But he wasmine. And, if I was reading the signs correctly, he was going to ask me to be his forever in three weeks.
How the hell was I going to pretend I didn’t know for three whole weeks?
“I should call Mrs. Morrison,” I said, though what I really wanted to do was stay here in his office and study his face for more clues about when and how he planned to propose.
“Drive safe,” he said, the same thing he always said when I left for farm calls. “Chloe?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
The words hit me the same way they always did — like sunshine breaking through clouds. “I love you too.”
???
The three weeks that followed were the longest and most wonderful of my life.
I’d managed to keep the secret locked away, though it took every ounce of professional composure I possessed. A week afterfinding the receipt, I’d accidentally confirmed my suspicions when I overheard Sam talking to Jack at The Copper Fox. I’d been walking toward his office after finishing my farm calls when his voice carried through the thin walls:“I’m going to do it on her birthday, Jack. It’s time. I’ve got the ring.”
I should have walked away, given them privacy. But my feet froze when Sam continued:“Chloe deserves everything good in this world. I want to give her that life. A big wedding, a family, everything she’s ever dreamed of.”
A family. Sam wanted children with me. We’d talked about it in abstract terms before, but hearing him say it with such conviction had made my eyes well up right there in the bar.
Every interaction with Sam after that took on new meaning. When he suggested we drive to the city for dinner, I wondered if he was scouting proposal locations. When he asked about my ring size, I nearly gave myself away by blushing. When he mentioned wanting to make my birthday extra special, I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying I already knew.
My work became a welcome distraction. Spring was busy season for a veterinarian in farm country — birthing season for most livestock, which meant long days and emergency calls. But even exhausted and covered in blood and dirt, I found myself humming while I worked. Mrs. Morrison commented that I seemed especially cheerful lately. The Williams family asked if I was taking vitamins because I was practically glowing.
If they only knew.
I managed to keep the secret from everyone except my mom, who lived four hours away in Portland and could be trusted to squeal with excitement over the phone without blowing my cover. She immediately wanted to know about wedding dress shopping, venue possibilities, and whether Sam’s family liked me.
“Mom, he hasn’t proposed yet,” I reminded her during one of our nightly phone calls.
“But you said he bought the ring.”
“I saw a receipt. I shouldn’t have been snooping.”
“You weren’t snooping, honey. You were looking for work files in his office. Finding the receipt was an accident.”
“An accident I should probably feel guilty about.”
“Do you?”
“Not really,” I admitted. Though I probably should have felt guilty about discussing Sam’s proposal plans with my mom before he’d even met her. I’d wanted to introduce them as soon as I’d realized that I was serious about Sam. But coordinating visits had been a comedy of errors. Our fall plans were canceled when Dad’s practice partner had an emergency. Our winter trip was derailed by back-to-back emergency calls at the clinic. Their spring visit was postponed when Mom’s community project needed her. We’d finally settled on the summer holidays as our “no excuses” meeting.
But here I was, gushing to my mom about engagement rings when she’d never even shaken Sam’s hand. That probably said something about how confident I felt about our future together. Still, I made a mental note to push harder on those summer plans.
“Do you?” Mom asked again.
I considered this as I curled up on the couch in the house Sam and I had been sharing for eight months. It was my house, technically — I’d bought it when I moved to Willowbrook — but Sam had made it ours with thoughtful touches. His coffee mug is in the kitchen cabinet. His work boots are by the back door. His terrible action movies are mixed in with my nature documentaries on the shelf. He’d transformed the spare room into a proper home office for both of us, organizing all my scattered files into his meticulous filing system. I’d startedcalling it “his” office because my chaotic approach to paperwork had been no match for his organizational skills. He’d even installed better lighting and bought a second desk chair so we could work side by side on our respective businesses.
“No,” I admitted. “I don’t feel guilty. I feel excited.”
“Good. You deserve to be excited about marrying the man you love.”
Did I love Sam? Completely, overwhelmingly, with the kind of certainty I’d never felt about anything else in my life. He was everything I’d never known I was looking for — steady where I was impulsive, calm where I was anxious, rooted in community where I sometimes still felt like an outsider.
Sam had made Willowbrook feel like home in a way I’d never experienced. In Portland, I’d been Dr. Parker, competent and respected but ultimately alone. Here, I was still Dr. Parker, but I was more than that. I was Chloe, Sam’s girlfriend, the woman who saved Mrs. Henderson’s barn cat and delivered the Petersons’ prize calf, and knew everyone’s animals by name.
