“What do you mean, you never sent in your applications?” Kyler tugged on his bow tie like it was choking him, eventually throwing it down on the damp earth surrounding the creek. “We did them together. We…Bree, it was hours, just the two of us—”
“That’s why I did them. I loved being with you.” Tears blurred the sight of him. “The ones I actually sent in were for pre-vet programs closer to home. I can’t leave my home. The business. My family.”
He stared at Bree like she was speaking in a different language. “But we’d be together.” His whisper turned into a shout. “I’m your home.”
Bree’s heart lurched. “This isn’t easy for me. M-my mom—”
“Not easy for you?” He turned and paced away, attacking his hair with agitated fingers. “I’m leaving. I’m leaving and you won’t be with me. We’ll be apart. That’s not how this was supposed to happen.”
“It was always going to happen like this.” She held tight to the lapels of the jacket he’d draped over her shoulders, positive it was the only thing keeping her glued together. She’d felt that way since earlier, when he’d arranged to have them dance together at prom, her heart twisting at yet another reminder of what she’d soon be giving up. “Right now, we’re in this tiny town. But someday, Ky, someday you’re going to be too big to fit inside of it anymore. That scares me. I’m scared of where you’re headed.”
“There’s only us, Bree.” He shook his head. “The rest is just noise.”
As Bree had known it would be, choosing to remain in Bloomfield over going with the boy she loved was excruciating. She had to hold fast, though. Deep in her bones, there was a need to stay rooted. Right where she’d been standing since the walls threatened to crumble around her family once before. Holding them up was her job. She’d taken on the responsibility and wouldn’t shirk that duty. Not now. Not ever. No matter how much it killed her. “I’m happy with what I have. I have to be.” She tried to swallow the knife in her throat, but it only dug in deeper. “I’m sorry. I’m staying right here, right where I’m needed.”
“No.” He came forward, framing her face in his hands. “No.”
“Yes—”
His kiss cut her off and for long moments, all she could do was sink into it. Let it pull her down. Ever since Kyler’s star had started to rise, she’d let her reservations get lost in times like these. When she’d put off the inevitable in favor of his touch, his words. Their senior year was all but finished, though, and after dancing with him tonight, seeing their future playing out in his green eyes, she couldn’t put it off any more.
Kyler groaned, his strong hands locking their hips together, rolling their lower bodies as he sunk hungry teeth into her bottom lip. God, if she let him pull her down to the soft earth and use their attraction as a bargaining chip, there was every chance he could persuade her from her decision. And she couldn’t allow that.
“I’m sorry,” Bree whispered, breaking free of his hold. “Good bye, Ky.”
She could still feel his touch as she ran away along the creek bed, scalding tears coasting down her cheeks.
Bree’s cell phone buzzed in her pocket for the fifth time in a row. Again, she ignored it, focusing instead on the wounded golden retriever she was attending. He lay on a ten-seat kitchen table, surrounded by his family, each of whom whispered comforting words and stroked some section of the nervous dog.
“Now, don’t you worry,” Bree murmured, smiling at the youngest member of the family, a six-year-old girl. “Bowser is one tough dog. That coyote only got a tiny nibble out of him. He’s going to heal up just fine.”
The little girl relaxed, smiling into her mother’s hip, although she continued to eye the blood-dappled sheet beneath the dog with trepidation. Bree usually preferred to work in private when making house calls, but when it came to beloved family dogs, she made an exception. It was obvious they were providing much needed comfort for Bowser as Bree finished stitching and bandaging the bite mark on the dog’s right front leg.
Moments like these, telling people their animal would recover, made the struggle through school worth every penny. Made it worth never feeling fully rested. She took pride in her work and the business her father had built. When her parents had moved to Bloomfield in the eighties and opened the practice, it had taken hard work to get it off the ground. They were not only the new folks in town, they were an interracial couple—her mother white, her father African-American—in a place where that hadn’t been considered typical, meaning they’d faced a lot of curiosity and adversity early on.
While her father had worked triple time to prove his skill as a veterinarian, Bree’s mother turned restless. Her father had confided in Bree later on that her mother found contentment hard to achieve. Always had. He didn’t even fault her for it, which confused Bree to this day. A loving family, a town that had embraced them, a thriving business. What more had she needed?
Calls like this one were a reminder to Bree that she had everything she needed right here in Bloomfield. She had the community’s trust, friends, family. Contentment. Her father did the inpatient work at the office so he wouldn’t have to travel, which meant Bree rarely had the privilege of working with canines, most of her calls concerning horses and cattle. It was rare that she witnessed the love between family members and their pets up close. Which had to account for the little spark of yearning in her breast, right?
A family of her own was something Bree had stopped dreaming about without even realizing, it seemed. How long had it been since she’d pictured her own children racing around the yard after their puppy? School, work, and running the house had put those dreams on hold, but they were trickling back in now as she watched the father reach over and squeeze the little girl’s shoulder.
Heat pressed against the back of Bree’s eyelids.
Shit almighty. What was up with her today?
“Almost done here,” Bree said. “Bowser is going to need lots of rest. I’m going to leave a prescription for painkillers to crush up in his food. And before I leave, we’ll have to put a cone on him so he doesn’t ruin his stitches.” She smiled at the little girl. “I’m recommending lots of doggie treats for the next week. Doctor’s orders.”
“I can give him those,” whispered the six-year-old.
“Good. I’m counting on you.”
Bree cut the final thread and tied it tight before disinfecting the wound once more and wrapping the damaged leg with a bandage.
The cell phone went off in her pocket a sixth time.
