Nicole spent the night in Amarillo at a hotel. In the past, she’d slept curled in a ball in her mother’s hospital room. But she discovered this time that the city had charm, and the dreams she’d had about going to college and living in a big city brightened. She realized they’d never died. They’d simply taken up residence in the back of her mind.

Boone had called and texted dozens of times. She finally called him back near dinnertime on Monday, after she’d been gone for over twenty-four hours. He’d be furious with her, and she wouldn’t blame him.

But she was also furious with him. He should never have pushed her to sing in church. Never left his seat to come up to the choir section. How humiliating. Poor Nicole Hymas, forty years old and needs her boyfriend to help her sing a song.

She shook her head, the angry tears pricking her eyes as the call finally connected.

“Nicole,” Boone breathed into the line after only one ring. “Where are you? Are you okay? When are you coming home?”

He sounded desperate, frantic almost, and some of Nicole’s anger cooled. “I’m in Amarillo. I’m fine. And I’ll be home in time for work on Thursday.” She honestly didn’t know when she’d go back to Three Rivers. Could be tomorrow. Or Wednesday. Or maybe she’d get up early on Thursday morning and make the hour-long drive in barely enough time to arrive at her desk by nine-thirty. She wasn’t sure.

“I’ve been to your mama’s. She’s doing okay.”

Guilt gutted Nicole. She hadn’t even thought about Mama and Daddy. “Thank you,” ghosted from her mouth.

“I miss you,” he said.

“I have to go.” She hung up before he could say anything more. She didn’t need him worming his way back into the soft parts of her heart. She wanted to be mad. It felt good to have something to hold onto, something to drive her to do more than she’d done with her life.

And she realized that her suppressed anger had been what had kept her sane all these years. It wasn’t until Boone had started showing her what she’d been missing that she’d even known what kind of life she could have.

She scuffed her feet along the sidewalk in front of the city buildings, the sky gray and threatening above her. But she didn’t want to go back to her hotel yet. The microscopic room choked her, much the same way Three Rivers had.

What do I do now? she prayed, even tipping her head back to look into the heavens. How can I face everyone at church again? And how do I get rid of these furious feelings toward Boone?

She felt the same way about him now as she had when he’d moved to town. Stolen her clinic. Strutted around the animal hospital like he’d founded the town, built the building, and single-handedly saved every animal in Texas.

Nicole hated this corner of herself. The one where her thoughts were venomous and built on untruths. She’d spent a year in that corner, Boone the one keeping her there.

Boone.

Even as she thought his name, she realized how horrible she was being. The anger in her gut started to dissipate, but she gripped it with an iron fist and kept it close, close, close.

Because then she could think. Then, things got done. Then, she didn’t have to admit that she was weak and the one to blame for everything that had happened.

Nicole returned to her life in Three Rivers, just like she’d always known she would. Sure, she dreamt of a life in Amarillo, or Austin, or maybe even New Orleans. But she knew she’d never be able to leave Three Rivers as long as her parents were here.

By the time she got to the clinic, Boone had already taken his first patient back. Secretly, she was glad. She didn’t want the first place she saw him to be the clinic, in front of Joanne and the other people who worked there.

She’d closed her office door, a real irregularity for her, but Joanne knocked on it at the same time she opened it. She re-shut it behind her and perched on the edge of the chair across from Nicole.

“How are you?”

“Just fine.”

Joanne wrung her hands. “Are you sure?”

“Joanne,” Nicole said in her best office administrator voice.

“Everyone feels so bad,” she said anyway. “Pastor Scott has called me twice a day, asking about you. Says you won’t answer your phone. Poor Brother Myron has baked himself enough cookies to raise hundreds of dollars at a bake sale. We’re all just so worried.”

Nicole’s shoulders drooped as the fight left her body. She was tired of being so weak and pretending not to be. “I could use some cookies probably.” She attempted to smile. “Did I ruin the entire Christmas program?”

“Of course not.” Joanne reached across the desk and put both of her hands on Nicole’s.

