Paul took a few breaths to calm down. “I was offered an opportunity to travel with some guys who have the same interests as me and I took it. I admit that I turned coward and didn’t tell Kelly right away, but now I’m paying for it. My mother...” He took a breath. “I don’t want to think of the hysterical, grandiose fit she’s going to throw when I tell her there will be no autumn wedding.”

“That’s your side, but what about Kelly?”

Paul closed his eyes for a moment. “I love her. Always have. She was kind to me when others weren’t. I’ve enjoyed every minute I’ve spent with her.” His voice began to rise. “I’m just not ready to move in with her mom and take on a farm and an animal clinic and...” He looked at Adam. “And all those women!”

Adam couldn’t help a smile of understanding.

“I’d be living with Kelly’s mom and Forey, who practically lives there, and my mother will be there constantly. And all Kelly’s damned animals. I live with them now with my stepdad, but—” He took a breath and stopped talking.

“Did you tell Kelly all this?”

Paul groaned. “No. My mother doesn’t believe in not getting what she wants. Especially when it concerns me. She bought that ring for me to give to Kelly. Then she told Kelly what she’d done. When Kelly came here, I think she was expecting a marriage proposal.”

“But she didn’t get one.”

“No, she didn’t, but when she got on that big horse and it looked like she was going to trample my trees, I almost gave her one.”

Adam grinned. “How can this be solved?”

“In a way where she doesn’t hate me? Where the whole town doesn’t want to murder me?”

“Do you plan to ask her when you get back?”

“I don’t know,” Paul said. “I just know that right now it’s not what I want. Marriage, kids, snakes slithering across the floor and a mother-in-law who expects me to be a reincarnation of her husband and take care of cows, and my mother criticizing everything I do. I just...plain don’t want it!”

Adam sat on the back bumper of his truck. “I’m not an expert about women, but I know they should do the breaking up. If it gets around that you dumped Kelly, she’ll—”

“I know.” Paul sat on the other end of the bumper. “Everyone will feel sorry for her.”

“You need to talk to Kelly and tell her all of this.”