Cody’s dad had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a while back, and a few months ago, he’d had a reaction to the drugs in the clinical trial. That incident had made Cody realize just how much he missed family and being home in Texas, so he’d given up his job with Doctors Without Borders and moved back to Honey Grove.

“But I damn sure didn’t miss brutally cold winters,” he muttered.

When he came home, Cody had thought about hanging out his shingle for a family practice right there in Honey Grove. After looking around for a place to buy or rent and not finding a thing that he liked, he came up with the idea of doing old-fashioned house calls in the whole community. Elderly folks, like Max Hilton, who needed him that morning but couldn’t drive more than twenty miles to see a doctor in his condition, had quickly built up his business. Now, between helping his brother Jesse on Sunflower Ranch and trying to keep up with his patients, Cody stayed busy from daylight to dark most days.

“Poor old Max.” Cody kept his eyes on the road, but he said a quick prayer that the ambulance got Max to the hospital without sliding off the slick roads. Max was too stubborn to see a doctor and had said more than once that his time was worth more than sitting in an office waiting for hours for a doctor to see him. But when he found out that Cody would come to his ranch house to see him, he called on him every few weeks. Lately, Cody had been telling him that he needed to see a heart specialist.

“I guess he’ll see one now, whether he wants to or not.” Cody slowed down another five miles per hour and leaned over the steering wheel to better see the road in front of him.

Addy, Cody’s nurse, would be glad that Max would be getting help. She’d been worried about him after the last two times they had been out to Max’s ranch.

Cody hit another slick spot and went sideways in the road for a few seconds before he got straightened out. He started to pull off to the side until his heart stopped pounding, but the smart thing was to keep moving ahead. He made it another quarter of a mile, when a front tire hit a pothole and sent him into another greasy slide. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles ached, and hoped that no one would need his doctor services again until the roads were clear.