CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ally

It's almost ten and there's still no sign of Mason at the clinic, which I've already learned is uncharacteristic of him. Winnie sits next to me at the reception desk, organizing a pile of charts that Mason will need to review for his first few appointments. It's thankfully thinner than other days.

"Mason's usually here by now," I point out. The slight eye roll from Winnie doesn't go unnoticed."I mean, he sleeps here. He doesn't have an excuse for being late."

"He called me last night and told me to reschedule a few of his morning appointments," she explains. "So now I have to find time for them later in the week. Like that's so easy to do."

It's obvious that Mason has a massive weight on his shoulders from the ever-increasing demands of the clinic, but I wonder if he sees how much Winnie struggles, too. She's the one who breaks the news to patients day in and day out that they won't get an appointment anytime soon, the one that manages the chaotic schedule, and somehow keeps it all on track.

The bell above the door jingles but I don't lift my eyes from my work. I've tried to get ahead while Mason is out this morning, getting some paperwork done for referrals that will need to go in today. I only glance up from the chart that I have spread out in front of me when I hear a set of keys clang down on top of the desk. Staring at the keys, which are at eye level on top of the raised reception desk, Mason comes into focus, standing behind it.

"Give me your keys," he says. Not rude, but there's that demanding undertone to his voice. The one that causes a ripple of heat to cascade through me.

"Why?" I blink at him several times, and Mason narrows his eyes toward me. I thought we had connected over the last few days, but as Mason stands here, glaring at me and expecting me to just hand over my keys, I'm not so sure.

"I don't have time for this today. Just give me your damn keys, Honeybee," he says with a slight snarl, holding out his hand.

"Not until you tell me what you need them for." Mason lets out an annoyed sigh.

"I need your truck."

"You have your own truck. What do you want with that old beater?"

I inspect the set of keys sitting on the counter. What is Mason's game? Out of sheer curiosity, I reach down to pull my keys out of my purse and slide my set of keys across the counter toward him. My eyes narrow into a skeptical glare.

Mason doesn't say anything before he snatches the keys off the counter, turns on his heels and strides back toward the door. I get up and follow him.

"Where do you think you're going?" I shout after him. The few patients that have arrived early for their appointments glance up from their phones and magazines at the commotion.

Mason swings the door open, not bothering to hold it open for me. It just about smacks me in the face as it closes. I throw the door open again and increase my pace to a slight jog to catch up with him.

"I'm taking it back to the rental company," he shouts over his shoulder as he storms through the parking lot.

"How am I supposed to get around?"My voice is raising in pitch, almost a squeak now.

"What do you think the other keys are for?" I look down at the set of keys that I'm holding in my hand, only noticing the Jeep keychain dangling off the set now. There are a few other cars parked in the lot, but my eyes immediately land on the Jeep that had sat beside my hunk of junk at the airport. The one I didn't have the guts to go back and ask for.

"Is this what you were doing this morning? Why you blew off your patients?" Mason whirls around and stops short. I almost run right into him. I have so much momentum in my stride. His finger is pointing into my face, almost touching my nose.

"I did not blow off my patients. I will find time to see them. This had to be done. That truck is a death trap, Ally. I can't have my girlfriend driving around in that thing."

"Fake girlfriend," I correct, although I thought of the two of us, Mason wouldn't be the one needing to be reminded. The rules of our agreement were imposed by him, after all.

"Right. Fake girlfriend. That's what I meant. It's a hazard to everyone else on the road. And you wouldn't do the responsible thing and demand a different vehicle."

I say nothing in response. Instead, I just stand in the parking lot in stunned silence. I'm still trying to wrap my head around whether girlfriend was a true slip of the tongue.

Mason stalks onto the street, heading towards the cabin to get my truck. I don't stop him. Whatever version of Mason this is, I don't hate it.

"Let's go, Honeybee," Mason shouts from the front door of the clinic. I've just finished making an afternoon tea to settle into the stack of referrals that grace my desk. The piling paperwork is endless, and Winnie is still working on rearranging the schedule to fit in the patients he neglected in favour of trading in my truck.

