LITMIR.BIZ

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see. This town grows on you.”

      “Maybe on you, little sister, but never on me.”

      Kitty smirked as she polished off the yogurt and pushed the empty container aside. “Never is greatly overrated. I’m just sayin’.”

      “Always the optimist.”

      “It’s all about what messages we send out into the universe. If we’re positive, positivity comes back to us, whereas if we’re negative....” She raised an eyebrow.

      “I’m a realist. I know who I am.”

      “Maybe, but I’m just sayin’.”

      * * *

      BY THE TIME Blake pulled his mud-encrusted pickup in front of the family ranch house, the sky had turned a brilliant mix of pink, gold and deep blue against the backdrop of the black mountains. The golden aspens that surrounded this old log house were rustling in the warm breeze reminding him of why he had returned to Idaho. This was his favorite time of year, and he was grateful he wasn’t back in L.A., stuck on a freeway.

      It didn’t matter that his day had been consumed with patients. Looking out over this spectacular piece of land nestled in the Teton Valley, Blake knew leaving Los Angeles had been the right decision.

      It had been a long day that started off with caffeine, doughnuts and Maggie Daniels. Both the doughnuts and Maggie Daniels were bad for him, but he didn’t seem to care. Maggie was stuck in his head just as sure as come tomorrow morning he’d be stopping by Holey Rollers for a repeat performance.

      Maggie had been jumbled up in his thoughts all day. She’d been there while he was giving Chad a pep talk about how great his teeth would look once the braces were off, and how all smart cowboys had their teeth straightened. She was there as he shared coffee with Chad’s mom, Lindsey, giving her advice on how to handle Chad’s situation in the future.

      He had thought of her as he descended Lindsey’s front steps and spoke on his cell to Jimmy Ferguson’s mom, who was requesting an emergency extraction for young Jimmy’s loose front tooth. His mom couldn’t possibly inflict pain of any kind on her son, so it was up to Blake to do the deed.

      Back in his office, the tooth slid out with barely a budge. Young Jimmy was so into watching Toy Story 3 on the ceiling monitor that he hadn’t noticed his tooth had been extracted.

      Blake gave him the offending tooth in a tiny brown pouch so the tooth fairy could bring him a present in the morning. “I want to go home, home, home, Mommy,” Jimmy said. “I need to put this under my pillow right away, just in case the tooth fairy buzzes our house looking for bags of teeth. I don’t want her to miss mine.”

      His mom agreed and off they went.

      Blake loved the fact that he had patients young enough to believe in tooth fairies and Santa. Kids were easy. Adults were the kicker.

      When that was over and he cleaned up, once again his thoughts drifted to Maggie and that salty walk of hers. Then, just as he was getting into a cozy fantasy about her, his phone rang and he agreed to drive over to Angie Barnett’s house. Angie was a first-time mom with a teething baby girl, who was desperate for some sleep.

      After he checked out her screaming tot, he told Angie, “My mom would dip her pinky in whiskey, shake off the excess and rub it on her babies’ swollen gums. But some moms don’t like the idea of alcohol touching their baby, so it’s up to you.”

      The baby let out an ear-piercing scream and Angie didn’t hesitate to rub the child’s gums with brandy.

      “Please, oh, please,” Angie said as her baby chomped on her fingers, and within minutes the baby was as calm as a cat in the sun.

      Blake gave Angie a few rubber teething toys he kept in an emergency kit in his pickup, and the combination seemed to work miracles.

      By the time he eventually left, both Angie and her baby were fast asleep.

      Another laid-back Sunday.

      For once, he’d like to spend an entire Sunday doing nothing of any importance. Not that he didn’t enjoy helping his patients, but the thought of an entire day off seemed almost as impossible as trying to trim the whiskers off the man in the moon.

      He climbed the wooden porch stairs of his ranch house and was greeted by Suzy and Mush. He bent over to give both dogs some good lovin’. They were siblings, part wolf with a whole lot more parts mutt. It was the mutt parts that loved attention and the wolf parts that kept critters out of the house and barn.

      Wrestling with the dogs reminded him that Maggie Daniels had consumed him the entire day, even while he was singing “Home on the Range” to Angie’s baby.

      For some reason, he couldn’t get rid of her image—those long legs, the girly underwear, and that sparkle in her eyes—but that didn’t mean he wanted her there with him. Regrettably, he had almost no control over his subconscious, where she now lived as sure as he knew he was dog-tired and wanted nothing more than to sit down with his family and share Sunday dinner, a perfectly cooked rib roast. Blake anticipated that first scrumptious bite as he grabbed the doorknob and swung open the front door, Suzy and Mush following close behind.

      No matter what else happened during the week, come six o’clock on Sunday night it was dinner with the family. He could count on it like prairie flowers in spring.

      “Daddy’s home,” his five-year-old daughter, Scout, shouted as soon as she spotted him. She came running toward him at full throttle, arms outstretched, ready to grab hold and give him her tightest squeeze. Her miniature cowboy boots were clacking across the wooden floor, strawberry-colored hair in its usual state of disarray, blue shirt falling out of her britches, and a look of absolute love on her adorable face.

      For the umpteenth time since they had moved back to Briggs, Blake fully realized that his sweet daughter desperately needed what all the kids he’d treated that day already had: a loving mom. Unconditional and all-consuming love was an emotion Scout’s own mom sorely lacked.

      Living in a house filled with boys had turned his little girl into a blustering tomboy. So much so that she had wanted to cut off all her hair—something Blake was not ready to accept. Not that he thought there was anything wrong with those tough-boy traits, but he wondered if Scout missed pink and had settled for blue to fit in with the rest of the family. But most of all he wondered just how much she missed the fuss and love a woman could give her. He knew it was time he found someone else to share his life with, but so far, he’d been too busy. Maybe he needed to do something about that.

      He whisked his child up in his arms and twirled her around. They eventually landed on the sofa with his younger brother Colt’s three boys getting in on the fun, along with Suzy, who loved a good tussle. Mush sat on his haunches and barked.

      Colt’s boys ranged in age from three to six, and all were loved like crazy by their father and the rest of the men in the Granger family. The boys’ mother had passed away from complications right after giving birth to the youngest, Joey. Colt never faltered in his dedication to his boys, especially to Joey.

      “Dinner’s sittin’ on the table,” Blake’s father, Dodge, announced. He was a tall man, six foot four, with a stride like John Wayne, and a temperament like molasses. Nothing fazed him, ever, and in the scheme of Blake’s chaotic life, his dad’s rock-solid demeanor was the anchor that kept him grounded.

      Dodge ran the house, cooked most of the meals and essentially kept the place from falling completely apart, especially during potato harvest season, which was coming up in a few weeks. This was where Dodge and Colt had it all over Blake. They ran the agricultural part of the ranch while Travis, his youngest brother, took care of the livestock. Blake contributed his time when he could, but essentially he had his hands full with his dental practice.

      Blake had wanted to be a pediatric dentist ever since he’d been thrown from a horse when he was twelve and dislodged his two front teeth on a rock. Everyone thought he would lose those teeth, but Doc Greeley saved

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