Page 10 of Doctor’s Orders

ME: Find another job and another place to live.

ANNABELLE: Not back in Houston?

ME: I hope not. I don’t want to move the kids too much. But I can’t work with him. Not after that night.

Because he already made me want more with him. Today, watching him with the sick kids and holding the babies, gah, it’s a wonder I’m not currently pregnant. Despite his accusations, I know he’s a good man. You only have to be in the same room with him for five minutes to see that.

ANNABELLE: What was his house like in Crescent Bend?

ME: I’m not sure how the house itself was. We went into like a garage-level basement. I thought maybe he was the gardener.

ANNABELLE: *snort.

ANNABELLE: You just got here. I don’t want you to move away. I’ll talk to Greyson and see if he can think of anywhere you and the kids could stay.

ANNABELLE: I’d say our cabin, but you know it’s not big enough.

ME: I know. Thanks, sis.

ME: I gotta go and get back to work. We’ve been slammed with patients.

ANNABELLE: Good luck. You’ve got this!

But I did not have this. I was in way over my head and damn it all if I didn’t want to go home and crawl back into bed. Snuggle in with my kindle and read another small-town cowboy romance.

If I’ve learned anything about my life, though, it’s that it doesn’t resemble a romance novel in any way.

chapter

six

Graham

“You going to tell me what’s bothering you?” Bram asks.

“I never said anything was bothering me.”

Bram and I have been thick as thieves, as my mama used to say, since we were born. Bram and Graham. Stupid fucking rhyme, but he’s my best friend, so I can’t do anything about it if his name is stupid. And technically, it’s Abraham, but no one calls him that.

He kicks my calf where my legs are resting up on the chair across from me. We’re sitting on his screened-in porch having some long necks. I came out here because yeah, of course, something is fucking bothering me.

“You’ve been peeling the label off that bottle for the last ten minutes. Emma’s gonna come out here with the hand vac any moment.”

I glance down at the pile of scraped paper on the floor next to me. I set my beer down, then rub my hand down my face.

“I slept with my nurse,” I say.

Beer sprays from Bram’s mouth. “Carol?!”

“No, you dumb fuck. My new nurse.”

“Well, I guess that makes more sense. But didn’t she just start? Like today? That doesn’t sound like you, oh -so-cautious-one.”

“Like you should talk. You almost missed out on having a second love of your life because of being too cautious.”

He waves two fingers between us. “Our stories are nothing alike.”

“Right, because you get to have two soulmates like a greedy motherfucker.”