Page 28 of The Doctor's Simple Life

“Where are we going?” he asks again, pouting prettily at me as if that means I might tell him anything at all.

“It’s a surprise,” I say again. “Have some patience.”

He sinks back in the passenger seat, and I clench the steering wheel tightly so that I don’t give myself away. He doesn’t need to know how excited I am to put him in an environment in which he does not belong.

When we pull up into the forest parking lot, his face falls as he realizes this is our final destination.

“Are you kidding?” he asks, staring at me.

“No.”

“Why are we at a forest?”

“Because forests are nice.”

“Okay, but why are weinit?”

“Because we’re going for a hike.”

“A hike!” He sighs dramatically, flopping back into the seat. From his reaction, you would have thought that I’d asked him to do something genuinely unpleasant, like clean out the bathrooms or deal with a patient’s catheter.

“I’m not dressed for a hike.”

“You’re wearing sneakers.”

“Yeah, fashionable ones! If I get these dirty, I’m going to make you pay for a new pair.”

“No, you’re not.” I sniff, getting out of the car and slamming the door behind me. Then I cross round to his door and open it for him. “You’re a doctor. You get paid more in a month than I do in a year.”

“That’s not true.” He frowns, then doubts everything he knows about his salary and frowns even harder.

I raise a hard eyebrow at him. “Get out of the car. We’re going on a hike, and you’re going to like it.”

He decides not to argue with me any further. Instead, he gets up and adopts the sulkiest face I’ve ever seen on a human being. Well, one over the age of five anyway.

We head into the forest, and I take a deep breath. The air here is always so fresh and warm. At the end of spring, when the season is on the verge of summer, the leaves are all lush green before the heat of the sun yellows them a little. This is my favorite time of the year, before the drawn-out, long, hot days of summer but after the damp depths of winter.

“What’s that sound?” Reece asks as we walk along.

I frown at him, not entirely sure what he’s talking about. “What sound?”

“That one.” He points up at the skies as if that’s helping. “That weird kind of chirping.”

“What, the birds? Have you never heard a bird before?” I scoff.

“Of course I know what a bird is,” he says, bristling like I’ve touched a nerve.

“Then why are you questioning what they sound like?”

“No, ugh. Iknowit’s a bird. I mean, what type of bird is it?”

I roll my eyes. “I don’t know. I’m not a birdwatcher.”

“Great,” he mutters.

We keep going and I look up at where he was pointing, smiling at the birds. I’ve always thought about getting into birdwatching. I’ve just never found the time.

I get about three and a half minutes of blissful peace before Reece bothers me with more questions. “Where are we going?”

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