No Good Doctor

by Nicole Snow

  I can’t help myself, bursting into laughter.

  She makes me laugh so easily. For such a timid girl, she’s sweetly irreverent, a sort of innocent, playful humor so different from the more cynical people I’m surrounded by. I adore the way she approaches everything.

  It’s like a breath of fresh air when she coaxes me to pull the proverbial stick out of my rear.

  “All right, then,” I say, meeting her eyes as she grins. “What would you rather do?”

  “Sleep for a year, maybe,” she says dryly, then laughs. “Or we could go on a date.”

  “A date.” I arch a brow. “Where’s there to go on a date in Heart’s Edge?”

  “Anywhere. A walk in the meadows could be a date, a night under the stars.” She says it so breathlessly it’s like she’s singing the words even without a melody, entranced by the very idea. “A coffee shop visit, maybe. Dinner at the diner. Brody’s. Orrr...”

  Here it comes. I knew she was leading up to something.

  I can’t help but wince when she finishes. “Or we could check out the theater opening tonight? They’re doing Fiddler on the Roof, I think.”

  I close my eyes with a sigh.

  Just like that, reality comes crashing in, bursting this quiet little bubble of sunlit bliss.

  Because the old theater is now owned by Everett Peters. I don’t want to patronize any of the endeavors he’s using as cover for his unwelcome stay in Heart’s Edge.

  Still, I do need to get to the bottom of what’s going on here, and why he’s truly back in town.

  I guess it’s a good opportunity to snoop around a little.

  Opening my eyes, I regard her with a tired smile. “Who’s ‘they?’ Half the reason the theater died years ago is because we don’t exactly have a thriving arts community.”

  “There’s a high school theater club. Apparently, half their parents are former hopefuls.” She laughs. “So it’ll be amateur night, but it’ll be fun!”

  “All right, all right, Firefly.” I groan. “I’ll take you back to your place so you can get dressed.”

  This date might not be such a bad idea.

  Not when I get to see Ember practically shining. She’s wearing a shimmery little sheath dress, spangles stitched into the moonlight-colored fabric. It’s loose enough to turn her body into a wicked suggestion, and clings so every movement she makes turns that suggestion into a damn invitation.

  Her hair is pinned up, too. All that does is bare the marks I’ve left on her throat, and a flare of possession goes through me.

  She’s so guileless, so proud, risking those marks for all to see.

  Any other woman would try to cover them, out of propriety or embarrassment.

  I’m not sure she even realizes with how adorably clumsy she is. And honestly, I’m too much of an animal to tell her.

  I don’t want her to cover them up. More than anything, I don’t want her to be ashamed of her sexuality just as she’s discovering it, learning what a tempting little creature she can be for me.

  I’m a little plainer, in a button-down and slacks, but I’m at least wearing nice shoes and a belt. We’ll likely be overdressed, but she wanted to dress up in her kitten heels and thigh-skimming dress, and there was absolutely no reason not to.

  She draws more than a few looks as we pull up outside the theater just before eight o’clock. The show’s set to start at eight thirty, more than enough time to get seated.

  I’m a little surprised to see the renovations. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own suspense and hammering Ember to the bed that I didn’t even notice the construction on the dilapidated building.

  New look, new life.

  Old rotting wood is long gone, replaced with fresh beams coated in blue paint against white planking, framing a brand new marquee board. It’s not quite finished, scaffolding still erected on the sides of the building, but when we step into the lobby, it smells like new carpet and fresh paint, and everything is clean, the running lights along the floor brand new.

  It’s a packed house. Totally full tonight. Half the town must’ve turned out for this.

  Not even this many people showed up for the fundraiser at The Nest.

  There’s something strange about seeing the entirety of Heart’s Edge here – talking, laughing, together. It’s like it embodies the spirit of the small town and its warmth and hospitality.

  I’m glad I’m the only one who knows the sourness of the ulterior motives behind it.

