Page 18 of Cowboy Falling Hard

“But God can.”

God could.

“And maybe, something we haven’t mentioned is building a foundation. Just forget about dating and relationships, romantic ones anyway, and just focus on being her friend. Building a friendship. That’s what the best relationships are built on. Knowing you can count on someone no matter what.”

“That seems very basic, but I hadn’t considered that. Dating doesn’t really help develop a friendship.”

“No. It doesn’t. And don’t be too hard on yourself. Some of us didn’t have good examples growing up.”

“I definitely didn’t.” He didn’t want to go into his history. Lots of kids grew up with a single mom or a single parent. Lots of kids had stepparents who weren’t real interested in kids who weren’t their flesh and blood. Lots of kids had dealt with what he had dealt with. There were no excuses, just changes he could make to fix the problem. He didn’t want to cast blame and stand around whining that his life wasn’t as good as what it could be. He’d do what he did when his baseball swing wasn’t as good as what it could be.

He’d fix it.

Chapter 7

If you truly love and respect the person you married. - Neleigh Allen Greeley, Colorado

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“CAN I PET THE KITTIES?” Powell looked at Orchid, her big brown eyes pleading.

Orchid couldn’t have told her no if she wanted to, which she didn’t. “Please. They need people to pet them so when we want to give them away, they’re tame and nice.”

People were always dropping off their stray cats at the auction barn. Often they were pregnant when they arrived. As much as they could, if the cats were able to be caught, Orchid and Lavender used their own personal money to have them spayed and to find homes for them if they could.

The kittens were usually easy to place, but they had nine or ten spayed female cats running around the auction barn, just because people often didn’t want an adult cat.

They both knelt down. Powell reached out gently with one finger, stroking down a white kitten’s back.

Orchid was just about to ask her about school when a noise made her look up.

It wasn’t unusual for people to be working at the auction barn anytime of the day; often Coleman was there from early in the morning until late at night. Whether he was moving animals, fixing gates and pens, cleaning and sanitizing, or even doing paperwork.

Typically, though, on Saturdays and Wednesdays when they had an auction, they didn’t do too much extra work, just unloaded animals and sometimes even went and picked them up.

But the person coming toward her down the aisle wasn’t Coleman.