Page 68 of Found in Wild Sage

The scrape of his voice is a thrill, and its own kind of confession. So I don’t stop there.

“I did. And the more I know you, the more I want to, Dec. The more I’m grateful I let myself step out of my comfort zone and try.”

He slowly shakes his head side to side. “You have no idea—you’ll never know how glad I am you did.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Declan

Our lunch ends abruptly when I get a call to meet a patient at Silverton Hospital.

Fortunately, we were nearly finished anyway, and thankfully, Evie had already shared her revelation. And she called me Dec while fully conscious and not at all febrile.

I held back. Maybe someday she’ll know how much I held back when I said I was glad she took the risk with me, even if her motive had far less to do with me and more to do with Charlie.

She said she wanted to be your friend.

The reminder echoes through me, but I can’t dwell on it. It’s far too easy to collect every kind word or smile or soft touch and build a picture that’s not there. I have to be careful.

I spend a few hours at the hospital with Gary Longbrow, one of my geriatric patients who really should be seeing a geriatrician considering he’s ninety-four. His wife was there, too, but they needed some help navigating the hospital system, and the staff at Silverton Hospital know to call me if needed. Gary and his wife still live in their tiny mountain cabin a few miles outside of Juniper View. They’re hardy and “mountain-proved,” as Gary likes to say, but he’s had a few falls and it’s looking like they may need to make a change.

This is one side of my life even my family doesn’t know a whole lot about. They know I volunteer for different on-call positions and I pop over to the Silverton Hospital or sometimes go all the way to Ogden or Salt Lake if someone in our tiny community is life-flighted that far, but in my year of being here, those incidents have been few.

What I mainly do is visit the older folks in the community who don’t have a perfect solution to what they need. They want independent living, but they need easy, and sometimes instant access to physical and medical help. From the outside, it might seem like the obvious choice would be to move to a senior living center or even a nursing home, but thus far, Gary and Martha haven’t needed nursing-level care save a few stints in skilled nursing facilities. They can’t afford, nor are they likely to both get spots simultaneously, at Silverton Springs, the very nice senior living facility in town.

So they fall through the cracks. They stay home, they get stuck there if one of their kids or grandkids isn’t visiting to help with appointments and errands because we don’t have a consistent transport service available and they don’t qualify for any home health aid. It’s unacceptable. We have no infrastructure to help them, and they make little enough money they can’t afford most quality options and too much money to get enough help to bridge the gap.

So one of my hobbies is checking on Gary and Martha and folks like them, and working on what Finn calls my side hustle. He doesn’t even know what it is, but eventually he will, and I think he’ll like it.

This is also one of the experiences that has pushed me to realize I do want more. Solitude is great and all, but their bond is incredible. And their kids are, too. They’ve solidified the resolve that began when I took care of Major Dale. Even this visit with them has me hoping…

I don’t allow myself to give that hope a name today, though.

This takes much of the rest of the day, and by the time I come home, I’m spent. I wouldn’t say I’m sick, but I’m feeling dragged down, so I fall asleep early and miss out on talking with Evie after she puts Charlie down.

Sunday, she and Charlie have plans with Sam and the girls, and when I wake up feeling like myself, I take a nice long run. I work on the house so it’s clean for the week. Then I tuck myself away outside in the yard to prune flowers and mow the lawn and finally replace the back gate hinge since it rusted over the winter. This way, Evie and Charlie have some time for themselves at home if they want it.

Yes, it’s a bit of a cop-out.

In my defense, though, I’m not sure how I’ll do around her, especially without our cheery little buffer. She didn’t exactly declare her undying love for me, but she did say she wants to know me more. Such a statement could drive a man to his knees, were the man the kind who’d get on his knees for a woman.

Turns out, after she said it, it became instantly clear I am that man when it comes to her.

Not that I didn’t already know I had a weakness for her, based on where our interactions began in earnest a few weeks ago. But I didn’t realize it was quite so complete.

Somehow, between Charlie’s schedule and my own commitments through the week, we’ve mostly seen each other on the way to work and twice for dinner. We’ve kept our conversations light, but I’m still gathering up each piece of her she shares like a greedy little squirrel prepping for winter.

Though in this analogy, it means I’m preparing to be without her for a long period of time, and I don’t anticipate that. Not for a while.

Or so I hope.

No major developments in the custody case this week, though the date for our hearing is looming in exactly thirteen days. I don’t know if she has a similar mental countdown, but I suspect she does. She’s not irritable, but she seems tired and distracted when we’re together for very long.

Which is why tonight, I’ve made a plan. I’ve ordered in Naan King because it’s been months since I’ve had it and she’s mentioned she loves it. I’ve set up a makeshift table in the living room and I’m hoping she’ll accept my invitation to eat and watch a movie on the couch.

“Hey. He’s out.” She stands in the kitchen, watching as I set two glasses of ice water on the table. “What’s that?”

“It’s our dinner, if you haven’t eaten yet.” She didn’t get home until nearly six, then focused on feeding Charlie, then bathing him, reading to him, and getting him to bed. It’s seven-thirty now, and I’m glad I didn’t order until after she finished his bath.