He heard her weight shift as she leaned forward and was ready for it when she flung her chubby arms around him in a strangler’s grip. “Thanks so much!” she whispered fiercely. “Thank you!”

“Mrs. Dane, I didn’t do anything.” He gently extricated himself from her grip. “Go home and thank your husband.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Now she was brighter in his mind’s eye, glowing with embarrassment. “I read somewhere that blind people don’t like it when their balance is thrown off.”

“Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t throw off my balance,” Not without a truck. “Don’t forget to fill this on the way home,” he added. He could write perfectly well, which was to say, his prescriptions didn’t look any less legible than a seeing doctor’s.

“Right. Right!” She bounded off the table, nearly careened into the closed door, and left without her clothes. The gown flapped once as the door closed behind her.

“I don’t think they’ll let you in the pharmacy dressed like that,” he called after her.

“I’m just saying you should think about it,” his nurse, Barb Robinson, argued. “I hate the thought of you going home to an empty house every night. And it would—you know. Be helpful.”

“Put a harness around a dog and expect it to lead me around all day?” He tried not to sound as aghast as he felt. “That’s awful!”

“Drake, be reasonable. You get around fine, but you’re not a kid anymore.”

“Meaning since I’m looking at the big four-o it’s time to check out nursing home brochures?”

Barb’s scent shifted—it had been lemony and intense before, because while she was embarrassed to broach the subject, she was also determined. Now, as she got annoyed, it intensified until she damned near smelled like mouthwash.

“Very funny,” she snapped. “Pride’s one thing. Your safety is another. For crying out loud, you don’t even use your cane most of the time.”

“Will it get you off my back if I start lugging the stick around?”

“Yes,” she said promptly.

Oh, for God’s sake. “Fine. You may now refer to me as Dr. Stick.”

“It’s just that I don’t want you to get hurt, is all,” she persisted. “You bugged me about moving to a safer neighborhood.”

“Repeatedly?”

“Oh, hush up. And you’d better get going—isn’t tonight another one of your big nights out?”

You could say that. “It is indeed.”

“Well…maybe you should take it easy. You look kind of worn out today.”

“I was up late,” he said shortly. “Give me the damned cane.”

He heard her rummaging around beneath the counter and then she tapped the floor in front of him. He snatched it out of her hand. “There, satisfied?”

“For now.”

“Also, you’re fired.”

“Ha!”