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weeks you need to behave like you do.” Then, with a flourish, he held out the tulips to me. “Here you go. A little something to brighten your day.”
    “Oh, Alan. They’re lovely. Thank you so much. That’s really kind of you.” On cue, as I took the flowers, Trish entered with a vase of water, announcing, “I thought you might need this.”
    “Thanks, Trish.” I smiled. “You’ve always got me covered.”
    “That’s right,” she said, accepting the flowers from me and placing them in the vase. She placed the vase in the middle of the coffee table. “There.”
    She walked quietly out of the room, though not before she gave me a knowing glance.
    Alan smiled. “Well, I just wanted to check in on my patient. I thought you might be feeling a little down. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay at the emergency room with you.”
    “Oh, I’m fine.” I gimped my way back to my spot on the sofa, and Alan pulled up a chair alongside.
    “And it’s a good thing I dropped by.” He chuckled. “Let’s get you properly situated, if you don’t mind.”
    “Oh. Okay, what’s wrong?”
    “Your ankle needs to be higher. If I may.”
    A medical degree must’ve meant that he didn’t need to ask a woman if he could touch her. Dr. Alan sprang into action repositioning me. As he propped up my leg, I noticed he really was pretty cute in a farm boy kind of way with red hair and faint freckles dotting his pale skin. He was all handsome and wholesome. Even if he was a doctor, it felt a little weird that a fellow member of Congress was touching me. It was hardly sexual though. My foot and ankle were encased in a brace, and I had one of Larry’s football socks covering my foot. Still, I tried to show him that I was just like any other patient. “So do you miss practicing medicine?”
    “A little.” He sat back in his chair, satisfied with the position of my leg. “I was an ER doc in a rural hospital. It’s not the most intellectual work. That’s why I got into politics. But in an ER, there was always a variety of cases, which was interesting, and I knew I was helping people.”
    “Well, that’s always a good feeling.”
    “It wasn’t a big hospital, so I caught a fair number of babies over the years. Those were probably the best moments.”
    I envisioned having a hot doctor sitting between my legs as I gave birth, which was way too confusing a thought to ponder for more than a second. Still, the image of him birthing babies gave Alan another interesting dimension and the corners of my mouth turned up, just a bit. “That must’ve been nice.”
    “It was. A lot different than around here.” He surveyed her room and snickered. “You know I got stuck up on the 5th floor of Cannon my first term.”
    “I bet you were happy to leave.”
    He stood up and went over to the window. “Yes, but some of the offices have a great view of the Capitol.”
    “Mine would not be one of them.”
    “No, it wouldn’t,” he said as he stretched his neck beyond the curtain. It was only a good view if you liked roofs with gravel and air conditioners.
    A knock came at the door again, and Trish walked in before I had a chance to speak. “Busy day around here,” she said. “Congressman Grath is here to see you.”
    My heart leapt in fear and excitement, and she flashed me another look which I really hoped Alan didn’t see. “Send him on in,” I said.
    As Trish walked out, Alan walked back over to the sofa and said, “I’ll let you go now, but if you don’t mind, I’ll be back tomorrow to check up on you.”
    “Thanks, but don’t feel like you have to do that.” Some other part of my brain was doing the talking because I was reeling from the news Michael was here to see me. Hearing him apologize again was only going to make me feel like more of a fool. And really, if he was friends with Cathy Mathers, there was really no reason to be more than an acquaintance with me. Despite that, my subconscious was at work, and I fingered my