Doc’s reaction to my suggestion that we take a step back totally took me off guard. I knew we’d been getting closer, but I didn’t know he was *that* emotionally invested in our friendship. I felt like a heel for doing that to him.

He hung on to me for a long time. I was becoming more and more certain that I was his Ms Hottie, but that for some reason, he was afraid to tell me. I did not want to directly ask him as I felt that he needed to tell me in his own time. I did not want to rush him. Perhaps he was trying to figure out how to deal with the same barriers I had thought of. Namely, the issue of a doctor getting involved with his patient.

We had already gone far beyond what any doctor would do to/with a patient - the rectal temps, the spankings, him staying at my bedside through two hospital stays, one being over a week, him taking care of me at my home and then his when I was sick, and the amount of time we had been spending together. None of this was something a doctor does with a patient.

But it was more than that, I suspected. I had a feeling that there was something else holding him back and that it wasn’t simply a fear of rejection.

One day, I had called the licensing body for doctors in our province. Just to get information. I’d found out that if we were to get involved, he would have to release me from his care and into the care of another ob/gyn. I couldn’t stand Dr Watters, whom I had been seeing prior to switching to Doc. He had treated me very badly and I'd gotten into an argument with him over it one day and walked out on him but not before telling him where to get off. However, now that there was a 3rd ob/gyn in town, Dr Eric Elliott, I could perhaps switch to him if Doc and I wanted to get involved.

Did I want to get romantically involved with Doc? I liked him a lot, he is sweet, caring, kind and gentle - when not spanking me. Any woman would be lucky to have him and under any other circumstances, I would probably not hesitate, though I wasn’t looking to get involved with anyone at the time. My late husband had got drunk and wrapped his car around a tree after a fight we had had. It took me a long time to get over the guilt. I did not want to go through that ever again. Not that I was afraid of Doc doing something like that, he’s very even tempered and it takes a lot to make him mad. I had no doubt that he’d never drive drunk even if he was madder than a wet hen. He does like a drink here and there, but I’ve never seen him have more than one or maybe two in a day. He once told me that he had seen the results of a few drunk driving accidents on his ER rotation and that he would never, ever get behind the wheel drunk.

I had dated here and there since Chris died. Being a farm girl, I went out with country guys and like I had told Doc, they tended to want to tell me how to run my farm. I don’t mean they gave suggestions and let me decide if I wanted to take them or not. They wanted to dictate orders. Country boys are a bit behind when it comes to equality of the sexes.

Maybe Doc was right that I should consider a city boy. Problem with that was that a city boy likely wouldn’t want to move out to the farm. But wait, if I am Doc’s Ms Hottie, does that mean HE would be willing to move to the country?

Doc interrupted my thoughts. “Hon, I need to get up.”

“Sure, Doc. I should be going to bed anyway, I’m getting tired.”

“You might be more tired for a bit after having anesthesia. Get in your wheelchair and I’ll take you to the bathroom.”

Doc gave me my pain pills before I went to sleep. Dr Beckett said to take them regularly and not wait for the pain to get bad before taking them. Doc was making sure I stuck to that. He sat with me until I fell asleep and when I woke up in the night, he was in his chair but I don’t think he was sleeping. I felt bad for him being put out of his bed.

The next day, Karen came to visit after lunch. It was good to see her. She told me the horses and Jessie were all fine, her 16 year old daughter was staying at the house with Jessie. Cheyanne, or Chey as we call her, is very responsible and she loves horses. Any time I had to be away from home back then, she stayed and watched over the place and the animals.

After my bestie left, I decided to have a nap. I hoped the side effects of the anesthesia would wear off soon. It was driving me nuts to sleep so much.

I was only allowed to go a few steps on the air cast, such as in the bathroom, or transferring from wheel chair to bed or sofa etc, and I couldn't use crutches because of my broken wrist, so Doc had instructed me to call him to come get me when I woke up. I hated being so dependent on him, but there wasn't much choice. He took me out to the kitchen so I could chat with him while he cooked.

“What are you making, Doc?”

“It’s called Coq Au Vin, hon.”

“I’ve heard of it but never had it before. That’s pretty fancy for me, Doc.”

“I want you to experience good cooking, hon. Something better than burgers and fries.”

“I don’t eat that all the time, silly. I do cook meals at home ya know.”

“I bet you never cook Coq Au Vin.”

“Of course not. I’ve never had it before, so how could I have cooked it?”

“Now I know you are feeling better, you are getting sarcastic again.” He turned around from the counter and gave me a kiss on the forehead. His kitchen wasn’t very big, so the table was close to the counter. I blushed.