  Let them have this moment, even if it comes from Everett Peters.

  They don’t need to know the price of this happiness, so long as I can stop that man from collecting what he thinks is his real due.

  I wonder if I’m sticking my head in the sand. Maybe by trying to protect these people, I’m actually endangering them.

  Should I tell them the peril they’re in? A man with vested interest in a virus that can liquify a human being in hours as long as it just has the heat to warm up?

  Fuck.

  Maybe my real mistake already happened. Being informed about this years ago might’ve been better. Might have led to a better, less deadly outcome.

  Maybe if I’d gone to the townsfolk and told them the truth, Nine wouldn’t be the broken man he is now, a ghost legend hiding in the woods.

  Maybe I wouldn’t be so broken, either.

  And maybe Fuchsia actually has a point.

  Is her change of heart real? Is she right, that we need to go public with what’s happening here in Heart’s Edge and Galentron’s potentially revived plans?

  There’s no easy way. It’s a trillion-dollar company with hands in every pot from business to government to finance. Life as I knew it, definitely over if I ever leaked, and if I did, they could very well shut it down and bury me in an unmarked grave somewhere before I breathed a single word to the world.

  Still, what if? The question gnaws at my bones.

  What if they’re already planning to bring SP-73 here again, and these people die because I didn’t fucking—

  “Hey,” Ember says, tugging on my arm. “You, mister, are stuck inside your head.”

  I pull myself from my thoughts, looking down at her and chuckling. “I can’t well be inside someone else’s.”

  “You know what I mean, Doc.” She laughs. “We came here to have fun. You can brood on your own time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She’s right. I know she’s right, even if allowing myself to be more aware of my surroundings also makes me conscious of something else.

  Damn near everyone’s staring at us tonight. We may have given the gossip mill so much fuel it’ll spin right off into the sky.

  Yes, we walked in together. Yes, she’s on my arm. Yes, it’s a date.

  Clearly, we’ve stolen the show.

  That’s the downside of small towns. Everyone wants to know your business, and sometimes tell you how to run it.

  “Come,” I say, nudging her toward the double doors leading to the actual stage and auditorium seating. “Let’s find somewhere a little more private to sit. A few too many people are looking in. No need to take the limelight from the poor people working their asses off to get this place ready.”

  “Looking? Glaring, you mean,” she whispers, leaning closer to me. “I think I’ve just become public enemy number one.”

  I laugh under my breath. “Afraid of the jackals?”

  Her eyes widen, and she flushes a bright red, staring up at me. “You knew we call them that?”

  “Pam isn’t exactly quiet. The walls of the break room are thin, Firefly.”

  “Oh, God.” With a groan and a dry smile, she tugs on my arm. “Fine. Come on, then.”

  She turns to lead me to the doors.

  I should see it coming. She manages to trip over thin air and goes stumbling forward.

  It’s an Ember thing, I’ve decided.

  Lucky her, I’m there, catching her around the waist and lifting her up, holding her against my side until she finds her foot
ing, tugging my arm tight. With a shaky gasp, she blows a loose strand of hair out of her face, her eyes wide.

  “Crap. Maybe heels weren’t the best idea.”

  “I could carry you, beautiful,” I deadpan, and she goes even brighter crimson.

  “Oh my God, you’re as embarrassing as my mother.” She tugs my arm again. “Come on.”

  Keeping my smile to myself, I follow her into the darkened theater. We find seats a few rows back from the front, close enough for a good view of everything but far enough back that we won’t be overwhelmed or have to crane our necks to see the stage.

  Before long everyone else starts filing in, as ushers – high school kids in ill-fitted shirts, sashes, and bow ties that look scavenged from a secondhand seventies shop – move through the crowd, telling everyone it’s time. Ember snuggles happily against my side, resting her head on my shoulder.

  We don’t speak.

  We don’t have to.

  With Ember, it’s easy to just be quiet. To just be.

