Page 111 of Welcome Home to Ivy Falls

Chapter Thirty-Five

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.