Page 12 of Late Harvest

—From Remy’s Badass Bitch Affirmations

Remy

Exhaustion flooded Remy’s veins, weighing her down. She dropped her work bag on the foyer floor, bending backwards and side-to-side to stretch the tight muscles in her back. A full OR schedule plus rounds, with minimal breaks, was a lot of time on her feet.

As expected, the hospitalist had transferred her elderly patient to the ICU, so before heading home, Remy had stopped there to visit him and his daughter and allay their concerns. After that, she’d quickly reviewed the MRI results for a friend of Brinder’s—a retired Gold Glove baseball player-cum-sportscaster-cum-philanthropist whose knees were ravaged by a lifetime of professional sports wear and tear. Remy had seen Gideon O’Grady as a favor for her boss, and the imaging confirmed the man would definitely be needing two new knees. Soon. And that was a bitch of a recovery if he did it in one go, which was her recommendation given his jetsetting lifestyle.

Then there was the Sammy Lynch situation. Rumor had it the first-year resident was enjoying an active sex life with the staff, including one resident in a different specialty and, apparently, Troy Fucking McMasters. The young woman was clearly smart and—when she answered her pages—had potential to be a great physician. But her extracurriculars were undermining her.

Remy heaved a massive sigh.

And then there was Remy’s bizarre preoccupation with Sebastian Wheatley. It totally altered the vibe in her surgical Zen garden, disrupting something that should’ve been second nature and forcing her to will her mind to concentrate over and over. Charming fucking Zen Thief.

Now it was close to seven thirty and she was almost completely out of gas.

Remy closed her eyes, picturing her fridge and its meager contents. At this point, she was almost too tired to eat.

“I really need to get a weekly food service.”

Her voice echoed in the bare-bones foyer. Add that to the to-do list.

Sighing, she kicked off her work clogs. She always showered in the locker room after a day at the hospital, keeping a rotation of comfortable athleisure in her office for her twenty-minute drive home. But she’d forgotten her recently laundered clothes on her way out that morning, resulting in her changing into another set of scrubs. She’d return them to the designated vending machine the following morning—as long as she didn’t forget her own clothing two days in a row. Which she wouldn’t. Because her mind was laser focused.

Unless the seductive, grinning face of a certain actor crept in.

Sighing, she turned into the living room and smiled at her personal ray of sunshine.

“Chicane! Mommy’s home.”

The Holland lop bunny—her floppy-eared, energetic fur baby—zoomed around in his two-story bunny condo. She unclasped and opened the door, pulling him into her arms. “Hi, sweetness,” she crooned. Remy was the least maternal person she’d ever met, but this little lop had bounced right into her cold, dead heart. “I missed you! Did Truly take good care of you?”

Truly—a freelance graphic designer—had been recommended by a hospital colleague. She had vet tech experience during college and was happy to come over during Remy’s shifts and exercise Chicane. Lops needed a lot of it.

Remy buried her face in the soft black fur. “You are handsome, yes you are. The most handsome ever. Even Bash Wheatley can’t hold a candle to you, precious love.”

She turned and sunk into her couch, a cozy, down-filled, ivory sectional that had been her first purchase for this house. Chicane rested on her chest, making the purring and teeth clicking sound that signified his happiness.

“Did you miss Mommy?”

Remy let out a sigh of pure relaxation. Something about Chicane always soothed her. She snuggled with him for a bit, only letting him go to pull her bra off through her sleeves and toss it over the back of the couch. Remy fought a wave of sadness, remembering the beloved face of the person who’d taught her that useful trick.

Why was she so maudlin and distracted today? And why, when she was normally so adept at leaving those memories firmly buried far away from her heart, was she allowing the unwelcome thoughts to intrude?

When her stomach growled, Remy grabbed Chicane’s dig box, setting it and the bunny into an exercise pen. “Want to run around a bit while Mommy figures out what to eat?”

The lop was barely in the pen when he took off, dashing and leaping straight in the air as he twisted his body and kicked his feet in a massive case of the bunny zoomies.

“Silly boy.” Remy smiled fondly at him and blew out a long sigh. “Time to figure out dinner.”

She stared at her fridge and her pantry, hoping for inspiration. Sometimes she’d order online, but she honestly didn’t feel like waiting.

A bottle of red wine caught her eye. She could contemplate what she was in the mood to eat over a hard-earned glass of vino. An excellent idea. And hopefully the wine would relax some of the tension in her neck and shoulders—not all of which was attributable to her long OR day.

Nope. Some of those knots had Sebastian Wheatley’s name on them.

What the hell had he been doing, flirting so outrageously? According to the magazines that proliferated in the surgeons’ lounge, she was twenty years older than his usual prey. And there was no saline or botulism toxin in her body. Not that there was anything wrong with that. She just didn’t see the need for those for herself.

Pulling out the cork, she poured a healthy amount in her favorite wine glass, which was etched with the phrase “Jesus touched my water.” It had been a gift from a retired Episcopal bishop back in Maryland after she replaced her ailing hip.