Going Under (Wildfire Lake 2)

Jackie starts laughing.

I hold my arms open, the juice in one hand. “What?”

“I didn’t think that word was even in your vocabulary. How did you meet her?”

“She came into the ER, Christmas Eve. Needed stitches. Offered to help me put Jazz’s bed together.”

“Are you sleeping with her?”

“Why do you make it sound like that’s impossible?”

“Come on,” she says. We both know I’m not the sleeping-around type. I don’t argue, I just suck down more juice.

I cap the bottle and set it on the counter. “Guess I need to talk to Violet.”

“Still talking about KT here.”

“Is that really her name?”

“You’d know better than I would. What did her medical file say?”

“Just KT. Wouldn’t fess up to her real name.”

“You haven’t answered my question. You’ve danced all around it. Are you sleeping with her?”

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?”

My immediate answer is, I don’t know. But I think about it some more. Jackie doesn’t know about Jana’s affair, and there’s no point bringing it up now. “I’ve just never been that guy.”

“You never had a chance to decide what kind of guy you were. You were with Jana since you were nineteen. And no one is the same at nineteen as they are at forty.”

“That’s another thing. I’m ten years older than KT. In a totally different season of life.”

Jackie comes into the kitchen and leans against the opposite counter. “If you want to, you can come up with dozens of reasons not to sleep with her. But I could come up with dozens of reasons you should.”

She puts out a hand and starts ticking reasons off her fingers. “Stress relief, intimacy, connection. You’ll be more focused and positive, making you a better parent and a better doctor. And you might even be happy for a change.”

“I’m not unhappy.”

“You’re not happy either.” She doesn’t give me time to respond. “Besides, you don’t have time for a relationship. All you’ve got time for is sex.”

I look at the floor and shake my head. “I like her. I really like her. Sex will only pull me deeper. Then I’m looking at a disaster waiting to happen. It would be like bungee jumping knowing the line will break.”

“I feel the need to point out that your dating attempts haven’t exactly gone well.”

“That’s just what I need to hear.”

“My point being that taking women to dinner and talking about everything under the sun didn’t improve the outcome. You’re a guy. Start thinking like one. Get your mind around the just-sex of it and enjoy her while you can.”

“I’m happy to report you don’t have to come the rest of this week,” I say, smirking. “Isabel will be here.”

“Pfft. That won’t keep me from getting the information I want.”

I laugh. “But it will give me a break from the interrogation.”

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