The Dr. Tam Journals – Part 15 – Those Left Behind

Kaylee’s mind drifted as she and Simon held each other on their bed. She pondered on the things to come and the things from the past. Jubal Early was dead, of that they were sure, and they were headed to Boros and that was for sure also. What would come on Boros she had no idea and it was like stepping off into the unknown. She had only done that once in her life, when she ran to catch a space worn old Firefly, it’s engines already glowing, ready to take off, barely having time to say goodbye to her parents or pack the few things she owned.

This time was different in many ways. She was married for one thing and for another her husband was a wanted man. Kaylee had thought on that before she married Simon, had thought on it long and hard, knew what was in store. At least she thought she had. She thought they would live on Serenity for some time but it had only been a little over two months since the wedding. Now they were about to enter a new phase in their life and Kaylee felt like the ground was shifting under her feet and would not settled for some time to come, if it ever did.

A long time later they arose and began to finish packing. Simon found a spot for the medical supplies they needed, including the medicine he gave to River every day. Thankfully, Jayne and Zoe had been able to find what he needed for River and Simon had used his own money to buy it. Simon worried over whether they would be able to find a supply on Boros or not but that was a bridge they wouldn’t have to cross for many months. Kaylee left the bedding and a few items of clothing out, plus their toiletries. They had one more night, and maybe even two, left on Serenity. One thing left on the desk was the journal. Simon sat in the chair and opened it and picked up his pen. He began flipping through it till he came to the last entry.

“Going to write?” she asked, looking up from packing some things, a bit surprised because he hadn’t written anything new for almost a week now.

“Yes. Bit of catching up to do. Lots of drama. What happened with you and the journal, the problems with Jayne’s shoulder and Jayne himself, the drunken party, in which I took no part, the blossoming of …something…between the captain and Inara, our decision to leave Serenity, and the…Alliance..”

“Still looking for us,” Kaylee finished in a quiet voice, as she stood and touched his shoulder.

“Sorry. Didn’t want to drag…” he started but Kaylee quickly cut him off, her voice betraying her irritation with his continual harping on this theme.

“Stop. Right there. You keep saying that and it’s time to stop. Your troubles are mind. I took that wedding vow and all that went with it, good and bad, for better and worse, sickness and health and all that.”

He was quiet for a moment, not looking at her. “I’ll never mention it again.”

“Sorry. Just time we faced the fact that we three are in this together.”

He turned and looked up at her, touched her hand that was on his shoulder. “Life isn’t going to be easy on Boros.”

“We’ll get by,” she said in a gentler voice. “Township needs medical professionals. That’s what you are. And then some. Bet they need a good mechanic, too”

He smiled. “You’re always so optimistic. What will River do?

“Said she wants to dance or go to school,” Kaylee replied

“Might have to stay secluded for a while. People might recognize us.”

Kaylee sat on the bed and turned Simon toward her. “I got something to ask you, might not like it much.”

“You know you can tell me anything.”

She pursed her lips together and looked at him steadily. “I think we might need to change our names.”

He clearly wasn’t ready for this. “Change our names?” Simon said in a soft voice, as he seemed to ponder her idea, but then slowly he began to shake his head. “Kaylee, I think it’s a wise idea, and might work for a while, but one I’m not prepared to do. We wanted to make this move to have freedom, but by telling lies, which both of us are terrible at, we’ll have less freedom. If, when, we find a place to settle on Boros or elsewhere, we need to build up some trust with people. If they discover we are using false names we will destroy that trust. And don’t forget our pictures, Kaylee, what about mine and River’s pictures? There everywhere and on the Cortex. There may not be much Alliance presence on Boros but at least some local policeman will have them. And what would we tell our children, and our children’s children, God willing we have both? How long will the lies last? No, we will not give up the names our parents gave us.”

He said it with such determination that Kaylee could only nod. “Guess what you said makes sense. Just so worried…about what’s gonna happen.”

He held her hands. “I know. So am I.”

Kaylee’s shoulder’s sagged in frustration. “Oh, God, it’s too complicated. Can’t change our names, your pictures on the Cortex and on posters, people willing to turn you in for money, and no one to help us. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Simon said with equal frustration weighing down on him. “We wait till we see what happens when Mal talks to this man. Once again we are dependent on the captain to help us.”

Kaylee looked at the suitcases and the big black cargo container that filled most of the space of their room. “I think we packed a bit too soon.”