  I enjoy the warmth of her against my side as I settle in to wait for the lights to go down, the curtain to go up, and the show to start.

  I’m surprised by how fun the show is, even if it’s not quite for the reasons the players intend. It’s strange to me to realize I recognize everyone up on stage, from Andrea Silverton to old Mr. Corrigan who runs the bait and tackle shop.

  All this time, I’ve thought of myself as a stranger to Heart’s Edge, lurking on the fringes.

  But I know these people. I care for them. And I laugh with them now as they flub through their lines and ad lib and sing off-key. It’s a fucking mess, but all that matters is that everyone is enjoying themselves.

  Everyone is together.

  It’s easier to sink into that, to enjoy a small-town moment, with Ember at my side. She makes me forget so many of my troubles as Doc. She makes me a new man as Gray again.

  It’s something about her fresh outlook on life. The sweet, wonderful way she views things. Her hope. Her optimism. Even her shyness.

  I don’t remember what it’s like to be uncertain. The Menagerie would’ve collapsed a long time ago if not for my constant presence, oversight, and decisions.

  I also don’t remember what it’s like to care so much what other people think of me.

  I’ve resigned myself to this role I’ve occupied for so long, keeping people at a distance, putting on a false face. Hiding a truth that could be lethal for this town.

  Still, these people have accepted me with open warmth, making me part of their town even as I told myself I’d be forever apart.

  Looking down at the lovely girl at my side, I find her eyes wet, gleaming, but she’s smiling as she silently mouths the words to “Now I Have Everything.”

  I shift our position so I can wrap my arm around her shoulders, gathering her against my side as I lean down to whisper against her ear. “You all right?”

  “Yes.” Her voice is barely a whisper. She turns into me and presses close, one hand against my chest. “I just...this reminds me of Dad. Of Dad and Mom when they were happy. And it’s nice to finally enjoy it again. It used to make me sad, anytime I’d hear their old songs, but now it’s just this sweet, perfect memory, and it’s so good.”

  The emotion in her voice strikes a pang in my chest. Pulling her close, she smiles, and I just hold her, breathing in her scent. I let her cling to me while she watches the play with rapture in her eyes.

  It should be our moment. Sweet perfection.

  If only there weren’t this vicious edge in the room making everything tense.

  I can’t help but scan the crowd not long after she mentions her mother. We haven’t seen her tonight, which is more than a little weird. Just an idle thought, searching for Barbara Delwen among the throng.

  When I see her, my blood runs cold.

  She, too, is looking up at the stage with shining, damp eyes, so much like Ember it’s weirdly striking.

  She, too, mouths the words to the song. In some ways I can see her as she once was, pretty and alive like her daughter.

  Ember told me she was once a Broadway actress, beloved on the stage, and there’s a passion for it that runs through her even now, sharpening every line of her body.

  But that’s not what makes me sick. That’s not what makes me feel fear for this woman who means so much to the girl who’s working her hold deeper into my heart.

  It’s the man at her side, the monster, his hand on her arm with possessive intent.

  Everett fucking Peters.

  I don’t want to push my dark thoughts onto Ember.

  Not when she’s damn near radiant on the drive back to my house after the show. It’s like the lights and music and energy filled her up so much that she can’t hold it all in, and now she’s overflowing.

  I’m quieter, thinking back to the theater. Peters. Barbara Delwen. A pairing that can’t be anything but bad news.

  What does he want with her? Is it just an idle fling to pass the time?

  Or is he using her for some deeper purpose?

  I don’t know. I need to do some digging.

  Maybe alert Warren and Blake. My friends are out on the town more than I am, especially War, and they might be able to keep a protective eye out on Barbara and make sure Peters doesn’t intend to hurt her.

  That would mean telling them the truth, though.

  The truth of me.

  The truth of my past.

  The truth of this town that even they, Heart’s Edge natives, don’t actually know.

  It’s a brutal thought just imagining letting it out. Still, if Ember can accept me so easily, I can trust my friends with something like this, can’t I?

