I was pretty damn sure Savage was trying for a full rugby team.
“I am on maternity leave. You try raising a grown ass man-child, his identical mini-me with a mouth to boot and three young boys who happily take after their father, while trying to snap the last nerve I have left. Besides, I get more sleep here than I do at home.”
I chuckled at that because she was probably fucking right.
“You forgot Helena?”
Jess grinned. “Oh, that little girl is all me. She knows not to test my patience.”
Nodding, I leaned forward, reaching for another file.
“So, what brings you in here?”
“Got a call from Donna as she stormed out of the Rosewood Ski Resort. One guess what she told me.”
Jumping up from my chair, I slammed my hands down on my desk and roared, “God damn it, Jack!”
“She’s the fifth nurse this year, George.”
Turning, I walked over to the filing cabinet I had in my office and grabbed my medical to-go bag, which I kept at the ready in case I needed it.
The funny thing... I only needed this damn bag because of Jack.
Marching out of my office, I ignored Jessica’s laughter.
“Remember your oath, Dr. Steiner!”
“Fuck my oath,” I snarled. “I’m gonna kill him!”
Storming out of the clinic, I headed straight for my truck and jumped in, throwing the damn bag in the passenger seat. Ignoring the blaring horns, loud screams, and deathly stares from the residents of Rosewood, I peeled out of the parking spot, stepped on the gas, and sped out of town.
From the moment I bought into the Rosewood Clinic, Claudia wasted no fucking time pawning off Jack Orlean on me. The man was a pain in the ass and an ornery old cuss who should have been sent to pasture eons ago. Never in my life had I ever met a more obstinate, cantankerous, stubborn old man. To make matters worse, he was the father of my supposed best friend, Josephine.
Josie just got me.
I met Josie shortly after she moved to Rosewood. Like me, she came home with her tail between her legs after a disastrous break-up. Well, in her defense, her soon-to-be ex idiot couldn’t keep it in his pants and apparently up and married two other women.
Well, that’s what the authorities believed.
My hunch was there was more.
Anyway, like I was saying, Josie showed up about three days after I did when we bumped into each other at the Irish Rose Tavern and before either of us knew it, we ended up drinking our problems away. What neither of us expected was to wake up the next morning snuggled up on the couch together fully clothed.
That was a first for me.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the beginning of our beautiful friendship.
Until I fucked it up somehow.
There was just something about being around Josie that made everything better. Hell, she even made me feel better, and I hadn’t felt shit in years. But with Josie, she just got me, accepted me, flaws, warts and all. There wasn’t anything shedidn’t know about me, or I her, for that matter. Neither one of us was ready for any kind of relationship when we moved to Rosewood, so we decided to just remain friends, and it was the best decision we ever made.
I never had a girlfriend that I didn’t eventually sink my dick into, so it was refreshing to know that there was one woman on the planet I could just be myself with, vent my shit, complain to, and not get my ass chewed out for it.
That was until a few months ago when Josie stopped by my place unannounced and used her key to let herself in, to find me butt-ass naked and dick deep in Scribe’s cousin, Ares.
Damn, that woman was wild.
Anyway, after said coitus interruptus, Josie skedaddled and had been ghosting me ever since. Every time I tried to reach out to her, she got snarky, called me all kinds of names, then hung up on me. If it weren’t for her father and my weekly birdwatching adventures with her son Jasper, I’d never see the woman.
