But as for Willa, she did not get the attraction.
And she thanked the spirits she only had to put up with him for one year before he went off to the U.S. Naval Academy. Just like his older brother, Josh, and their father, and his father, and pretty much every Grant before him.
She’d been allowed to finish the rest of high school mostly in her attractive sister’s shadow—just like she wanted. Then she’d gone off to college on a well-deserved scholarship and had easily gotten into an osteopathic medical school in Alabama afterwards. Two years into her medical degree, she even managed to score a prestigious fellowship to work onsite at Landstuhl, a regional medical center located in Germany that served the U.S. Armed Forces.
For a whole year she’d shadow a physiatrist who specialized in working with amputees. And the fellowship started in June, which meant she wouldn’t have to go back to Greenlee for the summer.
On that happy note, Willa left the States behind without a second thought. And on the first day of her internship, she couldn’t have been more pleased as Delores, a grizzled physiatrist, showed her around the center.
“Most of the patients you’ll be working with directly will be on their last few appointments. They’ll be able to go through their routines on their own, so you’ll be able to help oversee their sessions. But that will only be for a few cases. Mostly, you’ll be shadowing me, watching and learning. When shadowing, I want you to think of yourself as a ghost…seen and rarely heard, taking in all the information you can. This fellowship is meant to give you osteopath kids some real life experience with amputees. And I guess it’s supposed to teach us traditional med school doctors something, too, but I’m not sure what.”
Delores, who’d gone to a traditional program at the University of Pittsburgh, looked her up and down and harrumphed. “I’m here to help you decide if you want to go the extra mile to become a physiatrist, and if you’d rather deal with cranky seniors than kids in their twenties who are trying to wrap their heads around being amputees for the rest of their lives.”
As a “kid” in her 20s, Willa hung on every word, fascinated and eager to get started, even if Dolores’s use of the word ghost sent a chill up her back. She hated that word—even when it was being used in a completely different context.
Shaking the chill off, she asked, “S-so why are we on this fl-floor?”
Then remembering the intensive speech clinic she’d done during her first year of med school, she took a deep breath, slowed down, and asked much more smoothly, “Do you usually pay visits to patients in the ICU?”
“No, but we just had a SEAL come in. Nasty crash on the front end of a rescue mission. Helicopter malfunction, and his leg got the worst of it. It took a while to extract him and he’s still in a coma. But I thought this might be a good chance for you to see one of our cases from the beginning because that leg’s definitely headed into surgery.”
Despite the grim nature of the SEAL’s prospects, a thrill shot through Willa at the thought of seeing an amputee case from start to finish. Exactly the kind of experience she’d hoped to have when she applied for this fellowship.
“This is an amazing opportunity. Thank you!” she told Delores. “Do you mind if I ask—?”
She cut herself off when she saw the man in a dark green jumpsuit standing at the end of the hallway.
Willa blinked, unable to reconcile what she was seeing. Who she was seeing. Because it looked just like…Sawyer Grant.
A few years older and a lot more clean-cut than he’d been while making her life miserable in high school. And a hell of a lot more perturbed. Even from a distance she could see how upset he was.
But it was him. Definitely him. No matter how far she got from Greenlee County, she would never forget that devilishly handsome and supremely annoying face, even with the military-grade haircut he currently sported. But what was he doing here?
Dread pooled in the bottom of Willa’s throat as she asked Delores, “Are patients allowed to have visitors in ICU?”
“Only immediate family members,” Delores answered.
Okay, so maybe that was it. Maybe Sawyer’s older brother, Josh, was in there. But wasn’t he in law school now? She vaguely recalled hearing something about how he’d completed his service and started law school when she was home in Greenlee last Christmas.
Okay then, she thought, maybe it was a cousin or something in ICU. Sawyer’s extended family had strong military ties and it wouldn’t surprise her if a few of his other relatives had ended up in service, too. That could explain it. It didn’t have to be the other thing…
Still, panic seized Willa’s entire body, threatening to lock it up. Don’t go there, she told herself. That’s not why he’s here. That’s not why he’s here.
Her inner voice spoke so calmly, so reasonably, she was almost set to believe what she was telling herself.
But then a group of nurses came off the elevator. And instead of throwing Sawyer flirty looks, as most women did, they passed right through him.
Like completely through him.
And that was when Willa knew. Knew like she always did. Sawyer wasn’t, to use her mother’s phrasing, “on our exact plane of existence.”
No wonder he looked so upset.
She watched him pat himself down, not quite freaking out. But not looking too doggone happy about his relatively new state of not exactly being either.
Look away! her inner-voice screamed at her.
First rule of I Can See Ghosts Club: don’t talk about the fact that you, like your crazy mother, can see ghosts. Second rule of I Can See Ghosts Club: if you don’t want to end up exactly like the aforementioned crazy mother, don’t ever let the ghosts know you can see them.
But Willa couldn’t look away. Any other time, yes. She’d seen ghosts freak out after getting passed through plenty of times. The osteopathic medical school she attended in Alabama was brand spanking new, but she’d gone to UVA for undergrad, a university founded before the civil war and therefore positively crawling with ghosts—not one of which had been aware she could see them during her four years of attendance.
But this was Sawyer Grant freaking out. Sawyer Grant! The prick who’d made her high school life hell. A boy, now a man, who she’d never seen look fazed much less completely lose his shit. She couldn’t help but stare.
And unfortunately, this decision would end up costing her dearly.
So glued was she to the sight of Sawyer coming undone, she didn’t look away until it was too late.
Like a homing beacon, he suddenly seemed to sense he had an audience. His eyes found hers. Only for a second, but it was one second too long.
Willa quickly looked away, but not before catching his hard squint.
“Any rules I should know about before we go in?” she asked Delores, making a big show of acting like she couldn’t see Sawyer standing near the door.
“Yeah, don’t be an idiot,” Delores answered. But then she shivered. “Is it cold down here? Or is it just me?”
It wasn’t just her. But unlike Delores, she was used to the chill ghosts cast when they got too close. And unlike Delores, she could hear Sawyer at her back, saying. “Wait, I know you. You’re Mouth’s sister, Stork.”
She hadn’t spoken to Thel in years at that point, not since she ran away from home after Trevor’s misfortune. But being referred to as her sister brought Virginia all the way back. To most people in Greenlee County, that was all she’d ever been. Either The Crazy Librarian’s daughter, or the plain and much less interesting sister of the only other black girl at Greenlee High.