“Well,” Penny said after a few moments, sitting back and looking at him with a smug smile. “It looks like this is going to be an entertaining summer after all.” She pushed herself to her feet. Stopping beside him, she patted his shoulder. “I have a feeling you’re going to be doing what I asked before the end of summer.” He glared at her, and it only made her smile broaden. “If I were a betting person… I’d bet a fortune on who was about to win this time. I’d put my money on Sweet Blossom Bay and Linda Heart.”
With that, she walked out of the study, leaving him with the sinking feeling that she was right.
LINDA
It was almost ten-thirty in the morning, and Linda sat in the visitor’s chair beside Uncle George’s bed at the hospital, her notebook open in her lap and a pen in her hand. She was between Tom and Maggie. They had been at the hospital since six that morning. Brock Hendricks was the last nursing candidate of the morning. He sat across from them in the chair the hospital had pulled in for the interviews.
He was younger than Linda had expected. Mid-thirties, maybe. His clear, steady eyes made a person feel they could trust him within thirty seconds of meeting him.
“So you actually started out in medical school?” Maggie asked, leaning forward.
“I did,” Brock confirmed with a small, easy smile. “Three years of medical school and one year of residency. I got most of the way through before I realized I’d been chasing the wrong door.”
“What changed your mind, son?” Tom asked.
“My second rotation was in orthopedic recovery,” Brock explained. “I spent six weeks shadowing a surgeon and watchinghim do brilliant work in the operating room. But the patients on the recovery floor were the ones I kept thinking about at night. The surgeon would fix the bone and move on. The nurses were the ones who helped the patient return to normal, or at least their new normal. They were the ones who got them out of bed for the first time. They were the ones who remembered the patient’s grandchildren’s names. They were the ones the patient hugged when they were finally well enough to go home. That was the side of medicine I wanted to be on.”
“That’s a beautiful way to put it,” Linda agreed softly.
“My mother thought I’d lost my mind,” Brock continued with a small laugh. “She’d watched me work for four years to get into med school. I sat her down one night and explained it to her. The doctor sees the patient on the worst day. The nurse sees them every day after that. I wanted the every day after.”
George was watching Brock from his nest of pillows with a sharpness Linda had not seen on her uncle’s face since she’d gotten home.
“Do you play any sport, son?” George asked.
“I do, sir,” Brock answered. “Football is my first love. I played college ball. I was a defensive end. I still coach a community team on the weekends. And I play ice hockey in a recreational league two evenings a week. Goalie, mostly.”
George’s whole face lit up.
“Goalie.” George smiled. “That takes a particular kind of nerve, son.”
“Or a particular kind of stupidity, depending on who you ask, sir,” Brock quipped with a smile.
George laughed, a proper laugh, the first real one Linda had heard from her uncle since the fall.
Linda glanced down at her notebook. She, Tom, and Maggie had spent an hour upon their arrival at the hospital, with Dr. Stanford and the head nurse drawing up the interview questions. They had a list of fourteen of them. They ranged from practical questions about rehabilitation techniques and infection control to softer questions about temperament, conflict, and how the candidate handled patients who were resistant to care. Each candidate had been given thirty minutes. Brock had answered every single question better than the three nurses who had come before him.
George caught Linda’s eye and gave her a small nod.
“Mr. Hendricks,” Linda announced, “thank you so much for coming in. We’ve truly enjoyed meeting you. We’ll be in touch later today through Dr. Stanford’s office.”
“Thank you, Miss Heart,” Brock replied, standing and shaking each of their hands warmly. He paused at George’s bedside, and his manner shifted into the gentle professional ease of a man who had spent years in recovery wards. “Mr. Heart, it has been a real privilege to meet you, sir. I hope to see you again soon.”
“I think you will, son,” George replied with a quiet smile.
Brock nodded once and left the room.
The four of them sat in companionable silence for a beat.
“Right,” George announced. “Brock is my new favorite. That knocks Stuart into second place.”
“Uncle George,” Maggie pointed out gently, “that means we’re hiring both of them anyway, since they’re both still in your top two.”
“You can hire whoever you like, Maggie.” George waved a tired hand. “But Brock is my favorite, and I’m reserving the right to call him that.”
“Fair enough,” Linda agreed warmly.
Linda made a small star next to Brock’s name in her notebook and then a second small star next to Stuart’s name from the second interview. Stuart had been older, mid-fifties, calm, deeply experienced. The two of them would alternate shifts and work seamlessly. The other two candidates would go on a backup list in case either of the chosen two ever needed cover.
