Sixteen Steps to Fall in Love

by Liz Isaacson

  “Mornin’, Boone,” the boy said in much the same tone as his father.

  “Hey, Jake. Where you guys off to this morning?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bullpen,” Garth called over his shoulder. “Re-runging.”

  That didn’t sound like a job Boone would want to do—and exactly the reason he’d left his family’s ranch in Grape Seed Falls—and the boy’s non-enthusiasm for his morning task made a lot of sense to Boone.

  He still couldn’t help a chuckle as the boy continued to trudge after his father. At least he was obedient and learning to work.

  He did love the country stillness. The way the sun took it’s time giving light to Texas, as if He wanted to breathe life into the best state in the Union one slow moment at a time.

  Boone did enjoy the way he could feel peace when on a ranch. They really were special places, and Three Rivers Ranch functioned as a community almost by itself. Dozens of people lived and worked out here, a good forty minutes from town and the nearest grocery store.

  “You ready?” Cal stepped up beside Boone and put his boot on the bottom rung of the fence where Boone was watching the dogs still running through the fields.

  “Yes, sir,” Boone said, the way he would’ve to his father. “I’m headed into town for a breakfast,” he added. “Just for a couple of hours. I’ll be back by ten, and I won’t fall behind in the work.”

  Cal laughed, as if Boone had said something funny. “I don’t care what you do,” he said. “Squire doesn’t either. Brynn might, as you’re supposed to be in her barns today, but whatever.” He shrugged and lifted a coffee mug to his lips.

  He glanced toward the homestead, but neither of them saw Squire. The three of them always met on Monday mornings, at least for a few minutes, just to get caught up on any pressing animal care needs the ranch had.

  Squire and Cal both had their veterinary licenses too, and they both lived on-site. Squire split the full-time care with Cal, and did administrative work during the rest of the day. Cal split his time at Courage Reins, Bowman’s Breeds, and the main ranch, making sure every horse on the property was as healthy as possible.

  “How’s Trina?” Boone asked at the same time Cal asked, “Who are you meeting for breakfast?”

  Boone waited for Cal to answer, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about Nicole just yet. Which was pretty ridiculous, because he’d held her hand in public yesterday, and the only reason everyone at the ranch didn’t know about it was because they lived on the ranch.

  Another thing to admire, he thought while Cal detailed how Trina was doing now that the morning sickness had subsided and she’d moved into the second trimester of her pregnancy.

  “And how’s Sabrina doing with the idea of having a new brother or sister?”

  “She’s excited,” Cal said, finishing his coffee. “She wants it to be a girl, of course.” He flashed Boone a smile and said, “Here comes the boss.”

  Sure enough, Squire was making his way toward them, whistling at his own dog to come to his side. Buddy did, and his step-son Finn treated the canine and gave him a healthy scrub as they continued toward them.

  “Morning,” Squire said, glancing at both Boone and Cal. Boone imagined his older brother Dwayne to be as serious, nowhere near smiling until noon, at least, and the kind of man like Squire who slept in his cowboy hat.

  “Honeybee’s finally been retired,” he said. “And Peony too, though she’s making a pretty remarkable recovery, thanks to you, Boone.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Boone said, and he genuinely was. He did love animals, and he wondered why his father had thought that wasn’t noble enough.

  But his dad had wanted a ranch his whole life, and he and his mother had sacrificed for years to build Grape Seed Falls Ranch into what it was today.

  But Dwayne loved the ranch and wanted it and worked it. Boone wouldn’t even have a place there anyway, even if he had stayed in Texas Hill Country.

  “Everything’s humming along real well here,” Squire said next. “So the usual rounds, and Cal’s with Courage Reins today, and Boone, you’re with Brynn.”

  “Got it,” he said, preparing to give the speech about the breakfast to his cousin.

  “He’s got a hot date for breakfast,” Cal said, elbowing Boone.

  “I do not,” Boone said, every cell in his body recoiling with the lie. “It’s just my office administrator. I don’t normally work at the animal hospital on Mondays, but we need to meet. That’s all.”

