Angels Fall

walk."
    "If you stay."
    "Yes. If I stay." And as she imagined Moses did, Reece took a running leap and dove in. "I'd like to come over to your place tomorrow night, fix you dinner and stay the night."
    He walked a little farther with her, strolling by a house where a woman had planted pansies in a small circular bed in the middle of her law n that was guarded by gnomes in pointy hats.
    He wondered about people who dotted their lawns with plaster people and animals.
    "Would staying the night be a euphemism for sex?"
    "God, I hope so. I can't promise anything, but I hope so."
    "Okay." He reached out to open the door of Joanie's. "I'll wash the sheets."
     
    SHE KEPT HER doctor's appointment and considered it another major step. She hated, hated the exposed sensation she had when wearing nothing but the little cotton gown.
    And it she couldn't comfortably be naked in front of a doctor, how did she expect to manage it later with Brody?
    In the dark, she thought as she sat on the examination table while Doc's nurse took her blood pressure. All the lights off and her eyes closed. Hopefully, his closed, too.
    Drunk would also be a good thing. Lots of wine, lots of dark.
    "A little high, sweetie." Willow, the nurse, was Shoshone. Her blood showed in the dense black hair she wore in one thick braid, and her deep, liquid brown eyes.
    "I'm nervous. Doctors make me nervous."
    Willow patted Reece's hand. "Don't you worry. Doc's a cream puff. I need to take some blood. Make a fist, and think about your happy place."
    Reece barely felt the needle, and gave Willow top marks. She couldn't count the number of times she'd been stuck after the shooting. Some of the nurses had hands like angels, others like lumberjacks.
    "Doc's going to be with you in just a minute."
    Reece nodded, and was stunned when Willow's statement proved to be the literal truth.
    Doc looked different with the white lab coat over his plaid shirt, with the stethoscope around his neck, those blinding white running shoes on his feet. Still, he gave her a wink before picking up her chart. "I'll tell you right now you need ten pounds."
    "I know, but I needed fifteen a few weeks ago."
    "No surgeries other than the ones for the injuries you sustained in the shooting?"
    She moistened her lips. "No. I was always healthy."
    "No allergies. Blood pressure could be lower, sleep pattern smoother. Your cycle's regular."
    "Yes. It wasn't, after. Birth control pills helped regulate it again. I haven't had any need for them otherwise." That might be changing tonight, she thought, and wondered if her blood pressure had just spiked.
    "No history of heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes in your family. You don't smoke, alcohol consumption light to moderate."
    He continued to scan, then set the chart aside with a nod. "Got a good foundation."
    He checked her lungs, her reflexes, had her stand to check her coordination and balance. Shone lights in her eyes, in her ears, checked her lymph glands, her tonsils.
    All the while he kept up a careless conversation heavy on town gossip. "Did you hear Bebe's oldest boy and two of his cohorts got caught shoplifting candy bars from the mercantile?"
    "He's under house arrest," Reece said. "Sixty days, no chance of parole. School, home, Joanie's, and two hours every afternoon doing whatever chores Mr. Drubber can find for him."
    "Good for Bebe. I heard Maisy Nabb threw all Bill's clothes out the window again. Plus his MVP trophy from when he quarterbacked the high school football team."
    It wasn't so bad, she realized, not really so bad to go through all this with conversation. Real conversation about people they both knew.
    "Rumor is he lost the money he was supposed to be saving to buy her an engagement ring playing poker," she told him. "He claims he was only trying to win enough to get her a ring worthy of her, but she's not buying it."
    "She tosses his stuff out three, four times a year. He's been saving to buy her a ring for about five years now, so that's about fifteen, twenty times his clothes have ended up on the sidewalk. Carl's grandson in Laranne won a scholarship to U of W."
    "Really? I haven't heard that."
    "Fast-breaking." Doc's eyes twinkled with the scoop. "Carl just heard this afternoon. He's busting buttons over it. I'm going to call Willow in, do a pap and breast exam."
    Resigned, Reece put her feet in the stirrups. She stared at the ceiling, and the mobile of butterflies that circled from it, while Doc rolled his stool between