"Who are you, and where's my wife?" James Harper, Senior demanded to know in a gruff but raspy voice.
"Hello. I'm Doctor Frances Twist," the new arrival said cheerfully, there to assess his current mental state and see if she could do anything to possibly change his attitude as a favor to her friend and colleague, Doctor Tora Tachibana.
"Figures," he said, taking a glance at Twist, "but I've been poked and prodded enough as it is," complained Harper, reaching out to the tray stand in front of him to pour a paper cup of water. "Just tell me when I can get out of here and go home. I've got business to take care of."
"Oh? What?" asked Frances, curious, while making a show of checking his monitors.
Harper thought about it for a moment while sipping his drink, and then answered, "Family matters, if it's any of your business."
"I was told all your family is here with you on your visit to Moon Lake."
"This wasn't a visit. More like a failed rescue mission."
Yeah. Keeping your daughter Jenny from marrying her life/soul mate instead of the jerk you wanted her to, recalled Frances, thinking about everything involving Dieter Wilhelm.
"Now then, the sooner I get home, the sooner I can get on with things."
"Well now Mister Harper, I'm afraid you won't be able to leave just yet," said Frances calmly. "You've suffered 2 major cardiac events in less than 24 hours and you still need at least an angioplasty, if not a heart valve replacement as well."
"Nonsense! I've never been healthier in my life," protested Harper, although the fact that he now looked a bit paler than when she first walked in wasn't lost on Frances. Tora was standing right outside the hospital room door, and the moment either Doctor or the monitoring equipment suspected something was even worse off with the patient than he already was, the therapy session would be over.
"Let me ask you something Mister Harper," began Frances slowly. "What's the last thing you remember before being here in this room?"
"I—" and then James Harper Senior had to stop and think about that before answering.
"I remember my friend Dieter being arrested, but there's no way he could be guilty of everything they're accusing him of."
"Oh? Friendship and loyalty are important, but what makes you say that about him specifically?"
"As an employer, he's gruff and a bit miserly at times, but he's always treated me right," answered Harper.
"Now, was that because he truly is your friend, or because he wanted your oldest daughter Jennifer?"
"I... When he asked me for her hand, I gave Dieter my consent, because he was a much better catch than anyone Jenny ever took an interest in."
"I see," replied Frances, noncommittally. "Now then, did Jennifer have any thoughts on the subject?"
"Even if she did, they wouldn't matter, because I'm her father and what I say goes."
It was all Frances could do to control her anger at that moment and keep from telling the stupid jerk laying in the bed before her what an asshole he was.
Instead, Frances asked, "How old is Jennifer?"
"Now? 18, but Dieter asked me to bless their impending union when she was 16."
"Even though the legal age to marry is 18 in Alabama?"
"Well, I did convince Dieter he should at least wait until after she graduated high school. After all, neither of us wanted the shame of having a child bride in the family, let alone a potentially pregnant child bride," said Harper defensively.
Or maybe Dieter Wilhelm is also a pedophile, Frances wanted to suggest, but remained silent.
"What about your wife?" Frances actually asked.
"What about her?" Harper asked in return.
"What was her thoughts on Jennifer marrying Dieter Wilhelm?"
"For some stupid reason she was totally against it, but I told her she was a dumb ignorant woman and to keep her mouth shut."
Frances remained silent as her body started to tense up. She could feel her teeth gnawing against each other in her mouth and the feral urge to release her inner werecat and rip the stupid bastard before her to shreds.
Instead, she just walked over and picked up an empty metal bed pan and started toying with it in her hands like a cat played with a mouse before killing it.
"How do you feel about Jennifer marrying the man she loves?" asked Frances.
"First off," began James Harper Senior, "whoever that harlot was outside that church yesterday morning didn't look a thing like Jenny, so I figured she got one of her friends to pose as my daughter because Jenny didn't have the guts to face me and my rightful judgement."
"And why is your judgement rightful?"
"Because I'm her father, the patriarch of her family, and my word is law!" said Harper.
"And the fact that Jennifer truly loves someone else?"
"What does love have to do with anything? The only reason I married my wife in the first place is because I accidentally got her pregnant with our oldest son. It's taken me years to make her the woman she should be."
Doctor Twist felt herself growing angrier by the second.
"Can you clarify something for me," requested Frances, even as she felt her grip tightening on the bed pan. "I thought premarital sex was a mortal sin."
"It is," conceded Harper, "and something I'll have to answer to my Maker for whenever I do see him. But it is also a sin to disobey one's father and, growing up on his farm, my dad gave me a piece of advice that I've never forgotten."
"Which was?"
"Never buy a horse without taking it out for a ride first."
With that, Doctor Frances Twist suddenly turned and walked out the door.
Thinking he had won the argument, James Harper Senior laid back down in his hospital bed to rest.
But if he could have seen what happened outside his room...
"Here," said Frances, handing Tora Tachibana a small, crushed piece of metal not much bigger than a soda can. "Send me a bill for this and call me if you ever find a genuine human emotion in that bastard and I'll try again. But it's been a long, stressful day even before Harper*, and I'm going home now."
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*Based upon Frances' extended guest appearance in our companion Moon Lake, Tad series, helping to bring Jade Dymixious' baby into the world.—tmw.