Page 5 of Home Hearts Hooves

“You boys head inside. Leave me with him,” Atlas says.

“It took four guys to get him into the trailer,” I tell him, but he waves me away.

“I’ll be just fine. Off ya go. I’m pretty sure Sally-May will have dinner ready in not too long. Just be sure to save me a plate.”

“I’m starving,” Skye says, and Dean tips his chin, and the kid takes off. Then he turns to me.

“So, Doc, umm, do you eat?” he asks, and Nial laughs.

“He’s human, so I’m guessing he does,” Nial replies, and Dean flips him off.

“I mean, do you want to eat? Do you want to stay to eat? For dinner. Do you want dinner?” He rubs his forehead, pushing up his cowboy hat a little as he massages the deep lines that have formed over the years. Did I contribute to those deep lines by bringing all these odd animals to his doorstep? I hope not, though judging by the daggers he’s throwing Nial, I’d say they are more the result of trying to run a ranch with family. I worked at the clinic with Dad through high school, and it was never a picnic being told what to do by him. I can’t imagine it would be any easier if the orders were coming from a brother. I’m an only child, though, so I guess I can’t really compare.

“That would be great,” I reply, my stomach growing at even the thought of a home-cooked meal. “Do you think Sally-May will mind?”

Dean shakes his head, turns on his heel, and makes his way toward the house. Nial slaps a hand down on my shoulder.

“Come on, Preston. It’s steak night in the Beaker house.”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

Dean laughs as he opens the door up ahead.

“Doc hasn’t eaten meat since third grade,” he says with a smile. I can’t believe he remembers that. He’s looking at me and I swear I can’t remember the last time I saw him smile like this, big, happy, and real. He’s always been the serious one. Even back in high school. While Nial and even Alan, their youngest brother, were out having fun, Dean was with his gramps running the ranch, wrangling his brothers, and keeping guys away from his sister. Me included. He was good, too, because I’m fairly sure she didn’t date at all through high school. I only dated one girl in high school, actually, ever. Isabel Mores.

I thought Isabel had the same dream as me, but then, just before graduation, she started talking about marriage and working for her daddy on his horticultural farm. She said she was sure I’d love it and could take over one day, seeing as she had no brothers, and the walls just started closing in.

I told her I needed to live more than this small-town life first, and that we could come back later. After I finished vet school, and we’d travelled the world. But she said it was now or never, and when I couldn’t say yes to that life right in that moment, she ended it. After that, I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t give her the small-town future she wanted, not at eighteen. It was too soon. I’d never been out of Georgia, and I thought she was as keen to step away from our small-town life and embark on a new adventure before all of that as I was. I was wrong.

Isabel will always be my first love, and when she broke my heart, I thought I would never find another girl like her. Turns out I would never want another girl, period. College was a big awakening for me.

I came out to Mom and Dad a few years later. For two people raised as straight as you can get, they took their only son liking guys better than I expected. Dad shrugged like he’d already known, and Mom asked me to bring home a nice boy when I met one. The boys I met in college were nice, but not nice enough to bring home to meet my mom. On the same trip, I saw Isabel briefly walking through town with a guy on her arm and a stroller in front of her. She looked like she was floating on cloud nine, cuddled in at his side, peering down into the stroller with pure joy in her eyes, and while I still believe what we had was real, I didn’t mind seeing her like that, living the life she wanted with me with someone else. It made me happy.

Nial shoves me with his shoulder. “Fuck off, no way it’s been that long since he’s had a good bit of meat in his mouth.”

I try not to laugh because I’ve had meat in my mouth plenty, just not the meat he’s talking about.

“Yep, third-grade trip to the Keller pig farm. Last time I even thought about eating an animal. I’m sort of surprised Dean remembers that, though,” I say, and Dean’s cheeks flush a little pink before he turns away.

“Umm, yeah. I don’t know. I guess it just stuck.”

Nial jogs through the house, past Dean, who’s still holding the door for us to pass. Houdini, their dog, runs after him but trips up the stairs and rolls to the bottom before shaking off the red dirt and going again. I thought maybe the thing had an inner ear issue, what with how it’s always falling over, but the thing is just a bit special. Like all the animals in this place.

I remember my first week back in town, I was called out to the ranch to check on Gordon, the donkey, after it put its leg through a wood panel on the milking barn wall, trying to force his way inside. The new farmhand thought the guys were joking when they told him to let Gordon in last and hook him up in the end stall.

I’d just come from another farm. One of their sows had a litter of piglets a few days earlier, and the runt was getting shoved around by the others. The mama wasn’t helping much, so I took him with me, figured I’d bottle feed for a bit and drop him back if he picked up. The thing squealed the whole time it was in the van, so I carried it out with me when I was looking over Gordon, and when it caught sight of Dean’s dog Houdini, the thing wiggled and squirmed until I let it go, and sure as shit it shut up the second it was snuggled into the dog’s side. Houdini didn’t mind much. He lay there, letting the thing cuddle up to him nice and tight.

A few stitches and a round of antibiotics, and Gordon was right as rain, but there was no way to get that piglet away from Houdini without a headache, so I asked Dean if he minded keeping it on the ranch for a while. After that, Dean was my go-to for the weird and wonderful of the animal kingdom.

Houdini makes it up the stairs, and a second later, I see Gunther, the pig, fully grown now and fucking huge, stroll past the doorway.

“Well, there’s always vegetables, and dessert is apple pie. You eat apples, don’t you?” Nial asks.

“I’ve been known to eat an apple or two,” I reply, walking past Dean and into the house. As I pass, I take a whole breath of him, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t incredible. Some kind of sweet woody scent mixed with salt, dirt, and perfection. Tonight, that’s also mixed with a warm apple cinnamon-dusted scent that smells like home.

I noticed how incredible Dean smells the first time I came to the ranch after moving home, and I can’t help but try to breathe him in every time I’ve visited since. It doesn’t make sense for a guy who’s outside working his ass off all day to smell this good, but he fucking does, and I will breathe him in every chance I get. Not creepy at all, right?

Chapter three

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