*******************************************************

The first half of the trip to Boros was relatively uneventful. Mal kept ship’s time in sync with the time they left Persephone so it was afternoon when they left. After they cleared the traffic around Persephone and its moons they set the auto pilot on and the course headings were entered into the nav system.

River then immediately went to get her sketch book and pencils and cornered a reluctant Mal into having his picture drawn. River insisted on him wearing his gun belt and long brown coat, pistol drawn in a dramatic poise on the cargo bay deck. Zoe, Kaylee, and Inara stood by cracking jokes and trying to get Mal to laugh as River sketched him as fast as she could before his patience worn thin. Kaylee felt much better than she had earlier when she and Simon fretted on what was to come. The rest of the crew seemed more light-hearted than earlier too and being out in the black, far from prying eyes and Alliance feds made everyone feel much better. Sometimes Kaylee wished they could float through the black forever.

After River finished Mal, to his great relief, she dragged Inara to her shuttle for her sketch. Mal tried to enter but Inara shut the door, saying she wanted to have a more “private” modeling session.

While all this was going on Simon finally got around to taking the stitches out of Jayne’s shoulder. Kaylee entered the infirmary just as they were finishing up, hearing Simon getting Jayne to promise not to do any heavy lifting for at least two more days. Jayne growled a reluctant consent under his breath.

Kaylee helped Simon put away his instruments and then she had left Simon alone to do some writing in the journal. She wandered through the ship, looking at every part, every bolt, and weld, smelling the different rooms and spaces, remembering all that had happened. Each place had a memory, many good, and some bad. The times they had together, the fun, the laughter, the love they shared, coupled with the pain, the loss, the anger, the hurt and fear of their many scrapes with the law and assorted criminals. And Reavers. She lingered for a long time in her old bunk, where she had lived most of four years. Kaylee sat on her old bed and then lay down, recalling the times she and Simon had lay here together, the few that there were before moving in together in the passenger dorm.

As she wandered through the ship she ran into her companions and had a few words with each, not lingering long, just enjoying her little trip down memory lane. She ran into River as she left Inara’s shuttle and River gave her a sneak peek at the sketch she did of Inara. Kaylee’s eyes almost popped out as she saw it was a full nude. Inara wanted to give it to the Capt’n as a surprise gift, maybe for his birthday, which wasn’t far off. Kaylee couldn’t help but admire River’s skill at capturing the essence of Inara’s beauty, and a beauty she was indeed.

In the engine room she sat on her hammock for a spell, looking at the engine, worried over which part was worn out and what could go wrong, thinking on what else she should tell the Capt’n and any new mechanic he could find. The power settings were almost full out, the Capt’n wanting to put as much distance between them and Persephone as fast as possible. Kaylee got up and began tinkering, adjusting this, wiping that.

“Hi,” said Simon. “Going to miss this room the most, aren’t you?”

She was her knees with a wrench in her hand and just nodded. “Yup. My favorite place.”

He sat on the hammock. “I finished with the journal. If you want to read more, I mean.”

Kaylee put down the wrench and wiped her hands on a rag, stood and sat with him. “What did you write?”

“Oh, just about how my wife was so nosy, sneaking around my private papers,” he teased and she punched him in the arm. “Hey!”

“Nosy wife! You asked me to read it!” she said.

“After you had already started,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, but you didn’t know that.”

“True enough. Anyway, don’t read ahead, it’ll ruin the story for you.”

“Right, a story I already know most of.”

After a few more minutes chitchat Kaylee went off downstairs to wash her hands and change her clothes as Simon went to get some coffee and tea. As she emerged from their room Simon was sitting in the passenger lounge, his coffee cup and her tea cup on the table. He had his copy of “The History of the Earth That Was Travelers” which Kaylee had bought for him so long ago. He was curious about who first settled Boros and anything else there was about its history. Kaylee gave him a quick peck on the cheek and went off to read more of the journal. The red leather bound journal was on the desk, pen on top. Kaylee opened it and resisted the urge to read what he had just written. She took a sip of tea, put down her cup and found the place where she had left on. Oh yes. Simon the Terrible Patient.

