Free Moon Dance by Mariah Stewart

years. He's treated just about every animal—farm and domestic—in the county. If you hadn't stayed on after he had that first stroke last year, I don't know what we'd be doing."
    "Everyone would be driving over to Dr. Peterson in the next county." Matt shrugged, knowing full well that Dr. Espey's patients might well end up there, eventually, once Matt left.
    And they wouldn ' t be happy about it, Matt reflected as he drove his pickup down the lane leading to Dr. Espey's house, but there it was. As long as Tim Espey owned the clinic, Matt Bishop would be there to keep it open. Doc Espey's first stroke had felled him, and the last stroke had left him unable to walk and with a weakness in both arms. Matt didn't know how much longer the old vet would hold on to the clinic, but Matt would be there with him to the end.
    It had been Dr. Espey, a respected professor of animal husbandry as well as a practicing vet, who had taken Matt under his wing when Matt had first started his veterinary studies, and Dr. Espey who had urged him on every step of the way. Having recognized Matt's innate gentleness and uncanny diagnos tic abilities, Tim Espey had personally funded Matt's tuition the year Tom Bishop had died and the family finances were in an uproar. He had never bothered to tell Matt that the "scholarship" he had been awarded at the last minute had not come from the school's financial aid committee, but from his own checkbook. He hadn't wanted the boy to be beholden to him, and it was a source of pride to him that it had been Matt who had asked to intern at the Espey Clinic, and Matt who had offered to stay on and keep the clinic open even after his internship had been completed. Matt Bishop was the son Tim Espey had never had, and the old vet loved him dearly.
    Matt parked his truck near the side door of the old house, right next to the blue Buick that belonged to Eva, the old doctor's lady-friend. Liz, who had lived all her life in the area and knew everyone's secrets, had confided to Matt that Eva and the vet had been sweethearts long ago, but he had enlisted in the early forties and sent to Europe. In his absence, she had fallen head over heels with the new pharmacist and had married him. The good doctor had retaliated by bringing home the British nurse who had tended his wounds after he'd been injured during the last few months of the war. Both Eva's pharmacist and Tim Espey's nurse having passed on within three years of each other, the vet and the love of his childhood had started seeing each other again. The old man's strokes had not diminished her affection for him, and she cared for him with great tenderness.
    "He was wondering if you'd be stopping by." Eva greeted Matt at the door before he'd even knocked on it.
    "I told him I'd be here to bring him up to date on some of his favorite patients."
    "He's in the sunroom." Eva reached for Matt's jacket and he shook his head, telling her, "I won't be staying too long tonight. I left early this morning, and I'll need to get my dog out. He's been cooped up all day."
    "Well, then, why not r un on back and get the dog and bring him back, and then you can both have dinner here?" the voice from the sunroom called to him. "I've got a new dog-food recipe I want to try out."
    "Another one?" Matt laughed from the doorway.
    "Yup." The old man in the wheelchair chuckled. Long a proponent of natural foods for both man and beast, Tim Espey had been experimenting with home-prepared pet fo ods and holistic forms of treat ment for the last twelve or fifteen years. And for the past three of those years, Matt's rottweiler, Artie, had been his favorite guinea pig.
    "What's in this one?" Matt sat down on the large square ottoman in front of the wheelchair.
    "Oatmeal, ground turkey, and some raw vegetables," Dr. Espey replied. "A little bonemeal for calcium, some vi tamin supplements, and some ta mari sauce for flavor."
    "Put enough raw carrots in, and Artie will eat just about anything." Matt