Page 4 of Found in Wild Sage

The clipboard from the chart holder outside room two is suddenly at eye level. With a breath, I shift gears. No more Evie for now. It’s time to see my patient.

Colt Whitman looks hale and hearty as ever. He pushes up from the chair tucked right inside the door and extends his hand when I walk into the exam room.

This patient deserves my full focus. It’s a reminder and a reprimand, and exactly what I need.

“Good to see you, Doc.”

“Likewise, Mr. Whitman. How’s the farm?” He’s still managing certain parts of his farm, though last year he promised me he planned to downsize.

“Just me and the bees, these days.” He turns and lifts a canvas sack. “A few things for you.”

“Let me pay you for them.” I accept the large canvas bag with two mason jars of honey, one little honey bear like they sell at The Bee’s Knees, and a container that must hold honeycomb.

“Nonsense. I’ll owe you forever after you’ve come out to the farm so many times.”

I only shake my head. We occasionally make house calls, and when I first saw him for his annual last year, I made him promise he’d call us for a home visit if he wasn’t feeling up to coming in. He’s done that twice now, once with a case of pneumonia after a nasty upper respiratory infection in the spring, and once after a fall.

A few minutes later, we’ve done the usual checks of heart, lung, and gut sounds, and so on. We talk through his concerns, and now I come to the subject we’ve got to address.

“Who’s helping you out at home?”

His face instantly hardens. “Don’t need help at home. Got kids coming in to deal with the trees and such, but I’m not interested in someone fannying about in my own space. Don’t need it.”

As expected, so I nod. “Would you mind taking your shoes and socks off for me?”

He blinks. “What for?”

“I did a rotation in gerontology, and⁠—”

“I ain’t geriatric, son. I won’t be treated as such.” His bushy brows slant down over his leathered skin. He’s got caramel eyes that make his mean mug significantly less threatening, and a face riddled with wrinkles that betray how much he’s smiled and squinted under the sun these last eighty-five years.

“I won’t argue with you about that, and I don’t mean to suggest you’re less than fully capable of meeting your own needs. My goal for you is to live a full, happy, healthy life at full capacity for as long as possible. And part of that is making sure your feet are taken care of.”

He grumbles, but bends, hooks an arm under his leg just above his knee, and leans back to tug the leg up and prop it on the exam table step. “See? No problem.”

It’s a creative solution to the issue of stiff joints and likely weaker hip flexors. I might recommend him for some physical therapy, but I do have my doubts about whether he’d cooperate.

“Very good. What I learned from my friend is that foot care is one of the most underrated and yet essential things we can do for folks as they age. Often, nails get neglected and soon enough, walking is an issue. Since you’re on top of it, you don’t need to worry, but if it should become challenging to maintain, we can address that.” Usually, it’ll mean a referral to podiatry.

Mr. Whitman is appeased by my approach, and soon enough, he ambles out with a, “Have a good one, Doc,” and I’m left to make my notes.

My brain gives me exactly three minutes before I am yanked back into a full-body focus on what Evie might be thinking and feeling.

I don’t want her to feel so backed into a corner by her ex that she needs to marry me. That said, if she feels being married will give her any level of advantage, there is nothing to discuss. We marry. Done. Easy. Simple.

If it helps her, we do it.

As for me… I will subjugate my desire for her. Everything else will only be a benefit—my admiration of her, the affection she stirs in me, the genuine need to help her I only barely contain on any given day.

My family may not understand, but they don’t need to. And they may even be happy for me—for us, while it lasts. They’ll think I’ve finally allowed myself to unbutton and find love. To feel the full spectrum of emotions, and show them, too.

What they don’t realize is I want to do just that. So much. I want love and passion and a family, should it work out that way. But this is potentially the closest I’ll get to any of that because Evie is the first woman in over a decade to draw out those desires. To make me think any of it is possible. To make me want… something.

It’s a culmination of all the things that have happened in the last few years—from shifting to family medicine, then caring for some of the older members of the community and feeling a sense of duty and desire to make sure they are cared for. The longing for more is reaching a crescendo, and though I’ve managed to keep the feelings at bay, Evie has broken all of it open.

I don’t want to have to feel so out of control, so much, so reckless. But if I can funnel that into helping her, helping Charlie, and being near her while I do…

The fact that we’d be marrying not for love but for situational reasons?