Chapter 22
Some people started their mornings with coffee. Sutton had started hers with a husky who thought he was a firetruck siren and a goat that couldn’t handle a sneeze without falling over.
Oh, it wasn’t just any goat, it was Stiffy, the famous fainting goat, who was back for the second time in so many weeks.
Stiffy was standing in the middle of the exam room like he was waiting for a job interview, not a veterinary consult.
The fainting goat was small and compact, all wiry muscle and stiff-legged dignity, with a black-and-white coat that looked freshly brushed for the occasion.
Around his neck was a navy, Velcroed tie that made him look like a mayoral candidate—which was fitting since he was the unofficial mayor of Bridlewood.
His eyes were wide and earnest, pupils blown just enough to suggest he was mildly offended by the entire situation.
He didn’t bleat or move. He just locked his knees, lifted his chin, and stared at Sutton with the grave seriousness of a creature who knew he might lose consciousness at any moment but intended to do so with professionalism.
One wrong noise, one unexpected gesture, and he would tip over like a Humpty Dumpty.
Sutton had the distinct, absurd thought that if he fainted, he’d do it politely—straight back, tie still in place, dignity mostly intact.
“He’s fainting more than normal,” Harriett, his human, said calmly.
“He is a fainting goat. That’s what they do.”
“But it’s up to five or six times a day. Do you think his mayoral duties are too much?”
“Stress could be a factor,” Sutton said with all the seriousness in the world—all the while biting her lip to keep from laughing.
Harriett looked at Sutton, sizing her up and Sutton knew the exact moment that her young age came into play. “I think I need a second opinion.”
Nothing irritated Sutton more than people judging her competence by her age. She might not have logged as many years in pet care as other vet techs, but when it came to caring for a life—really carrying the weight of one—she had more experience than most of them.
But the patient’s needs outweighed her insecurities. “Should I send in Dr. Callahan?”
“Oh honey, why do you think we women come here?” Harriett said and Sutton had to blink.
“For veterinary care?”
“For the veterinarian himself. Half the single ladies in town, and some of the married ones, bring in their animals just to watch his hands work.”
“So, this isn’t about my age?”
“Heavens no. Your gentle way with animals has been talked about all around town.”
“It has?”
Sutton hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to hear that until now.
The words wrapped around her like a collective embrace, as if the whole town had pulled her into one, big, unexpected hug.
For the first time in longer than she cared to admit, she felt it, the unshakable sense of belonging—like maybe she wasn’t just passing through anymore.
“Yes. My request is about hormones. Even us older ladies need a little fire under our saddle and Dr. Irresistible is all fire. Then there’s his butt. You can bounce a quarter off that thing.”
Sutton bit the inside of her cheek, fighting the smile threatening to betray her. If Colter had any idea that half the women in Bridlewood were inventing vague emergencies and mysteriously lethargic lapdogs just to get an eyeful of his backside, he would be mortified.
“I haven’t noticed.” Another lie. How many did that make? Six?
Harriett was the kind of retired woman who treated gossip like a competitive sport and matchmaking like a civic duty.
With perfectly sprayed silver curls, bright pink lipstick bleeding slightly into the lines around her mouth, and enough costume jewelry to trigger airport security from fifty feet away, she looked harmless.
Which, Sutton suspected, was exactly how Harriett got people to confess things they absolutely shouldn’t.
“Oh, honey,” she said gently, patting Sutton’s arm. “The two of you in the waiting room was like watching the part of a romcom where both people are fighting the obvious.”
“We just work well together.”
Harriett harumphed. “That man didn’t just notice you, he saw you. The real kind of noticing. The kind that lingers a half-second too long and makes a fellow forget what he was saying.” Her smile widened. “A woman knows when she’s being looked at like a woman, and you were.”
Sutton busied herself by examining Stiffy’s flank. “What do you mean?”
Harriett’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “You can’t invite the town’s most eligible bachelor into your place and not have lips flapping.”
Breathless panic skittered through her chest at the idea that people could see it.