Nicole pulled her hands away. She didn’t like being touched when she was stressed. Boone knew that. Boone gave her space. At least he used to.

Joanne left, only to be replaced by Boone before ten minutes had passed. “Seriously?” she said when he poked his head through the door he’d just opened. “I’m not going to get any work done today.”

“I just wanted to say hi.”

“Hi.” She folded her arms on her desk and drank him in. He seemed different. Or maybe that was her. The same simmering annoyance that she’d experienced with Boone when he’d first moved to Three Rivers bubbled in her bloodstream now.

But why? she asked herself. She didn’t particularly want to go back to her dreary, overlooked existence. But it felt good to be mad at him for some reason.

He ducked out and closed the door, obviously able to feel her animosity though she hadn’t said anything too terrible. She sighed. It didn’t matter what she said. Boone had always been able to feel her mood.

He didn’t come in again, and while she usually stayed late with him on Thursdays, tonight she left when Joanne did. She ran by her parents’ and made sure they were okay, then she went home. She wandered through her backyard, her mind spinning through the events of the past few days.

Boone showed up about eight-thirty, a pizza box in one hand and a single red rose in the other. He didn’t say anything as he sat beside her on the bench in the backyard. She took the rose and he balanced the pizza box on his knees.

“I’m really sorry,” he finally said.

“It’s fine.”

“I’ve dated a lot of women.”

Her gaze flew to his and he looked at her like he was trying to really see inside her mind. She glanced away.

After he cleared his throat, he said, “I’ve dated a lot of women, and when one says something is fine, it’s usually not.”

“It really is.” Nicole didn’t want to explain herself. She leaned her head against Boone’s shoulder and linked her hand through his elbow, trying to sort through her own feelings.

They felt tied up, jumbled, chained together in strange ways.

He relaxed next to her, something that lightened the mood. He stayed for an hour and then headed home. She padded into her kitchen, where she found Taz and Valcor curled up in the same kennel. “Why can’t I accept his apology?” she whispered to the dark house and the snoozing dogs.

He’d brought food, flowers, all the right words. And still Nicole felt stitched together wrong. She told herself she just needed more time and everything would work itself out.

A week passed. The New Year came. Everything between her and Boone stayed cool, almost like the sizzle that had existed there had fizzled out. He only kissed her once, and finally, he showed up at her house early on a Friday morning wearing those skimpy shorts and that tight, silky T-shirt.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

It wasn’t exactly cold in Texas in January, but it wasn’t warm either. She stepped back to allow him space to enter.

“This isn’t working for me,” he said maintaining eye contact. “I don’t think it’s working for you either.”

Tears came immediately, but she nodded as she employed all her willpower to keep her eyes dry.

“I don’t know what I did.” His shoulders remained boxy, his voice strong, his eyes unyielding. Irritation sang through her. He could at least pretend like he felt bad about breaking up with her. “I’ve apologized a bunch of times. I don’t know what else to do.”

Nicole didn’t either. She hadn’t been able to move past her mental block with Boone, with Pastor Scott, with God.

Boone’s jaw clenched, twitched, clamped, tensed. “So that’s it?”

She didn’t know what he wanted her to say.

“Are you going to say anything?” He folded his arms across his chest. Her heart cracked and bled. She wasn’t sure why she was allowing this when she loved him.

Tell him! her heart screamed. Say something!

Pain and anger and absolute agony streamed across his face. “I’ll see you at work.” He turned and wrenched open the door, leaving with long strides. “Come on, guys,” he said to his dogs. The last thing she heard was the gentle slap of his sneakers as he ran away from her house.

Nicole let the tears fall then. She retreated to the only sanctuary she had left—the backyard, where she stayed for the rest of the day. She wasn’t sure what exactly had happened over the past couple of weeks. Most of the time she felt detached from her body, going through the motions at work and home.

And now she’d lost Boone. Because of her love affair with her anger and her unwillingness to forgive, she’d lost Boone.