The Ranch

Chapter 9

Sam worked with Zoe for several hours the following week, to acquaint himself with her current patients. There were a number of them he knew from covering for her on the odd night, here and there. But when he read all the current files of her most acutely ill patients, he was stunned by how many she handled. She had roughly fifty terminally ill patients, and there were more arriving on her doorstep every day, and sometimes every night.

They were brought in by friends, or relatives, or just simply people who had heard about what she was doing. They were all very sick, some who had AIDS, and others who didn't. She took care of all of them, and Sam was particularly touched by the children. There were so many little ones with AIDS. It made you grateful for every healthy child you'd ever seen. Sam knew why Zoe was particularly appreciative of Jade. She was a truly remarkable baby, and wonderfully healthy.

“I can't believe the number of patients you see every day,” Sam commented late one afternoon, “it's inhuman. No wonder you're tired all the time.” It would have been so easy then to just tell him she had AIDS. But it wasn't his problem, or his business. She had already decided she wasn't going to make it anyone's burden but her own, for as long as she could do it. She was planning to save money for herself to put aside for medical care and treatment, for nursing care if it ever came to that. The only real problem she had was Jade, and what to do with her when she died. It seemed awful to be thinking like that, but Zoe knew she had to. Part of her was still resisting it, but another part had already accepted her fate. It seemed an incredible end to a bright career, and if she let herself, she could dwell on her bad luck and ill fate, but she really didn't want to do that. She just wanted to enjoy whatever time she had. And she knew she might have years, even a decade, it didn't happen often, but it happened to some that way, and she was going to do everything she could to ensure that it happened to her. The trip to Wyoming was part of that, the rest, the scenery, the altitude, the air, along with the comfort of seeing her old friend Tanya.

“What about this one?” Sam interrupted her reverie to hold out a file to her. It belonged to an extremely sick young man. He had already entered the last stages of AIDS dementia, and Zoe doubted that he would last much longer. He had put up a valiant fight for months, and there wasn't much she could do now, except make him comfortable, and console his lover. She visited him every day. She explained it all to Sam and he shook his head. Hers was the most unorthodox of all the practices he worked for, but it was also the most creative in terms of treatment, and he was deeply moved by her compassion. She seemed to leave no stone unturned in seeking out new antibiotics, medications, ways of treating infection and pain, and even unusual holistic treatments. She did anything she could to beat the disease, right till the bitter end, and to comfort the patient.

“One of these days we'll get lucky,” she said sadly. But not soon enough for all of them. Or even for herself now.

“I think they got lucky when they found you,” he said, looking at her with ever increasing admiration. He had always liked her so much, and he liked her even more now. She was everything a physician should be, and most weren't accessible personally but she was. He wondered if it had anything to do with the lover who had died of AIDS years before. He wondered if she had loved anyone since then, and guessed that she hadn't. Surely not Dick Franklin. Sam would have liked to be closer to her. She had always been very open with him, and very friendly, but he never felt there was any interest on her part in being more than friends and business associates and collaborating physicians.

And particularly lately she felt she couldn't allow herself to be close to anyone. She was very careful to put a safe distance between herself and the rest of the world, even Sam, whom she had known since med school. She didn't want to mislead him or anyone, to lead them on, or provide a come-on. She wanted to make it clear to everyone that she was not available as a woman, only as a doctor. It seemed the only fair way to handle her situation. She had even thought about buying herself a cheap wedding band, and she forced herself not to think of the lonely path she was taking.

But as they worked on the last of the files, Sam glanced at her again and wondered if he could ask her out to dinner. There was still plenty to talk about, and he was in no hurry to go home. “Can I talk you into something to eat while we finish up? I thought we could go out for pasta in the neighborhood or something. Any interest?” he asked, nearly holding his breath and feeling stupid for it. She made him feel like a kid sometimes, and he liked that. He liked everything about her. He always had. And over the years, he had come to admire her more, and like her better.

“That sounds fine,” she said with no clue at all that he found her even remotely attractive. She had wanted to take him out anyway, to thank him for giving her the opportunity to leave town and have a real vacation. She felt a little guilty leaving Jade, but he had promised he'd keep an eye on her too, and stop in and see her and the au pair when he left the office.

