Chapter Three
Krista
Krista gulped down the last of a terrible-tasting cup of coffee in the break room. A few drops fell on the white polyester lab coat she’d donned when she’d returned after lunch, staining it, and she winced and set the empty cup down.
She loved Hattie, even if she was utterly mortifying, but Hattie’s annual attempts to drag Krista back to Flowering Dogwood made Krista want to self-medicate with several entire bottles of tequila. The three-day hangover would be worth it—wouldn’t it?
Hattie knew damned well why Krista didn’t want to go home, but she’d let Krista’s mother manipulate her into coming up here and laying on the guilt. It was too bad “self-pitying drama queen” wasn’t a paying job, because Maybelline Ellis would have been a millionaire.
And then there was Hattie’s Thursday afternoon bridge group, Pearl, Marigold, and Ethel. They were all a million years old and they all liked to get together and brag about how many grand-kits they had. Hattie and Pearl were always partners, and Marigold and Ethel were their best frenemies, partnering up against them.
Krista knew all this because Hattie insisted on describing it all to her in great detail in her monthly phone calls.
It was Hattie’s great shame that she couldn’t trot Krista around at the family reunion and brag about her. Krista was one of the few people in their family who’d never been arrested, and the only person to graduate—not only from college but with a master’s degree—but apparently those accomplishments paled in comparison to being able to drag out the grand-kits (and the grand-cubs from the wolf side of the family) and hold them up like trophies.
To add to the annual Hattie drama-llama, Krista was getting more and more rattled by her mysterious attraction to Blake. Back in Flowering Dogwood, everyone would have said they were fated mates. She’d left superstitions like that behind along with her mother’s dry drunks and the Reed family’s moonshine business. There had to be more to two people liking each other than being “fated” for one another.
The intercom by the doorway buzzed. Her next patient was here. She headed into exam room five, thankful for the distraction.
Ruth Mallows, a white-haired fox shifter in her seventies, was up next. She was affected with multiple autoimmune disorders that seemed to keep multiplying. Her previous human doctors had her on a cornucopia of medication, most of which should never be mixed. When she’d come to see Krista, she’d been terribly ill and at her wit’s end. Foggy-headed, achy, itchy, tired all the time.
Krista hadn’t even needed to examine her—she’d known just by studying the list of medications what was going on. She’d had a quiet word with Ruth, offering her the option of trying the all-herbal regimen that worked so well on shifters, even though it wasn’t FDA-approved. That was something positive that had come from Krista’s upbringing in Flowering Dogwood, at least—she really knew her way around herbs and minerals, even if their use back home had often been more recreational than medicinal. Ruth would officially keep buying the prescription medicine, but she’d flush it down the toilet and only take the herbs.
Since it wasn’t approved medicine, Krista could lose her license if anything went wrong. But the very visible, obvious difference in her patients’ health made it worth the risk.
She stepped into the exam room, and instantly her mood lightened.
The herbs were working. Ruth was practically a new woman. She’d had a blue rinse put in her hair, she was fizzing with energy, and her amber eyes seemed to have a sparkle to them. Her skin even looked better. She stood up and twirled around. “Look at me, doc! You’re a life-saver!”
“Excellent! You look like a million dollars, Ruth.”
She looked over her tablet at the vital signs that had already been gathered by the medical assistant. Ruth’s blood pressure and heart rate were back within normal range. She’d put on five pounds, and her skin rash had cleared up.
She went through her exam quickly, listening to Ruth’s breathing, palpating her glands. Then she unlocked a cabinet and pulled out a bag of herbs, which she handed to Ruth, who quickly tucked the bag into her purse. “Mum’s the word,” she said with a wink. “I’ll see you again in three months?”
“Absolutely. You’re a miracle, Krista. You’ve given me my life back. I don’t need a doctor.” She grabbed Krista’s hand in both of her own. “I just need you.”
While that might be true, by law Krista still needed to work with a licensed M.D. But she just smiled and squeezed Ruth’s fingers, delighting in the strength of the older woman’s grip. “I’m just glad we were able to help.”
With one last smile, Krista turned and headed to her office so she could enter her case notes.
She was feeling really good right now. Unusually good—bathed in endorphins. Her heart was doing a little happy dance in her chest, and she had that basking-in-sunshine feeling. Weird, but why question it?
Just as she settled into her chair, the door swung open and the medical assistant, Susie, scurried in. “Ruth is looking so much better!” she said cheerfully. “And…”
The girl was practically brimming with excitement about something, and it wasn’t just Ruth’s improved health.
“That’s not the reason you’re fizzing like a shaken soda can,” Krista said, puzzled. What was there to get Susie all worked up about at the clinic? They had a waiting room full of patients who were either geriatric or recovering alcoholics who smelled like they’d been pickled. They’d started coming to the clinic because Krista’s special herb-mineral cocktail actually worked in combatting the DTs and quelling cravings.
Bouncing on her toes, Susie practically squealed, “You’ve got agentleman caller.And he’sso big and handsome.”
Susie spent too much time reading Harlequin novels when she should be manning the reception desk.
Gentleman caller? Who even said things like that?
Then Krista’s heart stuttered in her chest. It must be Blake; that was why she’d suddenly been bathed in a cloud of feel-good. “What does he want?” she asked cautiously. Was he there to file a restraining order on her and her great-aunt?
The medical assistant clasped her hands together with a dreamy look so saccharine-sweet it’d make a vulture shifter sick. “He’s probably come to plight his troth.” The words drifted out on a sigh.