"Go where?"I round the corner, emerging from the alcove behind the reception desk.

"We've got house calls. You're driving."

"I—what?" I stammer. Since when was it expected that I would come with Mason on house calls?

"Figure you should take the new wheels out for a spin. Hurry it up. We're already late." Mason waves me over.

Winnie takes the stack of charts that are piled up on my half of our shared desk and nods towards Mason, urging me to go. The last time I spent a significant amount of time alone with Mason, we ended up making out on his desk, an incident I am hell-bent on not repeating. But Mason offering to bring me along on house calls, no, assuming that I will be coming on house calls is a massive step for him, for us, as colleagues.

"Okay, but really, what am I doing here?" I ask, climbing into the two-door Jeep.

Mason takes my phone out of my hand to punch in the directions. It's an address about twenty minutes outside of town. It appears to be smack in the middle of the woods.

"Your own house call. What do you think?" I've had enough of Mason's cryptic attitude today. I tolerated him demanding that I give him my keys without so much as an explanation but following him to some far-off house in the woods is another story. A thought occurs to me. If I didn't know Mason, I would have to wonder if he was leading me out to the woods so he could murder me or leave me for dead.

"My own? What do you mean, my own?"

"Consider it your official test and then you'll fly solo from here on out." Solo? Like go to people's houses on my own, solo?

"I'm not sure I … I'm not a doctor, Mason. I shouldn't be going out on house calls on my own."

"Bullshit, you're not a doctor, Ally. I mean, don't start prescribing medications or anything, but you know damn well as much as I do most of the time."

"I wouldn't say that …"

"There is such a thing as home-care nurses, isn't there?"

"Well, yeah. But house calls are your thing, Mason. Your dad's thing. I know how protective you are over that part of your practice."

"Times are changing, Honeybee. And I'm not so sure that the clinic will survive if I don't change with them." The words sound foreign coming out of Mason's mouth.

"Look at me, Mason," I ask, and he turns in the passenger seat to face me. "Follow my finger …" I hold up my finger as if I'm checking him for a head injury. He keeps his deep brown eyes glued to my finger for a moment before he blinks and gives his head a shake. He turns around to put on his seatbelt, and I miss having his eyes on me, so intent.

"I'm fine , Ally. Let's not make a big deal out of this. You still have to pass your first test, anyway."

I guess we're doing this. I manoeuvre the Jeep around the tight parking lot, and we head toward our destination.

The winding gravel road to get there seems to meander forever through the thick trees, and now I'm almost ninety percent certain that Mason is, in fact, bringing me out here to kill me. Or maybe it's not Mason sitting next to me in the car, but some demon-possessed version of him.

When we arrive, my first suspicion is confirmed: the house is secluded. This does nothing to rule out the murder theory, andI doubt a neighbour lives within ten kilometres.

The house is not modest by any means. Whoever lives here must have a hefty nest egg and spent it far away from civilization.

"Who lives here," I ask, pulling the Jeep into the long gravel drive, "a wealthy hermit?" The house looks like a cabin in every way except its size. It's at least three stories, the bottom level adorned with beautiful natural stone and raw wooden beams forming each of the three peaks. Smoke is billowing out of the stone chimney on the roof.

"Sort of, yeah. Reggie Donovan is an old friend of my dad's. He's a little … eccentric," Mason says.

"Eccentric could mean a lot of things, Mason. Eccentric could be anything from a kazoo player who wears a lot of fun fedoras to a conspiracy theorist who wears a fedora made of tinfoil."

"Fedoras are non-negotiable in this scenario, huh?" The corner of Mason's mouth tilts up.

"They are the worst type of hat. Only the most eccentric people wear them." I quip.

"Noted. I'll make sure to wear one at work, just for you." Mason winks at me, and it makes the hair on the nape of my neck stand on end. "Reggie isn't that weird. He owned a multimillion-dollar tech company and sold it. Woke up one day and decided that technology has ruined society. Now he lives ‘off-grid,' as he calls it," Mason clarifies, but it only leaves me with more questions than answers.