“You're really a full-service on-call doctor,” she teased as she slid into the booth in a little Italian restaurant in the Upper Haight. She had come here for years, and she liked it. It was quiet, and the food was good, and it was the first time she and Sam had sat down and talked to each other over dinner since med school. They laughed about how long it had been. Although their paths had crossed regularly over the past eighteen years, they'd never really had time alone together, they were always working.

They both ordered ravioli, and he offered her wine but she refused, and then they settled down to talk about work again. They were halfway through dinner when he looked at her with his boyish grin, and something warm and friendly in his eyes that made her feel surprisingly easy with him, more than ever.

“Don't you do anything but work?” he asked gently. He admired her, but he felt sorry for her too. She did so much for so many people, and he knew firsthand how draining it was. But there didn't seem to be anyone to do anything for her. And he couldn't imagine her deriving any real comfort from her relationship with Dick Franklin, or anyone like him.

“Not lately,” she answered him, “except for Jade.” And then he wondered about something.

“Have you ever been married?” He didn't think so, and he realized he'd been right when she shook her head.

“Never.” She didn't seem in the least bothered about it. She was comfortable with her life, and happy with her daughter. Her life seemed enormously fulfilling.

But Sam was curious about it. “Why not? If you don't mind my asking.”

She smiled. She didn't mind at all. Except for her illness, she had no secrets from him. “I never really wanted to, when I was young. And the only man I probably should have married died over ten years ago. He contracted AIDS from a transfusion. Thanks to him, I started the clinic. He was in research and he was brilliant. He had bypass surgery at forty-two, and eventually it killed him. He didn't live a year after the transfusion. I thought about going into research with him. I'd always been intrigued with unsolved mysteries, and remote diseases. And then AIDS came along, and I got caught up in the physical-care end of it and not the research.”

“It would have been a real loss to a lot of people if you'd done something different,” he said gently, and he meant it. She was a fantastic physician. He knew about the doctor who'd died too, but he'd heard about him from other people. And he watched her as she told him. She looked sad, but not devastated, and he sensed that she'd recovered, although she'd obviously never found anyone who meant as much to her. “Before AIDS, I was fairly involved in juvenile diabetes. In its own way, that's another scourge like this one, although it gets a lot less attention.”

“I've always been interested in it too. And I guess I'm a scavenger of sorts, I love visiting other people'd practices, picking up little bits and pieces of information, and solving problems, doing what I can, and then moving on. It probably sounds irresponsible, but I've never wanted my own practice. That just seems like a lot of paperwork and red tape, and issues that have nothing to do with medicine or patients. I like doing hands-on work, I don't want to waste time with contracts and insurance and worrying about property, and all the politics established doctors get involved with. Maybe I just haven't grown up yet. I keep waiting for it to happen, I keep thinking that one of these days I'll want to associate with a group of docs and join their office, but I never do. What I see of most of them turns me off completely, except on a rotating basis, the way I do it with you. This way, I get to do all the good stuff.”

She smiled at what he said. It was a little bit like the philosophy of emergency room doctors. They wanted to deal with the patients and not the paper or the overhead or the problems. But in her case she would have missed the long-term relationships she developed. “You remind me a little of the Lone Ranger,” she said, smiling,“… who was that masked man, Tonto?… My patients love you. You do a great job. And I can't really blame you for avoiding all the crap that goes with an ordinary practice. I've really missed not having partners, it's so much more work like this. But I also like not having the headaches, the arguments, the petty jealousies, and all the problems. When Adam died, he made it possible to set up the kind of clinic I wanted, and do it exactly the way I thought it should be. But it's still awfully hard not having adequate help, except on occasion.” She smiled at him again, and he found himself wondering again how involved she was with Dick Franklin, but he was afraid to ask her.

“Were you planning to marry Adam before he got sick?” He was curious about her, about them, about the baby she'd adopted and why, and why she seemed so comfortable alone. She was an intriguing woman.