“I have been laying in bed for three days now, my thigh throbbing incessantly. I’ve taken only a mild pain killer, not wanting to be under the influence of any drugs if my services are required. All this inactivity is making me even crazier than the dull pain and I’m on the verge of a rebellion against my caretakers. I’m a terrible patient and I don’t know where Kaylee and River have found the patience to put up with me. They take turns looking in on me and making sure I’m not trying to get out of bed or walk on my leg yet.”

He had been so cranky those days! River and Kaylee took him his meals and helped him to the washroom. He refused to let them any further than the door and once he stumbled and fell with a few choice curse words emitting. Kaylee entered and found him face down and helped a very embarrassed Simon to his feet and back to bed. After three days Kaylee and River allowed him to walk about and he began to be less cranky and within two weeks the wound had healed almost completely.

Kaylee knew all about being a patient, her own forced confinement coming after being shot by Dobson. After getting away from the Reavers on Whitefall, Kaylee had been sitting on the engine room floor when she noticed she was bleeding again. Simon had Jayne and the Capt’n fetch a stretcher and carry her more gently down the stairs to the infirmary, where he fixed her stitching. Later they moved her to a passenger dorm room. Kaylee had lay there for almost a week, unable to move much, a dull throb in her stomach, despite the pain killers. Simon kept her on an IV for two days, since the bullet had nicked her large intestine and he feared an infection if she ate anything. Finally he allowed her to have solid food and Kaylee was never so grateful to eat a disgusting protein bar in her life.

“Thankfully the bullet wound was shallow and hit no bone. Mal believes Early’s gun was designed to fire a bullet at a low velocity to avoid killing his targets if they were wanted alive. Otherwise there is no real reason why a bullet fired at such close range hadn’t penetrated my leg completely.”

Jayne had teased him about his leg wound being nothing but a “scratch” but Kaylee could tell that Jayne, Mal, and Zoe seemed to show a little more respect for Simon, now that he had joined their “club” of wounded warriors, especially since he had been shot in “combat”, meaning his fight with Jubal Early. Kaylee and Book were also members of the wounded by gunfire club but they had been shot by accident, getting in the way of a bullet, so it wasn’t quite the same.

The next few pages of the journal were filled with scattered dates as not much of consequence happened. Simon mentioned the trip to New Melbourne and the fish cargo run, a few comments about River and herself, all good of course, and more about the tension between the Capt’ and Inara, the reason for which finally came out in the open.

“The truth behind the more than usual tension between the captain and Inara has finally been revealed. She is planning to leave Serenity and go to a training house for Companions, where she will take up duties as an instructor. Kaylee’s instincts about the love between Mal and Inara are possibly valid. As Inara gathered us in the dining area and explained what she was doing, Mal just walked away, unable to hear it. Among us only River was unsurprised and Kaylee was shattered by the news her friend was leaving.”

More shattered by the fact that Inara had not told her sooner, Kaylee remembered. She didn’t even know what to say to Inara. Book had also been at a loss for words. He hid his feelings well, but Kaylee knew he had been close to Inara too, Inara being the only one on board who he could turn to for counsel, while the rest of the crew depended on him. Change was coming, Kaylee had felt at the time, but how much she could never have imagined in her worst nightmares.

“Our resources of money have dwindled these last days. The fish cargo from New Melbourne has been our last real successful cargo run in several weeks. Unfortunately, we have once again been reduced to doing the bidding of criminal overlords. The captain got word of a bank full of money in a town called Constance on a moon of Persephone. We landed and Mal convinced the Shepherd to play the role of a diversion by asking the town folk if they cared for a service. Book was reluctant but as we were in desperate straights he agreed, making the captain promise there would be no shooting. He assured Book there wouldn’t as it was a Sunday and the bank was closed. That promise he could not keep, as another band happened on Mal, Zoe, and Jayne just as they relieved the bank vault of its contents.”

“I do not know all the details of what happened next but Jayne received a stab wound in the right shoulder and all three had mild concussive after effects from a grenade going off in a confined space, namely the bank vault. Mal is also quite put out as his favorite pistol was taken from him by the criminal band. Thieves stealing from thieves. A bit of poetic justice I would say if the loss of that money hadn’t made us so desperate we were forced to take a job that almost saw the end of us. Again.”

The other gang, run by fella name of Ott, had been there, how, Kaylee never did find out, but they had lost the money and that was not good. That they managed to escape had been the result of Shepherd Book coming to their rescue. Now that was irony for you, a Shepherd rescuing a gang of thieves.

