She smiled. “That’s true. You know what my uncles did to make sure that I returned?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “They quit telling me the news in Mason!”

“Who was dating? Scandals and triumphs? Births and deaths?”

“Exactly! They went from six-page letters about everything going on in Mason to half a page about the damned fruit trees.”

“Totally wicked of them. What did your father write?”

“Just business. What was selling and what wasn’t. No gossip at all.”

“So you had to return to find out about the people you love.”

“Yes, I did. What about you? You left your town. Do you miss your friends?”

“I’m not like you. You love many people. I cared only for two.”

He didn’t have to say which two people. “But you must have met people in your practice. Plus lots of wormy dogs and injured wildlife.”

“That’s true, but not one of them wrote me a letter saying he missed me.”

“What about your parents? Siblings? Cousins? School friends?”

He chuckled at that. “You are Kansas. My parents were workaholics and I rarely saw them. No siblings. No cousins that I know about. I was a loner in school.”

“I’m beginning to understand about you with the animals.”

“Yup. Lots of them. I had a lazy nanny who left me alone with my pets while she read romance novels. Thousands of them! I used to help her hide them from my mother.”

“Where are your parents now?”

He shrugged. “Traveling. Spending all the money they earned while I was growing up. Sometimes they send postcards. Remind me to give them my new address.”

“You know what I think? You need us. You need busybody Mason, a place that makes you feel like you belong. And I need to help you with it. By the time Kelly returns, you’ll be so deep in this town and the people that she’ll have to keep you. I’ll even find you a girlfriend.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“Me? Heavens, no! I’m not... I mean, I can’t...”

“I got it,” he said. “For whatever reason, you’re off-limits. So what does Mason have to offer in terms of girlfriends?”

“Pure Kansas health and vitality. Good morals and a great sense of humor. You can’t do any better than us!”

He smiled. “And here I’d heard that California girls were—”

Cait snorted. “Wimps! Raised on tofu and bean sprouts. They don’t even know what a burnt end is.”

He was laughing. “Sounds good to me. I think I’d like something that would take my mind off my past.”

“A Kansas sunflower will do that,” she said. “I could stand a few sunflowers in my life.”

For a moment they looked at each other, smiling.

Cait looked at her watch. “Dad is going to file a missing person’s report on me. We need to go.”