“Hon, get into the shower and afterward, I’m going to put antiseptic on that incision before I dress it again.”

I think he put the whole bottle of antiseptic solution on it. I tried to reassure him. “Doc, I’m ok, please don’t worry.”

“Meredith, you already have an infection there and you were in a dirty environment and your abdomen rubbed up against the horse. Then you got doused in the sack fluids. Of course I am going to worry. The only reason I am not giving you a lecture is because I know it would do no good and I know how you are around animals. You have to help them when they need it, just like I have to help humans when they need it.”

Progress! He wasn’t giving me shit for going to help the horse or for getting dirty!

As he put the portable cardiac monitor back on, I asked “Doc, aren’t you glad I didn’t listen to your protests when I took this off in the car on the way to the farm? It would have been ruined from those fluids and I may have even got a shock.”

“Yes, Meredith, I have to say you were right about that one.”

“I’m always right, Doc.”

He gave me a “seriously??” look. “Time for lunch, hon. I’ll go start it while you get dressed.”

After lunch, I told Doc I was going to go lie down. “Are you okay, Meredith?”

“Just really tired, Doc.”

“Lunch dishes can wait. I’ll come with you and put you on the big monitor.” He followed me into the bedroom.

“Can you leave it off, please?”

“No, Meredith, I can’t.”

“It was only supposed to be on for a couple days after surgery.”

I pushed my pants down and sat on the bed. He took the leads off the portable monitor and lifted it over my head. I resumed getting undressed. “That was IF all was well, hon.”

“Are you saying all is not well?”

“I’m concerned about your readings.”

“You can’t be that concerned. You let me go help that horse this morning.”

“Like I said earlier, I knew it wouldn’t stop you.”

“Yeah, it would have. Randall said I had to have your permission.”

“And if he wouldn’t have taken you, you’d have walked, even with that broken ankle.”

“You’re right about that, Doc. So, what is wrong with my cardiac readings?” He handed me my gown and I put it on. He tied up the back for me, then hooked the leads up to the monitor.

“After your nap, I’ll take that catheter out and see how you do.”

“Doc, you are avoiding my question. What is wrong with my readings?”

“Don’t concern yourself with it, hon.”

“It’s *my* heart, Doc! Of course I’m going to concern myself with it!” I lowered my voice. “Please tell me, Julian.”

“You have what we call an arrhythmia. That’s a fancy word for irregular heartbeat. Now, into bed.” I got in bed and he took off his outer clothing and got in with me after he hung the garments up.

“Doc, why hang them up? Just put them on the doorknob like I do.”

“That is sloppy, Meredith.” He cuddled up behind me.

“Doc...”

“Yes, Meredith?”

“You didn’t do the lunch dishes.”

“I’ll do them when we get up.”

“Leave them until supper dishes, Doc.”

“We’ll see.”

After a couple minutes, I said “Doc, am I going to have a heart attack or something?”

He held me closer. “No, Meredith. You may need an adjustment to your medication and if that doesn’t help, you might have to have surgery to repair the valve. The arrhythmia might just be from the anesthesia. I may see if Randall can put me in touch with a local cardiologist and see what he or she says, or see if I can call Oliver Hampton. Now, get some rest, ok? That’s the best thing you can do right now - rest.”

“I don’t want heart surgery, Doc.”

“You may not need it. Stop worrying about it. It’s not helping your heart any to be stressed. Go to sleep, sweetie.” He began stroking my hair.

I half turned over and looked at him. “How did I get so lucky?” I raised my hand and caressed his face. He took my hand in his and kissed it.

“I’m the lucky one, Meredith.” I turned over and closed my eyes. Doc put his arm back around me and I fell asleep.

We awoke a few hours later and Doc said he would take my catheter out before I got out of bed. Oh, thank God! After it was out, he said “The first couple times you go, it might be painful, hon. Drink a lot of water and that will help.”

“I remember how painful it was when I had it out after being in that coma!”

“Like I said, drink lots of water. I’m going to go get started on supper.”

“Doc, you must be tired of cooking. I can do it tonight and give you a break.”

“I don’t need a break, Meredith. I love cooking. It’s my third favourite thing to do.”

“What are the first two?”

“Spending time with you and my job - in that order.” He gave me a kiss before heading out to the kitchen.

Later that night, I went to the bathroom and glory hallelujah, I was able to pee! The pain of that first one after catheterization didn’t even bother me very much, I was so happy. I hoped that if I ever had to have surgery again, there’d not be a repeat of that problem.

The next morning, Dana knocked at the door. She came in and sat down in the living room with us. “I don’t want to alarm you”, she said. “But we found footprints in the wet grass outside the fence this morning.” It had rained overnight. “When we have someone in one of the safe houses, a patrol guard does an outside perimeter check three times a day. We have no reason to believe Jane has found you, but to be safe, we’re asking you to stay inside today and keep your blinds drawn and the doors locked. Only open the doors to someone from the police force - we will knock once, pause, then knock twice. Any other type of knock, don’t answer.”

