Page 80 of My Cowboy Freedom
Chapter 20
Rock
The doc’s office was on the first floor of a beautiful turn-of-the-century house—one of the first built in Bitterroot. Doc Winters’d taken over the practice of Doctor Leon Frazier, and part of that obligation was seeing to the home and its prize-winning garden.
Marge, his receptionist, nurse, and sergeant-at-arms, was also a legacy of Doc Frazier’s time in Bitterroot. I’d always liked her, but I appreciated any medical practitioner with a light touch. Marge was well-known for her caustic tongue and gentle hands.
Maisy and I didn’t wait in the exam room for long before Doc Winters came in, iPad in hand. “Rockne McLean. What’s going on?”
“I had a tonic clonic seizure last night.”
“So I gather. Let’s get some blood work going and see what’s what.” He tucked his tablet under his arm to open the door to call for Marge. “Andi’s going to be so pissed she missed you. She and Ryder took Jonas to see a movie.”
“I’m sorry I missed them too. How are they?”
“They’re all doing just fine.”
He flipped through some pictures on his iPad, showing me Andi and Ryder and Jonas, him and Ryder, and several of the four of them together. It looked like they were having a blast and for a terrible, bitter few seconds, I resented him for it.
“The Hanks—excuse me, the Henry Greenwood Band—is playing in Austin next weekend, so Jonas, Ryder, and I are going to make little getaway out of it.”
“The boss misses Andi something fierce.” Even so, I hoped Andi’d stand her ground. If Sterling Chandler was going to be an asshat about Ryder and Declan, then maybe he deserved to spend some time alone thinking about things.
“His attitude doesn’t leave a lot of room for compromise.”
“He doesn’t know how to compromise.” I moved to the paper-covered exam table and sat on its edge. “You know why this is such big issue for him, don’t you?”
“Because of Jonas, I assume.” His blue eyes narrowed. “Because now he doesn’t know who Jonas’s biological father is. I guess that matters to some people, more than who the child is.”
“The boss ain’t like that, exactly.” I shook my head. “He only wants to put his people in nice, safe little boxes. They just don’t always want to stay there.”
“That’s a little cynical.” Declan sat on his stool with his arms folded. That was Maisy’s cue to slip under the visitor chair. She hated that rolling stool with a biting passion, but she was too well-trained to say so.
“That doesn’t make it any less true.”
“And Andi’s box is Ryder?” he asked.
“She was supposed to grow up, marry a nice guy, have a family.”
“As far as I’m concerned, she did exactly that.”
“Sure she did. But not the way Sterling wanted. The standard white picket fence life.”
“My mother wanted that for me,” he said. “Isn’t that what most people hope for when their kid grows up?”
“Sure. But Andi doesn’t fit in some one-size-fits-all box.”
The Doc rolled closer. “Who does?”
“Someone does.” I said. “Someone must. Otherwise why would we have so many people and so few boxes?”
Declan’s pale eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed. “I have to hand it to you. I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“Anyway, I don’t fit in a box either, unless it’s labeled damaged goods.”
“Look straight at me.” He used his penlight to blind me, one eye at a time. “Who says?”
“No one. I just know that’s what they think. Nobody sees me as an adult. I’m not a man to them. I’m just—”