I peer up at the small mansion as we approach the front door. The entire roof is covered in solar panels.

A tall older man answers the door to greet us. I'm surprised he isn't carrying a shotgun or something, but he appears friendly. He's wearing a knit sweater, khaki dress pants, and honestly looks more put together than one would expect of a person who has chosen to live as a recluse.

"Reggie! So good to see you looking so well." Mason extends a hand and places it on Reggie's shoulder before remembering that I'm also here. "This is Ally. She's working at the clinic now." It's not a glowing review, but at least he has accepted that I am an employee of the clinic.

"I've heard a lot about Ally. For a man who tries not to involve myself with the outside world, I still find a way of staying current on town goings-on. Though I didn't think it could be done." Mason and I both wear the same blank stare. As if noticing, Reggie adds, "Getting Mason to settle down, I mean." He winks at us. Mason was not kidding when he said a story like this would spread like wildfire. Within a matter of two weeks, it has reached Reggie, a man who refuses to interact with normal society. Mason is going to love this.

Reggie backs away from the door, gesturing with his arm for us to come in.

The house is stunning, with all windows at the front in the expansive entryway. A grand staircase flanks one side, leading to a landing overlooking both this side of the entryway and the large living area on the other side. The wall above the natural stone fireplace features a mounted large taxidermy buck head.

We follow Reggie into the cozy but tidy living room.

"Whatever you gave me last time worked like a charm," Reggie says, taking a seat on the brown leather sofa.

"Don't tell me, Reggie. Ally is the one taking care of you today. Pretend like I'm not here." My face flushes. The thought of having Mason watch me as I work is unnerving, and I can already feel my hands shaking. I ask him some preliminary questions about his health history and any symptoms he's been experiencing in the last week before moving on to a basic physical exam. When I'm done, I remove the stethoscope from my ears and dangle it around my neck.

"What's your diagnosis?" Mason asks. He's perched on the arm of the couch, arms crossed.

"He seems … fine. I can't find anything wrong with him."

"Perfect. You're right." I give Mason a quizzical stare. "I came to see him about a week ago when he had pneumonia. Reggie just finished his antibiotics, so I told him I'd come by to see him again, make sure it had cleared up. Glad to see that it has."

"You've already treated him."I muster my blankest expression.

"Yes."

"So, this was a useless visit. Sorry, Reggie. Not useless for you. Just a waste of my time."Reggie gives me a keep me out of this look.

"Not useless. I wanted to know that you could identify when someone doesn't need to be seen in the clinic, just as much as when they do. You have no idea how many home-care nurses and family physicians just send everyone to the emergency department because they're jumpy and nervous about missing something," Mason explains. "Congratulations, you passed. But I knew you would." Condescending dick. I thought we had gotten past this delightful flavour of Mason's superiority complex.

I shoot him my most unimpressed stare. Maybe if I concentrate hard enough, I can shoot daggers out of my eyes.

I had no luck with the daggers, but I didn't speak to Mason for the rest of the visit. We finish up with Mr. Donovan and head back out to the car, my stride a quick and even clip.

"Care to fill me in on why you've given me the silent treatment?" Mason demands once we're back in the car.

"Why did you ask me to come out here, Mason? So you could give me some sort of useless test just to exert some control over me? You know, I could have been getting a lot of work done back at the clinic today. But no, you brought me on this futile little mission of yours, and now I'll have to stay late to make up for this. Not everyone wants to live at the clinic." I stick the key in the ignition but wait to turn it.

"I thought this was what you wanted. To be more involved in the clinic,"Mason says, his tone incredulous.

"I want you to trust me, Mason. I want you to trust that I can handle myself." I turn the key and the engine whirrs. And whirrs. And nothing happens. "Shit." I turn it a few more times.

"Well, don't do that. You'll flood the engine."

"Gah! Just shut up!" I shout, exasperated.

"You left the headlights on, didn't you?"Mason props his elbow on the window sill and rests his head in his hand.

"It's the twenty-first century, what kind of vehicle doesn't have automatic headlights?" My voice raises an octave.

"One from the '90s."

Dammit. I left the fucking headlights on.