  Shit. It seems I do remember what it’s like to care what people think of me.

  There’s even a part of me that suddenly wants them to know me. The real me.

  For once in my life, it’s just dimly possible to imagine others in this town trusting me, accepting me and my horror show of a past.

  What strange, strange things this girl awakened in me.

  “You know,” Ember says, looking out the window with a smile playing on her lips, “Sometimes I don’t think you know how to stop brooding, Gray.”

  I glance over at her, smirking, keeping one eye on the road. “That’s a hazard of being me.”

  She laughs, a delighted little sound. “Is this a trait of the wild Gray in his natural habit? Should I be documenting this for posterity? Such a little-known species.”

  “Are you calling me a wild animal, Firefly?”

  She turns her face toward me with a grin, shining in the moonlight. “If I am?”

  “Don’t make me prove it.” My eyes linger on her lips. They’re a little redder than normal, even without lipstick, and I can’t help but think that’s my handiwork. “You asked me to give you a break, remember.”

  “I did. Buuut...” She toys her fingers together, watching me through her lashes, this sweet little vixen of moonlight and silver. “I never said how long of a break.”

  Damn if I don’t grin. “Lovely. I’ve created a monster.”

  “Or maybe brought out a little of my inner animal, too.”

  I steal another look at her. She’s practically smoldering, that delicate blush in her cheeks, her eyes dilated and dark with this look that makes me throb, her teeth toying at the soft, yielding flesh of her lower lip.

  Fuck. If I don’t have a full heart for her to slay anymore, she just might kill my body a thousand times over.

  When we take another curve in the road, another idea hits me. Turning my truck off at the next street, heading away from the town, I drive us toward the slopes leading down to the valley.

  She blinks, turning her head to look out the window. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see,” I whisper. “And you’ll like this surprise detour a whole lot more than the last, I promise.”

  Slowly, I take one hand off the steering wheel, reaching over to offer it to her. Her big blue
eyes fix on me, bewildered.

  Asking Ember to trust me – to trust that I wouldn’t take her anywhere where she might come to harm. Or have to listen to another nightmare from my own life.

  After a moment, she slips her fingers into mine, and laces them together so warmly, linking us as one.

  It’s not a far drive. Not when it’s a cozy little mountain town to begin with, but I take us as far as the truck can go on the paved roads, then pull off to the side and disentangle our hands long enough for me to get out and round to the passenger side to lift her down to the street. She looks up at me with a wide-eyed, wondering gaze, eyes turned to moonstone in the starlight.

  She laces her fingers in mine again and follows me as I turn to lead her off the road, into the fields.

  Ember had her chance to meet the real me. Now, I want her to meet the real Heart’s Edge in all its springtime glory.

  I lead her to the meadows full of flowers at the base of the heart-edged cliff, where tiny blue and pink petals are strewn across the grass. Plentiful as the stars overhead – or is it the fireflies that can light up a summer sky?

  Drawing her out under the moonlight, which turns the grass silver and makes the flowers glow like colorful, jeweled dust, I lean to tease her lips with a soft brush.

  She winds her arms around my neck, her sweet-silk fingers playing down my nape, making me shiver, steaming my blood. My cock instantly comes alive and hungry.

  “Here?” she whispers, molding her slender body to mine, her curves all soft invitation.

  “Where else would two animals fuck together?” I ask, nipping at her lower lip and drawing her deeper into me.

  Goddamn, I need her against me tonight. I need every glorious inch of her under me.

  It’s like when our flesh comes together, I remember what it’s like to be alive.

  I’ve been dead inside for far too long.

  Tonight, beneath the moon, beneath the stars, with her, I want to forget the past that’s staring me in the face. I want to live.

  She rises up on her toes, the gentle tug of her hands begging me to come down to meet her, and I don’t need to be asked twice.

  I lift her up into my arms, take her mouth, and make her mine.