“Not really. I think we might have eventually, but we didn't talk about it. He'd been married, and he had kids. And I was busy building up my practice as an internist. I was in a practice with two other docs then, but I left it when I set up the clinic. I never felt compelled to be married, or even to be with anyone indefinitely. We saw each other a lot, and we were very close, but we didn't live together actually until he was dying. I took three months off work and took care of him. It was very sad,” but she looked as though she had made her peace with it, She was serious, but not grieving. It had been a long time since he'd died and a lot had happened in the meantime. She still saw his children from time to time, but she hadn't been close to them, it was only after Jade was born that she actually understood the extraordinary joy of having children. He asked her about that too, and she told him how it had come about. Jade's mother had been nineteen years old, unmarried, and had no desire to keep the baby. And her family had refused to take her in when they discovered that the baby was Asian.

“She's the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” Zoe said simply. And then she turned the tables on him. “What about you?” She knew he'd been married briefly in Chicago. “What happened with your marriage?” They had lost track of each other during their residencies, and by the time he came back to San Francisco, his marriage was behind him and he said very little about it, and it was rare for Sam and Zoe to take a night off, just to talk, like this.

“The marriage lasted for two miserable years, while I was doing my residency,” he explained, looking thoughtful. “Poor kid, I never saw her. You know what that's like. She hated it. She said she'd never get involved with another doctor. But she was genetically doomed. Her father was a big thoracic surgeon in Grosse Pointe, her brother is a sports doctor in Chicago, and after me she wound up marrying a plastic surgeon. She has three kids and lives in Milwaukee, and I think she's very happy. I haven't seen her in years. And when I first came back to California, I lived with a woman for several years, but neither of us ever had any interest in getting married. We'd both had bad experiences before, and neither of us was ready. You remind me a little bit of her actually. She's kind of a saint like you. She had a real need to make a difference, and she was always pressuring me about it. In the end, she did what she had to do, and I stayed behind. She's a nurse-practitioner in a leper colony in Botswana.” Zoe vaguely remembered hearing about her, but it was before Sam had done locum tenens for her, and Zoe had never met her.

“Wow! That's serious.” Zoe looked at him, fascinated by what she was hearing. “And she couldn't talk you into joining her?” Zoe thought it sounded vaguely appealing, but Sam clearly didn't, as he shook his head, with a look of horror.

“Not on your life.” He grinned. “No matter how much I loved her. I hate snakes, I hate bugs, I was never in the Boy Scouts, and I think camping trips and sleeping bags are sheer torture. I was definitely not cut out for a life serving mankind in the jungle. I like my nice comfortable bed at night, a good meal, a warm restaurant, a glass of wine, and the wildest vegetation I want to see is in Golden Gate Park on a weekend. Rachel comes over here about once a year, and I'm still crazy about her, but we're just friends now. She lives with the head of the leper colony, and they have a baby. She loves Africa and she says I don't know what I'm missing.”

“By not having children, or by living here?” Zoe was laughing, but it was quite a story.

“Both. She says she'll never leave Africa. But you never know. The politics over there get pretty scary. It's definitely not for me. She's a great gal, and she did the right thing. She left five years ago, and I don't know, the time has just flown. I'm forty-six years old and I guess I've just forgotten to get married.”

“Me too,” she laughed at him, “my parents used to go crazy over it. They both died in the last few years, so there's no one to bug me about it anymore.” And now she knew she certainly wouldn't be getting married. But talking about his own life suddenly made Sam feel braver.

“What about Dr. Franklin?” He felt nervous asking her, but he was curious. And she definitely didn't put out vibes that said she was open to invitations. He wanted to know if it was because of Dick Franklin, or if there were other reasons, maybe even someone else he didn't know about. It was hard to believe that a woman like Zoe only cared about her practice and her baby.

“What about Dick?” Zoe asked, looking puzzled. “We're good friends, that's all. He's an interesting man,” she said kindly, but Sam was looking into her eyes for deeper meaning.

“You don't give much away, do you?” he said, and she laughed at him.

“What exactly do you want to know, Dr. Warner? How serious is it? It isn't. As a matter of fact, I'm not seeing him anymore. I'm not seeing anyone, and that's the way I intend to keep it.” There was something very firm about her voice as she said it that startled him. He couldn't figure out what she was saying. But there was a message there for anyone who chose to listen.

