Feliz Naughty Dog - Roxanne St. Claire Page 0,11

with a quick wit and genuine warmth. After a week of banter and text exchanges, he’d told her his full name and asked if she’d meet him for lunch sometime between Christmas and New Year’s.

When she’d told Finnie, her best friend had flipped her Irish lid and announced Aldo Fiore was some kind of Mafia don hiding out in Sweetheart Springs.

Which had to be hogwash…Agnes hoped.

“How are they doing back there?” Finnie turned to look at Pru and Lucas walking behind them as the group made their way down the wide tiled floor between dresses nobody should be caught dead in and some ghastly seasonal sweaters already on sale.

Agnes glanced at the teenagers, who were alternately talking and checking each other out when they thought the other one didn’t notice. “Love is in the air. Can’t you see that?”

Gramma tried to straighten her glasses. “I can’t see too much of anything, truth be told. But aye, ’tis a bit more fun for a—oh!”

All of a sudden, Tor launched between Finnie and Agnes, nearly tripping over the doxies, his long, lean body slicing through everything in its path as he tore toward a jewelry counter.

“Whoa! Tor!” Despite his size, Lucas was yanked by the leash, barely able to stop the dog as he tried to pounce on a stack of gold earrings, his teeth just missing a sparkling ornament decorating the display. “Easy, boy!”

The tower of jewelry tipped one way, then the other, but Pru managed to grab the table and save the whole thing from toppling over. Lucas put both arms around Tor and somehow held him back from taking a second swipe.

“Yikes.” Pru gave a quick laugh in the face of Agnes’s and Finnie’s shocked looks. “Disaster averted.”

“Barely,” Agnes said, tugging her own leashes to calm Pyggie and Gala, who barked noisily at the disruption. “Are you prepared to pay for anything he destroys?”

The boy looked down, as chastised as the dog. “He’s, um, never been in a place like this before.”

Once again, the contrition in his voice matched the big sad eyes of the dog, and Agnes’s heart shifted, proving it really wasn’t made of stone anymore.

“Well, be careful,” she said, just as the dog dropped to the ground in a heap. “Oh! Is he okay?”

“This is kind of what he does,” Lucas said. “He was raised as a sprinter, so he gets these bursts of energy and gets really focused on something, then he gets so exhausted, he has to rest. It’s a greyhound thing.”

“Sounds like a senior thing,” Agnes said with a sly smile, making them laugh.

“Just keep a hold of him, lad,” Finnie warned as a group of people tried to get by them all. “’Tis a busy day and a crowded place.”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. He’ll be fine.”

Agnes looked around as the crowd cleared, spotting the entrance to the mall just past the makeup counters. “All righty, then, we’ll meet you two back here in, what, two hours?”

Pru looked slightly horrified at the suggestion. “Oh, no, Yiayia. We don’t want to be….We’ll go with you guys,” she said.

“Pru, that’s not necessary,” Agnes said. “The last thing I want to do is draw Aldo’s attention to us, and this group?” Her gaze shifted to the animal the size of a reindeer literally snoring on the floor of Macy’s. “Is an attention magnet.”

“You’ll never know we’re there,” Pru assured her, shifting a heavy backpack on her shoulder. “I’ve got all the RACK materials in this bag, and we’ll just follow you and quietly perform our Random Acts of Christmas Kindness on the way. Do you have your list?” she asked Lucas.

He gave her a look like he’d never heard of a list.

“Hang on.” Pru put her bag down and knelt next to it, and the very act shot a punch of irritation through Agnes.

“We do not have all day,” she said, strident enough to get one of those warning looks from Finnie. But this time, a little sharpness was called for. “Prudence, you have a partner. He’s very nice. You do not need to keep us from our mission in order to accomplish yours.”

“Just give me a second to find his list…” She whipped out a pack of papers, then another, setting them on the floor. “I made a special one for my team. It’s in here somewhere.”

Agnes sighed, shifting from one foot to the other, knowing she was being petulant, but…Aldo. What if his Santa shift ended at noon? “Time’s a-wastin’, Prudence,” she said.

“Let me