That whatever was happening between her and Colter was readable, legible, and written all over her face like a confession.
She had not named it. Had not examined it.
Had certainly not given it permission to exist out loud.
Yet here it was, apparently obvious to everyone else, threatening to pull her into a story she wasn’t ready to claim.
Because admitting something was going on meant admitting it mattered, and Sutton had learned the hard way that the things that mattered most were the ones that could unravel everything.
“My car broke down.”
“And buying you a drink at Lottie’s?”
“Oh, that? That was just a same place at the same time coincidence.”
“Those seem to happen a lot with the two of you,” Harriett said.
"It's a small town," Sutton offered weakly. "Coincidences happen constantly."
"Honey, I've lived here sixty-one years. I know exactly how often coincidences happen. This ain't one of them."
Sutton smiled politely, imagining how fast the coincidental run-in would twist a “Let me buy you a drink” into a full-blown romance headline. She also imagined how Lynlee would feel if she heard such things.
The last thing Sutton wanted was her daughter getting confused, mistaking Colter for anything more than her mom’s friend. The truth—whatever shape it was going to take—deserved to come from Sutton, on her terms.
“Let me get Dr. Callahan for you.”
“You have a good day now, honey,” Harriett said on a wink.
Sutton made her way down the hall to Colter’s office. She gave her hair a quick pat down, then did a breath check then scolded herself for being ridiculous and knocked.
“Come in,” the low voice said.
She opened the door and her tongue went dry as the Mojave.
There was Colter, scrubs neat, clean-shaven face, reading glasses sliding down his nose as he stared straight ahead with his phone pressed to his ear, jaw flexing in quiet frustration like he was holding himself back from saying exactly what he thought.
He held up a silencing finger.
“I’ve got a waiting room full of people,” he said into the phone, voice clipped. “Every exam room is taken. If you don’t want to make the deal, it’s no sweat off my back. I’ll give you a hundred each.”
Sutton caught only the garbled edge of the response, enough to know whoever was on the other end was pushing his luck.
“That’s six hundred dollars,” Colter snapped. “Who else is going to give you that kind of money for mutts?” His jaw went impossibly harder. “Are you fucking kidding me? You know exactly the kind of man he is. And you are not the kind of man to do business with him.”
Her stomach dipped. She’d never heard him like this—raw and angry, right on the edge.
It unsettled her, this glimpse of a side of him that felt sharper, less contained.
Not because she thought he’d lose control, but because she could imagine how devastating it would be to be on the receiving end of that kind of anger—and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it would feel like.
“Fine,” he growled. “Two hundred. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
He tossed the phone onto the desk and his head tipped back, eyes closing briefly, like he was bargaining with the ceiling for patience—or divine intervention. She could see the pulse in his neck slow down to a regular pace. But the silence that followed was still thick.
Finally, he looked at Sutton. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.” She stepped closer until her thighs brushed the edge of the desk. “Are you okay?”
“No,” he said honestly. “But I will be.”
“Who was that?” She lifted a ‘never mind’ hand. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“It was Harvey,” he said. “Lives about twenty minutes out of town. Refuses to fix his dogs, so they keep having litters. He’s got another litter and wants to sell the puppies.”
“And you want to buy them?” she asked, confused.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “Because Burt, real piece of work, runs a dogfighting ring just past the county line is also interested.”
She gasped. “That’s horrible. Why isn’t he in jail?”
“Animals rank pretty low on the police priority list. So, every breeding season, I buy whatever puppies Harvey has.”
He said it like it was no big deal, like it was something anyone decent would do.
“How long have you been doing this?” she asked.
“Since I was seventeen.”
“You’ve been doing this for ten years?”
He smiled then—small, crooked. “Try fifteen.”
Her throat tightened. Surely he was exaggerating. There was no way—
“Doing the math?” he asked with a quiet chuckle. “I can tell you just realized our age difference. Shocked?”
“Nope.”
