Sierra shook her head over her coffee cup. “He ended up getting suspended and brought up in front of the hospital review board. And now it’s looking like they’re going to kick him out of the residency program. A few of us were even thinking about getting an investigation launched into your complete disappearance right before you called out of the blue. You’ve never seen so many people relieved that a bride actually did run off from her own wedding with a biker dude. All of us in the ER was like, thank goodness Mimi got away before he had the chance to show his true colors.”

She stopped when she saw the look on my face.

“Mimi, no…” Her expression crumpled with pity. “Is that why you said no at the altar?”

I nod. But then I admit to both her and myself, “And also because I saw Waylon standing in the balcony. I’d drunk so much Kool-Aid about what my dream life was supposed to look like that I might have forced myself to go through with it if not for him showing up.”

I told her everything that had happened with Jonathan, then said, “I’m sorry for not telling you before the wedding.”

“No, I get it!” she said, reaching out to take my hands. “I’m just glad Waylon showed up for you! But um…”

Now it was her turn to wince. “What do you want me to tell everyone back at work? I mean, this isn’t gossip. This is real shit that happened to you.”

I loved Sierra before, but that question ratcheted our friendship from work to lifelong in an instant. “Could you just tell them I’m happy and thriving, so they don’t worry and leave out the rest?”

“Oh, most definitely,” Sierra agreed with another admiring look around the dream house Waylon built for me. “I mean, this is the real dream, isn’t it?”

“Better than the dream,” I answered, squeezing her hands back. “Better than anything I ever could have imagined.”

Sierra agreed with me…..for the first couple of days of her vacation. But then she got bored.

“Seriously, you two just go to work and sit in the house all day?” she asked on Day 2. “What do you do for fun?”

And she didn't consider coming up with new ideas for the clinic, spending time with Waylon, and peacefully looking out over what everyone in town called Dr. Amira’s pond a good enough answer.

So that was how we ended up taking her to the compound and showing her around its collection of manufactured houses and RVs.

She immediately perked up when the tour ended with the raucous clubhouse, which played everything from Latin hip hop to country to trap music.