Broken Creek (The Creek #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

over again. There was something mysterious about two letters and ten digits. He certainly had my attention—all of me, girlie parts included.

My trip home was full of daydreams of A.D., and I barely remembered the drive. When I turned off the county road and eased across the bridge, the old familiar rumble of the boards clanking beneath my car met me with unease.
    Mr. Clancy hadn’t fixed the bridge. Even worse, just passed the bridge was the tree line that gave way to a view of our sprawling pasture—one that hadn’t been cut in months.
    I drove slowly up the dirt drive to the open-concept carport and parked in my usual spot. The sight of the overgrown land made me ill. It looked even more ragged than I remembered, or the place had deteriorated quickly in four months.
    So much for my daydream, which now gave way to a new nightmare. Either Mom had lied to me, so I would go to school, or something had happened to our old family friend, Mr. Clancy. Strange that she’d never mentioned anything about him in our calls.
    Upon entering the house, the fragrance of recently baked homemade cookies met my cold nostrils. The house was very chilly, and the hardwood floors cracked out their complaint as I walked back and forth across them, while unloading my car.
    Things clearly weren’t as I’d expected. With the threat of a more intense ice-storm coming, I started a fire in the fireplace to knock the chill from the air and took a seat at the table where my treat of cookies had been placed by a stack of mail for me to sort, catalogs mostly. Mom had forwarded the important pieces that had arrived during the semester.
    I couldn’t eat much of even a single cookie. Something just wasn’t right, and it displeased me that my mother would hold back from me. Before I jumped to conclusions, I decided to go back in to town and see if Dr. P was at the office. He would never tell me something that wasn’t true, and yet, he’d promised to check in on my mom for me.
    Grateful for a new battery in my car, I drove to the clinic and pulled around back. Sure enough, as expected, Dr. Palmer’s Suburban was parked in his reserved spot.
    He greeted me from the doorway. “You just get into town?”
    “About an hour ago. Mom’s at work, and something’s not right. You have a few minutes?”
    “I do and a cup a coffee to go with it.”
    We sat in the break room like old times, and I went right to the point.
    “The place, well, the land, is a mess, and it was cold inside the house with little heat. Mom had assured me Mr. Clancy was going to lease the land and fix the bridge. No one’s brush hogged the land since I’ve been gone, and the old tractor is no longer running and…”
    “Take a breath, Wrenn. Ol’ Boots Clancy passed away right after you left. Didn’t your mother tell you?”
    “No. That explains a lot. I guess she knew I would worry.”
    “I’ll help you. I don’t have a tractor anymore, but come back here on Monday morning and we’ll figure it out. Nothing is going to derail your schooling, you hear me?”
    He pushed back from the table and stood beside my chair. When he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, I realized just how much I’d missed him. He had become a father figure to me. I’d missed his supporting strength.
    “You’re a blessing, you know that?”
    “Anytime,” he whispered and then he was gone.
    Dr. Palmer wasn’t wealthy; in fact, he made a very modest income. Most of our patients didn’t have insurance and were on payment plans; a few had social services. For the most part, Dr. P volunteered his time just to keep the place running because he cared about the good of the people. Without him, patients would have to drive a dangerous curvy highway over an hour to see a doctor.
    I picked up a notepad and made a list of things that needed to be done and what I could pick up at the hardware store the next week or have delivered. With my list in hand and a new attitude, I drove back out to the house. It