“Are you planning to go into a convent sometime soon?” he teased. “Or are you just going to freelance?” Looking at him, she suddenly had to laugh at herself. This was very new to her, and she realized she could have learned a lot from her patients. How did they manage it? What did they say? She knew that many of them told people they had AIDS before they began relationships, but she didn't want to do that either. She just wanted to keep to herself, and enjoy her life with Jade. It would have been different if there had been someone in her life when it happened, but since there wasn't, as far as she was concerned, the doors were closed now.

“I don't have time for a relationship,” she said simply, and he looked startled. The way she said it sounded so final, and seemed so unlike her. She was such a warm person, and it was such a waste to think of a woman like Zoe without a man in her life. It really bothered Sam.

“Are you telling me you've made a conscious decision to that effect, at your age?” He looked horrified by the prospect.

“More or less.” She was referring to the decision she'd made, but she didn't want to get into it with him, and they were getting onto dangerous ground, which she didn't want to happen. But he was ready to pursue the subject with her with dogged determination. “I can't give anything to anyone, Sam, I'm too involved in my practice, and with my daughter.” It was an excuse, but Sam felt certain that she meant it.

“Zoe, that's bullshit,” he said firmly, “you're wrong if you think you can't give anything to anyone. There's more to life than just devoting yourself to your work and your baby.” He wondered why she was so determined to stay alone, if she was still mourning her old flame, though he doubted it, since he knew she'd gone out with Dick Franklin. But why wouldn't she get involved with anyone? Why was she hiding? She couldn't be that obsessed with her child and her work, or was she? “You're too young to close the doors on a relationship in your life. Zoe,” he said firmly, “you have to rethink this.” He felt a sense of personal loss as he looked at her and realized that she meant it.

She smiled at him, but she was unmoved by what he had said so far. “You sound like my father. He used to tell me that overeducated women threaten men, and I was making a big mistake when I went to Stanford. College was okay, but medical school was pushing. He said that if I'd wanted to be in medicine, I should have gone to nursing school and saved him a lot of money.” She was laughing as she said it, and Sam shook his head. He knew about people like her. His whole family were doctors, including his mother.

“Well, you should have gone to nursing school, if becoming a doctor was going to make you come to a dumb decision like that one. Zoe, that's just plain stupid.” He wondered if she'd had a bad experience, been raped perhaps, or if Franklin had actually done something to upset her and it was still fresh, or maybe she was involved with someone secretly, maybe someone married. Or maybe she was just telling him, nicely, that she wasn't interested in him, but he hoped that wasn't the case either. Otherwise he just couldn't understand it, but she seemed very firm about it.

She turned the conversation then to other things, which frustrated him even more. He found that they had even more in common than he'd previously thought, people, plans, their shared views about medicine, and passion for all it represented. Worse yet, he realized that he was even more attracted to her than he'd previously suspected. She had a great sense of humor, and a quick mind. She had traveled extensively, and there was something wonderfully honest and genuine about her. She told things the way they were, analyzed situations very astutely, and as she talked about her patients to him, it was obvious how much she loved them. She was the first woman he had met in a long time that he was really crazy about and wanted desperately to go out with. He had been attracted to her for years, but he had always hesitated to do anything about it, and having dinner with her and talking to her about a variety of things had infatuated him with her completely. And she was even more tantalizing because she was so insistent that she had given up on having any relationship and she wouldn't even discuss it with him. He felt sure there was another reason, most likely an affair with someone she was protecting, and the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if it was someone married. But as far as he was concerned, she could have said that. In fact, everything in her life pointed to it, the fact that she had so much time available to spend on her work, that she had no desire to get married, she was obviously involved and didn't want to admit it. And he was very sorry to know that.

And as Zoe watched him as they ate, and afterward as they sat and drank cappuccino, she found that she liked him too. He was exactly what he had always seemed, a real teddy bear of a man, someone intelligent and kind, someone you could really count on. And he was as enamored as she was with her clinic. He thought it had been an incredible thing to do, an enormous undertaking, and he admired her a great deal for it.

“I think of all the practices I've seen, yours is the one I most enjoy, and most respect. I really like the way you handle your patients, particularly the home care.”

