Lana:

How could I be such a fool?

As I drive down the curvy country roads, tears form in my eyes, blurring my vision. I’ve always been careful. I haven’t dated much, but I’ve always been cautious enough to Google every guy I’ve gone out with.

I broke all my rules with Declan and Blake.

At the start, I told myself it was because it was a vacation fling.

I drive faster than the speed limit, my rental car hugging the road. It’s a lovely summer day. The sky is blue and cloudless, the sun shines down, the fields are green, but I notice none of it.

I’m so fucking naive. There I was, thinking I’d stumbled on every woman’s fantasy. Not one perfect guy but two. There I was, wondering if our relationship could last past my vacation.

You stupid idiot, Lana.

All the while, it turns out that the guys I’m sleeping with are the two sleazy doctors who are happy to jill off any woman in sight. Ugh. I feel dirty and unclean, and I want to burn my stupid sex bucket list.

I’m not paying attention to where I’m going until I realize I’m nearing Elvira’s cabin. Some crazy instinct makes me turn into the small dirt road.

The canoe is still tied to the dock. The picnic blanket hangs on the clothesline to the right of the small cabin. We’d made plans to come back this weekend. I was just here yesterday, but it seems like a lifetime ago.

I should have never made that list. I should have never told Hailey I’d be adventurous. Saying Yes instead of No was the biggest mistake of my life.

It’s getting dark. I sit by the side of the lake and brood. My phone vibrates in my bag, but I make no effort to pull it out. I’m sure Blake and Declan have texted me, but I’m not ready to deal with them. I don’t want to go back to the Nanny Goat tonight, and I don’t want to hear their excuses. I’m not strong enough for their lies.

My phone rings. The sound of Aretha Franklin singing Respect fills the air. It’s Hailey.

This situation isn’t my friend’s fault. She didn’t throw me into bed with Declan and Blake, but even though I’m not being fair, I still blame her. “What?” I snarl into the receiver.

“Whoa there, chickadee,” Hailey laughs. “What’s going on? Did I interrupt you in the middle of a marathon work session, or were you actually doing something more fun?”

“Neither.”

Something in my voice must alert her that all is not well. “Lana, what’s going on?”

At the sound of her tone, filled with concern, my anger evaporates. “I did what you suggested,” I say flatly. “I hooked up with the two doctors.”

“It didn’t go well?”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Tell me everything,” she orders. “Start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out. The last time we talked, it was almost two weeks ago, on Friday night. You were going to leave for Goat the next day. Then what happened?”

“I arrived at Goat,” I reply. “When I showed up to the bed-and-breakfast, there were two men staying there. Blake and Declan.”

“Who are the slutty doctors, I take it?”

“I guess.” Their betrayal stings at my heart. “I didn’t realize that’s who they were. I thought they were just two guests at the bed-and-breakfast. Blake was in Goat to visit his great-aunt, he said.”

“A great-aunt?”

“Elvira Grantham.”

I can hear the gears in her brain turn. “Elvira Grantham, the former mistress of the millionaire who founded the town?”

“Yup, that’s her. She seemed nice.”

“You met her?” Hailey sounds surprised. “The doctors who help women with their happy-happy introduced you to their families?”

“Just the one,” I murmur, but Hailey’s words have me thinking. If I were a sleazy doctor running a smutty clinic in town, would I introduce the woman I was fucking to my family? I would not. Unless the woman meant something.

It doesn’t matter, I tell myself firmly. You can’t have a real relationship with doctors that pet the kitties of their female patients, as Hailey would put it. It’s just too gross.

“Hang on,” Hailey says slowly. “Didn’t John say that these doctors had been running their clinic for a while?”

“At least a year, as far as we could find out, yes.”

“Well,” she says thoughtfully, “If they’ve been in business for a year, why would they be living in a bed-and-breakfast? Why wouldn’t they get an apartment or buy a house?”

