The Dashing Doc Next Door Read online

  Can a matchmaking pup bring a city slicker and a small-town doctor together? Find out in Helen Myers’s latest Sweet Springs, Texas story!

  When city girl Brooke Bellamy rushes to Sweet Springs, Texas, to be by her ailing aunt’s side, little does she know that she’s headed straight into a whirlwind of her own! Managing Marsha’s floral shop and keeping an eye on her aunt’s mischievous basset hound, Humphrey, is hard enough. Luckily, Marsha’s neighbor, veterinarian Gage Sullivan, is more than willing to give a helping hand with the stubborn pup…among other things!

  For years, Gage has heard about his neighbor’s wonderful niece, and he’s curious to see if the stories hold up. When Brooke proves to be everything Gage had imagined—and more—he’s faced with his biggest challenge yet: to convince her that she belongs in Sweet Springs with him.

  He unclipped the lead from the dog’s collar, after which Humphrey shook his whole body, clearly relishing the freedom in this, of all places.

  Brooke, on the other hand, looked anything but reassured.

  “You’re certain it’s going to be okay for him to run free like that?” She looked unconvinced as she rolled up the blue nylon leash around her hand.

  Gage rose, knowing they had precious few minutes left—and not even private ones—before the parking lot started to fill. He wanted to tell her that he liked her hair up. It showed off her slender neck so much that his fingers itched to caress the baby-fine hair there, and her even finer skin. She was exceedingly fair for this time of year, but on her the look worked. However, the sum of all of her delicate parts didn’t fool him: inside that petite body was a backbone of pure steel, and a strong will to match it. The irony was, that just made her all the more irresistible.

  * * *

  Sweet Springs, Texas: Where love springs eternal!

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to Sweet Springs, Texas, a fictional town in what is Cherokee County in central East Texas. I hope you’ll enjoy this family-oriented tale involving a recently unemployed investment banker, Brooke Bellamy, and the owner of the local animal clinic, Dr. Gage Sullivan, who lives next door to Brooke’s aunt. Marsha Newman has suffered a terrible fall and has broken her hip, so instead of job hunting, Brooke has rushed to her childhood hometown to keep Marsha’s flower-and-gift shop open. This driven professional isn’t looking for romance, not when her business mogul father is constantly looking over her shoulder, expecting his only child and protégé to do him proud. In the way is Gage, who’s heard too many tempting stories from Marsha about lovely Brooke not to set a romantic net for her.

  If you’ve visited my website, www.helenrmyers.com, you know I’m an animal lover and (currently) have three rescued dogs living with me. (We lost our fourth friend, Boxer Louie, in July, when his surgery failed.) It’s also my delight to help out in a crunch with my neighbor friend, who raises pygmy goats, and other friends’ pets. Since it has always been a goal to put a pet in my stories, it was my pleasure to be asked to start a series about a veterinary clinic and people who have animals as a basic part of their lives. I hope you’ll look for the other Sweet Springs, Texas, stories to follow.

  Thanks always for being a reader, and please check out my website, at www.helenrmyers.com, or look for me on Facebook, under Helen Myers.

  With warm regards and “rubbies” for your pet,

  Helen

  THE DASHING DOC NEXT DOOR

  Helen R. Myers

  Books by Helen R. Myers

  Harlequin Special Edition

  It’s News to Her #2130

  Almost a Hometown Bride #2171

  The Surprise of Her Life #2190

  A Holiday to Remember #2225

  *The Dashing Doc Next Door #2310

  Silhouette Special Edition

  After That Night... #1066

  Beloved Mercenary #1162

  What Should Have Been #1758

  A Man to Count On #1830

  The Last Man She’d Marry #1914

  Daddy on Demand #2004

  Hope’s Child #2045

  It Started with a House… #2070

  Silhouette Romance

  Confidentially Yours #677

  Invitation to a Wedding #737

  A Fine Arrangement #776

  Through My Eyes #814

  Three Little Chaperones #861

  Forbidden Passion #908

  A Father’s Promise #1002

  To Wed at Christmas #1049

  The Merry Matchmaker #1121

  Baby in a Basket #1169

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Shadows Collection 1992 “Seawitch”

