“That sounds great—in theory. I just have to get some care lined up for Parsnip.”
“You’d be welcome to bring Parsnip in. Not once we’re open, of course, but that would be fine in the run-up to opening. I love dogs.” The thought of dogs made her heart pinch, actually.
“Parsnip is my younger daughter.”
Oh. Nora coughed to cover a laugh. Wynd had talked about having day care already set up for her little one, so she’d assumed Parsnip was a nonhuman creature. “Right.” She needed to stop putting her foot in her mouth here. “Okay. Well, same logic applies. I love kids, too.”
“I have her enrolled at a day care center,” Wynd explained, “but her spot doesn’t open until after Labor Day. I wasn’t expecting to get a job offer this quickly.” She scrunched her forehead like she was thinking. “My mother is going to take Cicada in the afternoons after school in the fall, and I’m sure she could take her for this last stretch of the summer, too, but I think giving her the baby as well will be too much.”
“Cicada is your older daughter?”
“Yes.”
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh.
The door opened and Nora turned, grateful for the distraction. It was the police chief. She’d met him after the birth yesterday. He wasn’t wearing a uniform today, though, so he must be off duty.
“Dr. Walsh. I thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing. But I can see you’re busy. I’ll come back later.”
“No, no! We’re nearly done here.” She turned to Wynd. “Let’s say two weeks from today will be your official start, if that works for you. That will get you in here a bit before we open the day after Labor Day. No pressure, but if you’re able to put in some hours before that, that would be great. Feel free to bring…” She couldn’t say it. “Feel free to bring your daughter. I’ll appreciate any help you can offer, and you and Amber and I can get to know each other. I have your contact info, and I’ll text you mine. If you can bring in a social insurance card, we’ll do the tax forms. Sound good?”
Wynd smiled widely, and Nora felt herself returning it. She waved goodbye to her receptionist—yay! She had a receptionist!—and turned back to the chief.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Collins.” Was that right? She wasn’t sure what to call him. “Chief Collins?”
“Call me Sawyer. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
“Sawyer, then.” She hesitated. She wasn’t in the habit of telling people to use her first name. She was young and short and female, all traits she had learned contributed to people sometimes not taking her seriously as a physician. At the hospital, she had learned from senior women colleagues to announce herself as “Dr. Walsh” and not even let her first name be known.
But what were total life resets for if not to shake things up?
“Sawyer,” she said again, “call me Nora. What can I do for you?”
“Well, mainly I’m here to invite you for drinks. I meet a couple buddies on Friday nights at Lawson’s Lager House, just across the street. My girlfriend and a friend of hers will be there tonight, too. You want to join us?”
“I’d love that, thanks. Now?”
“The others come around five, but why don’t we head over now if you’re ready? I have a few professional things I want to talk to you about.”
A few minutes later they were settling in at one end of a large, gleaming wooden bar, and Nora was shaking hands with Benjamin Lawson, the proprietor, who seemed to be quite friendly with Sawyer. “Nice to meet you, Benjamin.”
“We’re glad you’re here, Dr. Walsh. Call me Law. Nobody calls me Benjamin.”
Should she tell him to call her Nora, too? It was an odd thing, living and working in a small community. She didn’t know yet who she was going to be friends with. In the city, if she was friends with someone, she would never treat them. But as the only doctor in town, she supposed she didn’t have that luxury.
“Glad you’re here, but I am annoyed you stole Amber from me.” His twinkling eyes telegraphed that he was kidding.
“She seems like she’s bound for great things. I’ll be lucky if I can hold on to her for the two years I plan to be here. So technically, I think life stole Amber from you.” Nora smiled to show she was teasing, too.
Screw it. She was just going to go with her gut here. So what if she had to perform a testicular cancer screening on this guy at some point? She would worry about that later. “And you call me Nora.”
“Well, kidding aside, we are truly glad you’re here, Nora.”
“Everyone keeps saying that. You all must really miss Dr. Baker.” The clinic had been closed for almost a year, but it seemed that its former owner loomed large in town.
Sawyer answered as Law was hailed by another customer. “We miss having a doctor, anyway.”
“But not him specifically? Hmm. The plot thickens.”
“Dr. Baker was fine, but from the town cop to the town doctor, he was a bit old-school.”
“What does that mean?”
“He refused to face the fact that we have a fentanyl problem, for one.”
“Ah. You’re not alone there, unfortunately.” The emergency room back in Toronto had been well acquainted with that problem.
“Right. And I get that it’s a wider public health problem. It’s not like I expected Doc Baker to single-handedly solve it, but just last week we had a kid OD on some kind of street cocktail. Thankfully, the paramedics arrived in time to save him, but honestly, it didn’t look good there for a while, and I could use some advice on naloxone. Should my officers and I be carrying it, do you think? Dr. Baker told me not to open the force to potential legal liability, but I’m not sure that’s right. I can’t keep just standing there doing nothing.” His voice had risen, and he rolled his eyes. “Sorry. I’m getting intense.”
“No, it’s worth getting intense over. My first reaction is yes you should be carrying it, but let me look into it some more and get back to you.” She’d read a bit about police forces across the country debating whether officers should carry the overdose-reversing drug. But there might be legal and liability issues she wasn’t aware of. “And that’s not me blowing you off,” she added. “I’ve never had to think about the intersection of medicine and law enforcement. So give me a couple weeks to do a little research, and we can put our heads together?”
He smiled. “I’d appreciate that.”
“You said a few things? What else?”
Sawyer glanced over his shoulder. Someone was approaching. She followed his gaze.
Aquaman.
He was wearing jeans and a weathered gray T-shirt, and he had his hair in a messy bun.
“Hey,” Sawyer said. Jake gave a slight nod. Sawyer was sitting on the last stool on the long side of the bar, and Jake took the next stool over, the first on the short side, putting them at a ninety-degree angle from each other. “You know Dr. Walsh.”
Nora gave a little wave. “Yeah, Jake turns out to be a talented birth attendant.” Also, is he or is he not some kind of man-god hybrid? Asking out of scientific curiosity.