“Hmm.” For the first time since I walked out of the Clinic of Love, I stop being upset and put my thinking-cap on. “You’re right. That doesn’t make any sense.” I bite my lower lip. “In fact, they’d just arrived when I was checking in. The woman at the Nanny Goat hugged them and asked them how long they were staying, and Declan said he was waiting to hear back about a job he’d interviewed for.” I frown, my brows furrowed in confusion. Is it possible I’ve made a mistake?

Hailey reads my mind. “Are you sure they’re the sleazy doctors?” she asks. “After all, you didn’t know their names.”

I try and hold onto my outrage, but it’s fading rapidly. “They’ve never talked about what they do,” I try and argue. “And they were at the Clinic of Love.”

“Okay, so something’s obviously going on,” Hailey says reasonably. “You’re a journalist. Find out what it is. There’s probably a really obvious explanation.”

Once again, Hailey’s right. “I don’t like being so reasonable,” I grumble. “Fine, I’ll head back to town and talk to them.”

“Head back to town? Where are you right now?”

“In the middle of the woods,” I reply, realizing how dark it is, and how alone I am. Does Oregon have bears? I’m a city girl; I wouldn’t know. My heart starts beating faster, and suddenly, the Nanny Goat seems like the safest place in the world.

I jump into my car, my heart pounding. “Hailey, I’ve got to go.”

“Wait, hang on,” she protests. “You didn’t tell me everything. What about the sex? Is it hot? Are the guys hot? Are you checking items off the list?” Her voice rises in frustration. “Lana, you can’t go now.”

I chuckle. Promising to call her this weekend, I hang up. Right now, it’s not Hailey I need to talk to.

It’s Declan and Blake.

It’s almost eleven when I pull up in the parking lot of the Nanny Goat. Blake’s Jeep is in its usual spot, but I don’t run into either Blake or Declan as I make my way to my room.

I pull my laptop out and navigate to a browser window. I don’t know why I haven’t Googled the two men. Maybe because that’s the kind of thing I do in my real life, and I’ve been telling myself it’s a vacation fling and nothing else?

Whatever the reason, it’s time to discover the truth.

‘Dr. Declan Wilde,’ I type into the search bar and hit Enter, crossing my fingers as I wait for the results over the Nanny Goat’s painfully slow Internet connection.

There’s no need to cross my fingers. As I click on the first page of results, it’s clear that I’ve made a horrible mistake. Declan isn’t one of the doctors I’ve come to Goat to write about; he’s obviously someone else. Someone that’s volunteered dozens of times to serve in war zones. He’s been in the Congo to treat children suffering from measles and malaria. In Haiti for the cholera epidemic. In Sierra Leone as an emergency surgeon.

He’s been to sixty countries, he’d told me. I asked him how he got to travel that much. Now I understand. Declan wasn’t vacationing. He was working. He was saving lives.

I feel awful, but I’m not done. I have to make sure. I’ve already jumped to conclusions once. This time around, I’m going to look before I leap.

‘Dr. Blake Thorpe’, I type into the search bar.

The page fills with results. Blake has worked all over the country. As far as I can tell, he seems to fill in for doctors that need to leave their practices for extended lengths of time. Not just fill in. “Every doctor I’d been to dismissed my headaches,” one woman writes. “Except Dr. Thorpe. He listened to me and ordered a CT scan, and it turned out I had a brain tumor. He saved my life.”

There’s more of this. I read page after page of gushing praise for the two men I’ve been sleeping with.

Blake and Declan aren’t the doctors I came to Goat to find.

By the time I’m done, I feel like a complete fool. I totally overreacted. I wouldn’t be surprised if they never want to talk to me again.

You can’t write this story, Lana.

John wants subscribers. He’ll distort my article. He’ll drag Blake and Declan’s names into the mud. The more scandal this story attracts, the happier he’ll be.

Declan’s waiting to hear about a job. Blake’s reputation is what gets him hired. If I write this story, I will ruin their careers.

I take a deep breath. There’s only one thing to do, really. I’ve worked at The Torch for almost a decade, but it’s time for something new.

I write John a short email telling him I’m not doing the story, and that I’m resigning, effective immediately. I turn off my phone so he can’t call me.

Then I go in search of Blake and Declan.