  Montana Mavericks The Law Is No Lady

  Silhouette Desire

  The Pirate O’Keefe #506

  Kiss Me Kate #570

  After You #599

  When Gabriel Called #650

  Navarrone #738

  Jake #797

  Once upon a Full Moon #857

  The Rebel and the Hero #941

  Just a Memory Away #990

  The Officer and the Renegade #1102

  Silhouette Shadows

  Night Mist #6

  Whispers in the Woods #23

  Watching for Willa #49

  Harlequin MIRA

  Come Sundown

  More Than You Know

  Lost

  Dead End

  Final Stand

  No Sanctuary

  While Others Sleep

  *Sweet Springs, Texas

  Other titles by Helen R. Myers available in ebook format.

  HELEN R. MYERS

  is a collector of two- and four-legged strays, and lives deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas. She cites cello music and bonsai gardening as favorite relaxation pastimes, and still edits in her sleep—an accident, learned while writing her first book. A bestselling author of diverse themes and focus, she is a three-time RITA® Award nominee, winning for Navarrone in 1993.

  With special thanks to Dolores Dugger, Leslie King,

  Gail Reed, Carolyn Bolin, Paula Rogers

  and Norma Wilkinson

  for sharing anecdotes, as well as

  your beloved pets, with me.

  And to animal lovers everywhere,

  especially those of you who give the abused

  and abandoned new hope.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  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 new
s, 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.” Gage directed his own flashlight at Humphrey’s latest escape hole. “Looks like he worked fast. At this rate, he won’t need a nail trim for a while. How long since you last saw him?”

  “Ten minutes.... Well, fifteen now. I’ve been out here for at least five calling for him. I should never have given him his private time, but I was dying for a shower.”

  “You think Humph needs private time?”

  Brooke grimaced her agreement that the phrasing sounded ridiculous to her, too. But she had her reasons for putting it that way. “He gives me a look if I don’t turn away while he’s, you know, doing his business.”

  Gage choked on a laugh. “He was just setting you up, rookie. That hound can play an innocent the way a pickpocket can work a mark.”

  With pessimism fast becoming a knee-jerk reaction, Brooke asked doubtfully, “And what do you know about pickpockets?” It seemed an unusual analogy to use.

  With a philosophical shrug, Gage replied, “We had a black sheep in the family tree.”

  Brooke studied his appealing, all-American face capped by shaggy, medium-brown hair still wet from his own shower. “Seriously?”

  “It was when my uncle was young. After a few run-ins with the law, he wisely tried magic instead, and had a pretty successful career.”

  Brooke didn’t know whether to take him seriously or not. After only three brief conversations with Gage Sullivan, she’d come to the conclusion that he was very laid-back and just as amiable. Her aunt sang his praises every time she had a chance to bring him up in a conversation. But at the moment, there was no sign of the serious, disciplined person Marsha described. As a bemused expression played across his face, she thought of him as someone who liked to just throw ideas out into the cosmos to see what kind of reaction he would get from people. If he hadn’t chosen the profession he had, he could have been a popular college instructor. At least the female students would have enjoyed fantasizing over him.

  “Is that something you should be telling a near stranger?” she asked, hoping he got the hint. She wasn’t in to gossip, and this was not the time to be practicing some stand-up comedy routine or whatever it was that he was doing.

  “I figured it would be better to get the awkward stuff out of the way. Did you happen to look under that sweet BMW 650i of yours?”

  It was sheer reflexes that had Brooke glancing toward the silver metallic convertible in the driveway before resuming her studious inspection of the man who was built like a sequoia compared to her own stretch-to-get-there five foot two. “Uh—yeah. Get the awkward stuff out of the way because...?”

