Feliz Naughty Dog - Roxanne St. Claire Page 0,7
preoccupied with straightening the lists and refusing to make eye contact.
“It was my dog,” Lucas said, taking a step closer. “Tor snagged her glasses and ran.”
“Snagged…off her face?”
“Of course not,” Gramma Finnie assured her. “Tor’s a good dog. He’s just…impulsive.”
And Gramma was defending this?
“Tor.” Pru looked at the greyhound, who was, she had to admit, almost as stunning a creature as his owner. Big, shiny, and athletic, with gorgeous brown eyes. “Short for Tornado?” she guessed, fighting a smile as the dog tilted his head and practically begged to be loved.
“Toreador was his racing name,” Lucas said. “And seriously, um, Pru, I’m happy to fly solo.”
She gave in to that smile when he put um and Pru together and got Umproo, the nickname her father had called her since the evening they met in a vet office. And if she’d learned anything from Trace Bancroft, it was not to judge a book by its cover or a guy by his reputation.
And really, was this the worst thing to ever happen to her?
“No need to fly solo,” she said. “Although, brace yourself with these two…” She tipped her head toward the grannies. “You may never be the same after a day with them.”
“You don’t have to come with us,” Yiayia said quickly. “The two of you can just…” She made her fingers walk off. “Take off and randomly be…kind. We’ll be fine on our little mission to the mall. You’ll have much more fun alone.”
Alone? Oh. Realization dawned as she eyed one little granny and then the other. The matchmakers never took a day off, did they?
Apparently not.
“I’m going with you, and that is final.” God only knew what trouble they’d get into without her. And Pru didn’t want to think about what kind of trouble she’d get into with…the Darling boy.
“Oh, lassie, we’re grown women who can handle ourselves.”
“Stalking a mobster dressed as Santa?” she asked under her breath so Lucas couldn’t hear.
“He’s not a—”
Pru silenced Yiayia with the sweep of her hand. “I’m going with you, and you…” She turned to Lucas, who was studying her again, his square jaw set with a surprising amount of determination, and…were those some whiskers on his hollowed cheeks? Jeez. “You don’t have to do this,” she finished.
“I want to.”
Good God, was he serious? Maybe he didn’t fully understand.
“You want to get in the car—a Buick, mind you—with my great-grandmothers and two dogs and drive half an hour to the county’s monster mall—on Christmas Eve—where you will be expected to walk around and do nice things for perfect strangers and take pictures of it?” She spoke a little slowly because maybe he was nothing more than a gorgeous empty head with long, thick, finger-tempting black hair.
“Three dogs. ’Cause Tor goes where I go.” He smiled, showing off a set of dimples that put the eyes and hair and jaw to shame. “And I’m pretty sure this whole state is dog-friendly, including a mall.”
Seriously? All day with this…this hotness? How could she possibly RACK UP POINTS with a thousand butterflies suddenly airborne in her stomach and her knees threatening to buckle?
“How did this even happen?” she asked on a bewildered sigh.
“I need community service hours for this semester, and I want to—”
“You can just walk around Bitter Bark and give kids dog stickers,” she said. “My mom’s a vet, so I have some in my bag. And I have candy canes.”
“I want to go,” he finished.
She stared at him for a second, trying to decide if there could possibly be something genuine under all that windblown long hair and butter-soft leather jacket.
“Okay,” she finally said, since a good general always knew when to back down. “Let’s go to Vestal Village Mall.” She slid a look to Gramma Finnie. “Won’t be the first time we did something crazy on Christmas Eve.”
“And it won’t be the last,” Finnie said, turning to Yiayia. “Unless we end up swimming with the fishes.”
“What?” Lucas asked.
“Nothing,” Pru said, adding a warning look to the grannies.
A few minutes later, they were piled into Yiayia’s Buick Regal. And even that boat was barely big enough for three dogs—one fat, one needy, and one stretched out across the back seat with his head on Lucas’s lap and his back paws on Pru’s—plus two octogenarians, one almost six-foot-tall future Zac Efron, and Pru.
Doing her part to save space, Pru pressed against the car door in case she had to jump out onto the highway at any second, or at least press her warm cheek