Page 91 of Daddy’s Fortitude

Ammo stepped out of the way, and she glared at them all before stomping out the door.

“My list is growing longer,” Ammo muttered.

“What list?” she asked, unsure what he was talking about. Was it his to-do list? If it was, she knew how that felt. Hers felt like it was insurmountable.

“My revenge list.”

“You have a revenge list?” she asked, intrigued. “I didn’t know that was a thing.”

“It’s a thing.”

“Right. Aimee, would you like to come in now? It seems that I have to spend the rest of my afternoon looking for a receptionist.”

“Sorry about that, Dr. Melton,” she said, feeling bad.

“No need for you to apologize,” he told her firmly. “That wasn’t your fault. That was entirely Sally-Anne, and I wasn’t fabricating the other complaints about her. So don’t feel like you’re the reason she got fired. What just happened here was the nail in her coffin. Now come in and tell me what’s been going on. Is your friend coming too?

“I am,” Ammo told him with a nod.

“Aimee?” Doctor Melton asked.

Normally she might have told Ammo that there was no way he was coming in. But she actually wanted him by her side.

So she turned back to the doctor. “He can come in.”

Her first instinct, as she stepped into the clinic from the reception area, was to turn around and walk back out again.

She’d forgotten how much she hated going to the doctor. Yes, she was a big old wuss about it. She didn’t like needles. She hated all the posters they had up and the information sheets. For some reason, as soon as she saw the symptoms of a disease, she started to think that she had those symptoms and was going to get that disease. Not to mention the fact that she always expected bad news.

It just turned her into a neurotic mess.

She felt it was much easier to just not visit at all.

“You know what? I’m feeling all good. There’s really no reason for me to be here. And you’re busy. You’ve got stuff to do, like finding a new receptionist. So I’m just going to get out of your hair.”

She turned around and attempted to walk out the door, but Ammo stepped in front of her.

He stared down at her with his eyebrows raised, as if asking her what the heck she thought she was doing.

She sighed. She really had no idea what she was doing. It was the story of her life, if she was honest.

Her shoulders slumped. “I want to go home. I don’t like it here.”

Whoa. Okay. She needed to remember that she was an adult. And that wasn’t really very nice to Dr. Melton, now was it?

Turning, she gave Dr. Melton a guilty look. “I’m really sorry, Doc. It’s nothing to do with you. I’m just not good with medical stuff, I find it all a bit scary. I don’t like needles, I don’t like blood, I don’t like tests, and I don’t like bad news.”

Dr. Melton just smiled at her. “Hey, I don’t like any of those things either.”

Her eyes widened as she stared at him. “What? But isn’t that a big part of your job?”

“Hmm, you’re right. Perhaps I’ve gone into the wrong career. I should try and rethink that, huh?”

“I suppose it’s never too late,” she told him.

“Well, hopefully not, since I’m only forty-four. I’d like to think I’ve got some more time left for another change in my life.”

“I’d do it quick,” she told him.