Ryla raised her hand. “Miss Rae is in the movies, too! What’s her name again?” Ryla leaned forward, craning her neck to look at Jace, her little eyebrows furrowed together.
“Raquel Ezra,” Max piped up.
I jumped up, spinning to face the three traitors. “You all knew?” Jace, Max, and Ryla were all giggling as I stood there, pointing at them in outrage.
“Treason! This is treason, I tell you!” I shouted dramatically. “I sentence you all to tickling!”
Ryla yelped and Max jumped up, each of them taking off in different directions.
“Run if you dare!” I shouted to them. “The Queen of Sheeba will always get the last laugh!”
I took off after my kids, but not before I turned back to see Jace, beaming with pride, as he watched us run and laugh and play in the late summer night.
Want more from Krysta Dearson? Read on for a sneak peek of her upcoming book,Hippocratic Foes,a small town, enemies-to-lovers romance, coming Fall 2025!
Sneak peek of Hippocratic Foes by Krysta Dearson
The first time I met Eli Jerzeck, I was running late. Or at least I thought I was.
Driving way too fast down an empty two-lane country road, praying I wouldn’t hit a deer or squirrel, I nervously glanced at my clock again.
6:58 a.m.
Seeing as my interview was at 7 a.m. sharp, I was two minutes from kissing my chance at my top choice residency program goodbye.
Unease filled me as I continued to fly down the road. There were no curbs nor sidewalks, and a dense line of woods spanned either side of me. I’d only seen a few gravel driveways during the last two miles. This was an awfully rural area for a residency clinic.
“Your destination is on the right, 2600 Barstow Road,”my phone’s Australian accented AI, whom I’d named Ken, announced.
“Yes! I love you, Ken!” I cheered, finally spotting a break in the trees for the turn off. After making a hurried right, several partially full plastic water bottles, among other random items, slid across the floor of my passenger seat, slamming into the center console. A moment later, I heard two more mysterious loud thumps against my rear left passenger door.
Oooooh.Mystery solved! I knew I’d bought two mini gourds from the Farmer’s Market three weeks ago for Halloween. I was going nuts, thinking that I must’ve imagined buying them when I couldn’t find them. It made more sense that I’d put them in my backseat and then forgot about them, never to be found again.
I’d only driven a hundred feet before I came to an abrupt standstill. Dumbfounded, I gaped out the windshield at the large structure set back from the road.
This absolutely wasn’t the residency clinic.
Staring at me was a gigantic, ferocious badger. Correction: It was a building shaped like a gigantic badger. It stood two stories tall, the top half being a menacing badger head complete with red eyes and sharp teeth, while the ground level was the chest of the Badger meant to look furry by its dark cedar shake. The main entrance stood more or less at stomach level. On either side of the building were two tall pillars that spanned at least fifteen feet, appearing like two large arms with claw-tipped paws.
Now, in Wisconsin, this could be any number of buildings—a local bar, a campsite, or even a quirky tourist attraction.
But in this case, the clue came from a neon sign that read,Northern Exposure,along with other signs readingXXXandTail dances every Friday night!
I wasn’t a medical doctor, at least not yet. I didn’t graduate from med school for another six months. Still, it didn’t take a medical doctor to surmise that ‘Northern Exposure’ was a euphemism for an establishment that exposed body parts that were decidedlynotnorthward.
“You have arrived at your destination, 2600 Barstow Road.”
Oh, yeah, sure, Ken. Unless the residency moonlit as a strip club by night, this was not my destination.
This was not how my interview at UW Baraboo’s Family Medicine Residency was supposed to start. As a fourth-year med student, I’d been interviewing for residency programs the past few months, residency being the required training program all doctors must complete after med school in order to practice in their desired specialty. Baraboo Family Medicine Residency was my top choice on account of their well-known rural medicine fellowship. Plus, it was only two hours away from my hometown of Twin Rivers, Wisconsin. The program became popular last year, and with more popularity came more competition. Being late for this interview could make or break my chances. Dread filled me with each second that passed as I felt my dream of matching into residency here slip further away.
“Arrived. 2600 Barstow Road,” Ken piped up again, ignorantly cheerful.
“Oh, shut up, Ken!” I seethed, feverishly opening my email to check the clinic’s address from the interview itinerary.
Baraboo Family Medicine Residency Clinic, 2600 SW Barstow Road.
Did that saySWBarstow Road? I glanced at the address I’d entered into my car’s navigation. I hadn’t put in that cardinal direction in my original GPS.