“Oh, dear God”, I gasped. I looked at Doc and he looked very uneasy.

“I reiterate, we have no reason to believe it’s Jane”, Dana tried to reassure us. “It could just be someone curious about the stone wall and what’s behind it. Or looking for a shortcut.”

After she left, Doc gave me a big hug. “Hon, we have to trust them. If they say there’s no reason to believe it’s Jane, then there is no reason to believe it’s Jane.”

“I know, Doc. It’s just so tiring. I’m sick of this situation and so ready for it to be over.”

“I am too, sweetie. Where’s that feisty Meredith? The girl who doesn’t back down from a fight?”

“I didn’t think you’d want me to fight, Doc.”

“Not physically, silly. Mentally. Don’t let her win.”

“You’re right, Doc. Screw this, I will not let her win!”

“That’s my girl!”

The next day, while we were having an afternoon nap, we were woken by someone knocking.

“Was that the code knock?” I asked.

“I don’t know”, Doc replied. “I was asleep.” He was already up and putting his clothes on. I sat up and swung my legs over the bed. “Wait a sec, Meredith. Let me unhook the monitor.” Just then, there was another knock - this time there was no doubt about it, it was the code. “Hold on, I’ll be back.” Doc left the bedroom and headed down the hall. A minute later, he was back. “Get dressed, hon. Randall is here and he has something for you.”

“For me?”

“Uh huh.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll have to go out there to find out.”

After I was dressed and Doc had put me on the portable monitor, he handed me my crutches and I went out to the living room. Randall was sitting in a chair with something in his hands. I said hello and sat down on the sofa. He handed me what looked to be a bouquet of flowers.

“This came for you, Meredith.”

“Is it safe to open?”

“Yes. We know who brought them. They were delivered to the front gate.”

I took the wrapping off to see a gorgeous bouquet of flowers - lilies, daisies, yellow roses and yellow carnations. Randall handed me an envelope. “This came with them.” I opened it and pulled out the card. Inside was a verse and a note:

“Meredith,

Just a small token to say thank you for saving Annie’s filly. She never would have made it if you hadn’t come and we might have lost Annie, too. We have named the filly Merry after you. Please keep in touch, if you are able.

Jim and Penny”

“Oh my, that was so very nice of them.” I handed the card and note to Doc to read.

“Jim brought it to the gate and they called me to come get it. He and his wife know what we do here. They were thoroughly checked out before we approached them asking them to sever a parcel of land so we could buy and clear it to make it harder for anyone to see inside. We did the same with the neighbours on the other side.”

“They want me to stay in touch with them.”

“We advise no unnecessary contact with people on the outside until you are home, but once this is over, you can get in touch with them if you like. I can stop by and tell them that you will contact them when you get home, if you want.”

“Yes, please, Randall.”

“Has there been anything further from Jane?” Doc asked him. “Yesterday, Dana said there’s no reason to believe she’s the one who was outside the perimeter, but she didn’t say if she’d been heard from.”

“No, I haven’t heard from the police in your neck of the woods in a few days.”

“Let’s hope that no news is good news”, I said.

“Randall, I need to speak with Meredith’s cardiologist about her. Is it okay if I call him?”

“Yes, that is fine.”

“I also need to get her foot x-rayed to see how it’s healing. Is there an x-ray lab near here? If it’s healing well, I’d like to take the cast off and put her in a boot.”

“There is a hospital and public lab about a half hour east of here. The other option is Vancouver.” I cringed.

“The smaller place would be better”, I said.

“Can you order that?” Randall asked Doc.

“Yes. Can you get a requisition faxed to you? I will fill it out and sign it.”

“Do you think her cardiologist will order any tests?”

“I don’t know. He may adjust her medication dosage.”

“Ok, let’s leave it at this. You call the cardiologist and I will call the lab and get a couple requisitions faxed to me, in case you need to order more tests. Give me a call after you talk to him and we’ll make arrangements for anything you need.”

“I’ll just sit in a corner over here and pretend I’m invisible”, I said. I hate it when people talk about me like I’m not there.

“Sorry, hon. I just want to get whatever you need arranged for.”

“I know, Julian. It’s just weird.’

“I’ll be on my way now. Like I said, give me a call when you hear back from the doctor.”

“Before you go, let me write a note for you to give to Joe and Penny, explaining that I will be in touch after we go back home”, I said. “That‘s more personal than having you relay a message.”

After he was gone, Doc said he’d try to find something to put the flowers in. “I think they are in a vase”, I said and finished unwrapping the flowers. Sure enough, there was a vase.

