The Circle Eight: Tobias Read Free

call she couldn’t ignore. However, she was nearing the end of her limitations.  
    Rebecca sighed. She would have to start to say no when people asked for her services. How could she do that? It went against her very nature to not help people. She’d given up a great deal for a career. Now she was caretaker for everyone who needed her, an entire county made up her family.  
    That was why she did what she did. Community wasn’t just a word to her—it was part of who she was. The remoteness of the Circle Eight had been the main reason she had to travel even greater distances. If she were in a more central location in Briar Creek, the traveling to help others would be cut in half.  
    Yet she hadn’t been able to bring herself to leave home. Leave her family. A circle was a never-ending link, just as the Grahams were. Leaving the ranch would be the hardest thing she would do in her life, which was saying a lot. Her brother Matt would be furious and argue with her endlessly until she relented.  
    How could she convince them it was the right thing to do when she wasn’t sure herself? If only she had someone to share her burdens, a partner. It was yet another wish that would never come true. The one person she had selected to be her partner hadn’t wanted her. Therefore she didn’t want anyone.  
    She had been nine when her parents died, but her father had been the rock to which they all clung. Her father used to say, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” Until she was much older, she never understood that saying. Now she did. Wishing didn’t make anything come true. She had to work for it and begging to make something happen was a surefire way to fail.  
    She had worked exceptionally hard to distinguish herself from the others in the Graham clan. Everyone had something they did well. Rebecca was a healer and she had to stay true to who and what she was. It was her path and she wanted to stay on it. Veering away scared her.  
    She shook off her maudlin thoughts when she spotted a vine of passionflower and got up to start collecting it. The aromatic plant helped people sleep and relieved anxiety; of late, she’d used quite a bit of it. She settled down with her knife and started harvesting.  
    An hour passed while she moved from plant to plant, alternately washing her hands in the creek between cuttings. She used scraps of burlap to wrap the different cuttings. Her basket was overflowing and she was more relaxed than she had been in months. Her quiet time was shattered when she heard footsteps crunching through the woods. Annoyance lanced through her.  
    Without looking up, she spoke. “If that’s you, Ben, tell Matt I’ll be home for dinner. I’ve got a few more plants to collect.”  
    “It’s not Ben.” The stranger’s voice startled her and she dropped her knife into the bush.  
    Rebecca thrust her hands into the bush, her heart pounding, scrambling for the knife. She’d been taught to defend herself, to always be armed, no matter what. She found the hilt of the knife within seconds and whirled around to face the man. A pistol sat at the bottom of her basket, beneath all her clippings.  
    Stupid, stupid, stupid.  
    “Miss Graham.” He inclined his head. She stared at him, trying to figure out who he was. He was tall and broad with clothes that marked him as a ranch hand. His face was shadowed by the brim of his hat so she couldn’t quite see him. “You hold that knife like you know how to use it.”  
    “I do, along with the pistol in my pocket, so don’t try anything stupid.” She peered at him, trying her best to look fierce even if her knees knocked together and her heart pounded hard enough to crack a rib. He didn’t know the pistol was nowhere near her pocket and she wasn’t about to share that information. “What do you want?”  
    “It’s Will. He got hurt and needs tending. I came to you because you’re the Doc.” The man’s voice was still unfamiliar.  
    She