Chapter Two

If Maple had been the type to get teary-eyed, the way Ford's Gram reacted once Coco was back up and running might've made her crack. The older woman was as thrilled as if Maple had breathed literal life into her ailing little dog, and she promptly ordered Ford to get Maple a pie from someplace called Cherry on Top as a thank-you gift.

But Maple wasn't the type to cry at work, not even when his gram called her "an angel sent straight from heaven." So she averted her gaze and focused on the jar of dog treats sitting on the counter in the exam room until her eyes stopped stinging. All the while, Lady Bird nudged her big head under Maple's right hand, insisting on a pat. The dog was relentless.

As for the pie, Maple wasn't holding her breath.

"So long, Doc." Ford held the door open for his grandmother and escorted her out of the clinic without so much as a backward glance.

Maple sagged with relief once they were gone. She wasn't sure why the pang in her chest felt so much like disappointment.

She rubbed the heel of her hand against her breastbone, ignoring the way Lady Bird's soft gaze bore into her as if the dog could hear Maple's thoughts. Still, it was unsettling.

She turned her back on the dog to home in on June, still stationed behind the reception desk. "Do we have any more patients waiting to be seen? Live ones, that is?"

"I tried to warn you," June insisted as she replaced a jumbo-size pack of size C batteries in one of the overhead cabinets above her desk. "And no, we don't have any more patients waiting. But it looks like someone is here to see you."

June's gaze darted over Maple's left shoulder, toward the tempered glass window in the front door. Maple's heart thumped in her chest as visions of pie danced in her head.

Stop it, she told herself. What is wrong with you?

Bluebonnet was small, but not small enough for Ford to have already procured a baked good and made his way back to the clinic. Also, she didn't want to see him again. Ever, if she could help it.

She followed June's gaze and caught sight of a red-faced man marching up the front step of the building's quaint covered porch. Again, no animal in sight—just a middle-aged human with salt-and-pepper hair and an angry frown that Maple felt all the way down to her toes.

Before she could ask June who the man was, he burst through the door and stalked toward Maple. He looked her up and down, jammed his hands on his hips and glanced at June. "Is this her?"

"Yes, sir," June said.

Lady Bird, clearly unable to read the room, wagged her tail and panted as she danced circles around the cranky visitor.

Actually, he wasn't technically a visitor, as Maple realized when she spotted the monogrammed initials stitched onto his shirt collar—GH, as in Grover Hayes. Oh, joy.

"You must be Dr. Hayes." Maple stuck her hand out for a shake. "I'm Dr. Leighton."

"So I gathered." He narrowed his gaze at her. "Unfortunately, the first I'd heard of you was when June called me a little while ago to tell me that a complete and total stranger had insisted on treating Coco in my absence."

In Maple's defense, the only reason she'd taken over the appointment was because he'd been late. Still, this didn't seem like the time to point out his breach in professional etiquette.

She'd come all this way. Today had been years in the making. How was it possible that Percy Walker, DVM, hadn't informed a single other person at this practice that she was starting work this week? It just didn't make sense. The practice had paid tens of thousands of dollars for her education, and not a single other person here knew who she was?

"I don't understand." Maple shook her head.

"That makes two of us," Grover huffed.

"I have years' worth of emails, some as recent as a week ago. If we could just talk to Dr. Walker, I'm sure we can clear all of this up." Maple took a deep breath. The sooner Percy Walker materialized, the better. "Do you know when he's going to be in? Technically, my start date isn't until tomorrow. I came by the office because I just got to town, and I was ready to hit the ground running."

She glanced toward her suitcase, still sitting behind the reception desk like a fly floating belly-up in someone's soup. "Plus, I'm not sure where I'm staying. Dr. Walker said my accommodations in Bluebonnet would be taken care of by my grant."

Now that Maple was saying all of this out loud, she realized it sounded a little off. She'd just flown across the country to a strange town in a strange state with no idea where she might be staying. For all she knew, Percy Walker was an internet catfish.

Except catfish didn't ordinarily fund someone's higher education, did they? Didn't catfishing usually work the other way around? Even so, either of Maple's lawyer parents probably would've been delighted to point out a dozen red flags after looking over the simple one-page contract she'd signed when she'd accepted the grant.

Which was precisely why she'd never shown it to them.

