Page 10 of Family Bonds- Gabriela & Luca

Her heart melted.

“Yes, he is,” she said, lightly squeezing his bicep. “Next time I see you, you can show me how big you’ve gotten.”

“Thank you,” Stacy said, putting her son down to stand up and slide his jacket on him. “This was much easier than I thought it’d be. At least I won’t have to start my day with tears.”

“You and me both,” she said, laughing.

3

CLEAN SLATE

“Hi, I’m Gabriela Mills, you must be Luca Brewer.”

The woman in front of him was the pediatrician he’d be following around for his first sixteen-hour shift? Instead of five days on, ten off, he had six this week. One spent just getting the lay of the land.

More like the lay of the island.

Where he’d spent the past several days trying to unpack when the rest of his stuff finally made it.

Talk about a nightmare.

But hell, nothing could be worse than the one he’d lived two years ago.

“What gave it away?” he asked, pointing to the nametag on his lab coat.

She laughed, then did the same to hers. “Definitely that. But it’s more like on an island this small, I know most of the doctors at the very least.”

“Because your brother, father and cousins all work here and in Boston?”

He’d done enough homework on the place he was going to call home now. Not before he got the job.

Why bother if he didn’t know how it’d pan out?

But once the call came in, he read everything he could about the island that was his new home. How it was founded and that the woman standing in front of him came from that line of ancestors.

Most of which were doctors on her side of the family tree.

“We do make up a lot,” she said, laughing. “But not all. Most of the doctors here come over from Boston and do their time, then head back. That is what Dr. Raines does. You’ll meet her on your last day, I believe.”

He’d gotten an email a few days ago saying his first extra day would be with Dr. Mills, and on his last day, Dr. Raines would come for a few hours to walk around with him also.

He’d be on his own after that.

“So she doesn’t live on the island, but you do?” he asked.

“I am now,” she said. “I’ve been filling in here for years.” She covered a yawn quickly. “Sorry. By the fifth day the long hours get to me, then I’ll crash tonight.” Her eyes were still laughing when she finished. “Anyway.” The word dragged out like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to be funny. “I live here now mostly but still have my condo in Boston.”

Guess when you came from that kind of money, you could do those things.

Not that it was any of his business that the woman in front of him looked too young to be a doctor, but he knew she’d been practicing for four years. He’d read her profile on the home page. She didn’t specialize in anything, so did her residency in pediatrics and off she went to practice.

Unlike him who thought he wanted to do one thing and ended up with the other.

“I’m living here also,” he said. “I guess it took more time than they thought for my IMLC to go through.”

“I would have thought they’d push as fast as they could,” she said. “We are pretty desperate here on the island. It’s hard to get people to move. Not so hard to go to Boston though.”

“I thought it’d be a nice change of pace,” he said.