“Bozeman,Montana? What theactualfuck, Em?”
“Well, they had an opening in their pediatric neurology department and offered a great sign-on bonus and perks, like housing assistance. It’s also relatively cheap to live here compared to the other places where there were pediatric neurology residencies. I think you’ll like it here.”
She patted my arm. “Thanks, sis,” she whispered. “Thanks for taking care of me. I promise I’ll help out once I can do shit again.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Well, your pension will kick in soon, and there’s a VA clinic here, too. All I want you to do is focus on healing and we can figure out the rest later, okay? Time for me to take care of you for a change.”
“Okay.”
“And no more doing stupid shit, like jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.”
She laughed. “Deal.”
One Year Later
“What in the fuckinghell, Lilah?”
She smiled. “What?”
“What happened to not doing stupid shit?”
She motioned for me to stop yelling. “It’s not a dangerous job. Not usually.”
I blinked, shocked, staring at her.
She pushed onward. “Look, it’s a damned good salary compared to a lot of jobs around here, not to mention the pension and benefits. And it’s kinda like what I did when I was an MP, only with fish and deer and shit.”
“Uh and poachers, and stupid drunks with hunting rifles, and dangerous conditions. And how are you supposed to do that?”
“I already passed the fitness test.”
I sat back, even more shocked than just seconds ago, which I didn’t think was possible. “You’ve already signed on, haven’t you?”
She glanced down at her coffee mug. She dumped this news on me twenty minutes before I was due to leave for my shift. Three months earlier, we’d upgraded to a small house not far from town, just enough on the outskirts to be considered rural. We both loved it here, and now we had two horses, which we purchased the week before we closed on the house.
“Em, I’m going stir-crazy. I still have to go through training. After that, I’ll probably spend the majority of my time measuring fish and checking game tags and licenses and that kind of stuff. Helping rescue the occasional lost hiker. Hell, from what it sounds like, technically most of my time will be spent driving around this godforsaken state, interrupted by occasionally working.”
“What about going back to school?”
“To do what?Thisis a job with job security and they promised me I won’t have to jump out of any goddamned planes.” She smiled but was deliberately downplaying the dangers and we both knew it.
But I also knew that over the months since her final operation she’d worked hard to rebuild her body and…
Yes. She was going stir-crazy.
I slumped in my chair. “You almost died on me once, sis. What am I supposed to do if your ‘safe job’ kills you?”
She reached across the table and took my hands, squeezing them. “You can’t promise me you won’t get into an accident driving to or from work. You can’t promise me some drunk parent won’t come shoot up the ER while you’re doing an intake eval. You can’t promise me you won’t have an aneurysm and not wake up, just like I can’t promise you anything. But I have to make a change and this is the first thing in a while that’sreallyspoken to me. I feelthisis what I need to do.”
I stood up fully intending to flounce out of there but she intercepted me and hugged me and, the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor, sobbing while she rocked me in her arms.
“Shh, Em. We’ve survived shit, you know. This is Montana, not Mogadishu. And yes, I’ll be law enforcement and carry a gun. Also, yes, there will be risks. But this iswaysafer than getting shipped overseas and landing in-country, you know. I was on fucking US soil when I nearly died. Nowhere is perfectly safe. Plus, I’ll make more than enough we can finally update our vehicles, which will makemehappy that you’ll be driving something safer.”
I sniffled. “Not allowed to die on me, sis.”
She held me tighter. “I promise I’ll do my best to hang around and not test the patience of my guardian angels. Besides, someone’s gotta stay close and scare off the dumbass men who want to glom on to you just because you’re a doctor with your own house and little debt.”
I snorted. “Yeah, well if you don’t, I promise to be totally fucking stupid and date the dumbest men possible.”
