Nicole showed up at the soup kitchen on the south side of Three Rivers, almost ten minutes late. And she was never late, a fact that Alice Sweet pointed out to her with a cocked eyebrow.

“I know,” Nicole said. “I just lost track of time.” So maybe she’d sank into her couch after her park date—a real date—with Boone.

She hung her purse on a hook just inside the door and pulled her hair into a ponytail. She exhaled and clapped her hands. “Okay, where am I tonight?”

“Boxing.” Alice pointed past all the meal prep and sectioning, and toward the end of the line of volunteers. “And I want to hear about the reason you were late.” Her green eyes shone with excitement and knowledge, and Nicole gave her a smile.

“You already know.”

“It’s a small town.” Alice shrugged. “And you never date.”

“Not never.”

“Name the last man you went out with.”

“So I’m on boxing?” Nicole started walking away, not wanting to get into the reasons she hadn’t been out with anyone in a while. She’d been so focused on getting the credentials she needed to run the veterinary clinic, and then when the prospect of buying it had come up, she’d spent a few months researching that.

And then there was Mama…. No, Nicole didn’t have time to date. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to. At least that was what she’d been telling herself as another day, another week, another month went by where she spent all of her time at Puppy Pawz or with her ailing and aging parents.

She joined the crew sliding the meals into plastic bags to be vacuumed sealed and passed them down the row to the two guys putting the sealed trays into boxes.

She enjoyed her work in the soup kitchen, and she chatted with the people around her. Sundays saw more volunteers than other days of the week, Nicole included, but she didn’t have the energy or stamina to put in a full day of work at the clinic, check on her parents, and then come to the kitchen too.

The Sabbath was her day of rest, the day she rejuvenated herself, prepped herself mentally and spiritually for the week ahead.

This week, she hadn’t felt as thrashed as she normally did. Not nearly as annoyed. So maybe starting a little friendship with Boone Carver wasn’t such a bad idea.

But as she stacked the meals she’d be responsible for delivering, she knew she was interested in more than friendship with the tall cowboy-slash-veterinarian.

Is that so bad? she asked herself as she helped Alice go over the checklist to make sure everyone in Three Rivers got their meal tonight.

She didn’t think so.

“We have fifteen extra,” Alice said, looking up and glancing around. “Ellen. Craig. Everyone come get a meal for tonight.” She looked at Nicole. “Take one or two. No reason for this to go to waste.”

She thought of her parents as the others who hadn’t left yet came over and took meals. There were still seven left, and she asked, “Can I take one for my parents too?”

“Of course.” Alice made another check on her clipboard. “Take what you want.” She turned away as Craig asked her a question, and Nicole snagged four meals.

It would take her a couple of hours to deliver the dozens of meals she had already stacked in her car, but her parents would be okay until then. Mama would probably be asleep anyway, and she could eat the pork chop and mashed potatoes for lunch tomorrow.

Nicole looked at the two meals in her left hand, wondering what time Boone ate and if he liked applesauce with his proteins.

With the window down, Nicole enjoyed the serene feel of Three Rivers. People populated the parks and Main Street, but the residential areas of town were draped in silence and contentment.

And that was why Nicole loved doing the deliveries on Sunday night, even in the winter months when the sun sank sooner and she didn’t finish until darkness had fallen.

Doing this, she could feel the warmth of God, almost like He was smiling down on her as she did the simple, small service for those who just needed a hot meal.

A couple of hours later, she only had the four meals on the front seat left. Hers, her parents’, and Boone’s. She knew where he lived, as she ran the clinic he bought. She knew all kinds of personal information about him, but she was a professional through and through.

So she would not simply drive to his house and show up with a lame sealed dinner he probably didn’t need. The man clearly had some money, and not only because he owned the animal hospital and shelter.

He’d bought and moved into one of the big, new houses on the north end of town, and Nicole had seen the price tag on those as she’d looked at them too.

She decided to stop by her parents’ house first, and she knocked at the same time she entered the house. Sure enough, Mama was asleep in the recliner in the front room, and Nicole tiptoed past her and into the kitchen.

“Hey, Daddy. I brought food.” Her father sat at the kitchen table, the radio playing as he did a crossword puzzle.

“Hey, sweetie. What is it tonight?”

“Pork and applesauce, with potatoes and green beans.” She handed him one of the boxes. “Sixty seconds in the microwave,” she reminded him. “Maybe Mama can eat the applesauce and potatoes for lunch tomorrow.”

He beamed up at her. “She’ll love them.” He stood and accepted the boxes, putting one in the refrigerator and opening the second one. He poked holes in the plastic along the top and stuck it in the microwave.

“How’s work?” he asked.

“Great.” Nicole smiled at him as the food rotated around and around. She might have complained about the clinic—and Boone—in the past when there was leftover food and she brought some to her parents.