  “I’m going to ask you out. When Marsha is feeling better and you’re not so pressed for time.”

  That startling bit of news left Brooke without a clue as to how to answer him. She couldn’t deny that he was an attractive man, solid and relaxed in his own skin, even though his white T-shirt and jeans were clinging to his body as though he hadn’t taken time to towel off from that shower. In comparison, she had to be reflecting sheer self-consciousness, as she gave in to the need to cross her arms over her purple satin-and-lace sleep shirt.

  “You...work fast, Doc.”

  “My parents would disagree with you, considering that I’m thirty-six and still single. But,” he added with almost boyish pleasure, “I’ve had the advantage of seeing a few photos of you at Marsha’s. Combined with her delightful gushing about what a thoughtful niece and smart woman you are has convinced me that I have to make an impression before everyone else realizes you’re back in town.”

  “Oh, Aunt Marsha,” Brooke groaned softly. “Really, Doc, I may be Texas born and bred, and spent a good portion of my childhood here, but no one died of a broken heart when Dad relocated us to Houston after my mother died. What’s more, it’s been too long between my visits back for anyone to get their hopes up.” To get his attention off her, Brooke gestured toward the street. “About Humphrey... Do you think if you called him, he might respond? Aunt Marsha has told me plenty of times that he adores you.”

  “Until I take his temperature and a blood sample,” Gage drawled. Nevertheless, he cupped his hands around his mouth and whistled sharply. Then he called, “Yo, Humph. Here, boy.”

  Yesterday, the basset hound had yelped from two houses away and come waddling up Gage’s driveway, eager for familiar company and the promised treat from Brooke. When several s
econds passed and only crickets and tree frogs broke the silence, Brooke sighed. “I’d better go change into street clothes and initiate a wider search.”

  “I’ll get started on that while you do.”

  Guilt forced Brooke to protest. Her conscience wouldn’t let her allow him to do that when she had been told repeatedly by Aunt Marsha what long hours he worked. “That’s good of you, Doc, but—”

  “Gage.”

  After a gently reproving look at his unabashed flirtation, Brooke continued. “All I was going to say is that I’m sensitive to the fact that you’re probably already dead on your feet. You need to get what rest you can.”

  “Do you think that’s going to happen knowing you’re out here wandering about by yourself? A Saint Bernard could grab you by the scruff of the neck and carry you off like a pup. You’re certainly no match for anything larger.”

  That gave her pause. There were still less than fifty thousand people in all of Cherokee County, and most of them lived around communities like Rusk, the county seat to their northeast. Had things changed around here so much? “My aunt says Sweet Springs is still the friendliest town, and that this remains the quietest of neighborhoods.”

  “Okay, but then what if you come upon Humphrey having a face-off with a rabid skunk, or a mother raccoon protecting her young?”

  Brooke’s stomach lurched, and she pressed a hand against her abdomen. She so did not want to have to deal with either scenario. While Marsha was a second mother to her, especially after the death of her mother when Brooke had been barely twelve, she just didn’t share her aunt’s love for indoor pets. As far as the wilder creatures were concerned, she would be content to know they’d been exiled farther out in the country or to a zoo!

  “Too much information,” Gage said, upon noticing her distress. “Come, take my Windbreaker. I keep it by the back door. It’ll save you the time it would take to change, and we can search together.”

  With long-legged strides, Gage backtracked across the yard until he could reach inside the door of the two-story, colonial-style dwelling; Brooke followed with less enthusiasm. Had he meant it about wanting to ask her out? She hoped not. He’d been nothing but kind and helpful since her arrival, and he really was a good-looking man. She would forever be grateful that he’d been outside on Sunday morning when he’d heard Aunt Marsha crying for help from inside her house. On the other hand, Brooke wasn’t here to date, especially since her plan was to return to Dallas to get her career back on track as soon as possible.