it had been for weeks.
She had wondered if a family practice clinic in a small town was going to be boring. And while it wasn’t the heart attacks and broken bones that had gotten her adrenaline pumping at the hospital in Toronto, she was digging the variety and the ability to get to know her patients. In the emergency department, her job had been to address the immediate problems she was presented with and either admit patients or patch them up and send them on their way. Here, she was going to be able to follow people over time—or, rather, over two years. She had seen a pair of newborn twins the other day and was looking forward to seeing them again at their next checkup.
Wynd stuck her head into Nora’s office, drawing Nora from her thoughts. “Hey, Nora. Eve Abbott and Jake Ramsey are waiting for you out front, and I’m headed home.”
She glanced at her watch. She’d been catching up on charting and had lost track of time. Amber had long since left. “Yeah, okay, thanks, Wynd. See you tomorrow.” Jake she wasn’t surprised about, but she wondered what Eve was doing here. “Actually, hang on a sec, will you?” Wynd came back. Nora didn’t know how to say this. She honestly wasn’t sure it was any of her business. But she’d ordered the flu vaccines for the Anti-Festival earlier in the week, and it had been on her mind. “I wanted to ask you a question. You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. But are your kids vaccinated?”
“Oh my gosh, yes.”
Well, that was a relief. Wynd had a little postcard taped to the wall above her desk that said, “Mindset is Everything,” and Nora hadn’t been sure if she meant it literally.
“I don’t think there’s a single person in this town who went to Jude Ramsey’s funeral who wouldn’t vaccinate their kids,” Wynd said uncharacteristically vehemently.
“I’m sorry for asking.” And sorry she had made assumptions. “It’s just that flu season is rolling around, and I’ve been thinking about this stuff.”
“It’s okay. I get it. I’m a hippie. But my kids have all their shots.” She flashed Nora an irreverent grin. “Mind you, if you want to talk about fluoridated toothpaste, I will fight you. But they have all their shots.”
“Nah.” Nora smiled. “Let’s fight about fluoride later. You go home now.”
She followed Wynd into the waiting room, where her friends were waiting. “Hi, guys. What’s up?”
“Hey, Nora. Jake says you’re in the market for new housing.”
“I am indeed. I apparently have a black mold situation.”
“Well, I happen to have a room at the inn I don’t know what to do with. It’s yours if you want it. But fair warning: you might not want it.”
“Why not?”
Jake gave a sort of snort-guffaw, and Eve said, “Seeing is believing.”
A few minutes later, they were climbing the stairs to the third floor of the Mermaid Inn. “When I was a kid, I spent summers here with my great-aunt, who owned the inn before me, and this was my room,” Eve said. “It’s too small, and, frankly, too bonkers to rent out. Sawyer and I lived in it for a bit, but we’ve since moved downstairs to the owner’s suite.”
She swung open the door, and Nora stepped into a one-room Barbie Dreamhouse. Both the walls and the tile floor were pink—baby pink on the walls and fuchsia on the floors. “Wow.”
Eve followed Nora inside. “Yeah, my aunt let me decorate it myself when I was nine.”
Nora wanted to ask why the room hadn’t been remodeled as part of the renovation Eve had done last year, but she didn’t want to be rude.
“I should just redo it,” Eve said, reading Nora’s mind. “Or knock down the wall and expand the room next door, but I’m sort of weirdly emotionally attached to this room, even if I don’t want to live in it anymore.”
It really did look like someone had decorated with a cotton candy machine, but Nora wasn’t in a position to be picky. And, hey, she could definitely walk to work from here. It was all of fifty feet to the clinic across the street. Except…
“It’s great of you to offer, but I can’t live here. I have a dog.”
“I can take him until you find a place,” Jake said.
Damn. Were there no limits to how great this guy was? She turned to face him. He was lurking in the doorway, the room itself being too small