“Famous last words,” she said.

“It’s okay. Gabby and Charles are on duty if I get called. They’re staying in tonight. We won’t see them unless I text her and tell her to come upstairs for the kids.”

“Does she have a whole apartment down there?”

“Close. No kitchen, but a little refrigerator, a microwave and lots of space. It’s a nice suite with a big bathroom. They’ll fix something to eat upstairs and then hide away, watch TV, whatever. If I’m on call, they have date night at home so Gabby can take care of the kids if I’m called out. She’s going to be irreplaceable.”

“How are you going to replace her?”

“For call-outs, with Devon and Spencer. Right now, Eve is willing to do a lot of babysitting during clinic hours. She’ll be in school full-time so I’ll have to get a backup sitter, but Devon has some ideas. She found a preschool-slash-day care for Mercy and Jenny, Will will be in school, and they have an after-school program for working parents. We’re ironing out the details. Devon was educated in early childhood development, and she’s the perfect person to find our next solution. Come over for dinner. When the kids go to bed, we can curl up on the couch and...talk.”

“You don’t want to talk!”

“I love to talk to you,” he said. “And do other things.”

Of course, she went. The four of them had spaghetti and meatballs from Carrie’s deli while Gabby and Charles had a pizza downstairs. When the kids were bathed and in bed, they curled up on the couch and made out like a couple of teenagers while Gabby and Charles were probably doing the same thing downstairs. “This is crazy,” she said. “Don’t you feel strange, making out up here while your babysitter is making out downstairs?”

“I feel young,” he said with a smile. “This is all I have to offer tonight. It’s Gabby’s night off, unless I’m called for an emergency. Tomorrow night she’s on, and I can come to your house. If you feel like company.”

Peyton toyed with the idea of saying no, that she needed a night off, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want a night off. And she was aware that their time together was running out. She might take that job in Seattle if it was just too good to pass up. But she knew that if he came to her house without the kids, they would do much more than talk. She might climb him like a tree. And she trembled at the thought.

She couldn’t resist him. It was enough to make her think about whether she needed that greater income offered by the surgeon. There was something about making love with Scott that rang all her bells and whistles. He was just a small-town clinic doctor. He had no power in the medical community, in any community. His picture would never be on the cover of Medicine Today. He didn’t even have a website. He needed a website! He was not a mover and shaker.... Okay, he moved and shook a little in Thunder Point, but you’d never know it; he was treated like a friend, a pal, a buddy. He didn’t influence people, make things happen anywhere but in his small bubble. He helped people where he could and sure, people noticed, but they weren’t important people.

They were just regular people. And that was exactly who he wanted to be.

But when they made love...

That was it, she thought. They made love. Love was what they were doing. With Ted it had been sex. But even though Ted had said the words, she hadn’t really felt loved.

Scott hadn’t said the words, and yet he was completely convincing. She felt them. With each passing day, the thought of saying goodbye to him became more impossible to imagine.

* * *

One Saturday they took the kids south to California to see the largest stand of redwoods in the area—they were magnificent. They picnicked, hiked through the woods, hugged trees. The following weekend they drove north of Coos Bay to Echo Beach and Canon Beach where the haystack rocks offshore were the most stunning. It was so chilly on the water, they had to dress warmly and snuggle close. The four of them had many dinners together, and twice Scott was called to the hospital, and once a Thunder Point resident called his cell phone in the evening with concern over an injury on his foot. It was a deep cut that he’d closed and been treating himself, and now it was worse with a mysterious red line running up his leg from the site of the wound. Gabby was called upstairs to be on duty for the kids, and Peyton went with Scott to the clinic where Scott cleaned the wound, stitched it and loaded the guy up with antibiotics.

If the whole town didn’t have his cell phone number or if Scott had been on ER duty at another hospital, it could have meant a trip to another town’s emergency room for the man. Or she would be the only other option. She could have met a patient at the Thunder Point clinic. If she was still in town.

But a person had to be out of town sometimes and, while Peyton could treat and prescribe for patients, an MD usually had to sign off on her work. So Scott made arrangements. Scott’s clinic hours were Monday through Friday, nine to five, and he always answered his cell phone, but a man needed days here and there when he could be completely unavailable. To that end, a doctor from an urgent care in Bandon agreed to trade off practices with him from time to time. Dr. Stewart was a young, ER-certified physician, looking for more income, and was willing to be the doctor on call to Thunder Point if Scott could return the favor now and then. Scott’s patients could call Dr. Stewart when Scott was away, and Dr. Stewart’s patients could call Scott in emergencies.

The first time for this new partnership was coming up in another week. Scott and the kids were following Gabriella back to Vancouver; he was pulling a trailer with her belongings. The kids couldn’t be left behind—the coming separation was going to be difficult enough.

“I can keep the clinic open if Dr. Stewart will work with me,” Peyton said. “He can sign off on any procedures that come up while you’re away, but we’ll stall most of the appointments until you’re back in town.”

A few days before the scheduled departure to Washington, Peyton had dinner with Scott and the kids. He was on call and his phone rang. There was a family with a bad flu in the ER, and the youngest was two years old. They were all sick, dehydrated and feverish.

“I’ll text Gabriella to come upstairs, and then I’ll take off,” he said.

“Don’t bother her,” Peyton said. “I know the bedtime drill. I’ll get the kids settled. Gabby doesn’t have much time with her beloved Charles before she has to leave Thunder Point.”

“Are you sure? I know how you feel about being taken advantage of in off hours.”

“I’m good,” she said. “Just go. Maybe you won’t be too long.”

* * *

There was one thing about being the ER doctor on call, it was very rare that Scott felt his time had been wasted. This night there was much more to the story than a family with the flu. It was carbon monoxide poisoning from a dysfunctional water heater. A mom, dad, four-year-old and two-year-old had come to the ER The kids had low-grade fevers while mom and dad were just sick as dogs. Scott had to decide what the devil it could be if he ruled out fever. Then he asked if they were the sole inhabitants of the house and learned that Grandma and Grandpa lived there, as well. The fire department was dispatched, two more patients were admitted, the water heater was turned off and the house aired out.