But tonight, she just grinned and said, “I have one more stop to make, Daddy. See you tomorrow.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek and went back to her car.

She sat with her hands at ten and two, her options swimming through her mind.

Nicole felt like she was slowly going crazy. She had never once considered driving Boone’s house—at least not without a few dozen eggs in her arsenal.

A twinge of guilt pulled through her, and she eased out of her parents’ driveway. Maybe she’d just drive around, see where the car took her.

She had a full tank of gas, and the closer she radiated to the north edge of town, the tighter she gripped the steering wheel.

She finally took the turn to go out to Three Rivers Ranch, the last of the day’s light starting to turn golden and gray at the same time.

The new subdivision was up on the left, and Nicole felt a blazing rush of bravery as she took the turn. Boone lived in the house at the end of the street, and a big white truck already sat in the driveway with his black one.

Another car was parked on the curb, and as she eased to a store behind it, Boone’s front door opened.

A woman stepped outside, but she didn’t look happy. With the window down, Nicole could hear the conversation whether she wanted to or not, and she very clearly heard Boone say, “Just go on home, Ellie.”

The blonde came down the stairs, a scowl on her face. She didn’t cut across the grass, but her four-inch heels didn’t really allow for that kind of walking anyway.

She glared at Nicole as she fumbled to open her car. “Hope you’re not here for either one of them. They’re so arrogant.” She yanked open the door, got behind the wheel, and drove away in a roar.

Nicole watched her go, her heart thumping against the back of her throat.

“What are you doing’ here?” Boone’s decidedly deep and male voice had Nicole spinning back around.

He practically leaned through her passenger window, somehow bending his tall body almost in half to do so. He wore a smile the size of Texas itself and opened the car door as if he’d get in.

Which he did.

“Oh, I—” She grabbed the boxes of food, one of which she’d brought him, before he could smash them and positioned them on her lap instead.

With him in the car, even with the windows down, the space seemed impossibly small. Maybe it was just because his shoulders were so big. Or because his cologne hit every note she wanted in her pheromones.

She turned back toward her own window and tried to get a breath of air that wasn’t scented or filled with Boone. “Remember how I said I deliver meals on Sunday?” She faced him again, and lifted the boxes slightly. “There were extra tonight, and I wondered if you wanted one.”

He watched her with those intoxicating eyes, and the sparkle in them increased by the moment. “What makes you think I can’t feed myself?”

“Maybe because you eat out every day for lunch?”

He laughed, the sound absolutely delicious. Nicole reached out and traced her fingertips along his ear and into his hair.

He silenced, and she stared at him, sure she’d lost her mind.

She pulled her hand back as if he’d electrocuted her. “Sorry.”

He looked a bit on the pale side, and his face had gone so blank.

“It’s just pork and potatoes,” she said, thrusting one of the boxes at him. She really wanted to know if he liked fruit with his pork, but she wasn’t going to impose herself on him when he’d already kicked out one blonde woman.

He took the box, some of the shock melting from his rugged features. “Who’s that one for?”

“Me.”

“You want to come in and eat with me?”

She shook her head, a laugh coming out of her mouth she didn’t recognize. She couldn’t remember the last time she had something to laugh about. “No, I saw how blonde women leave your place.”

He reached over and slipped his fingers through hers, a chuckle vibrating his chest. “That was Dylan’s ex-girlfriend. I guess she went to his place and didn’t find him there, so she came here.”

“Dylan Walker?”

Boone shot her a glance. “Yeah. You know him?”

“Of course. He grew up here, same as me.”

“Oh, right.” Boone still looked apprehensive, and Nicole gave him a small smile.

“I like him fine, if your’e worried about that,” she said.

His features relaxed and softened then, and he said, “You sure you don’t want to come in?”

“With you and Dylan? I think I’ll pass.”

“Your loss,” he said. “We’ve got baseball on in there and it’s a lot cooler than out here.”

“You’re not charming me with the baseball.” Nicole giggled again, and acted without thinking for the second or third time that night.

She leaned over and swept her lips across his cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

He took the cue and got out of the car, leaning back in through the window to say, “Okay. Thanks for the food. You’re right. I don’t really know how to feed myself, so this is great.”

She laughed again, the gesture so freeing she finally believed the saying that laughter was the best medicine. Easing the car away from the curb, she couldn’t resist checking her rearview mirror to watch Boone walk back inside his house.

But he wasn’t walking away from her. He stood on the sidewalk and watched her drive away, a ridiculous smile on his face.

Which caused an equally ludicrous smile to appear on Nicole’s face too.

Definitely more than friendship, her brain screamed at her as she drove out of his subdivision and on back to her own house. As she pulled into the driveway of her much older home, she thanked the Lord for her little patch in Three Rivers and for a few stolen minutes with Boone Carver.