Sixteen Steps to Fall in Love

by Liz Isaacson

  Nicole stayed in the shelter, finished feeding the cats, and talked to Bianca about her issues with herself and Boone. No matter what Joanne said, Nicole knew she was plain. The smattering of freckles across her nose didn’t make her special. A million women had that. Her hair was thin, and she scraped it together to make a small bun each day. She wasn’t curvy, but she wasn’t skinny either.

  No, there was absolutely nothing remarkable about her. She knew it; had always known it. She sighed, the euphoria of that morning’s breakfast already gone and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

  Chapter Nine

  Boone sat in his office, the letters in front of him blurring together into nonsense. It had been a long week, but he and Nicole had fallen into a fantastic rhythm of going to lunch when he was in the office.

  Today would be lunch number three, and while he hadn’t kissed her yet, he suspected that his fantasies were one of the main reasons he couldn’t read the chart for the little dog he was about to perform surgery on.

  A simple baby tooth retention that needed to be extracted. But all he could think about was maybe taking Nicole somewhere off Main Street so they could have a more private moment than summer in Three Rivers provided.

  Sixteen steps. Sixteen steps and he could ask her what she thought about such an idea.

  Not gonna happen, he told himself, blinking and trying to focus on the dog’s weight from that morning. He wasn’t due in surgery for another twenty minutes, and he certainly had time to take those sixteen steps and talk to Nicole.

  Maybe even kiss her.

  Could he kiss her in her office?

  It had a door, though since they’d started seeing each other, she’d opened the blinds and left them that way so everyone could see inside.

  So her office was out. He’d definitely need to take her somewhere else to get a kiss.

  Someone knocked on his doorframe, and he glanced up. “Ready, Doctor?” Joanne stood there, dressed in her scrubs. She’d have everything ready in the operating room, and all Boone would have to do was make sure the little dog got the right amount of medicine and that he took out the right teeth.

  “Almost,” he said, looking at the chart this time for real and getting his thoughts straight. He couldn’t be thinking about Nicole during work.

  He had lunch with her.

  And he was going to ask her to dinner, soon. A real date. Away from the office. His place. He could order food as well as the next man, and he wanted to see her when she wasn’t dressed in scrubs or a skirt suit.

  He wanted to see her in her natural environment, maybe snuggle with her on the couch while something played on the TV.

  He used to do that with Dylan—minus the snuggling—but he was ready to replace his friend with a woman.

  Wasn’t he?

  He memorized the numbers he needed and headed out of his office and into the operating room. The tiny dog, Rocky, was brought in, and he cradled the yorkie against his chest.

  “Hey, bud,” he cooed at the dog. “It’s gonna be all right now, okay? Let’s look at those teeth.” He handed the pup back to Joanne, who held him tight while Boone checked on the teeth.

  Three of them needed to come out, and none of them were all that loose.

  “Four milligrams,” he said, covering his hair and stepping over to the sink to wash his hands. Once he was gloved and ready, he set about getting those teeth out.

  After the successful surgery, he washed out and went back to his office. He closed the door so he wouldn’t dart down the hall to see Nicole.

  He’d learned a bit more about her through their casual meals, and he knew her parents were older and her mother was sick. She hadn’t detailed too much, and she’d quickly changed the subject to her yard.

  Apparently, it was a thing of beauty and had won several awards in Three Rivers over the years. He could just picture her outside, making everything she touched beautiful.

  His phone rang and he swiped on the call from Dylan, which was odd considering it was the middle of the morning.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “You up for a weekend on horseback?” he asked.

  Boone leaned back in his chair and turned it toward the window. The grass surrounding the building hadn’t improved, and it only reminded him how hot it was here.

  “I’m surprised you are,” he said. “You don’t exactly ride horses every day.”

  “Neither do you,” Dylan said.

  “A heckuva lot more than you do.” In fact, Boone had been on a horse on Wednesday, only two days ago, while he was out at the ranch. He’d had to ride out to a nearby herd and check the hooves on a couple of cows that had found something sharp to step on.

  “The community center is short a couple of men for their youth overnight ride, and I thought maybe me and you could go.”

  “When?” he asked, spinning back to his desk so he could check his schedule, which was scrawled on his desk calendar in Nicole’s handwriting.

  “We leave in the morning and will be back by noon on Sunday.”

  “So we’d miss church.” Boone didn’t see anything on his work calendar that would prevent him from going. He thought through his options. He hadn’t been that big of a church-goer for a few years, but he’d felt something out at Three Rivers after his clumsy prayer, and he sure did want to sit by Nicole in those tiny pews.

  “Yeah.” Dylan drew the word out. “Do you actually go to church?”

  “Yeah, I went last week,” he said, the fib falling from his mouth and making him a tad uncomfortable. “Well, I showed up near the end and…yeah. I was thinking about going at the beginning this time.”

  “Oh, well, if it’s a deal-breaker.”

  “It’s not. I can go.” If he ended up going, he’d definitely need to see Nicole tonight. Kiss her tonight. “What do I need to do?”

