.

Before Gray could leave, Nancy caught sight of him and asked if he wanted to help out.

Much to my surprise, he agreed and spent the next several hours restocking shelves with bandages and ointments.

He handed out blankets, water and kept the younger nurses in stitches with his terrible flirting and awful jokes.

The afternoon flew by and when the last of the patients were gone, we walked to the back of the ship to see the best view of Senegal’s capital city, Dakar.

The tall buildings shimmered in the fading evening light.

Boats puttered to and from the port. The sky morphed into a riot of color ranging from deep red to vibrant orange.

‘Shit, Ford.’ He scrubbed at his cropped dark hair. ‘You weren’t kidding about this place. What you do, how people react to you, it’s damn impressive.’

‘Better than the country club?’ I joked.

He looked out at the darkening water, his gaze going solemn. ‘I quit my job.’

‘You what? Why?’

‘Because of you.’

‘Gray, please don’t put any choices you make on me. You’re a grown-ass man.’

‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ he stammered.

‘For years I’ve watched you push back against expectations, forge your own path.

Choose what was right for you. Me,’ he huffed.

‘I’ve always been the dutiful eldest son, but in doing that I’ve ignored every single dream of my own.

It didn’t hurt that I had a long talk with Mom after she made Dad leave.

She told me to go and live my life, and it was the push I needed. ’

‘What’s your plan?’

He scrubbed his hands together. ‘I’m moving to Chattanooga. Got a job at a small public golf course as an assistant pro. I’ll build up my game, my client base, until I can move to a place where I can be head pro one day.’

‘Taking that leap couldn’t have been easy. I’m proud of you.’

‘I told Mom that once I got settled she should come and visit. It’d be nice to spend some one-on-one time with her.’

‘She’d like that.’

He nodded, went back to staring at the ocean. ‘How’s that girl of yours? Talked to her lately?’

I scrubbed a hand behind my neck. ‘No. And she’s not really my girl.’

‘I’m sorry?’ He blinked. ‘Why not? She was perfect for you, and the way I heard she handled Dad at the party was damn brave. There are not a lot of people who go toe to toe with Stanford Cantwell Foster and live to tell the tale.’

‘To be honest, I fucked it up. Didn’t tell her how I felt before I left.’

‘There’s a simple answer for that. Call her. Grovel. Hell, plan a grand gesture. Whatever you have to do, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that happy.’

It was the same lecture I was getting from Kip, and I knew both of them were right.

‘Even if you don’t want to spill your guts, you should still call and check on her.’

‘Why?’

‘Do you not read the news here?’

‘Gray,’ I pressed.

‘A major tornado hit Ivy Falls two days ago. It did a lot of damage.’

Before he could say another word, I took off at a sprint.

When I reached my cabin, I opened my laptop and searched for Ivy Falls.

Pictures of the devastation filled the screen.

Parts of trees strewn all over town. Remnants of roofs scattered across the square.

My chest pinched at an image of a small window blown out at the P&P.

I scrambled for my phone and dialed Piper’s number. My heart sank every time the three flat-toned buzzes rang in my ear and the red message flashed across the screen.

No service. Network unavailable.