An Ounce of Prevention

She stared at her cup. She didn't want to get into that conversation. A person found enjoyment only when they made time for it. Hopefully, when the time came, he would make time for it.

He leaned forward and picked up his cup. "If this is what you want to do, I'm ready to go with you."

"It isn't only me, Alex. The children want to go as well."

He nodded. "Children are impressionable. They follow your lead."

"Well, if they were all that impressionable, they would keep their rooms clean without prompting."

He grinned. "I didn't mean to imply that you were brainwashing them. I just meant that they were caught up in your enthusiasm."

She sighed. "At least someone is."

He sobered. "I'm going. It just isn't a good time for me."

"It's never a good time for you. Sometimes I think that clinic means more to you than we do."

He stared at his coffee, swirling it around in his cup. Finally his gaze lifted to hers. "You know better than that." He shrugged. "I never thought I had to choose."

"You don't. You're a good provider and you love your work. I just wish you would make time for more than one night a month."

His brows lifted. "Are you complaining about our sex life? We've been married nine years. Surely you didn't expect it to continue forever."

She met his gaze. "No. I'm talking about time, and not the quality, but the quantity. The problem is that we let other things dominate our time."

He leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee. "By we, you mean me, myself and I."

"By we, I mean you and I. With me it's the safari and with you it's the clinic. We make time for our one night a month, but what about the children? I thought with this vacation we would be forced to be a family for a while. We would have to leave our jobs behind."

"Why didn't you simply say something? We don't have to run away from home to be a family."

"I did say something, Alex. The trouble is, with you, it's always as soon as I finish this project, which never happens because you always have another one going. With me, it's as soon as this customer leaves, and then another customer calls. Even if we did find time between customers and projects, it would never be at the same time."

He sipped his drink, obviously considering her words. "Okay, so we take a vacation together. Why Arizona? Why wild horses?"

"I didn't choose Arizona. Jonathan did. I chose the wild horses. If that's all that is bothering you, I can drop that part."