“This needs to simmer for a bit. Want some coffee, hon?”

“I’d love one, thanks.”

Doc sat down at the table with me. “I’m going to go grocery shopping tomorrow. Let me know if there’s anything you want.”

“I can’t think of anything right now, but I will let you know if I do.”

“Do you like veal, hon?”

“No. I won’t eat it, sorry.”

“Don’t like it or ethical reasons?”

“Both.”

“Ok, I won’t get any.”

“Doc, buy it if you want it. I can eat something else.”

“It’s okay, hon. I don’t have to have it. Anything else you won’t eat?”

“I can’t stand asparagus, eggplant or liver. I’m ok with most other foods.”

He got up and did something at the stove, then sat down again.

“Doc, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, hon.”

“You said you came here because you couldn’t find a job and the city was offering financial incentives to set up a practice.”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Was this right after your residency?”

“No, it was a few years after.”

“So, you were working in Vancouver?”

“For a few years, yes.”

“What happened, Doc?”

“I lost my job.”

“Why? You are a great doctor.”

“Something happened.” He had a very troubled look.

“What?”

“I can’t talk about it, Meredith.”

“Why not, Doc?” Was this the thing that was holding him back from telling me how he feels about me? I wondered.

“You might not want to ever see me again and I couldn’t handle that.”

I was puzzled. “Why would I not want to see you again?”

“I made a mistake - one that cost someone her life.”

I reached over and put my hand over Doc’s and gave it a squeeze. “Tell me about it, Doc. I can see you are troubled by it.”

“You sure you want to hear it?”

“Yes.”

“I had a patient who needed a hysterectomy. She had cancer. It was a hot day and I started feeling unwell part way through the surgery. I did finish but I had my resident close up and I went to the locker room. It turned out it was effects from the heat. I had been outside gardening before going to work.” I couldn’t imagine Doc getting his hands into dirt.

“I always wore gardening gloves so that I wouldn’t have any dirt on me when I went to the hospital or my clinic.

“My resident left a scalpel in. There are checks in place to prevent this, but it still happens at times. They looked all over for it when their count was off. Nobody wanted to bother me as they knew I was ill. The next day was Saturday and I wasn’t on call, so I wasn’t there. Her pain was increasing and kept getting worse. They finally xrayed her and saw the scalpel, it had somehow got shoved behind her intestine, so they had to go back in and get it. Unfortunately, the infection she had contracted got worse and worse and she died a few days later, despite all the antibiotics we had her on.”

“Doc, that’s not your fault!”

“I wasn’t there, Meredith. If I had not been ill, I’d have thought to look behind the bowel. And I’m responsible for my resident, regardless if I’m there or not.”

“It’s not your fault you were ill.”

“I should not have been out in the sun before going to work, especially before a day in surgery. And I certainly should not have been gardening.”

“What significance is gardening?”

“It’s possible dirt got on my hands, even though I was wearing gloves.”

“You scrub and then wear gloves in the OR, right?”

“Yes, but you never know….what if I missed something while scrubbing?”

“The gloves would have stopped it from going anywhere.”

“You never know what can happen.”

“Is that why you left Vancouver?”

Doc sighed. “There was a malpractice suit and the hospital settled. They revoked my privileges. An ob/gyn cannot practice without hospital privileges.”

“I’m so sorry, Doc. Is that when you came here?”

“No, I got a job in research for a year, but I wasn’t happy. Then, Curt Wilcox, who I have been best friends with since medical school, heard they were offering incentives for an ob/gyn to set up practice here. He had moved here a few years prior, he prefers smaller cities. He contacted me and I applied. I guess they were so desperate that they accepted me.”

“Doc, don’t talk like that. They are lucky to have you. That hospital was wrong to revoke your privileges.”

“The patient’s family wouldn’t settle unless they did.”

“They needed a scapegoat, Doc. When someone loses a loved one, especially when it’s unexpected, they sometimes need someone to blame. I don’t know why they blamed you and not the OR staff that did the scalpel count.”

“They had found out about me gardening and their lawyer was saying there was no way to be 100% sure I didn’t carry dirt into the OR, maybe even on my legs or arms or somewhere else on my body.”

“That’s nuts.”

“It’s what lawyers do, hon.”

“Come over here, Doc.” He got up and came over to my chair. I stood up and wrapped my arms around him in a hug, as best as I could given I couldn’t put any pressure on my right hand. “This changes nothing, Doc. I’m not going anywhere. Especially after last night.”

