before you go.”
22
Saturday evening, Garner Remke and Trey Bateman sat at Cat’s dining room table in the apartment over her doctor’s office. The trio was finishing a simple meal of wild salmon, which Cat liked to have shipped in from Seattle for special occasions, a lemon and fennel salad, and homemade rye rolls that Cat had made especially for Garner that afternoon. Rye was his favorite. A fortunate coincidence.
Trey ate none of the bread. He said something about preferring to avoid gluten, and Cat thought he meant to mock her. And so she said, “Far be it from me to step between a man and his lifestyle. You are perfectly healthy, after all.”
It was just as well. She hadn’t been expecting this kid when she told Garner to bring a friend, and she wasn’t interested in an outsider hanging around. It was Garner she was trying to keep close. She had been hoping that Dotti would come.
Garner was saying, “You really ought to patch things up with Nova, Cat. She’s a sweet girl. You’re the same age. I bet you have a lot in common.”
“She’s pregnant,” Cat huffed. If Nova didn’t want Cat to be her doctor, there was no doctor-patient privilege to worry about.
Garner stopped chewing his bread for a minute. “Yes, I heard something about that. I’ll have to concede you don’t share that status. But when did you decide to dislike pregnant women?”
“I don’t dislike them. But Nova won’t let me manage her prenatal care,” Cat said. Then, realizing that she might have revealed her feelings too pointedly, she clarified, “She refuses to see any doctor.”
“Is that so?”
Garner folded his hands in his lap. “Far be it from me to insert myself into a female argument, but I heard her tell Hank’s wife she’s got herself a good OB down in Salida. Though I suppose it’s possible she made that up to keep people from pestering her.”
Cat blinked. If this was true, Nova’s rejection wasn’t philosophical after all. It was worse. It was deeply personal, and Cat had done nothing to deserve that. She twisted the cloth napkin in her lap. “Good then. Good. I’ll be able to sleep again after all.”
She turned to Trey. “So, Garner tells me you’re a conservationist,” she said. Her thoughts felt oddly disconnected from her words, like she was speaking underwater.
“I’ve been a conservationist since I was old enough to sort the recyclables,” Trey said. “But I’m studying wildlife biology as I can afford to.”
“Do you plan to work at a zoo?”
Trey raised one eyebrow in Garner’s direction. “If tourism isn’t a zoo, I don’t know what is. But my actual aim is for the outdoors. Field research. Specifically in regard to mountain lions and their habitats. Did you know cougars are one of the least researched predators in America? It’s harder and more expensive to catch them, track them.”
“That’s a cat for you.” Garner chuckled and raised his water glass in a toast to the doctor.
“Very funny,” Cat said.
“Human encroachment is a significant problem,” Trey said, “but it’s surmountable. I believe God designed men and animals to live together.”
“But not women.” Cat couldn’t help herself.
“Of course women. So I’m helping to document the cougars’ territorial habits, population density, food supply, that sort of thing. The long-term goal is to reduce their confrontations with people. We use tracking collars and, if you can believe it, hound dogs.”
“Hunting dogs?” Garner said. “That’s surprising.”
“I know. It’s archaic, right? But very effective. And cameras—I’ll be downloading data and doing a little maintenance on some cameras this weekend.”
“I almost feel inspired to pull out my checkbook and make a donation,” Cat said wryly.
“I recommend the Rocky Mountain Cat Conservancy,” Trey said.
If he had caught wind of her sarcasm, he was using it against her. She disliked him more and more.
Cat cleared her throat. “I’ll make a note of it.” She pushed back from the table and fetched two plastic bags for the remaining rolls, which she gathered up from the neat basket in the middle of the table. “You had better take the rest home with you,” she told Garner. “Freeze a bag if you like.”
“Delighted to. I don’t believe I’ve ever tasted such a fine bread.”
“If it agrees with you, I’ll give you the recipe.”
“I’ll leave the baking to you, Cat girl. It’s easier to garden at this altitude than to bake. How do you manage it?”
“It’s all in the ingredients. I suppose I do better at plant biology than animal biology,” she said.
“You