“Liar.” He was correct. It was her seventh such lie since running into him at the market that first day, and it wasn’t even lunchtime.
“Okay,” she admitted. “Maybe a little shocked.”
Sutton’s mom had still been a teen when she’d had her—making her only a few years older than Colter was now—and the realization sat wrong in Sutton’s chest. It blurred lines that were already complicated enough.
It was just another reason that stacked itself neatly onto the why-this-won’t-work pile.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Thought of that too.”
“Am I really that transparent?”
“Let’s just say don’t go to Vegas anytime soon.”
The truck hummed beneath them as Colter pulled onto the highway, one hand on the wheel, the other resting casually near the gearshift. Sutton tried not to think about their earlier conversation as she stared out the passenger window, watching the town fade into open land.
“I heard you had a run-in with the town gossip herself. How bad was it?” Colter asked, breaking the silence.
“You should go ask her,” Sutton said dryly. “She’s probably still waiting for you. And your prized butt.”
Colter glanced over, one eyebrow lifting. “Prized, huh? You on the judges’ panel?”
“You wouldn’t want me there,” she said sweetly. “I’d ruin your ranking.”
He laughed, then reached up and pulled off his glasses, setting them in the console before giving her a more serious look. “Alright, jokes aside. What did Harriett say?”
What didn’t she say?
“Enough that apparently sharing a cup of coffee with you qualifies as a scandal. I might need bodyguards.”
Colter leaned a little closer at the stop sign, forearm resting across the steering wheel. For no reason Sutton could articulate, her stomach did that annoying, traitorous lurch.
“People are talking,” he said.
“Does it bother you?” she asked, keeping her voice light.
“Not in the slightest.” He tilted his head, studying her like he always did when he was being too perceptive. “Does it bother you?”
She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “No. Not really. But for Lynlee’s sake, we need to be careful. I don’t want her getting confused.”
Because confusion led to attachment, and attachment led to loss—and she would not let her daughter learn that lesson the hard way just because Sutton had let her guard slip.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we stop with the coffees and the heroic rides home,” she said gently. “Anything that looks like you’re courting me.”
He absorbed that, eyes back on the road. “So no cinnamon rolls?”
“Especially no cinnamon rolls,” she said, fighting a smile.
“And what about Lynlee?” he asked, his voice so serious she felt it resonate through her soul. “Does that mean I can’t see her?”
“What?” Her head snapped toward him. “No. I’d never do that. She adores you.”
The tension eased a notch, and the relief came fast and sharp, like she had narrowly missed a cliff she had not seen until her heel scraped air.
The idea of Lynlee losing someone she already trusted made her chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with protection.
She could handle her own confusion, her own restraint, even her own disappointment.
What she could not handle was her daughter asking why someone who made her feel safe had suddenly disappeared.
She steadied herself and let the truth anchor her. Whatever this was between them, Lynlee’s sense of security came first, always.
“But when we’re not at work, we use her as a buffer,” Sutton explained.
“A buffer?”
“Yes. Kid-friendly. Clear boundaries. Less confusion.”
“Buffer it is,” he said, but the way his fingers tightened on the wheel told her he didn’t like it.
The truck rolled on in silence for a moment, the unspoken humming between them louder than the engine. Then Colter glanced at her, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth.
“You know buffers fail all the time, right?”
“You are not helping your case.”
“I’m just saying,” he added lightly. “Some things are hard to contain.”
"Like what, exactly?"
"Like the ranch. The clinic." He shrugged, easy and unhurried, eyes on the road. "Legacy stuff. Things that matter whether you plan them or not."
"And kids? Family? Do you see that in your future?"
"That's a different kind of legacy." His thumb traced the wheel once. "I wouldn't know the first thing about being someone's dad. I've got the animals, my ranch, the practice and my brothers." He gave her a side-glance. "That's enough for me."
Sutton looked out the window.
"Right," she said. Just that one quiet word. "Focus on the road, Doctor."
“As you wish, Freckles,” he said, but the grin in his voice told her he was already plotting his next move.