Chapter 7 Simon
CHAPTER SEVEN
Simon
The clinic smells like antiseptic and too much lavender oil from the diffuser.
It’s not even seven a.m. and I’ve already sutured a chainsaw accident, confirmed a mild concussion in a high school linebacker, and listened to an eighty-year-old Omega complain about her heat suppressant giving her migraines. Normal stuff for a Wednesday in Fox Hollow.
Steady, clinical, predictable.
The way I like it.
I move through the halls—with my third cup of bitter coffee—like a ghost in navy scrubs. No one stops me. No one asks for small talk. This place runs on routine, and my reputation for being emotionally unavailable.
It’s not a secret. If someone wants gentle bedside manner, they see Becca, the nurse practitioner. If they want answers—fast, unflinching, and accurate—they see me.
I check the day’s follow-ups on my tablet, tap through labs, and make a note to remind Carter not to double-book the nine a.m. slot again. And that’s when I see her name.
Wren Aldridge.
Ten a.m. appointment. Follow-up from smoke inhalation.
For a moment, I stare at the name like it’s part of some experiment I forgot I volunteered for. It’s been a week. Just one week. But something in my chest does this strange flicker—like recognition crossed with dread.
I remember her in the exam room last time: barefoot, wide-eyed. Her scent lingered in the room long after she was gone.
I remember the slight rasp in her voice. The way her gaze settled across my chest when she spoke to Levi, not me.
And I remember the way it hit me afterward. Sharp. Disorienting.
Uncontrolled reactions like that are… dangerous. Unprofessional. Hormonal noise. I thought I had compartmentalized it.
Apparently not.
I fish the small silver flask of peppermint oil from my pocket, unscrew the lid, and take a slow inhale. It grounds me—clears my scent receptors, calms the irrational spike of tension in my limbs.
I’m fine. She’s a patient. I’ve seen hundreds like her. Thousands, maybe.
But none of them smelled like she did.
It’s ten a.m. on the dot when Becca pokes her head into my office. “Your follow-up’s here,” she says, with a little twitch of her brow that I don’t like.
I don’t ask who. I already know.
Wren’s presence hits the clinic like a shift in air pressure. Not loud or disruptive, just… altering. The kind of change that makes you aware of your own posture.
I hear her voice floating in from the front desk, low and warm. She’s laughing softly—an actual laugh, not the polite kind people give receptionists.
It scrapes across my nerves in the strangest way.
I push back from my desk and step out to the hallway just in time to see her being directed toward Room 2.
She’s dressed in a fitted sweater dress, dark plum, paired with cowboy boots and a tan raincoat that she shrugs off as she walks. Her scarf is loosely looped around her neck, a soft, cream-colored, cable-knit design, like something handwoven.
Her hair’s pulled into that same unbothered knot she wore a week ago, stray copper strands escaping like they’ve made peace with disobedience.
She turns when she sees me.
“Morning, Dr. Hale,” she says, voice even.
“Miss Aldridge,” I reply, equally neutral, stepping aside to let her enter the exam room.
She sits carefully on the table, adjusting her hem and crossing one leg over the other, her eyes sweeping across the room like she’s collecting details. She folds her coat and scarf and places them beside her.
I nod once, glance at her file on the tablet in my hand, and mentally run through the protocol for smoke-inhalation follow-ups.
But her scent hits me before I can say a word.
It’s stronger now. Not in a bad way—cleaner, richer. It’s deepened into something headier, softened by the whisper of amber, sharpened by that warm-clove edge that lingers too long in my head.
There’s something… magnetic about it.
Unsettling.
I slip a hand into my pocket and quietly uncap the peppermint oil flask. A slow inhale. Sharp, clean. It helps me refocus, recalibrate.
She doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she does and chooses not to mention it.
“How’s your week been?” I ask, scrolling through her chart.
She tilts her head. “Busy. But good. The place is still a mess. I’ve been trying to clean up what I can before the renovation crew comes in next week.”
“Pack Built?”
She nods. “Yeah. Ryker and Jude. They said they could fit me in once they wrap up at Fernbridge. It’s… surreal, being back in the café. I keep expecting to hear my grandma yelling at me from the back room for using too much cinnamon.”
There’s a fondness in her voice that’s threaded with exhaustion. It’s not just physical—it’s something more profound. The weight of memories is dragging behind her like dust on old floorboards.
“I’m surprised you’re not resting more,” I say, frowning at the screen. “You’ve got minor residual inflammation in the sinuses. Not dangerous, but I’d prefer you not push it.”