“That was the hardest part to set up actually, to find the right people that you could trust without monitoring them constantly. I watch them very closely, but they still have a lot of leeway. The patients take a lot of responsibility too, though.” Many of her patients’ lovers and families cared for them almost without professional assistance, until the very end when they were assisted by hospice groups. Dying of AIDS was not an easy business.

They talked again for a while then of what she wanted him to do while she was gone, and he smiled as he listened to her. He knew it was going to be hard for her to leave them, and he tried to reassure her that her patients would be in good hands with him, and she believed him.

“So tell me about Wyoming,” he asked genially over their second cup of cappuccino. But he noticed when it came that Zoe was looking exhausted. He had noticed several times recently how tired she looked, but he didn't think much about it. Her practice was so draining that it wasn't surprising she was pale, and it was only tonight that he also noticed a certain gauntness to her figure. She was obviously in serious need of a vacation, and he was glad for her that she was going, “Who are you going to Wyoming with? You're not going camping, are you.?” he asked, wishing for an insane moment that he were going with her.

She laughed at his question. “I don't think so. I'm actually going with an old friend, from college. She's an incredible woman, and I haven't seen her in a while, but she called the other day and invited me. At first, I turned her down, but when I felt so lousy, I decided to do it. But believe me, knowing my friend, it won't be camping. She's even more spoiled than I am.” Zoe was not a camping aficionado either, and never had been. Like Sam, she didn't like bugs, snakes, or creepy-crawlies. “She lives in L.A., and I'm sure we're going to the Hollywood ranch of all time, if she could find one.”

“Who is she?” he asked casually as the check came, and he opened his wallet. “Is she a physician?”

Zoe smiled before she answered. “Not exactly. She's a singer. We've been friends since school, and she's never changed, not that anyone would believe it. The media give her a bad break, it's really not fair.” She looked thoughtful as she said it. “I almost hate telling people who she is, they immediately leap to a million inaccurate conclusions.”

“I'm fascinated,” he said, looking straight at Zoe as the waitress took the check away with his money. He was so intrigued by her, by the deep green eyes, and everything he saw there. “So who is she?”

“Tanya Thomas,” Zoe said quietly. To her, it was just a name, to everyone else it was a lifetime of hype, a million lies, a golden voice, a thousand images they'd seen, she was the legend, and Sam had the usual reaction. His eyes widened, his mouth dropped, and then he laughed at his own reflexes and grinned, feeling sheepish.

“I don't believe it. You know her?”

“She was my best pal in college. We were roommates. I love her more than any other friend I've ever had,” she said quietly. “I don't see her enough, but whenever we can get together it's all still there. It's amazing, no matter what happens to either of us, nothing ever changes. She's a remarkable woman.”

“Wow! I'm impressed.” He couldn't help saying it, and he meant it. “I know that sounds dumb, but it always amazes me that someone knows people like that, that they hang out with them, that they sit around and eat pizza and drink coffee like the rest of us, and wash their hair and wear pajamas. It's pretty hard to think of them as real people.”

“She's suffered a lot from that. I gather she's getting divorced again. I think it would be impossible to have a normal life with the kind of pressures she lives with. She married a really nice guy when we got out of college, her high school sweetheart, but within a year, she hit it big, she had a gold record and a career, and I think it just blew her marriage. Poor Bobby Joe didn't know what hit him, and neither did Tanny. She married a real shit after that, her manager, and he ripped her off, predictably, and was pretty abusive to her. I think it was fairly typical for the milieu, but it was miserable for her. And three years ago she married some guy in L.A., I think he's a developer. I thought it was going to work, but now they're breaking up, and he won't let her take his kids to Wyoming, as planned, so she had this cabin at a dude ranch, and she asked me to go with her.” She made it all sound so ordinary that it amused him.

“Lucky you!” he said, and meant it. “What fun!”

“Yeah, seeing Tanny will be fun more than anything. Neither of us are that crazy about horses,” she laughed. “Actually, all I want to do is sleep for the whole week.”

“It might do you good,” he said, looking at her with concern, and then he looked at her oddly. “You're all right, Zoe, aren't you? You've been looking tired, and I know you weren't feeling great last week. I think you're really pushing.” He said it very gently, and what he said touched her deeply. She was so used to taking care of other people, that when anyone took care of her it surprised her.

