When we got home from the cabin, I think we slept for 10 hours. We were both worn out, but in a good way. We vowed to never lose that spark and that attraction and we haven’t.

A couple days later over supper, I brought up Halloween. “It’s only a week and a half away, there’s a costume party in the city, want to go?”

“You want me to go to a costume party?”

“Yes, it will be fun.”

“Hon, I’m not the costume party type.”

“Come on, Doc. We always enjoy ourselves when we go somewhere, don’t we?”

“You do have a point.”

“So, let’s go. Think of a costume to wear.”

“I’ll go as a doctor.”

“Doc, you *are* a doctor. Get creative.”

“Hon, we could go as doctor and nurse. All we need to get is a nurse’s uniform. I have everything for the doctor’s.”

“Maybe I could go panty-less.”

“That would be hot, hon.”

The next morning, the phone rang at 7:30, just as Doc was getting ready to leave for work. It was Alana Winters, the co-coordinator of the horse rescue group I worked with. She had a horse that needed picking up as soon as possible. It was a 3 hour drive one way. Doc was not happy with me going.

“Hon, it’s a 3 hour drive *each* way, meaning 6 hours total. I don’t like you driving so far with your arthritis.”

“Doc, I have to.”

“No, you don’t. You can say ‘no’.”

“I can’t. There’s nobody else to go get the horse.”

“You’re telling me you are the only one?”

“To go that distance, yes. The others won’t travel that far.”

“What did they do when you were laid up with pneumonia and then your broken leg?”

“I don’t know what they did, but they need me now and I’m going.”

“Can it wait until I get off work? I’ll go with you.”

“I think they want the horse out of the situation ASAP.”

“I don’t like you going alone, hon. If I go with you, I can drive part way if it’s too much for you.”

“You’ve driven a truck hauling a horse trailer before, Doc?”

“How hard can it be?”

“Tell you what, Doc - this weekend, I’ll hook the trailer up to the truck and you can drive it around the roads here to get used to it. Then I’ll put a horse in the trailer and let you drive it some more. Once you are comfortable doing it, you can come on a pick-up with me and drive when I need a break, okay?”

“Can Karen go with you?”

“No, she has an appointment this afternoon.”

Doc resigned himself to the fact I was going to go. “Take your pain pills with you.”

“I can’t take them when I’m driving, Doc. You know that.”

“At least pull over and stretch your legs if you need to.”

“I do. All the time.”

“And I want you to text me every hour to let me know you are okay. If it gets to the point you cannot drive any further, I’ll send someone to get you. I think Ms Jamieson has a friend who has horses, I’ll ask her if he can go get you.”

“I’ll be fine, honey. But yes, I will text you every hour.”

“If I get time, I will call you. Don’t answer if you are driving, pull over and call me back.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll make sure to have some heavy duty pain medication with me when I come home. I have a feeling you are going to need it.”

A few hours later, I was pulling into the laneway of the farm where the horse was at. It appeared it had been neglected for a long time. The grass was not cut, the barn looked liked it was about to collapse. A man approached me as I got out of my truck. “Hi, you must be Meredith Kingsley.”

“Yes.”

“I’m Brett Gould, the Humane Society Cruelty Investigator.” He offered his hand to me. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, Brett. I wish it was under better circumstances.”

“Me, too, Meredith. Let me take you to the horse. Brace yourself, she’s in bad shape.” Brett took me to a small paddock. In it was a chestnut mare. She was extremely underweight, with her ribs and hip bones protruding. “This is Lilly. She’s a very sweet mare, despite the treatment she’s gotten from humans. Her owners think she’s pregnant, but we don’t have a vet available to check that.”

“I always get my vet to come and check out a new horse. I’ll get him to do a pregnancy check.”

“Good.”

“Why did they starve her?”

“They claim they can’t afford to feed her.”

“Ugh. Then they should rehome her.”

“I know, but they claim they tried to sell her, then tried to give her away. Charges are pending.”

“Good. They shouldn’t get away with it.”

“Ready to load her?”

“Yep, let me back the trailer up to the paddock.”

Soon I was on my way home with Lilly happily munching hay in the trailer. I had texted Doc that I was about to leave to come home. He must have been with a patient as he did not text me back right away. Ten minutes later, the phone rang. It was him. I pulled over and called him right back.

“Hi, hon. How are you doing?”

“I’m okay but when you see this horse, you’ll know why I feel so strongly about going to get them.”

“That bad?”

“Yes.”

“How is your pain level?”