“You can’t anyway with that broken leg.”

We both laughed and it broke the tension. I stood on tiptoe and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He blushed, then said “Ok, now you need to sit down. You’re not supposed to be on that leg.”

We had a lovely supper. Have I said yet that Doc is an excellent cook? Afterwards, he did the dishes, then he said “I’ll be right back, hon. You stay there.”

In a moment, he was back with something in his hands. It was a Scrabble game. “I know you love to play Scrabble, so I bought a game for us to play.”

“Oh, my goodness, Doc. You’ll whip my butt.”

“Not necessarily.”

“You are way more educated than I am, Doc.”

“Education doesn’t mean anything, hon. You are an intelligent woman and you play online, I bet you’re better than you think you are.”

I was right - he whipped my butt. But we had fun. We even had a second game, which he won as well. I vowed to get him back - some day.

We went into the living room to watch a movie. I wanted him to sit on the sofa with me but he made me lay down on it. “You need to put your leg up, it’s not supposed to be down.”

“Aw, Doc ….”

“Don’t ‘Aw, Doc’ me. Put it up.” The old Doc was coming back.

“Doc, it will be up all night when I’m in bed.”

“Yes, and it will be up now, too.”

I sighed and layed down on the sofa. I couldn’t get into the movie, I was consumed with thoughts about what Doc said had happened. Some things were starting to fit. Doc hates getting dirty, especially outside. He is impeccably clean. Did he choose to live in an apartment here so that he wouldn’t have a lawn and gardens to care for, like he did back then?

Is this why he hovered over me so much? Especially when I was in the hospital? Was he afraid of me getting an infection? That must have been so hard on him, me needing surgery after breaking those bones. I felt awful for him. Then it hit me that I had had heat exhaustion from that day in the fields back in June. He must have been just frantic inside, though he didn’t show it on the outside.

I wondered if this was why he wouldn’t either ask Ms Hottie out or tell me I was her. He feels guilty about what happened and thought I would judge him for it. It wasn’t his fault!

When the movie was over, Doc asked me if I wanted anything. “I need to go to the bathroom, Doc.” He got the wheelchair and took me over. When I was done, he asked if I wanted to go to bed. “Soon”, I replied. “But first, I want to talk to you.”

He helped me get settled on the sofa again. I flatly refused to lay down, I wanted him to sit beside me. “Doc”, I said, putting my good hand on his thigh. “Stop beating yourself up over what happened. It wasn’t your fault. Nobody knows how that lady got the infection, but I’d bet my farm that it wasn’t from dirt from your garden. Whether or not it was from the scalpel being left in her, I can’t say, but that wasn’t your fault either. They should have thought to look behind the bowel for it. You are a good doctor, don’t you forget it.

“And finally, like I said earlier, this changes absolutely nothing between us. I am not going anywhere.” I was so happy to see him look relieved and I put my arm around him. He gave me a big hug. “Doc”, I said, “Vancouver’s loss is our gain.”

Doc pulled out of the embrace and we sat there looking each other in the eyes. After a moment of silence, he reached out with his hand and put it half on my face, half on my neck. He leaned down and kissed me on the lips. It was the sweetest kiss I’ve ever had.

I was feeling really tired, and wanted to go to bed, but I didn’t want the moment to end either. Doc broke the silence and said “I hope I wasn’t out of line, hon.”

“Oh, Doc, no! You weren’t out of line at all. I loved it!” He smiled.

Later, in his bedroom, he was getting me settled and I said, “Doc, I don’t want you to sleep in that chair anymore.”

“Ok, I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

“I will not have you sleeping on an uncomfortable bed in your own home. Sleep in your own bed.”

“Where would you sleep?”

“Here. In your bed.” He looked puzzled.

“With you, silly.” Then it dawned on him. “Are you sure, hon?”

“Yes, Doc, I’m sure.” He gave me my pain pills and started to get in the bed on the other side.

“Doc, are you seriously going to sleep with your clothes on?”

“When I have a lady in the bed next to me, yes.”

“Doc, we are two mature adults. What would you wear to bed if I weren’t here?”

“Pajamas.”

“Then go put them on. I want you to be comfortable.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

He got his pajamas out of his dresser and went to the spare room to put them on. When he came back, he leaned over and kissed me on the lips before crawling in behind me. He snuggled up to me and put his arm around me. It was so cozy. I began to drift off.

“Meredith”, he said.

“Yes?”

“You are my Ms Hottie.”

“I kinda thought so, Doc.”