“I'm fine. Honestly,” she said, but she wondered what he had seen. She wondered suddenly if she looked ill. She was tired, but she didn't look any different to herself when she looked in the mirror. She had no sores, no other signs. There were no indications that she had AIDS, and she knew there might not be for a long time, or there could be a lot of them at any moment. And her greatest risk was from infection. But she knew what she had to do to protect herself, and she was being careful. “You're sweet to ask,” she said, and was surprised when he reached across the table and took her hand. She hadn't expected him to do that.

“I care about you. I want to help you, but most of the time you're pretty stubborn.” The way he said it made her look into his eyes. They were dark brown, and infinitely gentle.

“Thank you, Sam…” Feeling a wave of emotion wash over her, she looked away from him, and then took away her hand a moment later. She knew more than ever that she couldn't let her guard down. No matter how kind and appealing he was, she couldn't let herself do it.

It had been so easy with Dick, when she went out with him. They were just friends, and if they took it a little further than that once in a while, there was no harm done. She had no illusions about how he felt about her. He just wanted a comfortable companion from time to time, someone to go to the theater with him, or the symphony, or the ballet, or an expensive dinner. But he wanted nothing more from her than she wanted to give. In fact, if she'd given him more than that, it would have scared him. Dick knew exactly how far he wanted to go with her, and he was always careful to keep his distance. And although she would have liked a serious relationship with someone, there hadn't really been anyone who'd appealed to her that way in years, and it was easier to avoid the cheap imitations. And now that her whole life had changed, it was such bad luck to discover that Sam Warner might have once been important to her. She had never realized how deep he was, how kind, how compassionate, how in tune with what she was doing. She had just thought of him as a good doctor, a good friend. And now she found that there was more to him, and to what she felt for him, and she had no right to explore it further. The door to that part of her life was closed forever. What could she possibly give anyone now? A few months? A few years? Even if it were five or ten, it wouldn't be fair to them. And through it all, there was always the remote but potential risk of illness for them. She had lived through all of that with Adam. She couldn't do that to anyone. And she had no intention of doing it to Sam. There was not a chance in the world that she was going to let him come any closer to her. They were colleagues and friends, and nothing more, and she absolutely would not let him come beyond her limits, and he sensed that. It made him sad as they left the restaurant. As much as he liked her, he could sense that she was pulling back from him. He didn't know why, but he didn't like it, and he sensed correctly that there was nothing he could do about it.

He looked at her for a long moment as they sat in his car outside the restaurant. “I had a great time tonight,” he said honestly, and she nodded.

“So did I, Sam.”

“And I want you to have a good time in Wyoming,” he said as he looked into her eyes, and she felt as though she could feel his thoughts and she didn't want to. She didn't want him to open his heart to her, or ask her to open hers, or worse yet have to tell him why she couldn't. As far as she was concerned, no one had the right to know that.

“Thank you for covering for me,” she said, and meant it. It was a relief to talk about their work and not their feelings. She sensed easily that she was on dangerous ground with him, and as she looked at him in his tweed jacket and gray turtleneck, she forced herself not to feel any attraction to him, but it wasn't easy.

“You know I'll cover for you anytime,” he said, still not starting the car. There was something he wanted to say to her, and he wasn't sure how to do it. “I want to talk to you when you come back,” he said, and she didn't dare ask him why. She was suddenly afraid that after all this time he was suddenly going to press her. It wasn't fair that it should happen now. It was just too bad they hadn't discovered their attraction for each other sooner. She had been completely blind to what he felt before, and even to the fact that he was actually very attractive. “I think some of what we said tonight deserves a little more conversation,” he said, sounding very definite and a little daunting.

“I'm not sure that's such a good idea,” she said quietly, slowly looking up at him. There was a lifetime of sorrows in her eyes, and it took all the strength he had not to put his arms around her, but he knew that for now at least it was not what she wanted. “There are some things best left unsaid, Sam.”

“I don't agree with you,” he said, his eyes boring into hers, begging her to listen. “You're a brave woman. I've seen you look death in the eye and defy it many times. You can't be cowardly about your own life.” It seemed odd to her that he should say that, and for a moment she panicked about what he was thinking. But she knew that he couldn't have discovered her secret. The lab results had had no name and had been numbered.