“It’s fine, Doc.”

“Number?”

“5”

“Bullshit.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You always give me a lower number than what it really is.”

“Doc…”

“What is your real number, hon?”

“Okay …. 6.”

“Meaning 7, at least.” I was silent. “Which means you’ll be in even more pain when you get home. Is there anything you need to do at home to get the horse settled in?”

“Not really. A stall is ready for her, I’ll have the vet out as soon as he can come to check her out.”

“Then I want you to go inside and lie down as soon as you’ve put her in her stall.”

“After I unhitch the trailer and clean it out.”

“No, let Karen do it.” Karen had accepted my offer of paid employment.

“She has enough to do.”

“Either get her to do it or do it another day. Do I have to come home early to make sure you follow orders?”

“You can’t. You have patients to see.”

“I can reschedule them or get Nick to see them, if he has time.” Nick Bonilla was the doctor who replaced Eric Elliott whom Doc had fired.

“No need for that, honey.”

“So, you will lie down when you get home and get the horse settled?”

“After a shower, yes.”

“No cleaning the trailer, right?”

“Okay.”

“And no unhitching it. Let Karen do it later or you can do it tomorrow if your pain is better.”

“All right!”

“Do I have your word?

“Yes, Doc.”

“Good. Text me in another hour to let me know you’re okay.”

“I will. Love you.”

“Love you more.”

When I got home, I kept my word and put Lilly in her stall, then went inside. Karen had texted me and said that Doc had called her and asked her to do the supper feeding for me. For once, I was glad of Doc’s over protectiveness, I was really feeling the effects of sitting in a truck for six hours total. After a quick shower, I took my pain pills and lay down on the bed. It was after 5 so he should be home soon. Even though he still had his apartment and occasionally slept there, especially when he was on call (he shared call with a few other doctors both from the city and neighbouring towns), I thought of my house as “our” home.

Doc had asked me to text him when I got home and then again when I was lying down. I knew what he was doing - estimating how much time I needed to put Lilly in her stall and have a shower. He’d figure out by how long it took me to send the second text if I had done anything more. Doc can be sneaky but he doesn’t always fool me.

He got home shortly after I crawled into bed and came directly upstairs. Jessie was out in the barn with Karen. “Hi, hon. How are you feeling?”

“Okay. I just took a couple pain pills.”

“I know it’s bad when you do that without being told to. I brought some injectable pain medicine, I’ll give you a shot at bedtime.”

“Thanks, honey.”

“What would you like for supper?”

“Not hungry, sweetie.”

“You need to eat something. I think there‘s some leftover stew in the freezer. How about some of that?”

“Sure, Doc.”

“I’ll bring it up to you.”

“I can come down, Doc. I want to take you out to the barn to see the new horse after supper.”

“You are not leaving this house tonight - in fact, you are not even going downstairs. I can see the new horse tomorrow.”

“Aw, Doc….”

Instead of the usual “Don’t ‘Aw, Doc’ me”, Doc shut me up with a kiss. Then he made me promise him that I would stay upstairs until morning. He didn’t give me a chance to sneak out anyway as he stayed in the bedroom with me after he did supper clean up. I watched some TV while he read a medical publication.

The next day after supper, I took him out to the barn to meet Lilly. I was feeling better, though still not great. It usually takes me a couple days to recover from a long drive. Doc wanted me to stay in the house for another evening, but I’d been inside all day except for an hour or so in the afternoon, and I put my foot down and insisted he come out to see my newest horse.

He gasped when I brought Lilly out of her stall and put her on the crossties so that he could see her in better lighting. I removed the blanket she had on so he could see her protruding bones. My vet, Steve, had been out in the afternoon and checked her over. Other than her being severely underweight, he found nothing wrong, thank goodness. He did a pregnancy check and said she was 4 months along. Pregnancy in horses is about 11 and a half months. I was not comfortable terminating that far along unless it was risking the mare’s life. Steve said she should get through it with proper care and nutrition. “Though you may have to wean the foal a bit early, as lactation takes so much out of the mother”, he explained. “But we will cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Can she be brought back from that, hon?” Doc asked.

“Yes, though not all of them make it. Steve, my vet, thinks she can. But she’s in foal, so that means more nutritional requirements.”

“I know you will give her the best care.” He gave Lilly some pets on her neck and spoke softly to her for a few minutes. I was impressed, he was touching a horse without being asked to.

“Ok, Meredith. Time to go back to the house.” I was ready to call it a night, so I didn’t give him any attitude. I put Lilly back in her stall and we walked back hand in hand.

