Hazel stared at the pictures she’d just hung on the wall, her phone held to her ear as Dylan’s voice came through the speaker. He’d called.

When she’d seen his name on her display, she thought she’d been pranked. That Jason had somehow figured out how to make his call look like it had come from Dylan. But no. There was his bass voice coming through the line, saying pretty things like I’ve been thinking about you, and I miss you.

She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. And the way she missed him bordered on obsessive.

Knocking pulled her attention from the message and the trance she’d fallen into while listening to it. “Coming,” she called, ending the call and setting the phone on the desk in her salon.

She met Lesli in the kitchen. “Oh, good. You came in. You don’t have to knock.” Hazel had put a magnetic sign on the door that read Hair by Hazel on the top line, with Come on in beneath that. Her house didn’t have a separate entrance for the salon, but her customers didn’t seem to mind.

Hazel tried to have bottled water in the fridge for every client who came, along with something they liked. For some, it was a cookie. For others, granola bars.

Lesli set her purse on the counter and picked up the snack pack of crackers. “I’m assuming these are for me.”

“Peanut butter and cheese crackers. All you.” Hazel grinned at her. “How are things at the office?”

“The same,” she said, following Hazel down the short hall to the salon. “Well, besides your stacks of folders and empty soda cans.” She grinned at Hazel in the mirror, sobering quickly. “You okay, sweetie?”

Hazel pulled herself together as best as she could. “Yeah, sure. I’m okay.” She started fluffing Lesli’s dark hair. “What were you thinking today?”

“Oh, the same.” Lesli adjusted herself in the chair while Hazel draped her with the cape. “You know me. No adventurous bones in this body.”

Hazel laughed. She washed. She cut. She went through all the motions, and when Lesli left, Hazel twisted the lock on her doors and sank onto the couch. Monty wandered over and collapsed onto the floor in front of her, a huff coming from his mouth.

“I know,” she said, letting her hand drape over the side of the couch so she could pat him. What she was answering for the dog, she didn’t know.

But she did know her life had gone back to hollow now that Dylan had vacated it.

I miss you.

He’d called.

And he hadn’t asked her to call him back. He’d said he’d call her again later. She got up and retrieved her phone from the salon, dialing as she went back to the couch. “McKayla,” she said when her friend picked up. “Dylan called. What should I do?”

“I’ll be over in ten minutes.” McKayla hung up without another word, and Hazel smiled to herself for the first time in weeks.

Hazel had coffee brewing and graham crackers set out when McKayla burst through the front door. “He called?”

Hazel nodded and ripped open the first package of graham crackers.

“When?” McKayla asked, tossing her purse onto the couch. “What did he say?”

Nodding to the phone, Hazel asked, “Coffee?”

“Of course.” McKayla swiped the phone from the counter while Hazel poured coffee and got out cream and sugar. With everything assembled, they sat at the bar together. Hazel broke a graham cracker along the seam and dipped it in her coffee.

McKayla put the voice mail message on speaker, and Dylan’s wonderful voice filled the whole house. “Hey, Hazel. It’s Dylan.” Pause. “I’m…well, I guess I’ve just been thinking a whole lot about you and I miss you.” Pause. “I’ll call you later.”

Hazel met her friend’s eyes, which were wide and sparkly. “He’ll call you later?”

“We’ll see,” Hazel said.

“Do you want him to call you later?”

Hazel shrugged, tired of the constant war in her head. “He’s busy right now. Maybe once everything’s settled….” In her heart, she wanted Dylan to choose her over the ranch. But such thoughts made her feel like the most selfish woman on the planet, and she hadn’t vocalized them to anyone, not even McKayla.

“Have you figured it out yet?” McKayla asked next, deftly moving from the subject of Dylan calling to something else.

“I love the salon,” she said. “It makes me happy.”

“What else?”

“Summertime.” Hazel gave McKayla a side-smile. “Going out to eat. Baking cookies. You and Jason.” She put her hand over her friend’s. She also had never told McKayla that spending time with her and Jason was akin to torture. Seeing them so happy, their fingers entwined, the way they whispered to each other, and had stars of love in their eyes had only served to remind her of what she didn’t have.

What she thought she didn’t want.

But, since she’d broken up with Dylan, she’d challenged herself to figure out what made her happy, and to try to get it.

So she’d quit her job at Texas Parks and Wildlife, learned how to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookie, and reopened her salon. She had clients every day, but she’d need to increase her workload in order to live once her savings ran out.

“And?” McKayla prompted.

Hazel knew what she wanted her to say. Knew what she wanted to tell her. So she said, “Dylan calling makes me happy.”

If only she knew what to do about it.

“Maybe you should call him back.” McKayla lifted the carton of cream and poured a splash into her coffee.

“Maybe I should.” Hazel wanted to, but she had no idea what to say. She didn’t want to resent him because he was busy chasing his dream. She couldn’t expect him to give them up just because she felt neglected.

But that wasn’t it at all, and she knew it. No, the reason Dylan’s dedication to the new ranch, his new life, was because it reminded her all too much of her relationship with Peter. His dreams always came before hers. His needs superseded hers. He walked away when he wanted. Came home when he wanted. Did whatever he wanted.

And she’d been down that path before, and she didn’t need to have a redo. No, sirree.

So it had been easier to end things with him before he ripped her heart out and squeezed the life from it, all while she waited and watched, a willing participant.

