Kelsie changed into clinic scrubs and headed downstairs, where she remained distracted and scatterbrained for the first hour or so after Masoud left her house. She hadn’t been attracted to a man like that in some time. Her last boyfriend had been nice, but there hadn’t been the same kind of instant sizzle she’d felt with her new neighbor.

If he was only in town for peace and quiet, as he claimed, then eventually he would go back to the city and his regular life. That didn’t mean Kelsie couldn’t have some fun with him while he was there, but it didn’t bode well for anything long-term, which was what Kelsie really wanted.

Between patients—a cat who had gotten caught in a fence and had a sprained leg from trying to get out, and a horse that wasn’t eating—Kelsie checked her email. There was a message from her mother, which made Kelsie sigh.

Suzanne wanted her to come to Las Vegas for a weekend. There was a big fashion expo, and she wanted to buy her daughter some fabulous new clothes. Kelsie knew that the shopping trip would come with a heaping side of guilt for continuing to stay in Rancho Cordero. Her mother would spend the whole weekend dropping hints about how wonderful Las Vegas was, how many single men lived there, and about the darling little building she’d seen that would make a perfect vet’s office.

That was, if the trip even happened. More than once, Kelsie had planned to visit her mother, only to be told at the last minute that plans had changed. Suzanne had forgotten that she was already going out of town, or that her best friend was coming into town and she just didn’t have room, and of course Kelsie couldn’t stay at a hotel.

She’d seen her mother about once a year since her parents had divorced, when she was fourteen. Suzanne always sent extravagant presents on Kelsie’s birthday and at Christmas, usually things that Kelsie couldn’t use or didn’t really want.

As a teenager, Kelsie had worried that she didn’t like her mother’s presents. She’d saved them all and had sent her mother pictures of her wearing them—even when the clothes and jewelry made her miserable, or she wrote long notes about using the purses and perfumes and makeup—even when she hadn’t. It wasn’t until her mid-twenties that she learned that Suzanne almost never read her notes or kept her pictures.

Since then, Kelsie had adopted an arm’s length policy for dealing with her mother. She didn’t ignore her, but she also didn’t take anything Suzanne said seriously, and she didn’t make plans around her mother’s proposed visits. If she wanted to go to Vegas, she’d plan to see friends and stay with them, and if she saw her mother on the trip, that was fine.

She typed a quick reply.

Thanks for the invite, Mom. Send me the details and I’ll see what I can do.

Most likely, Suzanne wouldn’t get back to her with dates or a specific plan, which was fine. Spending a weekend with her mother shopping was about the last thing she wanted to do.

Her cellphone rang and Kelsie hit send on the email, then answered the phone after glancing briefly at the screen.

“Morning, Bo. What’s up?”

Francesca, her best friend and right-hand farm lady sounded frustrated.

“The fence on the south pasture is fixed, but the storm last week knocked down a couple of trees in the north pasture, by the creek.”

“Well, that’s firewood for next winter.”

“Funny. The trees landed on the fence there, so that’s another fence I have to repair.”

Kelsie winced in sympathy. “You want me to call Oscar and have him place another order for wire or posts?”

“No, he should have everything in stock. I’ll call him and tell him what I need. Next time you run into town, would you swing by the hardware store and pick it up?”

“I’ve got a house call in town this afternoon. I’ll go then and bring everything out to you when I get back. The clinic schedule is clear for the rest of the day.”

“Thanks, Peep. Text me when you’re on your way and I’ll meet you out by the creek.”

“Hey, I met our new neighbor,” Kelsie said then.

“They guy with the sports car? What’s he like?”

“Well, he seems nice enough. He has the sweetest pit bull terrier, and she seems to like him.”

“Making him an okay guy in your book, even if he’s a serial killer,” Francesca laughed.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Kelsie said dryly. “Also in his favor, he fixed my kitchen sink after I invited him in for coffee. And he liked Marge’s coffee cake.”

“He fixed your sink?” Kelsie could hear Francesca’s disbelief through the phone.

“I know. He knew what he was doing, too.”

“Is this an appropriate time to make a joke about…well, maybe he can take care of other plumbing needs, too?”

“No. It’s a terrible time for that joke.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Please, don’t. He’s the next-door neighbor.”

“Which is convenient. Hey, speaking of men who want to fix your plumbing, I ran into Spencer in town.”

Wanting to bang her head against the wall, Kelsie asked, “What did he want?”

“To know why you won’t go out with him. I told him it might have something to do with the fact that he’s a cheating jerk.”

Kelsie snorted. “Yeah, that and I’ve been over him for, oh, about fifteen years.”

“Is he still drunk dialing you?”

“Yeah. His voicemails are getting more and more creative.”

“Maybe your new neighbor can fix that problem, too.”

“Oh, if only we could fix Spencer. Look, it’s fine, Bo. I can handle it; I promise. And you have fences to mend. Literally. Stop worrying about me and go do that.”

“Yes, ma’am. See you in a few hours.”

Kelsie hung up the phone and shook her head. She and Francesca had been best friends since fifth grade. The new girl in school, Francesca, had started calling Kelsie “Bo Peep” when she’d learned that her father was a sheep farmer. Instead of getting mad, Kelsie had laughed. She had been going through a phase where she’d curled her hair every morning, and even she’d had to admit that with blond curls and the fact that she lived on a sheep farm, she did look like Little Bo Peep.

The nickname had stuck, with Francesca eventually shortening it to just “Peep” and others picking up on it, too. The two girls were so inseparable in high school—more like sisters than friends—that someone had started calling Francesca “Bo,” so that together, they were Bo Peep.

They’d gone to different colleges, and Francesca had moved to Sacramento for a few years, too, getting an MBA in the process before moving back to Rancho Cordero.

There was no way Kelsie could have managed both the clinic and the farm, so while the clinic was hers, she and Francesca jointly owned the sheep farm, and Francesca oversaw all the operations.

Kelsie loved working with her best friend. It was the best of all possible worlds, and she wouldn’t change a thing. She was almost certain of that.