LUCY
The last patient file clicked shut with a satisfying snap, and Dr. Lucy Tanner leaned back in her office chair, rolling her shoulders to work out the tension from a long day at the clinic. The afternoon sun streamed through the windows of her office in the medical practice, casting golden shadows across the neat stacks of paperwork that seemed to multiply no matter how efficiently she worked through them.
All she wanted now was to go home to her family home, Hoops House, that loomed on the cliffside of Sandpiper Point Drive, pour a glass of wine, and relax in her spa bath to massage her aching muscles. She sighed, thinking about her comfortable bed at her house as well. She sighed again, knowing she had to set out to go back to her room at the Sandpiper Inn, where she was currently staying. Hoops House was undergoing renovation due to a landslide that damaged its foundations, so it would be at least another six weeks before she could go home.
There was a cottage attached to the Sandpiper Inn, but her daughter, Margo, lived there now. Hoops House, like the Sandpiper Inn Cottage and the inn itself, had been passed downthrough the Hoops lineage that had helped establish Sandpiper Shores. A town that, before her family, the Hoops, the Strands, and the Morrisons had arrived, had been nothing more than a fishing village.
Lucy’s phone buzzed with a text from Margo at Teacups, asking if she needed anything from the grocery store. Lucy smiled, thinking about her daughter’s boundless energy in running both the coffee shop and helping manage the inn. She’d always hoped Margo would follow in the family tradition of medicine. The Hoops had started the town’s first medical practice in a single room above what was now the hardware store, and Lucy’s father and grandfather had built it into the modern clinic it was today.
But Margo had found her calling in hospitality, transforming the old family inn into one of the most charming inns on the Nature Coast and turning Teacups into the social heart of the community. Lucy supposed she should be grateful that the family’s medical legacy would at least continue through the clinic, even if not through direct lineage.
The irony wasn’t lost on her that while the Hoops family had always been healers, her own mother had been the one to establish the town’s legal practice. When Eleanor Hoops had followed her husband to Sandpiper Shores after they’d met at university, she’d seen the need for legal services in the growing community. Now that practice was thriving under Lucy’s twin sister’s son, Noah, and his wife, Genie.
Lucy felt a surge of pride at the thought of Noah serving as the town’s mayor. The Hoops family had always been deeply rooted in Sandpiper Shores’ growth and development, and seeing Noah carry on that tradition of civic service filled her with satisfaction.
But her professional accomplishments couldn’t quite distract her from the personal drama unfolding at her clinic today. First, Holt Dillinger with his pulled stitches, then June Carter with her fainting spell. Both of them were clearly shaken by their unexpected reunion after nearly four decades apart.
Lucy had known both June and Holt since they were teenagers, back when June’s family had started spending summers in Sandpiper Shores, and Holt was still living here year-round with his sister Carly and their parents. She’d watched their young romance bloom during those golden summer months, had seen how completely they’d fallen for each other despite being from different worlds.
Her heart squeezed thinking about Carly Dillinger, who’d been taken far too young by multiple sclerosis. The disease had been particularly cruel, striking just five years after their father’s murder, when Carly should have been starting her adult life. Lucy had been in medical school, home for Christmas break, when Carly first started showing symptoms. By the time Lucy had established her practice in Sandpiper Shores, Carly was gone, leaving behind a grieving family and a community that had loved her bright spirit.
Life was so unfair sometimes, taking the good ones while leaving others to struggle with loss and regret.
Shaking off the melancholy thoughts, Lucy allowed herself a small smile as she considered the cosmic joke that had brought Holt and June back to Sandpiper Shores at the same time. The entire town had always been invested in their relationship, like characters in a beloved soap opera that everyone followed with passionate interest. Their marriage had been Sandpiper Shores’ fairy tale romance, and their divorce had been the town’s collective heartbreak.
Maybe this unexpected reunion was fate’s way of giving them a second chance. Lucy had seen enough in her years of practice to know that some loves were worth fighting for, worth the risk of opening old wounds if there was a possibility of healing.
Sandpiper Shores had always had a way of forcing people to confront their past and find their way to where they needed to be. Perhaps this summer would prove that some stories deserved better endings than the ones they’d settled for.
A sharp knock interrupted her thoughts, and Nurse Sophia Martinez stuck her head around the door. “Dr. Tanner?”
“Yes, Sophia,” Lucy said, pushing aside her paperwork.
“Chief Morrison has been brought in by Detective Dillinger,” Sophia announced. “He’s asking to see you specifically.”
Lucy’s heart gave an involuntary jolt at the mention of Tom Morrison’s name, a reaction she’d been trying to suppress for the better part of two years. Ever since her husband had passed and Tom had gotten divorced from that awful Victoria Gilbert, Lucy had found herself noticing the police chief in ways that reminded her uncomfortably of her seventeen-year-old self.
She’d thought she was past this kind of foolishness. At fifty-eight, she should be immune to the flutter of attraction she’d felt for Tom Morrison back in high school, before he’d chosen to marry the prom queen socialite his parents had preferred over the doctor’s daughter. Forty years, a marriage, and a beautiful daughter should have been enough to put those old feelings to rest permanently.
But apparently, her heart hadn’t received that memo.
“Dr. Tanner?” Sophia’s voice snapped her back to the present.
“Sorry,” Lucy said, gathering her composure with the professionalism that had served her well through decades of medical practice. “Put him in room two. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She took a moment to check her appearance in the small mirror behind her desk, then gathered her stethoscope and iPad before making her way down the hall to the examination room.
Tom Morrison sat on the edge of the examination table, looking slightly embarrassed and holding a blood-soaked paper towel to the back of his head. At sixty, he was still an impressive man - tall, broad-shouldered, with silver hair and the kind of steady presence that had made him an effective police chief for over two decades.
“Hello, Tom,” Lucy said, pulling on latex gloves with practiced efficiency. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“Afternoon, Lucy,” Tom replied, his voice carrying that slight rasp that had always made her pulse quicken. “Sorry to bother you with something so minor.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” Lucy said, moving behind him to examine the wound. “What happened?”
“I was sitting at Detective Dillinger’s desk because my office was being cleaned,” Tom explained, wincing slightly as Lucy probed the gash. “The shelf on the wall behind me just collapsed without warning. Everything came tumbling down and caught me right on the side of the head.”
Lucy frowned as she examined the wound, noting the jagged edges and the way blood was still seeping from the cut despite the pressure Tom had been applying.