"I'm afraid Dr. Walker won't be coming in." Grover went even stonier faced, a feat that Maple wouldn't have thought possible if she hadn't witnessed his near transformation into an actual gargoyle with her own two eyes. "Ever."

Maple blinked, even more alarmed than when she'd walked into the exam room to find a fake dog on the table. "Ever?"

"Ever," Grover repeated.

What was going on? Had her one and only contact at Bluebonnet Pet Clinic gotten fired? Resigned?

In either case, did this she mean she could go back to New York now? Could she really be that lucky? Maple felt a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Dr. Percy Walker passed away eight days ago. The funeral was yesterday morning," Grover said.

And just like that, the smile wobbled off Maple's face. "What?"

Passed away, as in dead. Now what? Was she free to grab her suitcase and get on the next plane back to New York? As heavenly as that sounded, it just didn't seem right.

Of course. June chose that moment to oh-so-helpfully chime in, "For the record, I tried to tell you that too, Maple."

Dr. Leighton.Maple swallowed. She didn't bother correcting the receptionist this time. What was the point?

"Wait a minute." Every last drop of color drained from Grover's face as he regarded her with a new wariness. "Your first name is Maple?"

She nodded. "Yes. Maple Leighton, DVM."

"Why didn't you tell me this?" Grover's gaze flitted toward June. Lady Bird's followed, as if the golden was trying to keep up with the conversation.

Good luck, Maple thought. She could barely keep up with it herself.

"She really prefers to be called Dr. Leighton," June said, peering at Maple over the top of her reading glasses.

Maple had worked long and hard for that degree. Of course, she wanted to be called "Doctor," although perhaps she shouldn't have been so eager to correct June. Clearly, no one here cared a whit about her veterinary degree. Inexplicably, all Grover seemed interested in was her first name.

"Does my first name really matter all that much?" Maple asked. This day was getting more bizarre by the minute. Had she traveled to Texas, or fallen down a rabbit hole, Alice in Wonderland-style?

"In this case, it just might," Grover said, looking distinctly unhappy about it. "We need to talk. Follow me."

He swept past her without waiting for a response.

Maple glanced at June, who simply shrugged. Clearly, she didn't know what was going on any more than Maple did.

Lady Bird trotted gleefully after Grover, which frankly, felt like an enormous betrayal. Completely unreasonable, since Maple had known the dog for all of twenty minutes. Still, it was nice having someone on her side in the middle of all this chaos. Even if that someone was a dog.

Then, just as Maple's heart began to sink to new depths, Lady Bird stopped in her tracks and turned around. The golden fixed her soft brown eyes on Maple and cocked her head, as if to say, "What are you waiting for?"

Hope fluttered inside Maple, like a butterfly searching for a safe place to land.

"I'm coming."

Dr. Grover Hayes's office was located just off the reception area, behind the very first door on the right. By the time Lady Bird led Maple there, Grover was already seated at his desk and shuffling through a pile of papers.

"It's around here somewhere. Just give me a second," he said. Then he nodded toward a chair on the other side of his desk, piled high with file folders. "Sit."

Maple assumed he was talking to her rather than Lady Bird, although in all honesty, it was difficult to tell. She had a feeling if he'd been addressing the dog, he would've been more polite. So she scooped the stack of patient files into her arms, deposited them on a nearby end table and sat down. Once Maple was settled, Lady Bird plopped on the ground and planted her chin on the tip of one of her stilettos.

Perhaps it was that tiny show of affection that gave Maple the confidence to assume she was actually employed at the clinic, despite all current evidence to the contrary.

"I was thinking that while I'm here, I could help us get started on a digital office system. Having patient files on a cloud-based platform would save loads of time."

Grover glanced up from the stack of papers in front of him and snorted. "Our system works just fine."

Maple's gaze swiveled from the mountain of files she'd just removed from her chair to the mishmash of documents on Grover's desk. "I can see that. Efficiency at its finest."

"And let's not forget that you don't even work here, missy," Grover added, although he seemed to have lost a fair bit of his bluster.

What was the man looking for, anyway? Had the mention of her first name somehow reminded him that he did, indeed, have a copy of her grant paperwork lying around somewhere?

"Ah, here it is." He grabbed hold of a slim manila envelope and frowned at the words written neatly across the front of it before shoving it toward Maple.

Last Will and Testament of Percy Walker

"Take it." Grover shook the envelope until Maple begrudgingly accepted it.