“I’ll put them in water for you, hon”, he said. “Where would you like to put them?”

“How about here in the living room?”

“I’ll put them on the coffee table.”

“Now we both have someone named after us, Doc.”

He smiled. “Technically, I have someone named after me - you have a horse named after you.”

“I love it when you get all intellectual on me, Doc.”

“Haha, Meredith. I’m going to try and call Oliver now.” He called Dr Hampton’s office, but was unable to talk with him as he was with a patient. “He will call me after his last patient”, he said when he was off the phone. He moved closer to me on the sofa and put his arm around me. “What would you like for supper, hon?”

“Anything you make sounds good, Doc.”

“How about Chicken Cacciatore?”

“Sounds great!”

“Come on into the kitchen, hon. I’ll get started on it.”

Dr Hampton called just after Doc finished putting it on to simmer. After answering the phone, he put it on speaker so I could hear and participate in the conversation. My cardiologist said hello to me and asked how I was feeling.

“Much better than I was when I left the hospital”, I replied.

“That is good. Any flutters in your chest or heart palpitations?”

“Uh….”

“Why the hesitation?”

“Nothing of substance.”

“What do you mean by that?” Doc was looking at me.

“Nothing major. I had some minor flutters earlier today when Dana was here.”

“This is the first I’m hearing of it”, Doc told Dr Hampton.

“Julian, I’d like to see the readings from the monitor. Could you hook up with me on video conferencing?”

“Ok, but I will have to sign up again as we’ve been advised to not use any usernames or passwords we’ve been using. It’s just a precaution.”

“How hard is that to do?”

“Not very. Give us a few minutes.”

Doc and I logged in on our laptops and signed up to the video conferencing service again, using aliases. I had a membership because he and I sometimes used it as a way to have lunch together when he was at work. While we were doing that, he asked “Hon, why didn’t you tell me about the flutters?”

“It just happened this morning, Doc. It was while she was telling us about the footprints outside the wall. I chalked it up to the news about that scaring me.”

After we hooked up with Dr Hampton via video conferencing, Doc held the portable monitor up to the camera in his laptop so the cardiologist could see the readings. After watching it for a couple minutes, he said “Julian, can you please get your stethoscope and listen to her heart?”

Doc went to the bedroom and came back with it. I blushed as he lifted my blouse up to above my breasts. I think he forgot we weren’t alone. “You don’t need to be embarrassed, Meredith”, Dr Hampton said. He must have seen me blush. “I’ve examined you a few times, remember?”

Doc placed the diaphragm of the stethoscope over my left breast, listening carefully. Then above the right breast, just like he had been doing every evening at bed time. When he moved it to below my left breast, Dr Hampton asked him to pay particular attention there. “What do you hear, Julian?” he asked after what seemed like ages.

“An arrhythmia”, Doc replied, taking the earpieces out and laying the stethoscope on the table. I pulled my blouse back down.

“I just wanted to confirm what the monitor is showing. I’m not too concerned about one episode of fluttering, especially when it was during a period of stress. Meredith, I would like you to have an EKG and a cardiogram as soon as it can be set up. In the meantime, I’m going to make an adjustment to your medication.”

“Can I get off of this thing?” I asked, pointing to the monitor.

“I’d rather not. If you weren’t co-habiting with a physician, I wouldn’t have you on it since you wouldn’t know how to interpret the readout. And it’s not enough to keep you in hospital over. But since Julian has the training to know how to read it, I’d like you to stay on the monitor, at least some of the time. Tell you what, have the main one on at night, and you can be off the portable one for six to eight hours during the day. How does that sound?”

“It’s better than nothing!”

“There are two conditions. One, if Julian says you need to go back on during the day, you do it.”

“What’s the second condition?”

“You take it easy. Which I presume you are doing anyway.” I think I had a guilty look on my face because he asked “What have you been doing?”

“Just playing obstetrician with a horse”, Doc piped up.

“What???”

Doc and I laughed, then I told him about going to help Annie. He put his hand over his face in that “oh.my.god” gesture. When I was finished recounting what had happened, he asked “What were her readings while she was doing that, Julian?”

“I don’t know, Oliver. She took the monitor off in the car on the way there.”

“Meredith!”

“Dr Hampton, it’s a good thing I did! As the foal was coming out, the fluids from the sack splashed all over my front - the monitor would have been ruined.”

“And you would have got an electric shock. Yes, you are right, it’s a good thing you took it off.”

“Don’t lecture her on going”, Doc told him. “It would do no good, which is why I didn’t.”

“Annie needed me! Their vet was too far away and on another emergency. The filly would have been dead and maybe her, too, by the time he got there!”

“Meredith, I understand. I have horses, too, remember? I’d do anything for them, so I get it. But you need to take it easy now, ok?”

