Page 2 of Fool Me

Whispers aren’t quiet when they’re all you hear.

I’m a hot topic, from speculation about why I left, to rumors about being estranged from my brother. Though, what bothers me the most are the murmurs about when I’ll leave again.

Timberline Peak will be shocked to learn I’m not going anywhere. I promised Ray McMullins I would stick around, and if all I can do for my friend is take one worry off his plate, there’s no way I’ll let him down by running, again.

Years away erased the memory of how stubborn small towns can be, but Mountainside Veterinary Services is giving me a crash course in what life is like in rural Wyoming.

As I look around the office, I spot the placard on the desk that bears Dr. Ray McMullins’s name and title, taking a mental note to order my own and find my framed degrees in the packed boxes at home from when I’m ready to hang them. Then I dig out my phone, texting my mentor.

Atlas

Thanks for telling me about the kinky parrot.

Doc McMullins

Consider it a welcome home gift. How is the first week going?

They hate me.

Nonsense. The practice is yours now. The town will come around to that, and to you.

Probably right around the time I retire. How’s Kate?

Better than I am.

I hate this is happening to you two.

ALS can fuck off.

Find a way to win them over.

I will.

And if you find out why the bird talks like that, I need to know.

Still a gossip, even in Florida.

Everyone was shocked he retired with such short notice, but he and Kate chose to keep her diagnosis private, with the exception of close friends. Part of that fallout rests squarely on my shoulders. Winning them over is the least I can do for him. There won’t be a parade in my honor today, but, frustrations aside, at least it’s entertaining.

The setting sun paints the mountains beyond my farmette a fiery orange by the time I get home.

Mine.

It’s weird to look at this house, this land, and think of it as home when it has always been Doc and Kate’s. When he sold me the practice, his house and land came with it.

This property, and the clinic, are my responsibility now—he won’t come back when Kate is gone. And I’m not allowed to close the practice or sell it to anyone else without Ray’s approval. There’s only one small animal vet within an hour of TimberlinePeak, and now that I’m running things, it’s the only one that can handle small animal critical care in a two-hour radius.

Doc feels the care that we—I—provide is too important to the area, and I agree.

A loud bray comes from the pen in the backyard, demanding some of that attention right now. In the last twenty-five years, Dr. McMullins had gone from a stranger who’d gotten me through one of the worst days of my life, to Ray, a mentor and friend.

And there’s no one else who could’ve gotten me to agree to take on the care of the meanest donkey I’d ever met.

Stopping at the shed on my way through the yard, I grab a clean feed bowl, filling it with pellets. On my way out, I take a flake off the top of the bale and set it on top of the bowl so I can shut the door behind me.

Muley Cyrus’s lips are flapping, her bray getting more demanding when she sees the oversized bowl I’m carrying.

“Just hold on!” I holler.

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