She placed it in her lap, unopened, where it sat like a bomb waiting to detonate. Her mouth went dry. Something about this feels woefully inappropriate. Maple didn't really know Percy Walker. They'd exchanged little more than a handful of emails over the past four years. Why would his business partner just hand her his last will and testament?

Maple shook her head. "I'm sorry? Why do you want me to have this?"

"Go on." Grover waved a hand at her. First impressions were rarely one-hundred-percent accurate, but he didn't seem at all like the type of person who'd have the patience to deal with an elderly woman and her beloved robotic companion animal. Wonders never ceased, apparently. "Open it."

She lifted the flap of the envelope and slid the legal document from inside.

The pages of the will were slightly yellowed with age. Maple's eyes scanned the legalese, and familiar words popped out at her—phrases that had been part of her parents' vocabulary for as long as she could remember. She still had no idea what any of it had to do with her.

"Would you care to give me a hint as to what I'm looking...for?" she asked, but her voice drifted off as her gaze snagged on the first paragraph of the second page.

I have never been married. As of the date of this will, the following child has been born to me:

Maple Maribelle Walker

Maple's heart immediately began to pound so hard and fast that Lady Bird lifted her head and whined in alarm.

"This isn't me." Maple shook her head. If she shook it any harder, it probably would've snapped right off and tumbled to the floor. "It can't be. My last name is Leighton."

But her first name was obviously Maple, and her middle name, which she'd hadn't mentioned to anyone in Bluebonnet, was indeed Maribelle.

What were the odds this was all some crazy coincidence? Maple had never met another living soul who shared her first name. In Manhattan, she'd grown up among a sea of Blairs, Serenas, and Waverlys, acutely aware that she hadn't fit in. Maybe it was a more common name down here in Texas?

"My parents are both divorce lawyers," she said, as if that fact was relevant in any way. "In Manhattan. I'm not even from here."

"Clearly." Grover let out a laugh.

Finally, they agreed on something.

"What's your middle name?" he asked, frowning like he already knew the answer.

Maple reached down to rest a hand on Lady Bird's head. The dog licked her with a swipe of her warm pink tongue. Maple took a deep breath. "It's Maribelle."

If the furrow in Grover's forehead grew any deeper, Maple could've crawled inside of it and disappeared.

"Surely there's another Maple Maribelle who lives right here in Bluebonnet," she said, but she was grasping at straws, and she knew it. If there'd been anyone else who remotely fit the bill, Grover wouldn't have gone pale the moment he'd heard her first name.

"I'm afraid not," Grover said. "I think it might be time for you to call your lawyer parents up in New York to try and get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, I'll give Percy's attorney a call and see if he can come right over."

"But why?" The last thing Maple wanted to do was call her mother and father. When she'd told them she was starting a new job this week, she'd conveniently left out the part about the practice being located in Texas. They didn't know about the grant, either. For all they knew, she was still living in her little studio apartment in the city, ready to launch her new career as a veterinary cardiologist.

As she should be.

In hindsight, Maple clearly should've gotten their advice before signing on the dotted line.

"With all due respect, Percy Walker is dead. Why would I need to get my family involved?" She picked up the last will and testament by the very tip of the corner of its stapled pages. Maple hadn't wanted to rid herself of an item so badly since the last time she'd played a game of hot potato. She would've thrown the document across the desk if she hadn't suspected that Grover would toss it right back at her. "What difference does any of this make?"

Couldn't they simply pretend none of this had happened? No one else needed to know that her first and middle name matched the one listed on Percy's will. Maple wasn't his daughter, full stop. She knew it, and now Grover knew it. Case closed.

Maple didn't know why there was a voice screaming in the back of her head that things couldn't possibly be that simple. She almost wanted to clamp her hands over her ears to try and drown it out. Even the comforting weight of Lady Bird's warm body as the dog heaved herself into a sit position and leaned against Maple's legs failed to calm the frantic beating of her heart.

"I'm afraid it makes a very big difference, young lady." Grover sighed, and Maple was so thrown by this entire conversation that she forgot to get offended at being referred to in such a condescending manner. "If you're the Maple Maribelle listed in that document, that means you're Percy's sole beneficiary and you've inherited everything—his house, his half of this veterinary practice..."

Lady Bird let out a sharp bark.

Grover's gaze drifted toward the golden retriever. "And his dog."