The Rancher’s Dog Laid Flowers in Her Lap… He Said, “I Think God Is Trying to Tell Me Something”
Chapter 1
The first flower landed in her lap before she had time to scream.
She had been sitting beneath the old oak tree behind the ranch house, her hands folded tightly over the torn edge of her brown wool skirt, when a large black-and-white dog appeared from the tall grass.
The animal carried something pale between its teeth.
A wildflower.
It dropped the flower carefully across her hands.
She stared at it.
Then at the dog.
The dog wagged its tail once.
“What are you doing?”
The dog turned around.
For several seconds, she thought it would leave.
Instead, it disappeared into the grass.
The young woman lowered her eyes to the flower.
It was a small white bloom, crushed slightly at the stem but otherwise fresh.
She touched one petal with her fingertip.
Nobody had brought her flowers in years.
Not since her mother died.
She heard boots behind her.
“You’ve met Gideon.”
She looked over her shoulder.
A tall man stood several yards away, one hand resting on the worn leather belt around his waist. His shirt sleeves were rolled to his forearms. Dust covered his boots, and the brim of his hat shadowed a face hardened by years of sun, wind, and work.
His eyes moved from her to the flower.
Then to the dog.
“Gideon doesn’t usually do that.”
She swallowed.
“I didn’t ask him to.”
“I know.”
The rancher approached slowly.
The dog sat beside her, looking up at him.
The man stopped.
For some reason, he didn’t immediately call the animal away.
Instead, he studied the flower.
Then the woman.
Then the dog again.
His brow tightened.
“What?”
She asked.
The rancher rubbed his jaw.
“I think God is trying to tell me something.”
She almost laughed.
Almost.
But there was something in his expression that stopped her.
He wasn’t joking.
His name was Thomas Reed.
And three weeks earlier, he had agreed to let her stay at his ranch because she had nowhere else to go.
She had expected a roof.
She had expected work.
She had expected cold silence.
She had not expected his dog to bring flowers to her lap.
And she certainly had not expected that little gesture to uncover a secret buried beneath the ranch for nearly twenty years.
Because Gideon had never carried flowers to anyone before.
Not even Thomas’s mother.
And the last woman he had loved had died beneath the same oak tree.
