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“That’s such an alarming sentence,” he said.
“You know what I mean.”
He grinned. She frowned.
“Do you have another bruise on your face?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, reaching up and touching his forehead, right on the bruise.
“Youdo,” she said.
“No big deal,” he said. “I bashed my head getting something out of the tack room.”
“Maybe you should add being a little bit more careful with your person to your reformation list. If you’re going to get married, I imagine that your wife would like to minimize the sickness part and maximize the health.”
“You think so, Doc?” His lopsided grin made it impossible to be mad at him.
“Yes, I do,” she said.
“Well, I will endeavor to be more careful. I was thinking about what you said about Smokey’s, though. I think I have to go to Smokey’s. Because I need to figure out which eligible women might make good wife material. The odds are there are some good ones at Smokey’s. They aren’t all buckle bunnies. Also, you know, being a buckle bunny doesn’t preclude a woman from being a good wife.”
She let his words wash over her, let them remain shallow and meaningless. That was what she did when he talked about his hookups.
It was this whole mystery to her, and she was okay with that.
She knew the mechanics of sexual intercourse. Obviously. She was in medicine. She saw it, simply, as a biological function. Though there were men like Lachlan who seemed to take that as a challenge. To treat it like adailybiological function, rather than one reserved for procreation.
She saw it as adistraction.
Something that he did rather than spend evenings at home in the quiet.
She often thought that the quiet might do him some good.
She didn’t want to be lonely, but she also knew that it was important to know how to be alone. She sometimes wondered if Lachlan didn’t know how to do that. If that was his problem. Well, she imagined he had more than one problem.
Which she didn’t mean in a mean way. Who didn’t have their share of problems? She was lucky, because her dad had done such a good job of protecting her from the difficulties of life. He’d experienced a lot of pain and heartbreak in his own, with friends and peers and partners. He had done everything he could to insulate her against that. She had been very fortunate to have a father who loved her so much. Lachlan hadn’t had that.
“Go on,” he said. “We’ll go do the vaccines.”
“What about this beauty?” she asked, gesturing toward the glossy bay.
“According to the guy we got him from, he’s good to go. I’ll make sure to get you his medical information.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
She still kept a paper file system, the way her father had always done. She was a bit of a Luddite, and she didn’t see the point in changing. She used technology when it suited her.
She loved streaming devices that gave her endless options for British television shows. She was also pretty fond of smartphones, so that she could use video calling with Byron. But otherwise...she didn’t see the point to all that rigmarole. She would rather just go through a physical filing system, which allowed her to really commit things to memory.
It felt more tactile and made her feel like she was more engaged with the patient. She didn’t want to be scrolling through her phone looking at things while she was supposed to be speaking to people.
Some of that was just knowing the people around town. They wouldn’t like it, either.
“I was thinking,” she said while they walked to the stables.
“Yes?”
“I might need your help, too.”
