case, this was important. Clara was probably a pretty reliable bet when it came to quickly learning complicated software.
Anyway, sometimes you had to do what you had to do, damn the consequences.
“What do you mean you’re my temps?” Nora asked. Everyone looked at him, but he gestured back to Clara.
“Wynd is teaching me your software for scheduling and billing, and I’m going to be your receptionist until I have to go back to school in the new year. Hopefully you can hire someone permanently by then.”
“And I’m backup for when Clara’s busy with her girlfriend from Toronto,” said Eiko with a twinkle in her eye.
“What?” Clara’s jaw dropped, and Jake sighed. These people were impossible.
“Oh, come on,” Eiko said. “Everyone knows your ‘friend’ who’s coming to visit for New Year’s isn’t your ‘friend’ at all.”
“I am going to kill my brother,” Clara said.
“Well, I’m sure you thought—”
Jake cleared his throat to draw Eiko’s attention and shook his head at her. Clara had only come out a year and a half ago, and as far as Jake knew, her holiday visitor was her first girlfriend. Honestly, there should be an age limit on the meddling the old folks did.
“Anyway,” Eiko said, “I don’t know about fancy software, but I can answer phones like nobody’s business. I started my career in the 1960s as the secretary to the publisher of a newspaper. So whenever Clara can’t be here, I can.”
“I figure if someone prints the schedule on paper, she can handwrite in any appointments she makes, and Clara can enter them later,” said Wynd from behind the reception desk.
“And I,” said Pearl, “did some digging. The Clinton campus of Fanshawe College has a health care admin program. They’ll have new grads at the end of the semester.”
“Wow.” Nora had started blinking rapidly. “Wow.”
“And if that doesn’t work out, I can fill in, too,” Pearl said. “I mean, I am the two-time Fortnite champ in Senior Gamers of Southwestern Ontario, so how hard can medical billing really be?”
“And I can handle communicating with pharmacies,” Amber said. “I help Wynd with it anyway when she gets busy.”
Suddenly Nora’s blinking looked like it was about to turn into blinking back tears.
“She just got here,” Jake said, pushing through the crowd of women. “Let her put her stuff in her office and take her coat off before you all bombard her.”
He grabbed her shoulder bag and started steering her toward her office.
“Thank you, everyone!” she called over her shoulder. “I should have said that right off, but I’m a little overwhelmed.”
“Don’t thank us,” Eiko called back. “Thank Jake. It was all his idea.”
He delivered her to the door of her office intending to leave her there, but she grabbed his arm, pulled him in with her, shut the door, and threw herself into his arms.
Her parka was so puffy, it was like hugging a marshmallow, but he’d missed his marshmallow over the weekend, so he went all in.
“Jake. I—”
Her voice was muffled by his chest. He reluctantly let go of her so he could hear her.
She looked startled—like, really startled. By the clinic still? He supposed it was a lot to take in. She looked at him a long time.
“You okay, Doc?”
I love you.
Thank God she hadn’t said it out loud.
Because she didn’t mean it like that. She’d just been so overwhelmed and relieved to find that Jake had solved her clinic problem. She meant it in the way you say, “I love you” when someone surprises you with something that makes your life easier or more delightful or when someone generally saves your ass when your ass did not expect saving.
Like last week, when she’d gotten a pizza to go from Law’s and walked to Maya’s with it. Maya had buzzed her up, swung open her door, taken one look at the telltale pizza box, and said, “I love you.”
That was it. She didn’t love-love Jake; she loved the way he made her life easier.
He also provided an interesting study in contrasts. Rufus had made everything harder. She hadn’t realized it when she was in it, but it was true. Rufus was forever asking her to cover his shifts, which required her to cancel haircuts and coffee dates with her sister. He would insist they overshoot the movie theater a few blocks from them in favor of one a half-hour subway ride away because he liked the screens there better. She got it—or at least that was what she’d told herself. He cared about things