“Book managed to commandeer a vehicle and he picked up our crewmates and headed to a rendezvous with Serenity. The town’s folk were in hot pursuit and a shoot out was underway when we arrived. Kaylee and Wash came up with a brilliant but dangerous plan to stop the pursuit. Wash noticed a water tower hanging over the road the vehicles would have to take and we used the tower to block the road. But first Kaylee had to hang out the front bomb bay cargo doors to attact a cable to the tower. It was in a part of the ship I had never been in before, under the crew’s quarters and just below the bridge. Kaylee said it was another smuggling space. We went under the floor by the crew’s quarters and crawled forward. Then we came to a small space where we could stand up. There was a winch and a harness there and I suspect this was not the first time they had done something like this. I strapped her into the harness, made sure she was secure, and then lowered her by winch to the tower. She had to quickly instruct me on the winch controls and I was afraid to make a mistake but it went well.”

Went well, indeed. Kaylee had made like a kite, as Wash had said, and it had been both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. She knew the winch cable was strong and the harness secure and hanging out the ship high over the ground would have been fun if it hadn’t been for the imminent danger approaching. The best part of the whole thing was having Simon pull her back up into the ship, her body in his strong grasp, his muscles like steel as she felt his arms and shoulders flexing to pull her in. For a few brief moments she was closer to him than at anytime since they had passed out together in the bar on Canton.

“The water tower collapsed as Serenity rose and the water sent the pursuers for a swim. We saved our gang once again and took off immediately. I tended to Jayne’s shoulder wound, which was not too bad, and only required a few stitches. Our lack of success at this venture did not sit well with the crew and the lack of money was weighting heavily on our minds. Shepherd Book was in a foul mood and the need for him to commit a crime to help the crew is weighing heavily on him now. We next landed on Persephone, in search of work, and also because Mal had suspicions Badger was responsible for sending the other crew.”

Hardly any money, barely enough for some fuel and nothing for nothing else. They had been getting to the end of their rope and possibly some would walk away soon if there was no pay to be had. The Lassiter was still there but no one would touch it. On the drift was where they had been heading. And then it got worse, much worse. Badger showed up and sent them to the battle of Sturges.

“I have seen the remains of a space battle and it is not a pleasant sight. Derelict ships adrift in orbit around the moon of Sturges, bodies floating through space, all trapped by gravity, eventually to fall into the thin atmo of Sturges and burn up. Badger sent us there all for nothing as it was a trap to kill the captain and to let the hands of blue take River away. Badger had approached us at the docks on Persephone and, after dealing with his henchmen in a very permanent manner, we grabbed his scruffy neck and took him for a long flight into the countryside.”

Simon made it sound so non-descript, “in a very permanent manner”, when in fact they, meaning Jayne and Zoe and the Capt’n, had killed those four men on the cargo bay ramp. Kaylee had been shocked to say the least and the gunfire in the confined space reminded her of the Skyplex battle. Jayne grabbed Badger by the neck and tossed him on board and Wash got Serenity into the air before anyone decided to see what all the gunfire was about. Along the way they opened the cargo bay ramp and let those bodies drop into a lake.

“Badger squirmed like the weasel he is and denied turning the other gang onto our score at Constance.”

Gosh, Simon sounded just like a crook in some ways - “squirmed, “weasel” “gang” “score”. Gonna take some time to civilize him again.

“Mal seemed all ready to kill him and I know Jayne was eager for the chance when Badger hit us with the reason he came calling. He claimed there was a cargo of money on one of the derelict ships at Sturges and he knew exactly where it was. To our surprise the captain took his word for it and made plans to head for Sturges after dropping Badger off far from home. I think we will some day regret not having dealt with him as Jayne wanted. For Sturges was a trap set up between Badger and a man we had all thought dead, Laurence Dobson.”

It had been at trap all right and Badger had sent them there. How he knew Dobson and when they had planned this was unknown to the crew. They thought they had been rid of Dobson for good but somehow he had survived being shot in the face and left for dead on Whitefall and had been planning revenge. Later when the Capt’n told her about Dobson, her blood had run cold and she was glad when he said that the ex-lawman was certainly dead now. As for Badger, what Simon had written had now come true. Badger knew who Simon and River were and was actively seeking them for the reward. Kaylee would like to kill him herself if she ever laid eyes on him. Maybe.

