Free Not Quite Forever (Not Quite series) by Catherine Bybee

and a female doctor . . . she jotted down that idea, asked herself how that would impact the story.
    When her ideas crashed to a halt, she’d step into the kitchen and pick a cupboard to clean. Halfway through the kitchen junk drawer her thoughts moved to Monica Fairchild. Without any hesitation, she picked up her cell phone, found the number Monica had given her, and placed the call.
    “Hello?” Monica’s cheerful voice was accompanied by a bark. “Gilligan, down!”
    “Monica? It’s Dakota.”
    “Oh, hey. Can you hold on a second?”
    “Sure.”
    She heard Monica call her pets outside and had to smile.
    “Sorry about that. Seems they just love it when I’m on the phone.”
    “Sounds like kids.”
    “Bite your tongue. I’m not ready for that.” They laughed about kids and phones for a couple of minutes, discussed how unready they both were for parenthood.
    “Walt told me that flying down to the Keys was a bust.”
    “Not a complete waste of time, but yeah, not what we thought it might be.”
    Dakota started drawing circles on a blank page in her notebook. “Part of the reason I called was to pick your brain a little bit. I’m working on a new book . . . or I think I will be soon. After Miami I thought it would be great to have a doctor or nurse in my next story.”
    “Really?” Monica’s giddy laugh was contagious. “I’m not sure how I can help, but I’d love to.”
    “That would be great. I can look up facts online, but there are things that happen in every profession that never make it into a book.”
    “I completely agree. I’m sure Walt can answer . . . wait, did you say you saw Walt since you’ve been back to LA?”
    “Yeah.”
    Monica hesitated over the line. “As in a date?”
    “Is that strange?”
    “For Walt it is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he has a personal life, but I’ve never heard about anyone he’d actually say he was dating. Wow.”
    Suddenly the need to know more about Walt’s lack of dating became the driving theme of the conversation and her character profile drifted away.
    “So the good doctor doesn’t date. I wonder why.”
    “I always thought he was just too busy to bother. Between Borderless Doctors and the ER there’s no time.”
    Dakota kept drawing circles, filled some in. “He said as much. Still, I can’t imagine single nurses looking the other way.”
    “Take it from me,” Monica said. “Hospital romances are overrated. It’s more common that the nurses hook up with the paramedics that come in. At least when those relationships fail you don’t have to see your ex on a daily basis . . . or if you do it’s only briefly.”
    Monica went on to tell her about a past relationship gone bad and how difficult it was after.
    Dakota flipped her page and asked, “So is there an unwritten rule not to date doctors?”
    “Not really. A lot of nurses hooked up in nursing school, but again, those didn’t last long. None that I know of anyway.”
    “What about male nurses and female doctors?”
    “Now that would be a great book,” Monica said. “I don’t know of any . . . but I can see the hot factor in a book.”
    Dakota smiled, placed a circle around the words female MD, male RN .
    “So are you and Walt going to see each other again?”
    “Drinks at Joe’s after his shift.”
    Monica laughed. “Joe’s is a dive. Fair warning.”
    “Good to know.”
    “Walt’s a good guy and a great doctor. He really cares about his patients.”
    “You don’t have to convince me to go out with him, Monica.”
    They laughed and changed the subject.
    Monica gave her the green light to call anytime for nurse and hospital information.

    Joe’s was thePlaza of dive bars. Dakota knew better than to dress up for a simple drink at a bar she’d already been warned about, but having been raised in the South it was against her nature to leave the house without makeup and a little polish. In short, she looked hot but nothing worthy of the Oscars. She told