After Sebastian left the corridor on his way to the emergency room where the SUV was parked, there stood just me and Ann in the small clinic looking at each other. I thought it appropriate to start the conversation seeing that I was the doctor’s wife and ask for a ride home. She probably wouldn’t refuse me under those circumstances.
“Do you think you can drop me home when that doctor gets in to relieve Sebastian, and how long do you think he will take?” I shot her a half smile. She looked pleasant and I felt comfortable with her. I had no deadlines to meet but I asked because I was dog tired staying up all night.
Conveniently I had lied to Sebastian. I wanted him to think I was like him. At the time I thought he was just a night person and I wanted to fit in. I liked him a lot, but I had this feeling of love more, but that vampire stuff was so weird, and I just didn’t know how to react.
“Oh David’s always late,” she said looking at a paper. “I heard Dr. Sebastian telling him not to be late because he needed to get his rest, and he could only work at night. I know because I’m a night person too. I love sleeping all day and I come alive at night. My boyfriend is a day person.” It appeared unnecessary for her to add that, but since we were bonding, I thought nothing of it.
“So how do you make it like that?” She glanced at me as if it was a stupid question. I asked because I needed pointers. This could be a long relationship I’ve entered into with this vampire. I guess I was getting used to the idea of him being a vampire because the thoughts of this was getting easier to accept, and it didn’t scare me half as much as before.
“You have to work together,” she said sharpening pencils and arranging pens in a coffee cup. “You have to complement each other. You do things during the day that he can’t do. I do all the shopping and he does the housework.” She glanced up at me. “You seem to be working together. Dr. Sebastian said that the only way he could work here was if he had to be out of here at no later than six am. I hope he doesn’t leave us because of David.”
“That’s his name David. When he gets here...” When I glanced up waltzing through the door was a handsome young man in his late twenties who didn’t look like a patient and he didn’t look like a doctor. He looked more like someone going on a holiday or had just come from a tropical island.
He was blond with a small nose and clear tanned skin. When he spotted me and Ann he gave us the warmest smile. “Two of the most beautiful young women I’ve seen in years,” he said gawking at me. He had a mysterious smile and his eyes beamed like two flashlights in the dark. He enjoyed delighting women and complimenting them.
“That’s because we are the only ones you haven’t slept with in this town.” He kept staring at me. “Please don’t give that beautiful woman the wrong impression of me,” he said holding my hand and never taking his eyes off of me.
“She’s Dr. Sebastian’s wife and he’s already pissed with you.”
“No one can stay pissed with me. I’ll apologize and it will be over. And I feel truly sorry for you.”
“What do you mean, David?” I said.
“You know my name and I don’t know yours.”
“It’s Zoey.”
“What a beautiful name.”
“Thanks, but why did you say you felt sorry for me.”
“I mean to be married to a workaholic like Sebastian, when he has a lovely young wife where he can’t snuggled up with her at night in this cold weather.” His blue eyes locked on my eyes.
Taking my hand from his, I said, “There are more important things to devote yourself to other than...”
“Sex. As a doctor nothing can be more important than getting my daily dose of sex.”
“As a doctor, do you think it’s appropriate to talk like that?”
“You aren’t one of my patients...”
“But I’m married to the head of this clinic.” I wondered why I made a point to say that.
“You are a young woman whose husband is a workaholic, and there are no patients in here.”
“How do you know he’s a workaholic?”
“Why, Sebastian told me. He says he has to leave here to go to another township to work.” I wished he had told me so our lies could match. I was saved by another hunter brought in with a wound to the leg.
“Come,” David said. “I need your help.” He took my hand and led me through the doors.
“What happened to you, Fred?” David ask the man who had wounds to his arms and legs.
“Don’t know. Went ice fishing, and I’m sitting in my little cabin and a knock came to the door, I opened it and before I could blink, a large wolf of some kind grabbed me by the arm and bit into me. Good thing I had on my old goose down otherwise he would have taken my arm off.”
David cut through his jacket. “Geeze did you have to do that. That’s my best coat,” Fred said looking disappointed. David examined him and I put something on his wound, and David put stitches in the cut, sowing up the wound he gave him something to sleep.
“You can rest in the back, Fred.” David pointed to the room. Then he placed his arm around my waist. I pulled away from him and started walking.
“I need to get home.”
“What for, Sebastian won’t be there until later.”
“I have to catch a ride with Ann.”
“I can take you home,” he said.
“Don’t you have duty here?”
“No one comes here during the day. We have a nurse practitioner for that. We hired only one doctor because we didn’t need any. I ran this store front operation alone for years. With the help of maybe two other people, but when Dr. Sebastian came in and said he would be moving here permanently, I said why not.”
“But don’t you have a need for a doctor. From what I saw last night, you need to hire more people.”
“That’s because we’ve gotten a rash of wolf bites in the area. Before your husband came to this town, it was quiet. Now we’re averaging ten bites and wounds of different degrees on weekends.”
“There seem to be quite a bit for a place like this,” I said. “All wolf wounds?”
“As a matter of fact I had a few came in with wounds to the neck. Didn’t look like a wolf attack, but it will calm down when hunting season is over, and hopefully I can go back to my vacation. So what do you say?”
Glancing at him with a raised eyebrow and tilted head, I had forgotten Ann offered me a ride home. By that time Ann stuck her head through the door.
“I’m leaving now. My replacement is here. Coming?” Ann had her coat, boots and mittens on, and her purse slung across her shoulder.
“I’m behind you.” And I began walking in her direction with David at my side. “I guess I won’t see you again unless you’re late. And I don’t think working in a hospital is my thing. I’m not too fond of blood.”
David walked me out to Ann’s car. She drove a jeep and had it all warmed up when I jumped into it, and she took off, leaving David standing ready to start a new conversation.
“He talks too much and dates all the eligible and married women in this town. Everyone knows all about him, but because he’s a doctor they seem to tolerate it. They don’t want him to leave. But since we have your husband, the town folks are beginning to tire of David’s arrogance and disregard for the men’s wives with whom he sleeps with. I bet Sebastian doesn’t know his reputation, otherwise, he would never let that wolf near you.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Doctor Sebastian looks like the type that nips it in the bud.”
Ann was full of information. I guess that’s all they had to do in a town this small was mind someone else’s business.
“David’s father owned this town and when he died suddenly, David took over. They say David is rich and he could be anywhere in the world, but he rather stay out here in the middle of nowhere and take care of the good people of this little village.”
“I guess you could say it’s honorable,” I said looking at her.
“I guess you could say that,” Ann said shrugging her shoulders as if she didn’t want to commit to how honorable David appeared. “Or you could say that he likes the idea that he can have sex with every woman between the age of twenty one and forty and no one bats and eye.”
“Did he try with you?”
“No. Because he knows my guy and he knows what he would have done to him. I suspect Dr. Sebastian is the same kind of guy but he doesn’t show that side of him.”
That ride home was great to find out all that I needed to know about everyone in town. Or though I thought I knew everything. I was just beginning to learn something about the town people when she came around the bend and she stopped talking.