“Just before we left Persephone the captain put the plan to the crew. Inara was quite upset that her trip to the training house was delayed once again. Shepherd Book’s increasing moodiness and dislike for Mal came to the fore and in a heated exchanged he struck the captain. The astonishment this caused cannot be overstated enough. We knew the Shepherd was skilled with his fists and at arms, but I had never expected him to hit the captain. What was even more amazing was that Reynolds took it in stride and did not strike back. I can only surmise that somewhere deep in his psyche is a reservation against hitting men of God.”

Shepherd hitting the Capt’n was a painful memory for Kaylee as that was the first sign that the crew was breaking up. Weren’t more than a few weeks later that both Inara and the Shepherd were gone.

“We arrived at the battlefield, or I guess space field, of Sturges a half a day later. As Mal, Jayne, and Zoe took a space walk to the coordinates Badger had given them for the derelict ship and were confronted by Dobson and his henchmen, we had plenty of trouble of our own on Serenity. I discovered the medicine cabinet had been broken into, by River it turned out. She had cut herself in the process so I followed the blood to her room and found her with several bottles of pills and a hypodermic she had just injected into herself. My mind boggled at what she had done, but she had sensed the trouble to come and tried to dull the pain she knew would happen. The hands of blue, government agents, whatever they were, had been waiting in ambush for us and had attached their ship to Serenity’s bottom and tried to breach the airlock. They were coming for River and she didn’t want to feel what they were going to do to her and to us. Believing something terrible was going to happen that she could not stop or prevent, she had chosen to drug herself into senselessness to dull the pain to come. I guess I’ll never really know or can imagine all that she has suffered a the hands of those people”

Poor River!

“In her drug induced state, River cryptically alluded that something was wrong with Serenity so I asked Kaylee to check it out, just as a precaution. One never knows how true or not River’s sayings are, but I’ve come to trust her now on most things, and one can never go wrong when choosing the cautious path. As Kaylee opened the bomb bay doors to check things out, to our astonishment a large man in a black suit with hands of blue grabbed her by the throat and flung her like a doll to the cargo bay floor. As he stood over her I grabbed Jayne’s barbell and smashed him over the head, dropping him to the floor of the bomb bay. Kaylee quickly leaped to her feet and shut the doors and then a struggled ensued as the men tried to enter in various ways and Kaylee kept closing the doors. Then we heard a cutting torch being lit and we knew it wouldn’t be long.”

There it was, Simon had saved her life. Again. She had been paralyzed with fear, a man just appearing like…Early…from nowhere, on her ship, and was attacking her. Then she saw his hands and knew all that River had said was true about the hands of blue. They were after her. Simon’s yell for her to close the doors brought her back to reality and then the struggle began as she re-routed and re-set the door controls and then was on the verge of just ripping them out when they heard the torch. Then there was the reassuring voice of Shepherd Book at her side, telling her to run to Inara’s shuttle if they got through. She wouldn’t though, couldn’t just leave him and Simon to fight them. But thankfully that hadn’t come to pass.

“Wash piloted us through a mass of wrecks and finally managed to scrap their ship off our bottom. The sound of the torch stopped and we knew they could feel the ship moving and were probably alarmed. We felt a large bump and heard a loud thunk and then the sound of metal scrapping on metal. Meanwhile the others had their own adventure. Dobson and his gang had waited at the coordinates Badger had given us in order to ambush Mal. Once again Mal, Jayne and Zoe’s skills at combat have come to the fore and they killed all of their assailants without getting a scratch.”

And Dobson was dead, finally and completely.

“Unfortunately we are again broke as there was not a drop of money in the place. The words used by Jayne and Zoe to describe Badger and his treachery would make the ears of the craggiest most foul-mouthed space pirate turn crimson in uncomfortable embarrassment. Badger had best lie lower that the snake’s belly he is if is to reach his retirement in one piece.”

Kaylee and the others had been thankful no one was hurt but still it would have been nice to have gotten paid. However, even bigger problems were shortly after thrust upon the little space band as Inara and Book soon left the ship. It had been heartbreaking saying goodbye to Inara. Kaylee and River had helped her pack and Kaylee took some vid captures in her shuttle before Inara took down all her silk and satin sheets and curtains. Every time Kaylee had entered the Companion’s shuttle she had forgotten that it was just a plain old shuttle, the decorations so elegant and the feeling of the place so sensual.

