Cynda and the City Doctor - Theodora Taylor Page 0,62

later, I’m right back where I’ve secretly wanted to be since leaving the back house. Snug as a bug in Rhys’s bed and wearing his warm, dry Death Buddha shirt, while I wait for the man I love to finish making us tea at the stove.

Normally I’m not a tea drinker, but I swear nothing has ever tasted as good as what’s in the mug he hands me, teeming with smoke. Like flowers and second chances.

“What kind of tea is this?”

“Chamomile,” he answers, climbing into bed with his own mug. “Best tea for getting back to sleep.”

“Oh,” I say, raising both eyebrows. “Is that what we’re trying to do? Get back to sleep?”

Rhys looks at me, for a long wicked beat, then sets his untouched tea aside. “No, I don’t believe we’ll be getting much sleep tonight. We’ve a lot of making up to do. And the only thing worse than the cicadas is all this rain.”

“But doesn’t it rain a ton in England?”

“Ssh!” he croons, taking my tea from me, and setting it aside too.

Then we get busy making up.

And yes, that tea was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

But our happy ending tastes even better.

Epilogue

“Still no word from Gina?”

“No!” Billie answers. “The private investigator tracked her all the way to Wisconsin. But her trail disappears after that.”

“Maybe she really did make it to Canada before the border closed,” I suggest.

I want to offer both Billie and me some hope. And, it’s possible, since Gina’s French Canadian on her mother’s side. She’s never even visited Canada, but it came up a lot during her Queen America packages.

“I mean maybe, but I don’t understand why she wouldn’t just call us if that was the case—”

“Who are you talking to, krasotka?” a heavily accented voice asks in the background. “Is it Cyndarella? Hello! How are you and the Drosselholz Prince Charming?”

I smile at the sound of Billie’s totally unexpected quaranboo, Cheslav Rustanov—or Chess as he insists on being called by everyone but Billie. He’s my new favorite Russian, even if he does insists on referring to Billie as Krasotka, which apparently is Russian for Beauty, and to me as Cyndarella.

Billie giggles and rolls her eyes. “I have to go. But call me if you hear anything else from Gina. Anything at all.”

“Of course,” I answer.

I hang up and suddenly there are lips on my neck, making me giggle too.

“Who were you talking to, love?”

It’s Rhys, fresh out of the back house’s shower. We love running the newest DBCare clinic together. We’re using my father’s practice to gather data on practices like scaled pricing and preventative home visits like the farm rounds.

We’re also preparing to do frontline work for a possible wave of COVID cases. Unlike bigger cities, Audrain County, where Guadalajara is located has only had about fifteen cases so far in a population of around 25,000, and no deaths. Also, Mavis is off the ventilator and though she’s got a long road to full recovery, now that she’s hopefully immune to the virus, she’s already talking about making her RV trip in 2021. But with the state reopening, we know the number of cases will grow. So Rhys is helping to outfit all the US DBCare clinics with protective gear and working with the GuacBap to get them another ventilator and more PPE.

Funny that I was planning to leave Guadalajara behind forever just a few weeks ago. Now I’m essential. And as much as I’ll miss the twins whenever Carnegie Mellon decides to reopen, it feels good to be needed.

However, being essential means showers as soon as we get home these days. Me first, then him after work. And sometimes we’re good about going straight into making dinner afterwards, but a lot of times we’re bad.

“Stop,” I warn when Rhys’s neck kisses start making me shiver instead of giggle. “We have dinner with the twins and Reina in just a few minutes.”

With Rhys holding my hand, I’d called Reina a few weeks ago, and my shock, she’d been nearby. Less than an hour away actually. She’d been vague about why she’d left South Dakota, but I sensed there was a break up involved. A bad one, if the haunted look she got when she talked about leaving the state so suddenly was any indication.

But after five awkward days of getting to know each other from six feet away, it was agreed that Reina would move out of her hotel room in Guadalajara and into the main house—which we were no