Doc and I went to the Halloween party and had a ball. He got his way and dressed up as a doctor, with me being a nurse. He wanted to dress up for the trick or treaters earlier in the evening, but I thought it might scare the younger ones. Kids generally do not like doctors.

I got an old uniform from Ms Jamieson, who was about my size. I left my panties off and just as we were going out the door, I lifted the dress up so he could see my bare behind. I stopped so he could cop a feel of what he’d be getting later that night.

“You are a terrible tease, Ms Hottie.”

“Oh, but you love it, Doc.”

“I sure do.”

One weekend, I put on my “special” jeans and inserted a plug before I went out to the barn to do the supper feeding. I took a blanket with me. After the horses were fed, I lifted my sweater and took a couple pictures of my naked rump. I sent them to Doc’s phone with the caption “If you can find this, you can have it.” Then I went to the area of the barn where I stored bales of straw and put the blanket down in a space I had made deep in the side of the stack. I put the straw bales in the front back where they’d been so it would look like they hadn’t been moved. I lay down on the blanket to wait.

Soon enough, I heard Doc’s voice in the section of the barn where the stalls are. His voice got closer as he came through the doorway. “Meredith, where are you? I have a peanut butter cup for you!” He *knows* I can’t resist those! But we didn’t have any in the house. I did not fall for it and remained quiet. I heard him leave the area and go back to the other side.

After a few minutes, I heard him come back through the door. Then silence, no sound of footsteps. Had he found my hiding spot? Nope. He left again. Ok, this was becoming too hard for him. I must have done a great job of putting those straw bales back. I didn’t want to go out there, I wanted him to think he found me, so I turned my phone on and played some music loud enough for him to hear. Sure enough, he came back. A minute later, he was moving the bales I had moved to get in there.

I was lying on my stomach with my sweater pulled up so he could see my bare ass. “I should spank that lovely butt for that, hon.”

“Kiss me first, Doc.” He got down on the blanket and lay down beside me. As he kissed me, he slapped my rump a time or two. I started to turn over, I wanted him on top of me. “Oh no, you don’t, Ms Hottie. You just say right where you are. I want to admire that ass.” He took his phone out and turned the flashlight on.

I wasn’t sure if Doc would actually make love in the barn. In fact, I didn’t think he would. He proved me wrong. Later, we had a long, hot shower together.

A few mornings later, he came down for breakfast looking like hell. I could tell right away he didn’t feel well. “You look sick, sweetheart. Maybe you should stay home today.”

“I’m fine, hon.” Just then he sneezed.

I went over to him and felt his forehead. “Fine, my ass. You have a fever. You cannot go to work today.”

“I have to go. My patients depend on me.”

“For what? To pass whatever you have on to them?” He didn’t have an answer to that. He knew I was right, but he had to be stubborn as a mule. “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Just coffee, please. I’m not hungry.”

I set his coffee down on the table and went to the front door. Doc kept his keys on a key holder beside the door. I took them off their peg and grabbed his medical bag, which he had put on the floor, ready to go with him. He always brought it in at night, in case he needed something out of it.

I took the bag up to our bedroom and hid the keys in one of the guest rooms. Back In the master bedroom, I called his office from the landline and left a message for Ms Jamieson saying that Doc was sick and wouldn’t be in today. Almost as soon as I hung up, I heard him on the stairs.

“Meredith, where are my keys?” he asked as he came through the bedroom door. ”And my bag?” He saw the bag right away. “What are you doing?”

“You aren’t going to work today, Doc. I already called in for you. I could see in his face, he was getting pissed off. “Come here and sit on the bed. Now.” I made my voice as firm as his gets when he’s trying to get me to do something and he means business. He was so shocked that he sat down on the bed.

I loosened his tie and took it off. Then I started unbuttoning his shirt. “Oh no, you don’t”, he said, putting his hand on my left wrist. I shook it off and went back to undoing his buttons. “Stop that, Doc. You are getting back into bed. No more arguments.” I undid his belt, then the button on his pants and finally the zipper, then I slid his shirt off of him. “Stand up and take your pants off.” When he had them off, I took them from him and put them and his shirt on the doorknob. I’m sure he cringed - he would never do such a thing.

“Okay Doc, into bed.” I pulled the sheets back and he got in. I kept the sheets pulled back. “On your tummy, sweetheart.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.” I reached for his bag, opened it and looked through it. It dawned on Doc what I was going to do. “Oh, no you don’t!”