Nicole puttered around the house on Saturday morning, vacuuming and picking up clothes and shoes she’d left out all week. She’d finally invited Boone over, finally had him enter her quaint cottage. He’d filled it with his broad shoulders and tall frame, his hearty laugher and quick wit.

He’d kissed her in the kitchen after she fed him, in the living room before saying good-night. He seemed genuinely interested in her, and that was the real problem.

No one had ever seemed interested in her.

“There’s definitely something wrong with him,” she muttered as she ran a duster across her entertainment center. But what it was, she hadn’t been able to figure out yet. And she’d been trying, digging up anything she could about him. She’d come up with nothing.

He really did go fishing or horseback riding on the weekends sometimes. He hung out with Dylan and they watched sports. He was a great veterinarian. Everyone in Three Rivers seemed to love him, even the motel manager who had a reputation for not liking anyone.

He had no criminal record, and the only flaw she could find was some speeding tickets—which he’d paid—from years ago down in Hill Country.

“That’s it,” she said to the silent house. Taz lifted his head like she was talking to him. “He’s too perfect. How am I supposed to live with that?”

Her prior opinion of his arrogance had vanished the more she’d gotten to know him—and the more she’d realized how much her attitude toward him wasn’t warranted, that it should be directed at her siblings who’d abandoned her in Three Rivers. Or to her situation in caring for her mother. Or to her own lack of training and financial ability to buy the animal hospital.

She shook her head and started singing the song that had been in her head that morning. “Somewhere, over the rainbow….” She really let herself belt out the lyrics, singing in the clear, contained voice she never let loose, never let anyone else hear.

A measure of joy infused her soul as she freed herself from the box where everything got held so tightly. The song finished, and some of her happiness ebbed away with the last note still hanging in the air.

Why can’t I sing like that in front of people? she wondered. Pastor Scott had cautioned her about not using her talents. Not sharing them with the world. Nicole felt like she’d never shared anything of worth with the world.

“Do you think God gave you this gift only to hide it?” the pastor had asked.

Nicole had been thinking about his words ever since. She’d been going to choir practice every Wednesday night and every Sunday morning. But she simply could not get herself up to the choir seats when it was time to sing in church, with real people sitting in the rows, listening.

One reason was because Boone had been attending church with her for the past few weeks. She still sat in the third row, sometimes with her father, sometimes not. Boone didn’t come early, and he slipped onto the end of the bench beside her like a phantom.

Afterward, he always wanted to go to the park, hold her hand, and talk about what Pastor Scott had said.

She stepped onto the back patio and breathed in the fragrance from her fruit trees, everything simple in the yard. She could brace tree limbs, no problem. She could fertilize a spot of earth where nothing grew. She could look at a rose bush and see what was wrong with it.

Why couldn’t she diagnose her own ailments and fix them? She sat on the bench where she and Boone had eaten turkey chili on Thursday night, trying to find the scent of his cologne in the cushions next to her. It wasn’t there, but his challenge to sing for him still lingered in her ears.

Help me to trust him, she prayed, her eyes drifting closed. She couldn’t conjure up any more words to add to the prayer, but she didn’t need more.

She knew what she needed to do. Now she just needed to do it.

“After I check on Mama.” She sighed, stood, and left her backyard to the summer sunshine, the thought of trusting her singing to Boone almost more than she could bear.

Another Sunday passed. Another choir practice. Two more Wednesdays. Everything in her life seemed plugged up. She liked holding Boone’s hand, and kissing him, and spending time with him and his dogs.

But things felt like they’d gone as far as they were going to go. She felt stalled, like maybe his interest in her had waned now that he’d spent quite a bit of time with her.

Thursday came again, their longest day. Boone leaned in her doorway, knocking against the frame. “Dinner tonight? My place?”

She glanced up, shock traveling through her that he’d blatantly asked in front of Joanne, who sat no less than six feet from where he stood, a clipboard at his side. She needed to get over her phobia of other people knowing about their relationship. She wasn’t embarrassed about it, and the entire town knew anyway.

“Your place?” She stood and came around her desk, this invitation to his personal space new. “You don’t cook.”

“No, I don’t. But I checked on that new open oven pizza place, and they’re open late. I know you like pepperoni with extra cheese.” He singsonged the last two words, a smile making his good looks downright delicious.

She returned it and pressed one palm against his chest. “Sounds great.”

He leaned forward and jerked back. “Great. When’s your lunch?”

“Half an hour?”

He looked at his clipboard. “No can do. An hour?”

“I can wait another hour to eat.”

He grinned, brushed her hair back in a tender gesture, and left her office. Joanne met her eye, a knowing smile on her face. Nicole returned it, the song in her head now louder than ever.

When a man loves a woman….

But Boone did not love her. She knew, like she knew the sky was blue.

She was still struggling to believe he liked her, but all the signs pointed to the fact that he did.

One step at a time, she told herself and went back to work.

She pulled into Boone’s driveway on the north end of town, her stomach a knotted mess. She’d always thought him way out of her league, and this house proved it. Sure, she’d been here before, but she’d been distracted by the huge trucks and the other blonde woman.

The house had a stone and stucco exterior only found in the newer, nicest houses in Three Rivers. A double-car garage, and a yard he clearly paid someone else to maintain. She knew, because it held no personal touch in the mound of flowers in the front yard and the single birch tree near the back fence.

Go on, she told herself when Boone opened the front door and stepped onto the stoop. She’d been coaching herself a lot lately, trying to do things she’d never done before, because she’d never dated a man like Boone before.

She got out of the car and put a smile on her face. “I’m so nervous,” she admitted as she went up the four steps and entered his arms.

“Why?”

“This feels like a big step,” she said. “Coming to your place.”

“I’m not going to bite,” he teased. “And the pizza’s already here.”

She stepped back and smoothed down her scrubs. “I want to do something.” She swallowed, her throat as dry as the Sahara. When had she swallowed cotton?

But she needed to do this, do something. She wanted things to move forward with Boone, and she felt like she was the one holding them back.

“Should we eat first?” He gestured toward the house and turned to enter it.

She went with him, trying not to notice the tile, the hardwood floors, the granite, the clean, crisp, contemporary lines.

“No,” she said, her tongue so thick in her mouth. “If we eat first, I won’t do it.”

Boone leaned against the counter next to two pizza boxes. “All right.”

She blinked at him, the song she’d chosen to sing for him rebounding from one side of her mind to the other.

He folded his arms and smiled. “Should I keep waiting?”

“Yes,” she snapped, her nerves and her hunger making her patience thin. “Do you have any water?”

He pushed away from the counter and retrieved a water bottle from the fridge. He passed it to her with a sexy look on his face that nearly undid her resolve.

“I don’t know what you’re going to do,” he said. “But I’m intrigued.”

She took a couple of gulps and set the water bottle next to him. “There.” It tipped but didn’t fall over and she withdrew from him a few paces. Drew a deep breath. Kept her back to him.

And started singing.