  Squire watched him for a moment past comfortable. “All right. Just check in with Brynn before you go.” He turned, the meeting clearly over.

  Cal wandered away with Squire, the two men still talking. Boone let them go, because he needed another moment with just the ranch…and God.

  He drew in a deep breath, trying to order the words in his mind to a prayer. It had been a long time since he’d put up a plea to the Lord, but he managed to cobble together a simple sentence.

  Help me do what’s right.

  Whether he meant with his ranch work, his veterinary hospital, or Nicole, he wasn’t sure. He needed help with all of it.

  Boone arrived at the pancake house a few minutes before eight and pushed his way inside to find the pastor eating bacon and eggs with the Sheriff. Boone liked to drive really fast, and the cops back home had pulled him over several times. Every time he saw anyone wearing a law enforcement uniform, his stomach turned a bit.

  He avoided eye contact with the Sheriff, though his wife had brought in a cat a few months ago and she’d been nice enough. Sandy, the actual owner of the pancake house, smiled at him and said, “Just you?”

  He leaned against the counter, a grin flirting with his lips. “Two today.”

  “Ooh, who are you meeting?” Sandy collected two menus and led him toward a private corner booth.

  “You’ll see, Miss Nosy.” He took the menu and slid into the booth. Sandy laughed and walked away, and Boone caught sight of her husband, Tad, saying something to her as she approached the hostess station again.

  Nicole arrived exactly at eight o’clock, and her eyes met his across the distance, but the pastor grabbed her before she could make her way toward him. They spoke for a few minutes, while Nicole tucked her hair and ducked her head and laughed nervously. Whatever the pastor was telling her made her uncomfortable, and Boone wondered what it was.

  She wore a pair of jeans and a yellow blouse that made her hair seem whiter than usual. Or maybe that was the fluorescent lighting. She finally made her way to the corner booth and slid in. “Morning.”

  “What was that about?” He nodded toward the pastor and the Sheriff.

  Her defenses flew into place, and her eyes turned cold. “Just some church stuff.”

  “What kind of church stuff?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Pastor Scott wants me to sing in the church choir.”

  “And you don’t want to? You’re always walking around the clinic singing or humming.”

  Horror paraded across her face. “I am not.”

  He chuckled. “You totally are. Every day.”

  Her shoulders slumped and she lost the fight in her expression. “Fine. I have stage fright. Are you happy now?”

  “No.” He reached across the table and took her hands in his. “Now I’m happy.”

  She laughed, a happy little sound that made Boone’s pulse skip around inside his chest

  “So,” he said, enjoying the buzz in his blood he knew belonged to the woman across from him. “Tell me something about you I don’t already know.”

  “Well.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t think you really know much about me at all.”

  “I know you’re detail-oriented,” he said. “And you never miss a deadline. You work hard, and you’ve never taken a sick day.”

  She scoffed and picked up her glass of water, removing her fingers from him. They still tingled like he’d been connected to a live wire. “How would you know that? You’ve been
here a year.”

  “Not everyone in the office has ignored me.” Boone regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. “I mean—”

  Sandy arrived at the table and said, “Morning y’all. Coffee?”

  “Yes, please,” Nicole said, tucking her hair behind her ear, and Boone realized she hadn’t pulled it up into her customary bun yet that morning.

  He wanted to reach across the table and do the same thing, feel her hair between his fingers.

  Once Sandy left, he did reach over and claim her hand again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Want me to tell you something you don’t know about me?”

  Nicole smiled, though it didn’t pack quite the punch it had at the park yesterday. “Yes, let’s do that.”

  Chapter Eight

  Nicole floated into the clinic, the memory of Boone’s hand in hers hot and strong. Her skin still tingled and everything. She wore a perma-grin that made Joanne cock her head to the side and say, “What happened this weekend?”

  Nicole just grinned harder and bypassed the reception desk in favor of her office. She’d eaten breakfast at the pancake house. Everyone in Three Rivers would know by lunchtime. It was impossible to hide things in such a small town.