“What about sex?” Now, Doc was blushing. Payback’s a bitch, my dear.

“I am not even going to ask if you’ve done that since you left the hospital. If you are feeling up to it and your readings are no worse than they are now, you can but no swinging from the rafters. You probably should turn off the monitor until you are done. No - on second thought, keep it on and Julian, please take a screen shot or even better, a video of it directly afterward. I want to see how the activity affects her readings.”

“I take it BDSM is out?” Even Dr Hampton was blushing now.

“Meredith, you are something else. Yes, that is out.”

“I was just joking, Dr Hampton. We don’t engage in that.”

The cardiologist told Doc what dose adjustment he wanted to my meds and took down Randall’s phone number so he could get the information about the hospital and lab we wanted to go to. He said he would call Doc when the tests were set up, but that it probably wouldn’t be until the next week since it was Thursday now.

After we signed off, Doc turned to me and asked “Why did you lie to him about BDSM?”

“I didn’t”

“You told him we don’t do that.”

“We don’t.”

“What do you call spankings and being restrained on our exam table?”

“Fun!” He laughed.

“Those are elements of BDSM, you know.”

“Really?”

“Yes, albeit very mild. Still BDSM nonetheless.”

“Well, it wasn’t lying because I didn’t think those things were BDSM. Lying is saying something you *know* is not true.”

“You have me there, hon. I think supper is done. How about a game of Scrabble after I clean up?”

“You’re on, Doc!”

Of course, I lost both games that we played over our nightly decaf. I still had not won a game against Doc, though my score was getting better with practice. I had told him to not hold back, to play to win. I didn’t want him to “let” me win. If I won, I wanted it to be on my own merit.

We were getting ready for bed when Doc said “I forgot my stethoscope in the kitchen. I’ll go get it.”

“You don’t need to, Doc. You listened to my heart just before supper.”

“I need to do it again.”

“Need to or want to?” He blushed for the second time that day.

As he placed the diaphragm on my chest, he said “I should get a stethoscope without the no-chill ring.”

“That would be hot, Doc!”

“You mean cold, hon.”

“Haha, Doc.”

When he was finished auscultating me, he asked “Do you really think a cold diaphragm would be exciting?”

“Oh, yes! I remember when they were cold, before the non-chill rings came out. I loved it.”

“Ms Hottie, do you have a stethoscope fetish?” Now it was me who was blushing.

“That certainly explains why you never give me attitude about listening to your heart.”

“You’re onto me, Doc.”

“Into bed with you, hon.” He hooked up the cardiac monitor, then held the blankets up and I got in. When he got in on the other side, I snuggled up to him and lay my head on his chest.

“You like listening to my heart, don’t you?”

“Yes, Meredith, I do.”

“I like listening to yours, Doc, like I’m doing now. It was so comforting while I was in the hospital.”

“I’m glad it comforted you, sweetie.”

“Doc, I want you to know that even though I like having my heart listened to, the reason I am with you has nothing to do with you being a doctor.”

“That possibility did not enter my mind, hon. If you were after that, you’d be with a cardiologist.” We both laughed. “Besides, I pursued you, remember?”

“Yes, it took me forever to realize I was the Ms Hottie you spoke of.”

After a couple minutes, I asked “Doc, do you ever get tired of me being sick or injured so much?

“I wish you weren’t sick or injured so much, but most of it isn’t your fault. What prompted that question?”

“I was just thinking of how you’ve had to take care of me so much and it reminded me of a guy I dated for a bit. I got sick quite a bit while we were dating - pneumonia a couple times, bronchitis and the flu. He broke up with me when I had the second bout of pneumonia. He was taking care of my horses and barn chores while I was sick - this was before Karen and I became besties and before she started helping out - so I had to do it myself even though I could barely breathe. My doctor wanted me to be admitted to hospital, but I couldn’t do it because there was nobody else to take care of the horses. Anyway, when he broke up with me, he told me that no decent man will ever want me because of me being sick so much. I never dated after that and swore I’d never get involved with anyone again.”

“I like to think I’m a decent man, Meredith.”

“You are, Doc!”

“That proves him wrong, hon. I fell in love with you. Your health or injuries did not deter me. Like I said, I’d rather you didn’t have those issues, but since you do, I’m happy to take care of you when you need it.”

“I’m glad that guy was wrong, Doc.”

“So am I, hon.” He adjusted his position and kissed me tenderly. One thing led to another and …. Well, you know. Afterward, he did as Dr Hampton had asked and took a short video of the monitor. Nothing like having to do that to interrupt the afterglow. We fell asleep in each other’s arms, like we do every night.

We were woken abruptly in the middle of the night by the sound of a bullhorn. “Freeze!” a voice commanded. “On the ground. Now!”