LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      “Humphrey? Here, sweetie. Nice dog. Time to come in now.”

      Brooke Bellamy felt like a fool. How the heck did you convince a dog to return to its home when what it wanted wasn’t back there?

      Although it was almost midnight, and only the first Tuesday in June, it was plenty warm already. Most sane—and lucky—people were in their air-conditioned houses, probably in bed. Brooke, however, was spending her third night in Sweet Springs, Texas, trying to make metaphorical lemonade out of lemons.

      “Oh, no,” she moaned, upon coming to a new hole dug under the chain-link fence. She’d just spotted the evidence she most feared: her aunt Marsha’s beloved basset hound had escaped again!

      On Sunday morning, seventy-year-old Marsha Newman had fallen in the shower and fractured her right hip. As soon as Brooke had gotten the news, she had packed a suitcase and raced from her house in Turtle Creek in Dallas to her aunt in Central East Texas to offer what assistance that she could. Never would she have dreamed that her life could turn upside down in such short order; life-changing upheaval had occurred not once but twice in a month. Then again, she also hadn’t expected it likely that the daughter of business tycoon Damon Bellamy would find herself unemployed!

      “Humphrey!” she called in an urgent whisper. “Where are you? C’mon, boy. You’d better get back here before you get yourself run over,” she added. Actually, at this hour there wasn’t any traffic that she could see or hear, and this Cherokee County town, south of Tyler, only had a population of fewer than four thousand people; but the way her luck was going, she wasn’t taking any chances.

      How long had she left the not-so-little tubular test on her patience in the backyard in order to take a shower in peace? Not more than ten minutes. Yet for someone who tended to move at the pace of an armadillo, Humphrey must have recognized this as a prime opportunity and had kicked his short legs into gear. Now he was out, and who knew where? Wearing only her sleep shirt, she wasn’t exactly dressed to go prowling through the neighborhood in search of the critter. But she would because, heaven forbid that, come morning, she had to return to the hospital to confess to Aunt Marsha that she’d lost her beloved companion of ten years.

      Aiming her LED flashlight toward the double gate, she hurried to open it and check the driveway in case she could see muddy prints to give her new clues as to Humphrey’s whereabouts. Why she expected prints when it hadn’t rained in days, and she hadn’t yet had a chance to water, was testament to her fatigue and growing anxiety.

      “Humphrey, sleepy time. Let’s go in and have a cookie.”

      That coercion had worked Sunday night, the first time he’d snuck off, and a variation of it had been successful last night. Not this time, though. Humphrey was a fast learner, even if in dog years he was her aunt’s age. Surely dogs didn’t get dementia...or could they?

      “Humphrey...sit! Stay!” In the past, Aunt Marsha had bragged that a horn blast from a passing freight train couldn’t budge her obedient pet once those orders were given. “I guess it depends on who’s doing the ordering,” she muttered to herself. Then again, the dog would have to be within hearing distance to cooperate.

      Increasingly worried, Brooke made her way around the outside of the fence to where the escapee had gained his freedom and focused her light on the grass hoping for some hint as to which way the dog had gone.

      “At it again, I see.”

      Gasping, Brooke spun around. Wholly preoccupied, she hadn’t heard that Doc had come outside and joined her. Dr. Gage Sullivan was the local veterinarian, who owned Sweet Springs Animal Clinic on the outskirts of town. He had come to her aid last night as well, and had been a great help. What a relief that he’d either seen or heard her out here. Correction, it would be if she’d thought to put on something over her nightie. Last night she’d only just returned from the hospital and had still been wearing her street clothes.

      “Hey, Doc. My, you sure do stay up late for a guy who says he heads to the clinic at the crack of dawn.” Despite the limited lighting provided by their porch fixtures, she had the strongest urge to fold her arms across her chest, which might have something to do with the way he was smiling down at her. Not that it was anything remotely lecherous; his expression was more like someone seeing a line of sevens appear on a casino slot machine.

      “Lucky for you, I’m behind on paperwork.”

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