Chapter Two #3
“Burning Scrub went without a doctor before you were hired. I think it can manage for one weekend without you. You’ve been here almost six months. Have you ever taken a day off?”
She didn’t need one. She had plenty of free time.
Andy’s broken arm and the lack of vaccines were her biggest medical dramas to date.
Pearl’s pregnancy was textbook and trouble free.
Grady had been her doula before, and while they were too polite to come right out and say so, that was what they were planning, and they didn’t need her.
Researching local native remedies to cure common ailments to keep her practice historically accurate was exactly as exciting as it sounded. None of which she intended to say.
The squabbling of the raccoons ended abruptly, followed by the rustle of fat little bodies scattering into the bushes.
A flash of heart-pounding fear had her pressing against Jayce.
She’d added lime to the compost bin to keep scavengers away, but if it hadn’t worked on the raccoons, she might not have added enough to drive away bears.
“Doctor Belle?” a small voice chirped.
Jayce passed his lantern to Belle, then intercepted the tiny figure as it emerged from the shadows.
He hunkered down on his heels. “Linda? What are you doing out of bed? Do your parents know where you are?”
Six-year-old Linda Lovett, Pearl and Grady’s daughter, was Belle’s youngest and most adorable patient. She had blond hair and blue eyes, and she popped up in unexpected places. She knew almost as much about Burning Scrub’s goings-on as Benny did.
“I have a splinter,” Linda announced, ignoring any questions she preferred not to answer.
Belle had to smile. The child’s hearing was a source of parental frustration to the point they’d asked Belle to test her. While she was no audiologist, selective hadn’t been a difficult diagnosis.
“Well. We’ll have to get that checked out, won’t we?” Jayce said. He lifted the little girl into his arms. “Belle, you got tweezers and a magnifying glass?”
Belle had all sorts of medical instruments at her disposal, as well as medical training, but she held her tongue. Judging by Linda’s wide smile, her professional skills were unwanted.
She led Jayce and his adoring companion up the front steps to her door, which she never bothered to lock because Burning Scrub was no hotbed of crime, then down the narrow hall to her examination room, next door to her kitchen.
She set Jayce’s lantern on a shelf next to the examining table and prepared to examine Linda’s hand.
The little girl cradled the outraged appendage protectively against her skinny chest and refused to give it up. “I want Jayce to look at it.”
The name came out Jathe because of her two missing front teeth, which was too cute for words.
“Yeah, Belle. She wants me to look at it.” Jayce grinned.
That wasn’t so cute.
She tried hard not to be annoyed that Linda preferred him. Anyone could remove a splinter. It didn’t require a medical degree, so aside from the slam to her self-esteem, what was the harm?
Jayce examined the tiny palm in the light from the lantern.
He made a tsking sound. “Aren’t you a trooper? That looks pretty painful, but I don’t think we’ll have to amputate.” He held out his free hand to Belle without looking at her, waggling his fingers. “Where are those tweezers?”
She passed them to him without comment. His taking charge was such a ridiculous thing to resent, and it made her feel small, because it only served to highlight her own insecurities. It wasn’t his fault that she didn’t have enough spine to tell him he’d overstepped.
“Ouch!” Linda exclaimed, just as Jayce announced, “Got it!”
He took the antibiotic cream Belle offered and daubed it on Linda’s palm, then covered the pinhole wound with a Band-Aid.
He tapped the little girl’s nose. “There. All done.”
Linda’s sniffles turned into a smile. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Of course not.” He lifted her from the examination table and set her on her feet. “This seems to be my night for walking beautiful ladies to their front doors. Let’s get you home.”
Belle hoped for a second that he’d forgotten his invitation, but no.
“I understand that medical emergencies in Burning Scrub are always a possibility, Dr. Belle, but if anything happened to crop up over the weekend, I’m sure Adam could fill in for you with no problem. Why don’t I check in with you in a few days to see if you’ve changed your mind about Grand?”
“I won’t change my mind,” she started to say, but by then, she had no one to talk to.
Jayce and Linda were already at the front door, with Linda holding his hand and chatting up at him about the pony her daddy promised to buy her.
Belle latched the door behind them and secured it for the night. She peered through the side window and watched the pair disappear. The lantern Jayce carried became a tiny pinpoint of light as they moved up the street.
The black glass reflected the light from the examining room behind her, as well as the faint smudge of her face.
Overall, she had no complaints about Burning Scrub.
The mountains were breathtaking. She could look out her kitchen window every morning and see nothing but tree-covered peaks and valleys for miles.
The wildlife was a joy to behold, including the raccoons, whose compost mess she’d have to clean up in the morning.
She was slowly beginning to feel as if she belonged somewhere, for the first time in her life. As if Burning Scrub were her home.
She rested her chin on her folded arms and continued to gaze through the window at the blackness beyond that had swallowed up Linda and Jayce.
According to the thirty-six permanent residents of Burning Scrub—whose opinions on the matter might be somewhat self-serving since they wanted a doctor—she and Jayce Hanson would be perfect together.
Except she didn’t want perfect.
Perfect was boring.