standing in the office he’d always thought would someday be his, had brought it all back to him. Not that he ever forgot it, really. It was always there, haunting his days, tainting his nights. But he could back-burner it most of the time. Not today. Not watching Grace McKenna drive through town with his vet box bolted in the back of her truck, opening his office as the official new vet of Nobel County, Idaho.
He didn’t blame the woman for having his life. That would be deranged and foolish. He didn’t blame her.
He leaned back against the kitchen counter, his mossy eyes going dark and flat. Oh, hell, he blamed her a little.
Grace McKenna. Damn her. He took a long swallow of beer, his head tipped back. He wondered if when her mama named her she knew she’d grow into the kind of woman who needed a bigger name. Grace was a name for a petite blond woman with tiny feet and dainty hands. A blue-eyes belle, who never did anything nastier with those hands than pour afternoon tea for her garden club.
He could think of a dozen better names for Grace McKenna. Strong, mythic names, such as Hera, Diana, Minerva. He smirked into his beer. Okay, not Minerva. But a name for a woman with power and height, and that cap of dark curly hair that looked so soft, as though it belonged on a baby.
He knew what Grace McKenna did with her hands. For nearly twenty years he’d trained to do the same thing. She pushed her hands into the back ends of sick or pregnant cattle. She made stud colts into geldings. He’d bet she did not belong to a garden club or pour tea for anyone.
Quite suddenly and against his will, he started to wonder what else Grace McKenna might be capable of doing with those hands. More than a few ideas popped up in full color right in front of his glassy eyes.
He dug his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets. Oh, jeez, where had that stuff come from? The last thing he needed was to start his feeble mind down that particular road with this particular woman.
“Danny!”
He jumped and almost bobbled his beer, feeling as if his mother had caught him looking at dirty pictures up in his room. Again.
“Mom!” He gave her a kiss as she went past, her hands full of grocery bags. “Any more outside?”
“Your dad’s getting them, sugar. What are you doing here?”
What was he doing here? He’d been pissed off and feeling sorry for himself all day, ever since he’d awakened and realized this was the day the new vet came to town. He’d tried to fight it out with the person in question, then tried to sweat it out all day working the herd. Neither tack had taken. Now he wanted a little comfort. And this was the place he’d always come for that.
“Nothing. Just checking in on you guys. Wanted to make sure you hadn’t taken up golf yet or anything.”
His mother laughed. “Not yet. Put them on the counter, Howard.”
Daniel’s father came in, loaded down. “I know where to put groceries, Liz. I’ve been bringing in your groceries for a hundred years. Hi, Danny.”
“Hey, Dad.”
“What are you doing here?”
“You know, I could name fifty people right now who would kill to get a visit from their son.”
“Not a son who drinks the good beer.” He pulled one out for himself. “I keep the cheap stuff in the can for you and Frank.”
Daniel grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do that. You see the new vet?”
Daniel’s green eyes went flat again. “Yeah, I saw her.”
“Figured you had. Just saw Pat down to the grocery store and he said you’d been staring out the window of the Early Bird for pert near an hour this morning before she showed up.”
Daniel moved his ax-handle shoulders. “I just wanted to make sure she got settled in.”
Howard tossed his wife a glance. “Right. Did she?”
“She was getting there. She already had Doc Niebaur’s vet box bolted into the back of her truck, but she hadn’t even been to her new house, so I guess she’s got her priorities set.” He took another slug of beer, to wash the acid taste of animosity down his throat.
“Where’s she living?”
“The little house of Fourth. The one I tried to buy from Mrs. Hensen last year.”
“I hope she fixed that front stoop, the old skinflint.”
“She did. I went by to check on it.”
Howard and his wife exchanged another apprehensive look. Daniel watched his father take in a deep breath, knew from experience a lecture was coming. “Now, son—” he began.
Daniel warded him off with a raised hand. “It’s okay, Dad. I was just being neighborly.” They were both looking at him, his father’s arm slung across his mother’s plump shoulders, united in their love and concern for him. He smiled. “Really. She seems like a nice person. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to go through her front porch on her first day, is all.”
His mother eyed him. “Sugar, I think you need to just let the whole thing go.”
“I know, Mom. I’m getting there.”
“Well, I hear she’s a big gal,” Howard said his booming voice emphasizing the “big.” “Pat said she was six foot if she was an inch.”
Daniel smiled. “More like six-two or three. Tall, but not skinny. She looks pretty good, actually.” He took another drink, dropped the bomb. “I asked her out to dinner.”
His parents goggled at him.
“Now, honey—” his mother began.
“Hell, boy—” his father said at the same time.
Daniel put both hands up this time, the long fingers of one stretched around the neck of his beer bottle. “She said no anyhow, but I didn’t ask her out because I’m interested in her. She could have been a troll for all I care, or a man. I was just going to grill her about her plans for my practice.”
“Oh, Danny,” his mother said. She shook her head at him. “It would have been better if you had asked her out because she’s good-looking.”
He grinned at her, to make that worry line between her brows disappear. Dammit, he hadn’t meant to say “my” practice. It had just slipped out. “I make it a policy to not date women who can take me in an arm wrestle.”
“Bad policy,” his father said under his breath, making Daniel laugh.
“I won’t have you harassing the girl,” his mother warned.
“I wasn’t harassing her. Exactly. Anyway, she caught me at it and made some nasty comment about my mental health.” Which, somehow, had both stung a little and made him want to laugh. He couldn’t figure it. “And she told me she wouldn’t have dinner with me, so I came to ask you guys