“I don't think I am cowardly about my own life,” she said sadly. “I've made some choices that are right for me, not out of cowardice, but out of wisdom.”

“That's bullshit,” he said, leaning frighteningly close to her, and she turned away from him and looked out the window.

“Sam, don't… I can't.” There were tears in her eyes, but he never saw them.

“Just tell me one thing,” he asked, staring straight ahead of him. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her, but out of respect for her and her crazy ideas, he didn't. “Is there someone else? Tell me honestly. I want to know.”

She hesitated for a long time. It was the perfect out. All she had to do was tell him that she was involved with someone else, but she was too honest to do that. She hadn't even bought the wedding band she had planned to. She shook her head as she looked back at him. “No, there isn't, but that doesn't change anything. You have to understand that. I can be your friend, Sam, but I can't give anyone more than that. It's just that simple.”

“I don't understand,” he said, trying not to look angry or as bereft as he felt. But he was so frustrated by what she was saying. “I'm not asking you to make a commitment to me. I'm just asking you to be open, that's all. If I don't appeal to you, if there's nothing there you'd want to explore further, then I understand, but you keep telling me that the door to that whole part of your life is closed, and I don't understand that. Is it the man who died? Are you still mourning him?” Ten years later that seemed unreasonable to him, but who was he to decide that? But she shook her head again as he watched her.

“No, it isn't. I made my peace with Adam's death a long time ago. Sam, trust me, let's be friends. Besides,” she smiled gently at him and touched his hand, “believe me, I'm hard to get along with.”

“You certainly are,” he said as he started the car. She had completely tantalized him, and he hadn't expected that. He had been attracted to her for years, but his feelings had always been in check, and had long since settled into an easy friendship. He had never expected to be completely bowled over by her, and then find that the door behind which she hid had been locked and sealed forever. The very thought of it drove him crazy. And as he drove her home, he kept glancing at her, she was so peaceful and beautiful, she seemed almost luminous as she sat there. She was like a young saint, and he knew just looking at her that she had a remarkable spirit. He kept trying to remind himself that you can't always have everything you want in life, but it seemed incredibly unfair when he thought about Zoe. And when they reached her house, he came around and opened the door for her, and she seemed almost waiflike as he helped her out, and her arm in his hand felt like a child's as he held it.

“Try to fatten up a little at the ranch,” he said with a look of concern, “you need it.”

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, looking up at him with tenderness in her eyes. She almost wished that things could have been different. “I had a wonderful time. You'll have to come and have dinner with Jade and me when I get back. I make a great hot dog.”

“Maybe I should take the two of you out to dinner.” He smiled, wishing he could pull her out from her fortress. He could sense more than anything else about her that she was hiding. He didn't know why, but he could see it in her eyes, and try as he might he couldn't reach her. But he had, more than he knew that night, so much so that she was frightened of him.

“I had a lovely time. Thanks, Sam.”

“So did I, Zoe… and I'm sorry if I pressed you.” He was afraid he might have driven her into hiding even further.

“It's all right. I understand.” She understood more than she wanted to, and she was flattered and touched but unmoved by it. Her own resolve was still stronger.

‘I'm not sure you do understand. I'm not sure I do,” he said sadly. “I've been wanting to do this for a long time. Since medical school actually. Maybe I just waited too long.” He looked unhappy as he stood there.

“Don't worry about it, Sam. It's all right,” she said, and patted his arm, and he walked her slowly to her door. And as they stood there he wished he could kiss her. He wasn't coming to the clinic the next day, but she knew she would see him again before she took off, and she took comfort in that. If nothing else, they could at least occasionally work together.

“I'll see you in a few days,” he said, and kissed the top of her head, and then as she opened the door, he ran swiftly down the steps back to his car, and then he stood there and watched her go in. She turned, and their eyes met for one last time, and then she waved and went inside. And a moment later, she heard his car drive away, and inside the car, he looked dazed by the power of what he was feeling. The evening had been nothing like what he'd expected. But neither was Zoe. And despite all he felt for her, and their old friendship, more than ever, she was a mystery to him.