She shrugs. “It’s either clean or spiral. I picked the one that felt more productive.”
“Fair enough,” I say, before I can stop myself. “Just don’t overdo it.”
Her mouth tilts, not quite a smile, but close. “You’re… more talkative than I expected today.”
I blink, caught.
“Am I?” I ask, like I don’t already know I am. Like I hadn’t just asked a patient about her week.
She gives a soft, amused noise and doesn’t press it.
I refocus, switching into medical mode. “Let’s check your lungs.”
I gesture, and she adjusts her posture.
The stethoscope’s cold when I press it against her back through the fabric of her dress. She doesn’t flinch, but her breathing quickens slightly—so slightly most wouldn’t notice.
I do.
“Deep breath,” I murmur.
She does. Her lungs expand cleanly, the rhythm steady. No wheezing. No residual crackle. Just breathe.
Still, I move slowly. Methodical. I’m buying time I don’t need, pretending I don’t feel the strange hum of tension somewhere low in my gut.
“Still tired?” I ask quietly as I listen.
She nods. “Sleep’s been… weird. I don’t know. Dreams. Restless. I just figured it was stress.”
“It might be.”
I move the stethoscope and pause, unsure if I should say it. Then I do anyway.
“But your body’s shifting too.”
She turns her head slightly, brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You’re in pre-heat,” I say carefully, pulling the stethoscope from my ears.
She goes still. “I—what?”
“Your scent profile’s changed,” I explain. “There’s an uptick in oxytocin. Your vitals are stable, but the signs are there—irritability, sensitivity to scent, physical tension. It tracks with post-trauma hormonal realignment. Not uncommon after respiratory exposure.”
Her eyes widen slightly. She’s silent for a long beat, then sighs. “So it’s not just in my head.”
“No,” I say. “It’s very much in your body.”
She mutters something under her breath that I don’t catch, then straightens her shoulders. “Do I need to do anything? Medication, blockers…?”
“I can prescribe scent suppressants, if you need to function publicly without distraction.”
“I’m already on scent suppressants. The doctor I saw before coming here prescribed Sensurex. The pills have been helping.”
“Have you tried Invisira before?”
She nods her head. “They dull everything and make me so foggy. I’d rather up the dosage of what I’m currently on.”
There’s iron in her tone. It doesn’t match her soft features, but it fits her all the same.
“How many pills do you take a day?”
She tells me, and I tell her it’s safe to double the dosage. I make a note on her chart and move to stand by the counter.
“You’ll need to come back next week so we can re-evaluate. If symptoms escalate before then, call.”
She nods and begins to gather her things. I watch her hands—delicate, capable, worn by a week of scrubbing soot and chasing ghosts in a place built by her bloodline.
Her scarf slips from the table as she moves. I lean down to grab it and hold it out.
But she doesn’t see. She’s already turned, thanking me again, her voice polite, measured. And then she’s gone.
I stand there, holding the scarf.
It’s soft. Light. Slightly worn, like something that’s been loved for years. And it smells like her.
I stare at the door she just walked out of, then glance down at the scarf in my hand.
Becca passes by the open door and says nothing. I could call after her. I could hand it in to the front desk.
But I don’t.
Instead, I close the door to my office. Slowly. Quietly. Then lock it.
The scarf stays in my hand longer than it should. My thumb traces a fraying seam. My stomach knots in a way I haven’t felt in years.
Not since Marissa.
She’d once told me I didn’t know how to want things, that I was a great doctor but a terrible mate, that I could diagnose everyone else’s feelings but not recognize my own.
She left me with silence and an empty bed and the clinical irony that her words were the most accurate diagnosis I’d ever received.
But this.
Wren.
She presses against every fault line I’ve ever buried.
I unscrew the peppermint oil again, press it under my nose, breathe in like it’s medicine. It clears the space around me, but not the space inside me.
That still smells like her.
And I have no idea what the hell to do about it.
By the time I get home, the sky’s already gone dark.
I step into the stillness of my loft and let the door click shut behind me. My bag drops onto the bench with the precision of muscle memory.
The scent of metal and clean wood greets me—cold, orderly—a reflection of everything I’ve built to keep chaos out.
The space is vast and masculine, all polished concrete and matte black steel. Exposed ductwork veins the ceiling.
My kitchen gleams like a surgical suite—stainless steel counters, deep sink, pot rack suspended like a shrine above the island. Every appliance is high-end, seamless, and silent.
Not a single photo. No softness. No story.
It’s sterile—just the way I made it.
And yet tonight, it feels suffocating. Too quiet. Like it’s waiting for something.