Most days, she was proud she’d taken the initiative to break up with him. But some days, she simply wanted to drive out to his new ranch and beg him to take her back.

“Should we order in?” McKayla asked. “Wang’s delivers now.”

“You’re not going to meet Jason?”

“Oh, sure. Later, at the ice cream shop.”

Of course she was. She had a boyfriend who owned a busy business and still had time for her. Hazel swallowed the bitterness and managed to say, “All right. Yeah, let’s order in,” without giving away how she really felt.

Hazel did not call Dylan back. He hadn’t asked her to, and she didn’t know what to say to him anyway. At times, her desperation to drive out to his new ranch and see how things were going nearly choked her. Other times, she made it through several appointments without thinking about him at all. She wasn’t sure which she liked better.

A week passed, and she went to church on Sunday. She hadn’t seen Dylan in the two weeks since she’d broken up with him, and though she scanned every face beneath a cowboy hat, she couldn’t find him today either.

She sat on the end of the bench, on the back left side of the church, almost in the shadows from the balcony above. For some reason, she didn’t want to sit next to Jason and McKayla and bask in all their lovey-dovey glow. Maybe that made her a bad person. Maybe she was just employing some self-preservation. No matter what, she enjoyed the sermon much better when she wasn’t tasting the jealousy on her tongue.

Pastor Gifford spoke about taking time each day to enjoy God’s goodness. Hazel wasn’t sure when the last time she’d done such a thing.

“Even something as simple as the rose bush in your backyard,” the minister said. “Can give you a moment to remember the Lord and all He’s done for you.”

Hazel determined to find something simple like a rose bush, the way her dogs greeted her each day, or the rising of the sun to help remind her of the Lord. Every day. Just something little.

The meeting ended, and she hurried out the door and into the bright sunlight before she had to talk to anyone. Her phone rang just as she pulled out of the parking lot, and she swiped on the call from her mother.

“Mom,” she said. “How are you?”

“Good enough. Didn’t hear from you last week.” No accusation rode in the words. Just concern. Hazel usually initiated the calls, and her mom had obviously called today in case Hazel wouldn’t.

“Yeah, I was….” Hazel couldn’t finish the sentence. She certainly wasn’t busy, though she had visited the big tent events just outside of town and done a few haircuts as demos, handed out hundreds of business cards.

“How’s the salon going?”

“Good.” Hazel turned left and drove away from downtown. “Great. I got about six new clients last week from the demos I did at the swap meet last weekend.”

“Six new clients? That’s fantastic, sweetie.” Her mom meant it too. She didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. “So you’re staying busy.”

“Definitely.” Hazel’s street came into view, but she didn’t slow down. If she kept going, she could take the next right and head north, toward the turnoff that would take her out to Grape Seed and Triple Towers.

Her mom started talking about Evan and the woman he’d just asked to marry him. Her joy came through in every word, and Hazel passed her street and made the right turn. It was only a matter of minutes before her mom asked her about Dylan. She’d managed to avoid telling anyone past McKayla and Jason about the breakup. Even her boss and friends at work just thought she’d quit to start her salon back up.

Which, of course, was why she’d quit. Dylan had nothing to do with that decision, though he probably was the catalyst for Hazel to really consider what made her happy. She’d always had a measure of bravery—at least she had until the disastrous relationship with Peter.

“So how are you and Dylan?” her mom asked. “Things got serious fast. Might there be another wedding this year?”

Hazel snorted, the ridiculousness of the question making her head pound. “No, Mom. I, well, Dylan is really busy with his new ranch.”

“So he ended up buying it?”

“Yep.” Maybe if she gave simple answers, her mom would get the hint and go back to talking about the rest of the family.

“How is it?”

Hazel looked down the road that would lead her back to him, but she didn’t turn. “I don’t really know, Mom. We broke up.”

A gasp came through the line, and Hazel closed her eyes in a long blink though she was still driving. Pulling over, she said, “It’s not a big deal, Mom. We’d been dating for a few weeks. That’s it.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, though her heart recoiled at the statement. “He wasn’t Peter.”

“What does that mean?”

Hazel gazed down the long stretch of road, the brown, wild grasses waving along the side for the road. “It means, Mom, that I hadn’t invested everything in him. I’m okay.”

“You seemed to like him.”

“I did like him.” She leaned her head against the glass, once again wondering if she’d been foolish when she’d broken up with Dylan. But he hadn’t seemed to have time for her, and she just couldn’t repeat the same mistakes she’d made with Peter.

“So what’s stopping you two from being together?”

Ah, that was the question of the year, wasn’t it? Hazel couldn’t answer it, but she had to remember how she’d felt in the few weeks when Dylan was too busy to see her. His texts had decreased, and she’d had to hear from Austin when they were moving.

Everyone gets busy, she told herself. But she’d felt like he’d abandoned her just because a ranch had come along. And Peter had done the same thing, and Hazel just couldn’t go through a similar situation again.

“I don’t know, Mom.”

“Think about it.”

“I will.” Hazel listened to her mom talk about how her dad’s cholesterol had gone up since his last blood test and how he wouldn’t give up hiding Snickers bars in various drawers around the house.

She laughed, and she told her mom she loved her, and the call ended. Hazel still sat on the side of the road, the question what’s stopping you from being together? running through her mind.

Her phone vibrated, and she glanced at it, realizing that she’d missed a call while she’d been on the call with her mom.

A call from Dylan.