“Today we said goodbye to Inara. Kaylee and River took it hard, both of them being very close to her. Inara is almost like a sister to Kaylee and many times Inara has been my savior in taking care of my little sister. We shall all miss her a great deal but I think Mal will miss her the most. He could barely summon the courage to look her in the eye to say goodbye. There is more than a bit of truth to what Kaylee has said about those two.”

Of course there was! Men just didn’t know when a woman was interested in them. Simon was the worst for that. Almost a year it took him to do anything about it and then only when he thought he was about to die!

“We’ve had a bit of luck recently for a change. A few small legitimate jobs have come our way and on one of these the captain made a contact that had heard we had the Lassiter. It may or may not happen but soon we may be rid of this artifact that everyone claims is priceless. I’d just as soon trade it for a full fuel load or a week’s worth of food, for all the good it has brought us so far. At least with my Ariel plan we had something people could use and wanted badly.”

What was that!?! He’s comparing his caper with the Lassiter job! My, her criminal master mind husband had been getting a swell head about his skills at crime. He pulls one job, however successful it turned out, and he thinks he knows it all. She’d have to tease him about that later for sure.

“Another day and another sad goodbye. We landed at a mining colony on Haven, a place that the captain and crew had been before, to drop off some supplies and workers. Book decided that Haven was what he was looking for. The folks here sure were glad to have him stay because they had been without a man of the cloth for many months since their last preacher had passed on. Again we had some sad goodbyes and I even thought tough Jayne was going to crack his veneer of steel and actually hug the Shepherd but a stiff handshake was all that passed between the two men. I know now that Jayne will miss him more than the rest. Book apologized to Mal for striking him but the captain shrugged it off, saying he probable deserved it. Now we are seven and seven is a lucky number I hope.”

Seven they were and now they were seven again. Soon to be four. Maybe.

Simon came in to see her after a little while and they talked on what she had read, with Kaylee giving him a hard time about his complaining about the Lassiter and his own criminal skills. He took her teasing well and gave her some information he found out about Boros from his readings and the Cortex. A little later Simon and Kaylee decided to find River and talk things over with her. She was busy on the bridge, adjusting their nav coordinates so Kaylee and Simon went to the dining room to help Zoe prepare dinner. Mal entered a short while later and asked Kaylee and Simon to sit with him and Zoe at the table.

“Have you on Boros in the morning by River’s calculations,” he said.

“Capt’n, what’s the plan when we get to Boros?” Kaylee asked.

“We’ll land aways from the town, take the Mule in and see the man, ask a few question, get the lay of the land,” he replied.

“I’d like to come with you,” said Simon.

Zoe frowned. “Bad idea.”

“I agree,” Mal stated. “Simon, you and River stay aboard. Don’t know who knows about you or doesn’t. Boros is backwater but it ain’t the far rim.”

Simon protested. “I’ll have to meet this Beauregard eventually.”

Mal shook his head no. “Not till I know what’s his game is these days. Kaylee can come with me and Zoe and she’ll fill you in when we get back.”

Simon saw the sense of what they were saying and agreed without anymore fuss. Dinner was excellent and the talk was about the next day's plans. Kaylee fretted over many things but kept most of it to herself. So much uncertainty lay ahead that it felt like she was jumping off a high place without knowing what was below.

A long time later, after they set the ship for the night, Kaylee and Simon lay in bed and discussed the morning to come.

“Can you take a vid with you and get some pictures of the town?” Simon asked as they snuggled in each others arms.

“Sure. Just…how am I…we ...gonna approach him about getting a job. I mean for you, as a doctor.” Her voice was full of worry and uncertainty.

“Don’t know,” Simon replied. “Guess Mal can bring it up. Maybe these folks just be happy to have a doctor, not care where he’s from or what price is on his head.”

“I hope so but I fear it's wishful thinking.”

Simon nuzzled her neck. “Kaylee, my love, what can I do to take your mind off these fears?”

She purred and her spine tingled with anticipation as she felt his lips caress her neck. “Mmmm, that’s a start. Try harder. I’m full of anxiety that I need to be rid of.”

His hand moved up her legs and under the silk nightdress as his lips found hers and his hand began to turn her into quivering jelly. “Oh, doctor, you know just the right medicine for this patient,” she murmured in a voice heavy with lust and Kaylee’s fears and worries disappeared for a short while as she enjoyed blissful union with the man she loved.