href="#u1b255005-c244-5b27-83e5-5bdad417fd0e">Chapter One
Daniel Delaney opened the clinic supply closet, but it was nearly bare. “Keela!” He called for his physical therapy assistant before filtering the frustration out of his voice. What was going on? She was usually on top of everything related to the job, yet here he stood, with not a single Velcro tendonitis strap in sight. Disappointed, he glanced around. Where were the red stretch bands, or the electrical pads for the TENS machine? Eyes darting every which way, he added several other items to the list. “Keela!”
The PT in question stuck her head into the tiny supply closet, her large baby blues registering alarm. “Yes?”
“Where is everything?” He glanced around to emphasize the point.
Her light brown brows lowered and she stepped inside. “I told you last week the weather conditions in the East had set back the delivery dates on my last order.” Unlike him, she spoke civilly, though she folded her thin arms and lifted her slightly squared chin.
“You did?” He’d worked with her for three months, had hired her on the spot the day she’d walked in, which was unlike him. But after having lost on short notice his first PT tech, Tiffany, he needed a replacement. He’d also been limping through an ongoing private hell, making him a bear to work with, which was probably why Tiffany had quit in the first place. That and his high expectations for his employees. Like expecting them to be on time. Bullheaded to a fault, he’d attempted to do everything himself for one long, stressful month and failed miserably. Chalking that up as a major blunder, he’d accepted his shortcoming. He’d been a guy who’d gotten too full of himself with opening his own physical medicine practice, and who’d thought he could do it all...while grieving. Lesson learned.
On the other hand, he’d had a hunch about the woman from Ireland who’d just completed her accredited associate degree from the local city college, and who desperately needed the job. Maybe the accent he recognized in his own grandfather swayed him a teeny tiny bit. She was new in town, divorced, and had a child to support, and was the complete opposite of Tiffany, who’d complained he was too demanding when he insisted she show up for work on time and finish everything before she left. Keela was employee-of-the-month material.
He hadn’t regretted spontaneously hiring her, either. She was particularly good at dealing with his no-longer-sunny personality and letting his occasional gruffness roll off her skin. Like right now, when he wasn’t ready to admit she may have told him this information before. “Hmm.”
“I should know never to talk to you when you’ve got your head buried in paperwork.” She gave an understanding smile, the kind that always brightened her eyes and disarmed him.
“So when’s the order expected?” Standing nearly nose to nose with her in the tight chamber felt cramped. Plus her vanilla herb perfume was disturbing; he didn’t know whether to sniff her or nibble her neck, which for some reason made him cranky again. He motioned for her to back out, she did and he followed.
“They promised before the end of this week.”
He let out his breath. “Then I guess we’ll just have to make do.”
Her sometimes distracting smile stretched wider. “That’s what you said last time.” She turned in the short hallway, the gotcha moment causing a nearly imperceptible twitch of one brow, and went back into the physical therapy room, where the first of her afternoon patients waited.
Point taken, and true, he let his job preoccupy him. A perfect excuse to push his ongoing grief aside. The clinic was his bread and butter, and lately there’d been more crust than bread, and only a thin layer of no-name buttery spread. But he was determined to make the business side of medicine work right here in his hometown, Sandpiper Beach. Even though beach towns were notoriously tough on new businesses, and moving back home after losing the woman you loved wasn’t the best reason to throw yourself into a new business venture. But he did love his job.
He’d wanted to become a physical medicine doctor since he was an injured preteen jock and had been sent to one for multiple issues, all of which related to overdoing it in sports. The doctor had worked wonders on his aches and pains without loading him up on pills, handing him back his jock status to play football and baseball to his heart’s content. Daniel quickly became a believer. In fact, it changed his life. From that point forward he’d set his goal on the prize of medicine. The refocus may also have had something to do with the reality check that he wasn’t big or burly enough for professional sports. Whatever the true reason, he’d worked tirelessly throughout high school, college, medical school and his residency/fellowship. For this. He glanced around the small, functional clinic as he walked back to his office, the pride planted in his chest blooming a bit. He’d actually done it—survived the first year without Kathryn and in business.
Business ran in the family. Padraig Delaney, his eighty-five-year-old grandfather, had immigrated to the United States in the 1950s, where he helped develop the lush golf courses along the central California coast. There he’d met Mary and made her his wife. They’d scrimped and saved and bought property in Sandpiper Beach because it reminded him of Sligo Bay way back home in County Sligo, Ireland. Soon after, he and Mary built a small beachside hotel and called it The Drumcliffe.
Daniel’s father had taken over what was now a family business, after giving up teaching at the local high school, and Daniel’s mother managed reservations and hospitality. Dad had taken to the new job happily and likewise encouraged Daniel to work for himself. He’d been perfectly content with a good job in a hospital group down in Ventura, California, but within a year his personal life had taken a hit. Kathryn had left him. After the major setback, he’d fallen into such a slump that he decided to move back to his beach hometown and set up practice right here. He loved his parents and liked hanging out with his brothers, and Sandpiper Beach would always be home. With or without Kathryn.
The clinic soon became his sole focus, and with grief and pain as his constant companions, Daniel was convinced this business had saved his life.
He scratched out a note on his prescription pad: “One Velcro tendonitis strap.” Then he stepped back into the patient exam room. “John, sorry to inconvenience you, but you’ll have to get this filled at the local pharmacy. We’re currently out of stock.”
The middle-aged man suffering from new-onset tennis elbow took the script and thanked him. “No problem.”
“If you have any questions about how to put it on, come on in and either I or Keela will show you.” He demonstrated where on the forearm to place an imaginary strap and how to attach it without cutting off the circulation. “It’s not a tourniquet. Oh, and you can keep taking the over-the-counter anti-inflammatories, but don’t forget to use ice, too. If in a couple of weeks you’re not making any progress, we could try a wrist extensor, or after a month or so give you an injection, but let’s start with this.”
“Will do, Doc.” The silver-templed man hopped off the exam table. “Still feels strange to call little Danny Delaney ‘Doc.’” He winked a blue eye and shook Daniel’s hand, then winced from the tendonitis pain. “Thanks for being here. Otherwise I’d have had to drive forty miles for help.”
“Glad to be here, John. We’ll get this worked out even if I have to bring you in for some low level laser therapy.”
He escorted the patient to the hallway and, after watching him exit to the reception area, pivoted toward his small corner office to push through more paperwork before his next appointment in—he glanced at his watch—ten minutes.
“Daniel?” Keela popped out of the therapy room.
He
