LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      Brooks Smith rapped firmly on the ranch-house door, scanning the all-too-familiar property in the dusk.

      His dad didn’t answer right away, and Brooks thought about going around back to the veterinary clinic, but then he heard footsteps and waited, bracing himself for this conversation.

      After his father opened the door, he looked Brooks over, from the beard stubble that seemed to be ever present since the flood to his mud-covered boots. Tending to large animals required trekking through fields sometimes.

      “You don’t usually come calling on a Tuesday night. Run into a problem you need me for?”

      Barrett Smith was a barrel-chested man with gray hair and ruddy cheeks. At six-two, Brooks topped him by a couple of inches. The elder Smith had put on another ten pounds over the past year, and Brooks realized he should have been concerned about that before today.

      There was challenge in his dad’s tone as there had been since they’d parted ways. But as a doctor with four years of practice under his belt, Brooks didn’t ask for his dad’s advice on animal care or frankly anything else these days.

      “Can I come in?”

      “Sure.”

      Brooks entered the living room where he’d played as a child. The Navajo rugs were worn now, the floor scuffed.

      “I only have a few minutes,” his father warned him. “I haven’t fed the horses yet.”

      “I’ll get straight to the point, then.” Brooks swiped off his Stetson and ran his hand through his hair, knowing this conversation was going to get sticky. “I ran into Charlie Hartzell at the General Store.”

      His father avoided his gaze. “So?”

      “He told me that when he stopped by over the weekend, you weren’t doing too well.”

      “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” his dad muttered, not meeting Brooks’s eyes.

      “He said you carried a pail of oats to the barn and you were looking winded and pale. You dropped the bucket and almost passed out.”

      “Anybody can have an accident. After I drank a little water, I was fine.”

      Not so true according to Charlie, Brooks thought. His dad’s longtime friend had stayed another hour to make sure Barrett wasn’t going to keel over.

      “You’re working too hard,” Brooks insisted. “If you’d let me take over the practice, you could retire, take care of the horses in the barn and help out as you want.”

      “Nothing has changed,” Barrett said angrily. “You still show no sign of settling down.”

      This was an old argument, one that had started after Lynnette had broken their engagement right before Brooks had earned his degree in veterinary medicine from Colorado State. That long-ago night, his father had wanted to discuss it with him, but with Brooks’s pride stinging, he’d asked his dad to drop it. Barrett hadn’t. Frustrated, his father had blown his top, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was his warning and threat—he’d never retire and turn his practice over to Brooks until his son found a woman who would stick by him and build a house on the land his grandmother had left him.

      Sure enough...

      “Your grandmama’s land is still sitting there with no signs of a foundation,” his dad went on. “She wanted you to have roots, too. That’s why she left it to you. Until you get married and at least think about having kids, I can handle my own practice just fine.

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