  “I’ll talk to Jack Marcher and see,” Dylan said. “I’ll call you back.”

  “I have another surgery in a few minutes,” Boone said. “Leave me a message.”

  “Deal.” Dylan hung up, and Boone reached for the next chart. This was a much bigger dog, here to have bladder stones removed. Boone pushed everything out of his mind—Dylan, horseback riding, and Nicole—and focused.

  After all, this was someone’s beloved pet, and he wouldn’t want his vet to be distracted by a beautiful woman while he operated on Vader or Leia.

  He made it through the surgery, which was much more difficult than he’d anticipated. Sometimes they were, when there were no ultrasounds done to know exactly what he’d find once the incisions were made.

  But Racer was resting comfortably, and Joanne and Theo would keep an eye on the dogs while he went to lunch. They’d make the calls to the owners when the pups woke up and make sure they were ready to go home.

  He could go to lunch and then come back for an easier afternoon of appointments and paperwork. Not that the paperwork was easy. It took him twice as long as other people to get all his Ts crossed and his Is dotted.

  But maybe Nicole could help him….

  The idea played around in his mind as he made those sixteen steps from his office to hers. “Hey,” he said. “You ready for lunch?”

  She held up one finger and he realized she was on the phone. He held up both his hands, palms out and backed out of her office.

  His stomach growled while he waited, but she came out after only a few minutes, and he marveled at her. How had he missed her sitting right there, all this time?

  And why didn’t she like him for the first twelve months he’d been here?

  He was going to find out today. They’d talk about serious things, and then he’d kiss her.

  Maybe too much for a Friday afternoon, he thought, but that didn’t stop him from standing and sweeping one arm around her, a smile already on his face.

  “I was thinking somewhere off the beaten path today,” he said. “What do you think?”

  “I think I have a dozen phone calls to make this afternoon,” s
he said. “So wherever this other path is, it better be nearby.”

  Translation: quick and easy. And that didn’t sound conducive to a nice, slow, romantic meal where they could share important things.

  Surprise flowed through him that he even wanted a meal like that. His last several dates hadn’t exactly encouraged him to keep dating, and Nicole obviously had something about him she didn’t like.

  “Maybe another time, then,” he said. “Let’s hit that food truck rally that’s in the park.”

  She smiled at him, her eyes the color the grass should’ve been, and said, “I want to try that chicken cone truck.”

  Boone took her hand in his. “Chicken cone truck? Tell me more about this.”

  “Oh, you’ll see.” She wore a devilish look in her expression that only made Boone’s pulse accelerate. He drove them the few blocks from the run-down building that housed Puppy Pawz and found a spot to park.

  It seemed like every family had decided lunch from a food truck in the park was a good idea, because they had to fight a crowd to even get close to a menu.

  “It’s over there,” she said, indicating a bright red truck with a cartoon chicken on it. The animal held an ice cream cone dripping with what looked like vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.

  But as they got closer, Boone could easily see how wrong he’d been. “Is that…chicken in that waffle cone?” He glanced at Nicole, barely long enough to see her reaction. “With mashed potatoes and gravy?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And I never get to eat food like this. Come on.” She increased her pace and they joined the line for a chicken and mashed potatoes ice cream cone, a twisted version of chicken and waffles Boone was also curious to try.

  “Because of your mom?” he asked. “Is that why you don’t get to try food like this?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. She cleared her throat. “And I, um, don’t date.”

  That got Boone’s full attention. “You don’t date?”

  She shook her head. “Not for a while now, no.”

  Boone squeezed her hand and continued to study her, sure this woman had to turn down dinner invitations left and right. “Why not?”

  “No one is interested.” A worried look paraded across her face, almost like she expected Boone to bolt at any moment.

  His curiosity reached peak levels. “Well, now I find that hard to believe.”

  “What? That no one is interested.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Well, you weren’t interested.”

  Boone wasn’t sure if he should laugh or get offended. It took him a moment to get a proper breath, and when he did, he asked, “You weren’t exactly nice to me, you know.” He didn’t want to accuse her of anything, but she hadn’t been nice.

  Nicole looked away, and he disliked the trepidation in her eyes before he couldn’t see them anymore.

  “Why is that?” he asked. “I’ve thought a lot about it this week, and I can’t figure out what I did to you.”

  “Nothing,” she said, the word carrying a lot of her previous bite. Oh, this tone he was very familiar with, and he didn’t like it at all. Not one little bit.

  It was almost their turn to order, and Boone swallowed, wondering if this would be their last date. Sort of date. They hadn’t exactly defined what they were doing with all these lunches and the hand-holding.

  But surely she knew he was interested. Didn’t she?

  Help me know what to say, he prayed, and he opened his mouth without anything planned in his head.

  “I’ll figure it out,” he said. “But it sure would be easier if you just told me.”

  Chapter Ten

  Nicole’s appetite for the fried chicken in a waffle cone had fled about the time Boone had asked “You don’t date?” in such an incredulous tone.