Worried Kira needed her for something, Bree peeled off her gloves and excused herself under the guise of retrieving the cone from her truck. As soon as she closed the front door behind her, Bree plucked the phone out of her pocket, refusing to acknowledge the lick of excitement that slid up her spine at the possibility it could be Kyler. When she saw the name Heidi blinking on the screen instead, she flicked away the disappointment and braced herself.
“Hello?”
“Woman, this conversation needs to start with something better than a damn hell-o. It deserves a cymbal crash or a British accent. I don’t know. But hello ain’t cutting it.”
Heidi lived for drama. In high school, she’d been the lead in every school play from Wizard of Oz to Cats. When the stage wasn’t an option, she created her own titillating scenarios, playing matchmaker to her friends just so she could sit back and watch the fireworks. Underneath the lip stains and bleached white hair, though, Heidi had an overly-sensitive heart of gold. Which was why Bree considered the town’s gym receptionist her best friend, even though they were polar opposites.
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why is this conversation going to be so earth-shattering?”
“Oh no. You make me call you thirty-nine times, you’re going to wait for the Tootsie Roll center, baby. Keep licking.”
Bree snort-laughed. “You called me six times.”
“Splitting hairs.” Heidi hummed and Bree waited, knowing her friend wouldn’t be able to hold out on sharing whatever gossip she was peddling for long. “Heard you danced all your business up on Kyler Tate last night.”
Bree’s jaw dropped down to her knees. “That better not be why you’re calling me, Heidi. It was innocent fun. At a church dance.”
“You fix those animals up better than you lie. That’s what I know.”
“Ooh. I’m fixing to hang up.”
“You will not.” A phone rang in the background and Heidi gave a long-suffering sigh. “Hold on, I’ve got another call.”
“Don’t—”
The line went silent and Bree stomped the remaining distance to her truck, going through the list of suspects of who might have ratted her out. Kira, most likely. Her little sister and Heidi were Facebook friends and Bree was pretty sure they messaged on the regular. After Kyler had walked Bree and a bouquet-toting Kira to the parking lot last night, pressing a polite, if lingering, kiss on Bree’s cheek, her sister hadn’t let up a single second. Were they back in love? Was Kyler a good kisser?
Hell yes, he was. Not that she’d be sharing that information with Kira or anyone else, for that matter. The man had a method of kissing that Bree always suspected had been specifically designed to turn her wild. At the start, Kyler played aggressor. But as soon as she got good and worked up, he let her take the lead, encouraging her with his hands, his tongue, his husky groans. Basically, he turned himself into her own personal playground.
Heidi’s voice popped the daydream bubble over her head. “I’m back.”
“Guhh.” Bree shook herself free of kissing memories. “I-I don’t have long. I’m putting a cone on a golden retriever, then I have another appointment.”
“Fine, I’ll stop torturing you. But I want the details of this alleged dirty dance with Kyler. Grown-up ones.”
“Ha! I knew it was Kira who ratted.”
Her best friend clucked her tongue. “Speaking of Mr. Tate…”
Bree paused in the act of removing the plastic cone from a supply bag on the passenger seat. Her lack of movement only made her pounding heart more noticeable. Since yesterday, when Kyler announced pretty as you please that he intended to take her for dinner, she’d been living on the edge of—what? Anticipation? Fear? Bree only knew her focus had been hijacked along with her common sense. Because some crazy part of her wanted to say yes.
Not that she would. Oh no. That dance with Kyler last night had proven one very troubling fact. She wasn’t quite over him yet. Not her heart and not her body. Dinner would only make it worse. Make her…less than content.
“What about Kyler?” Bree asked, striving for casual.
“He’s here in the gym,” Heidi answered. “Working out like it’s no big thing.”
“It’s not a big thing,” Bree said automatically, already conjuring up an image of him in sweaty shorts. “Right?”
“Tell that to the string of admirers glued to the windows. A bunch of suction-cupped Baby on Board signs. You know the ones?” Heidi’s chair creaked in the background. “That’s what they look like, drooling over your man like that. Can you believe the nerve?”
“He’s…he’s not my man.”
“So you don’t mind if Karen Hawthorne asks him out?”
“What?” Bree’s stomach plummeted. “When did Karen Hawthorne come into the picture?”
“Since now.” Satisfaction weighed down Heidi’s tone over successfully getting Bree’s attention. “I can see that hen in the fox house from here. She’s parked at the curb, fixing her mascara in the rearview. That’s as good as confirmation in my book.”
A pressure formed on top of Bree’s lungs, pushing down. “So…she should go ahead and ask him.” She tried to swallow, but her throat was as dry as the desert. “It’s none of my business.”
“No, I suppose not.” Bree could hear Heidi’s manicured fingernails tapping the reception desk. Clack. Clack. Clack. “Hell. You can’t really blame the woman, can you? Kyler Tate, soon to be professional NFL receiver, rolls up into the local gym looking like something out of Sports Illustrated. He runs so fast and so long, he soaks his T-shirt right through with sweat. It’s so wet, he has to take it off and—”
Bree dropped the cone, straightening in the truck’s front seat. “Kyler…it’s…he took his shirt off?”
“That’s exactly what I said.” Smug. Heidi was so smug. “Now, you know I have a man and I do not have a wandering eye, but Bree, when an unattached man walks into your town looking so mighty, so heavy with muscle, like he could grind a woman’s vagina to fine powder, ladies start fixing their mascara. It’s just the nature of the beast.” She blew out at a breath. “Good thing he ain’t your man, huh?”
“Stall her. I’ll be there in ten.”
“Consider it done.”