His Shock Valentine's Proposal. Amy Ruttan

       CHAPTER ONE

      “WHAT DOES SHE think she’s doing?” Carson grumbled to himself.

      “Looks like she’s planting flowers in a pot,” Nurse Adams remarked.

      Carson turned and glanced at his father’s nurse, who had worked in the practice longer than Carson had. Actually, she was technically his nurse now. He hadn’t realized she’d snuck up behind him. Like a ninja.

      “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

      She looked down her nose at him in that way she always did when he was little and causing mischief in his father’s office. A look that still sent shivers of dread down his spine and he realized he’d taken it a step too far.

      “If you didn’t want my opinion, Dr. Ralston, you shouldn’t be talking out loud in my waiting room.”

      “Sorry, Louise.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Just hate seeing all these changes going on in Crater Lake.”

      Her expression softened. “There’s a building boom. It was inevitable that another doctor would come into town and set up shop.”

      Carson frowned and jammed his hands in his trouser pockets as he watched the new, attractive doctor in town planting flowers outside the office across the street. Crater Lake was changing and he wasn’t sure he liked it too much.

      His father had been the lone physician in Crater Lake for over forty years, long before Carson was born. It was a practice he’d taken over from his grandfather; now Carson had taken over the practice since his parents retired and moved south to warmer climates.

      There had always been a Ralston as the town’s sole practitioner since Crater Lake was founded in 1908. Something his father liked to remind him of constantly.

      The only other time there had been a notion of two town doctors was when Danielle had lived with him for a time after medical school, but that had been different. They were supposed to work together, get married and raise a family. It hadn’t lasted. She hadn’t liked the slow existence or the winters of living in northwest Montana.

       Luke is a doctor.

      Carson snorted as he thought of his older brother, who was indeed a licensed practitioner, but Luke didn’t like the confines of an office and preferred to be out in the woods tracking bears or whatever he did up on the mountains. Luke didn’t have the same passion of upholding the family tradition of having a Ralston as the family practitioner in Crater Lake. That job fell on Carson.

      The new doctor in town, Dr. Petersen, stood up, arching her back, stretching. Her blond hair shining in the early summer sunlight. He didn’t know much about the newest resident of Crater Lake. Not many people did. She’d moved in and kept to herself. Her practice hadn’t even opened yet and though Carson shouldn’t care he couldn’t help but wonder about her, who she was.

      The door jingled and he glanced at the door as his brother came striding in, in his heavy denim and leather, a hank of rope slung around his shoulder.

      Louise huffed under her breath as his brother dragged in dirt with his arrival.

      “Slow day?” Luke asked as he set the rope down on a chair.

      “Yeah. I have the Johnstone twins coming in about an hour for vaccinations.”

      Luke winced. “I’ll be gone before then.”

      Louise stood up, hands on her ample hips. “Would you pick up that filthy rope? My waiting room was clean until you showed up! Honestly, if your parents were still here …”

      Luke chuckled. “You make it sound like they’re dead, Louise. They’re in Naples, Florida. They live on the edge of a golf course.”

      Carson chuckled. “Come on, let’s retreat to my office. Sorry, Louise.”

      Carson glanced back one more time, but Dr. Petersen had gone back inside. His brother followed his gaze out the window and then looked at him, confused.

      When they were in his office, Luke sat down on one of the chairs. “What was so interesting outside?”

      “There’s a new doctor in town,” Carson said offhandedly.

      Luke grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Oh, I see.”

      “What do you see?”

      “I’ve seen her. I’m not blind.”

      Carson snorted. “That’s not it at all.”

      Luke cocked an eyebrow. “Then what is it?”

      “It’s a new doctor in town. It’s threatening our family practice.”

      Luke shrugged. “It’s your practice, not mine.”

      So like his brother. Not caring much about the family practice. Not caring about generations of Ralstons who’d sweated to build this practice and this town up. Well, at least he cared.

       Do you?

      Carson pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought you were against the town expansion and the building of that ski-resort community.”

      “I am. Well … I was, but really there was no stopping it.”

      “You could’ve attended a few town meetings,” Carson said.

       When had Luke stopped caring so much?

      It wasn’t his concern and by the way Luke was glaring at him Carson was crossing a line. His brother quickly changed the subject. “I guess my point was that it didn’t look like you were checking out the competition the way you want me to think you were.”

      “I’ll work that out later.” Carson moved around and sat down on the other side of his desk. “What brings you down off the mountain and what in heaven’s name are you going to tie up with that rope?”

      Luke grinned in the devilish way that used to cause their mother to worry. It usually meant that Luke was about to get into some serious trouble.

      “Nothing much. I actually just came for some medical supplies. I’m taking some surveyors deep into the woods.”

      “And the rope is to tie them to the nearest tree and use them as bear bait?”

      “The thought had crossed my mind, but like you, little brother, I took the Hippocratic Oath. I swore to do no harm.”

      “Hmm.”

      “You need to liven up a bit, little brother. You’re too tense.”

      Carson snorted. “Look who’s talking. You know the local kids refer to you as the Grinch in the winter. One of the Johnstone twins thought you were going to come down and steal Christmas