  As if she were lying to him. As if she had men beating down her door every night.

  The very idea was laughable. Most men in this town didn’t even know she existed.

  And no, she hadn’t been nice to him, and she needed to do something about it. An apology. An explanation. Maybe she should even beg for his forgiveness.

  Problem was, she didn’t want to admit to him that she’d tried to buy the clinic and couldn’t get the funding. It was a blow that still hit her hard in the lungs, making it hard to breathe and talk normally.

  So she squeezed his hand and said, “I’ll tell you soon.”

  He inched forward in the line, and it was almost their turn. “Does that mean you’ll maybe come to dinner at my place tonight?”

  “Tonight?” She looked fully at him, which was probably a big mistake. His eyes were so dark and so dreamy, and she couldn’t look directly at him without getting stunned. “I don’t think I can tonight.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just going to see my parents.”

  “After that then.”

  Nicole looked at him, wondering if he really was interested in her. He certainly seemed to be. She reached up with her free hand and cradled his face.

  “You really want to?” she asked.

  “Why is that a surprise to you?”

  She’d already told him she didn’t date. “It just seems odd, don’t you think?” she asked. “We’ve worked together for a year, and there’s never been this—” She silenced her voice before she could give validity to the very strong and hot spark between them.

  “This what?” he asked, half a frown sitting between his eyebrows.

  “This…thing between us.”

  Boone shrugged. “Sometimes God works in mysterious ways.” He stepped up to the window and ordered two of their cones, paid, and moved aside.

  She went with him, enjoying the width of his shoulders and steadiness of his character. What she used to find annoying, she now found attractive. What she’d once found irritating, she found exciting.

  And what had changed? She’d worn her hair down to the dog park and spoken kindly to him?

  “You still running?” she asked.

  “Every day.” He met her eye and added, “I hope my family will come watch me run in the Amarillo marathon.”

  He’d said his father wasn’t happy with him for leaving his hometown but that his siblings and mother supported him. “You don’t think they will?”

  “I haven’t told them about it.”

  “It’s coming up, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, I’ve got time.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. Nicole knew what he wanted. He wanted her to share something real about her life with him, the way he’d done with her.

  She’d told him about her parents. But she’d said nothing of her siblings, or how she’d felt overlooked her whole life, or her extreme phobia of singing in public.

  “What are you scared of?” she asked, drawing another surprised look from him.

  “Scared?” he repeated. “Oh, okay. Let’s see. Rattlesnakes.” He held up a finger for each item he listed. “Drowning. Making a mistake in the operating room.” He stilled and looked at her with a measure of vulnerability she hadn’t seen before.

  “Boone,” the girl called out of the window, and he moved to collect the two chicken cones from her. He returned to Nicole with a massive smile and handed her one.

  Her own excitement at the new meal had her smiling too, but she knew it was more because of the man she was with than anything else.

  They didn’t exactly fit in the park, him wearing his white shirt and tie, a pair of slacks and those shiny black shoes and her in her pink scrubs. But no one gave them a second glance as they wandered over to an available bench and sat down with their food.

  Nicole wondered when her life had become this. Become more than dashing out to pick up a salad from the grocery store and eating it alone at her desk. Become something she dreamed of having instead of something she survived.

  And she wanted to tell Boone why she’d been mad at him and maybe a little bit nasty to him when he’d come to Three Rivers and the animal hospital
.

  She dipped a piece of fried chicken into the mashed potatoes and gravy and took a bite, a moan coming out of her throat at the salty, crunchy, meaty flavor.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said around her mouthful of food. ‘This is good.”

  He laughed and took his own bite, his eyes rolling back into his head. She swallowed and joined her laughter to his, vowing to tell him why she’d been a beast to him later.

  Nicole arrived at her parents’ house by five-thirty, like clockwork. She heaved herself from her sedan and gave it an affectionate pat as she went around the hood. The smell of something burnt met her nose before she’d even reached the steps leading to the front door. She increased her pace.

  “Daddy?” she called as she entered the house. Different scents assaulted her, from the burnt toast to vomit to old plastic. She covered her nose as she gagged. “Mama?”

  Her mother hadn’t moved from the living room in months. Nicole tried to get her up and walking at least once a week, but her pain had grown and her dementia worsened so that she usually just sat in her recliner and watched game shows. At night, Nicole would tell her about the animals at the clinic, how her mother’s friends were doing, and anything else she’d heard around town. It wasn’t like her mom listened anyway.

  But now the house was empty. Frantic, Nicole scanned the living room. The vomity, bodily fluid smell came from the recliner, and she gagged again as she passed it. The evidence of the burnt toast still sat in the appliance in the kitchen. “Dad?” she called again.

  She checked the three bedrooms, and the bathroom, the backyard, and the basement. They simply weren’t there.

  She pulled out her phone and dialed the only doctor in town. No one answered, but an on-call number was given. She recited it under her breath a couple of times before hanging up and then punching the number in.

  No one answered. Desperation clogged her throat. What was the point of an on-call number if the doctor wasn’t going to answer?