  But for now, the secret was Nicole’s—as was that he didn’t want his family farm in Hill Country—and she entered her office and closed the door, something she rarely did. A happy sigh escaped her lips as she sat down and tried to focus on what she needed to accomplish that day.

  Pet adoption paperwork from last week. The yearly budget, which she’d need Boone to sign off on in the next couple of days. And on days Boone went out to the ranch, she took care of the animal shelter residents alone.

  He liked how efficient she was. He liked her hair. He liked her laugh. He wanted to sit by her at church next week. She relived their breakfast, somehow remembering everything he’d said, the sexy way he’d watched her with those dark eyes that he couldn’t hide because the cowboy hat was gone.

  He had so many sides, he was like a rectangular prism. Turn him this way and he was a veterinarian. That way and he was a marathon runner. Over and he was all cowboy, hiking to remote lakes in Texas Hill Country and fishing, river rafting, and swimming instead of doing the ranch work his father wanted him to. Upside down and he was a normal, well-dressed, good looking man taking a woman to breakfast. Nicole wondered if she could see him again that evening and how to do it without coming across as desperate.

  She really could listen to the man talk for hours in that sexy Texan drawl he had. Nicole found herself staring at her dark computer and she jolted. How long had she been daydreaming about Boone? Too long as the clock read just past nine-thirty now. Thirty minutes too long.

  She leapt to her feet, determined not to let him dominate her day when he wasn’t even in the office. She used to crave the time at Puppy Pawz when he was gone, when the clinic became hers again, when everything went back to how it had been before he showed up.

  Now, the vibe at the clinic felt different. It felt…empty. Sterile. She wiped her palms down the front of her scrubs and exited her office.

  Joanne stood. “Is it true? You ate breakfast with Boone?”

  The gossip had started already. Nicole going into her office first thing on Monday morning and closing the door for over a half-hour had probably sent Joanne into a tizzy. She’d probably sent over a hundred texts, until she’d discovered what had gone down only an hour ago.

  Nicole didn’t really want to live in denial. A grin graced her face. “I did.”

  Joanne squealed and glanced around, though the waiting room was vacant. Sure, sometimes an emergency care situation would arise and they’d have to call Boone, but most of the time, the Mondays when he didn’t work were quiet and uneventful, with only owners dropping off dogs for daycare.

  “Tell me how that happened.”

  The incredulity in Joanne’s voice grated against Nicole’s nerves, but she supposed the relationship was a bit unconventional. After all, she’d spent every day for the past year glaring at the man. She hadn’t exactly been nice to him, and anyone with two eyes had seen it.

  She wouldn’t have pegged the animal shelter to be a hotbed for gossip, but Joanne did see a lot of people coming in and out of the building. They all interacted with her first, and she had grown up in Three Rivers. She knew everyone and their pets, their parents, their problems. And now she wanted to know what was going on with Nicole and Boone.

  Nicole wanted to answer her, but she wasn’t sure herself. “Come on rounds with me in the shelter and daycare,” she said. Joanne practically fumbled everything on her desk as she reached for the “Be right back. Ring the bell for service” sign and placed it on the counter.

  Six years her junior, Joanne had always been nice to Nicole. Nicole, who didn’t have a lot of friends because of her work at Puppy Pawz and her constant care of her family. She walked slow, something she never did on the job. She filled the cat food bowls while Joanne washed out water bowls for the dogs.

  “We ran into each other at the dog park on Friday morning,” Nicole finally said. “It was…strange.”

  “What does that mean?” Joanne spoke loud to be heard over the running water.

  “He seemed different. Less bossy.” She thought of him in those tiny running shorts and that shirt made from seemingly space-age material. “More human.” Or more god-like, she wasn’t sure. Boone wore slacks, a short-sleeved dress shirt in a variety of colors, and a tie to work. He paired his white lab coat with it every single day, making him mature and maddeningly handsome and most definitely out of Nicole’s reach.

