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meetings and countless other measures aimed at creating exactly what Samuel was going for: cookie-cutter people.
    “Please consider giving Heidi another chance,” he’d said, hating the words coming from his mouth. “She’s good at putting together meal plans that will improve your insulin numbers and ultimately your overall health.” He felt as if he were reading from a script, and he had no interest in playing the part. When Liza’s expression turned dour, he said, “I know she’s not the most personable, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. The patients who have followed her advice have been successful in losing weight and improving their overall health.”
    Liza sighed. “I’ll think about it, but only because you’re so nice about it, Dr. Black. Too bad you weren’t the nutritionist. I’d listen to what you have to say simply because you’re so cute.”
    “Ahh.” He chuckled, yet inside he was twisting with his conscience. Liza was the wrong candidate for a nutritionist at this stage in her food addiction. She needed more than charts and strict rules. Likely, she needed counseling to determine why she self-sabotaged with food even when her health was at stake. But Samuel didn’t like head docs, as he called them. No small wonder there, seeing as a psychiatrist might question the mind-scramble Samuel did daily on the local people of Cold Plains. “Well, I hope you change your mind.”
    He saw Liza out after she promised to check in with him in two weeks to do another insulin check. She never came back.
    Considering their personable patient-doctor relationship and her distate for Heidi, the nutritionist, he found her absence suspect and it only provided fuel for his suspicion that Samuel made people go away if they didn’t “get with the program.” But for now he put it out of his mind.
    Rafe spent the last few hours of the day tending to patients with various ailments—nothing more serious than the occasional flu bout or allergy flare-up—and when he flipped his sign and shut down his office, he wondered where Darcy was and what she was doing. The town wasn’t large, and there was little in the way of entertainment available that wasn’t sanctioned by Samuel. There was line dancing and ballroom dancing, knitting and quilting and creative brainstorming (a class Samuel suggested everyone take at least a few times a month to help with the marketing of the Cold Plains tonic water) but nothing like a dance club or bar that supported a wild time. He didn’t know Darcy, but he sensed she was a city girl, accustomed to everything a city had to offer.
    He was tempted to casually stroll the main street to see if she was in any of the small shops, doing the tourist thing, but as he shut the lights and started to head that direction, he stopped. What was he doing? He didn’t care what she was doing or if she was bored out of her mind in the small town. Doing an abrupt about-face, he went to his car and climbed in.
    He lived a short drive from town, but he appreciated the distance. Sometimes, playing the dutiful doctor wore on his nerves, and by the end of the day, he wanted to throw the mask across the room.
    But it seemed relaxation wasn’t in his future tonight because parked in his short driveway was Police Chief Bo Fargo’s cruiser.
    Rafe muttered a curse word but pasted a smile on for Fargo’s benefit.
    “Evening, Chief. What can I do for you?” he asked, not commenting on the odd fact that the older man was making a house call when he easily could’ve stopped by the clinic if he’d wanted to chat.
    Bo Fargo was a big man with a belly that protruded over his utility belt, and hard eyes that never seemed to smile. Rafe had heard stories that Fargo was a bully and that when he couldn’t get what he wanted with the strength of his authority, he used his meaty, ham-hock fists. But in spite of Fargo’s character flaws, Rafe couldn’t be sure if he was a Devotee or not. The man