“I did because I knew exactly what the problem was—or I thought I did. One woman had cat hairs all over her sweater. I’ve told her three times that she’s allergic to cats and to stay away from them.”
“But she loves cats,” Sophie said.
“Yeah.”
“And the other woman?”
“Same, but with strawberries. She dips them in chocolate, eats them, then scratches. When it gets too bad she comes to me.”
“What about the last woman?”
Reede was silent for a moment. “She was different. When I asked her what was wrong she burst into tears.”
“At the way you asked her?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But there was method to my madness. Hives are an indication of something else. It might be something self-caused like playing with the neighbor’s cats, or it might be from stress. If it’s stress, sometimes they won’t tell me unless . . . ” He looked at her.
“Unless you catch them off guard.”
“Right. She didn’t have time to remember her lie.”
“What did you do?”
“I can’t tell you the details of the case, but I sent Alice with her to a women’s shelter in Richmond and I called the sheriff, Colin. He’ll take care of the rest of it.”
“And you said you had a boring morning.”
“Tristan would have—”
&
nbsp; She put her fingertips over his lips. “I think what you did worked very well.”
Somehow their conversation had turned serious and he wanted to lighten it. “Any plans for the third date? I’ve done some swinging from a cable out of a helicopter.”
Sophie didn’t smile as she put cheeses in the cart. “I know that walking across beams and people pinned to trees is important and it’s very exciting, but sometimes it’s nice to be quiet. It feels good to sit together and do nothing.”
Reede wasn’t sure what she meant, as the two things didn’t go together. He hadn’t chosen either of the first two events. That first night he’d planned a quiet picnic and—Well, maybe he had dressed in black, worn a mask, and arrived on an unruly horse, but the robbers weren’t his fault. Nor was the man with an arrow in his shoulder. On the other hand, Heather had told him a bit of what had happened and Reede had been rather forceful in getting Sophie to go with him.
“Did you and the Treeborne kid sit around a lot?” He hadn’t meant to ask that and it came out with more jealousy than he’d meant to show.
Sophie looked like she wasn’t sure what to answer, but then she went for the truth.
“Yes, we did.” She paused, but before Reede could say anything, she said, “But we were hiding from his father and from the town. I didn’t know it, but I wasn’t considered good enough to be seen in public.” She raised her hands upward. “What I wouldn’t give for normal.”
When they got back to the shop, Reede wanted to carry everything inside for her but she wouldn’t let him. “You have patients and they need you,” she said. They set the bags on the sidewalk, he kissed her goodbye, then left.
As Reede drove back to the office he thought about what Sophie had said about being normal. When he was growing up he’d wanted normal. But circumstances—the town wanting “the other Aldredge” for a doctor, the woman he loved dumping him—had changed his life.
When he got back to the office the first thing he saw was the little calendar by Betsy’s desk, the one with all the x’s on it. His impulse was to take it down and tear it up. Or order her to destroy it. He was sick of being reminded of what Tristan would do.
But Reede didn’t do any of those things. Instead, he wondered if he could make her remove it of her own accord.
“So who do we have coming this afternoon? Would you please get me their phone numbers?”
For a moment Betsy just sat there and stared at him. It was the “please” that was turning her catatonic.
Heather came in the back and didn’t see Reede standing by Betsy’s desk. He usually hid out in his office. “It’s turning cold out there! Did you guys hear that Sophie’s opening her restaurant tomorrow? I don’t know how she’s going to do it with Roan and his worshippers taking up all the seats. Between him and the doc—” She broke off when she saw Reede and her red face told what she’d been about to say.