  Joanne didn’t say anything, simply moved down the line with fresh water for the canines. The little French bulldog that had come in last week cowered in the corner of her kennel, and Nicole knelt down to look at her. “Hey, Bianca. Come on.” The little dog didn’t move, and Nicole wondered if she could add a third pet to her household. Valcor would resist, but Taz would be ecstatic to have a dog that actually played with him. Or at least got off the couch.

  “What happened?” Joanne paused next to Nicole, who stood and looked her friend in the eyes. Joanne combed her fingers through her red hair and secured it in a ponytail.

  “We ran into each other at church,” she said, remembering the faint bruise on her cheekbone she’d gotten from actually running into him. “Went to the park for a picnic. Then breakfast this morning. Oh, and we met on Saturday at the dog park too.”

  “A planned meeting?”

  “Yes.”

  Joanne’s emerald eyes sparkled like the sun glinting off water. “So you’re dating him.”

  “No—I mean….” Nicole sighed. She’d never really dated anyone before. Before Mama had gotten sick, she’d gone out with a group of friends. She’d interacted with men. But she didn’t actually know how to date a man. How to flirt. How to capture the attention of someone as smart and successful as Boone.

  “This isn’t going to end well, is it?” she asked.

  Joanne frowned and moved down the line, collecting the food bowls onto her cart. “Why wouldn’t it?”

  “For one thing, he lives on the north end of town.”

  “So what?”

  “Those houses up there aren’t cheap.” And his had been at the end of the street—one of the biggest in the neighborhood.

  Joanne scoffed. “That’s a non-issue.”

  “How so?” She thought of her quaint cottage just down the street from the elementary school, in the decidedly older part of town. Sometimes, on a really quiet morning, she could hear the bell ringing. The house itself was nothing spectacular. A couple of small bedrooms. A tiny galley kitchen, and a living room that barely held a full-sized couch. But Nicole hadn’t bought the house for the interior. No, all of her passion had been poured into the yard.

  “So you think you can’t be with him because he has money?” Joanne asked, scooping dog food into clean bowls.

  “I don’t know,” Nicole said. “Maybe because
he’s my boss. Maybe because I haven’t been super nice to him until now.” The words poured from her like water through a dam. “Maybe because he’s astronomically good looking and I’m just Plain Old Nicole.” She took a deep breath to contain the tremors shaking her chest. When had she become weak and self-depreciating?

  Sure, she’d been invisible and overlooked her entire life. An afterthought ran through her mind. But she’d never been weak. She was the one who stuck around when Mama got sick. She was the one who went to her parents’ house every single day to take care of them. She did their dishes and her own. She vacuumed their floor before hers. She’d sacrificed her education, her dreams, her desires, for them.

  None of her other siblings had done that, and like a bolt of lightning cutting through the sky, she realized why she’d been so angry with Boone all this time. She was projecting her feelings for her siblings onto him. Their abandonment had become his. Their detachment burned, and she’d taken it out on him.

  Joanne set a bowl of dog food in front of Bianca’s crate, and the little dog came forward. Nicole scooped her into her arms and patted her soft head. “What do you think, Jo? Do you think I have a chance with Boone?”

  “I don’t see why not.” Joanne faced her, her eyes kind as they usually were. “You’re a great catch, Nicole,” she said. “I’ve always thought so.”

  “I’m ordinary,” she said. “Someone like Boone is probably used to extraordinary.” She hadn’t cared who he’d dated in the past, but again, things like that in Three Rivers were hard not to know about.

  “Someone like Boone needs someone good, someone grounded, someone who’s going to set him straight from time to time.”

  “I at least do that,” Nicole said weakly.

  Joanne smiled for half a heartbeat. “You certainly do.” It was her way of saying Nicole had been less than kind to Boone. She finished feeding the dogs and wiped down the cart. From the front of the facility, the phone rang. Joanne walked around the kennels to the door. “You’re better than you think, Nicole,” she said just before she entered the hall and disappeared from sight.