He sighs. “Mebbe. But what, you’re gonna get in your little red city slicker car and drive out to my homestead? I’m fifteen minutes in a four-by-four to the closest electrical grid. Your little car wouldn’t make it a quarter of the way to where I am, lady.”

My car being the only one outside the clinic, it’s obvious it’s mine, I suppose. And for someone like Mr. Crenshaw, it says everything he thinks he needs to know about me.

“You’d be surprised the kinds of roads my little Audi can handle. It has world-class all-wheel drive, as a matter of fact.”

A snort. “There’s ruts your car could disappear into, and that’s just my driveway.”

“My husband has a pickup, if you must know.” I smile at him. “I already have a handful of clients for whom I do house calls. Once a quarter, meaning every three months, I will come to where you live with antibiotics and vaccines and painkillers—a veritable pharmacy, as well as a whole medical kit. And I’ll treat you, and your whole family.”

“And charge a mint for it too, I bet.”

“I’ve been known to accept value in trade.” I widen my grin. “Eggs, sides of ham, quarters of beef, bushels of fruit and vegetables, things like that.”

He blinks. “Bullshit.”

“Not a word of it, Mr. Crenshaw. I’m taking night classes to get my MD, at which point the name on the outside of this facility, and on the side of my husband’s truck, will be ‘Nadia Fischer, MD, Country Medicine,’ which means I’ll be practicing medicine the way it has been done out in the country for…well, a long time.”

“Why in th’damn-hell would you do a fool thing like that? Ain’t gonna make no damn money that-a way.”

“Because it’s a need which I can fill, and I don’t need money. I’m…independently wealthy, Mr. Crenshaw. I do this because I love practicing medicine. And more than that, I love being a doctor—even if I don’t yet have the official MD after my name yet—to the kind, wonderful folks who live out here, where I live. I do it because I can, and because I want to. I accept value in trade because my clients may not have much by way of money, but they do have pride, and they make a living off the land. And while I may not need money, I do need to eat.”

He eyes me, and I can see his estimation of me rising. “Guess mebbe when I assumed you was a stuck-up city girl, I was wrong.”

“I guess maybe that’s true.” I pat his shoulder. ”Now, sit tight. I need to calculate the dosage for your antibiotics, and get them mixed up. You are very lucky, Mr. Crenshaw, that your wife coerced you into coming out here when she did, or you would have been too far gone for me to be able to do you any good, and then you would be doomed to a lengthy and expensive stay in the hospital.”