completely foreign to her. The small business district gave way to a string of old homes surrounded by large yards whose neighbors hadn’t bothered to put up fences to separate one plot from the next. The result was a pleasant blending of lawns and gardens, giving the town a picturesque country vibe even a devoted city girl like Heather could appreciate.
As they drove farther from town, the homes grew sparser, and she admired the lush countryside dominated by expansive farms that had been carved out of rolling acres of bluegrass and wildflowers. When they reached the sign for Gallimore Stables, she glanced out to take in the scope of the property Josh’s family owned. Traditional white fences stretched as far as she could see, framing horses and ponies of every size and color. At the end of a gravel drive, a large white farmhouse with a wraparound porch beckoned visitors to stop and visit for a while. Erin had told her that the place had been in the Kinley family for generations, and despite some serious financial setbacks, they were all doing everything in their power to keep it that way.
Heather hadn’t seen her childhood home since her parents had sold it to fund an early retirement traveling the world. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be so connected to a piece of your family’s history, being there year after year, building memories that would last beyond your own lifetime. That was what she wanted for Bailey, as much as for herself. A place to belong, where they’d always feel at home.
Hopefully, putting aside her old dreams and coming to Oaks Crossing would prove to be the first step to a better life for both of them.
* * *
Heather Fitzgerald wasn’t at all what Josh had been expecting.
With a cloud of curly blond hair and a killer pair of baby blues, the petite vet looked more like a shoe-in for prom queen than someone capable of managing sick and injured animals. Then again, he spent his days wrestling with cranky field hands, tractors and harvesters, working sunup to sundown to wring every ounce of profit out of his end of their struggling horse farm. It didn’t leave him much spare time for pondering what made folks tick.
As so many Kinleys before him had done, when it rained too much, he stared at the sky and prayed for the sun to come out again. And when the soil got too dry, he prayed for rain, season by season, methodically rotating the crops in each field to keep the fertile acreage as productive as it could possibly be. It wasn’t an easy life, but the land was like a member of the family to him, and he loved it with everything he had.
Many of his childhood friends had moved away after graduation, but at twenty-seven, Josh couldn’t envision being truly happy anywhere else. If only his high school sweetheart, Cindy O’Donnell, had felt the same way, he’d be married and a father by now. Sadly, she’d left him behind to strike out on her own, and he’d finally come to realize that, much as he’d loved her, they simply weren’t meant for each other.
Ever since he could remember, he’d known that this was where he belonged. While so many people fretted over where to go and what to do, he sat back and listened to them, grateful that he’d been planted in the right place. All he needed to make his life complete was a family of his own. More than anything, he wanted the kind of strong marriage his parents had built together, something that would last through the good times and the bad. But since losing Cindy to the big, bad world, he’d gone through enough failed relationships to know that wanting something wasn’t enough. You had to make it happen.
His two older brothers were happily married now, and they’d both told him the secret was to find a woman capable of loving him for who he was. Unfortunately for him, their advice had ended there, leaving him as clueless as ever.
Josh checked his rearview mirror to make sure Heather was still with him before taking the fork that snaked through the woods on its way to the clinic. She matched the maneuver, and before long they pulled into the gravel lot in front of the Oaks Crossing Rescue Center. Located on a few acres at the edge of the main farm, it was surrounded by trees and unspoiled meadow, the perfect spot for a place devoted to caring for animals.
He pulled in and parked off to the side to leave a closer space for Heather’s car. She was the doc, he reasoned, so she deserved the VIP treatment. Now that he thought about it, they should designate a spot for her so visitors and volunteers didn’t block her entrance if she had to come in quickly and take care of an emergency.
Josh got out of his truck and strolled toward the main building, assessing the best place for her to park in the future. When she arrived and stepped out of her car, he heard her call out his name. “Did you lose something?”
“Just thinkin’,” he replied, and he pointed to the pavement in front of the clinic while he explained.
He’d expected her to be on board with the perk, maybe even a little flattered that he’d thought of it. But she surprised him by shaking her head. “That’s really not necessary. Anywhere is fine.”
She’d initially struck him as a bit of a princess, accustomed to having people help her at the drop of a hat. That she actually seemed to have an independent streak was a pleasant surprise to him. “Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.”
“I won’t, but I appreciate the offer.”
There was that prim, overly polite tone again. Easygoing by nature, Josh normally accepted people as they were, figuring it was their right to choose their own attitudes. But he had to admit that her rapid shifts from sweet to stern were beginning to bug him. Add that to the fact that she’d all but ordered him to back off earlier, and he counted two strikes.
And everyone knew you got only three.
Unwilling to blow them all at once, he put aside his curiosity about the pretty veterinarian and motioned her toward the glass front door etched with the clinic’s logo. “Ladies first.”
She gave him a long, uncomfortable look that made him feel like a new species of bug. Finally, the cynical glint in her eyes mellowed, and she offered him a tentative smile. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
That got him another clinical stare. “You said that before, when we were in town. You really mean it, don’t you?”
“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.”
“In my experience, most guys aren’t that honest.”
“Well, ma’am,” he responded in his best down-home accent, “I think you’ll find we do things a little differently around here.”
“I’ve never lived anywhere other than Michigan,” she confided. “I guess I have some things to learn about how things work in Kentucky.”
Josh had no doubt that before long she’d have men lined up to give her a few lessons on the subject. Not him, of course, he thought with a muted grin. She’d made it plain that she wasn’t interested in him. While he didn’t understand her chilly behavior toward him, he’d been raised to have a healthy respect for women. Especially the feisty ones.
When he realized she still hadn’t made a move to go inside, he turned to her with a sympathetic smile. “Nervous?”
“A bit.” Peering into the vacant lobby, she frowned in concern. “This is my first time being in charge of a veterinary practice, and I’m not sure what to expect.”
In her confession, Josh heard that she wasn’t worried about the actual doctoring, but about handling the people involved. Inspiration struck, and he said, “Around here, we get
