“’Tis a minor setback,” she said brightly, trying to straighten the glasses, but succeeding only in making them sit even more cockeyed on her tiny face. “I can see fine.”
She shifted her gaze to Yiayia, who suddenly seemed wildly 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 to the cool glass.
How in the world had this day gone from a fun time running around Bitter Bark with Emma and Charlotte to…Darling and the Dogmothers?
“So, I understand you’re new in town, lad.” From the front passenger seat, Gramma Finnie turned a bit to direct her question to the boy sitting directly behind her. “Pru says you’re from California.”
Oh sure, Gramma. Let him know I talked about him. That’s just great.
“Yeah, LA.” He looked down at the dog on his lap, stroking his massive head with a hand that looked big and strong and—
Stop staring at his hands, Pru.
“What brings you here?” Yiayia asked.
“Just…family stuff.”
“Did your parents move, too?” Yiayia pressed. “And did you get this dog here or there? Do you like Bitter Bark? It’s probably so different from Los Angeles. How long are you staying?”
He gave a soft laugh at the barrage of questions, shooting a look at Pru, who just lifted a shoulder. “Hey, you ride with the grannies, you pay the price.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Grandmas are my comfort zone.”
She frowned a little, totally not expecting that.
“I’m living with my aunt and uncle,” he said to the ladies in the front.
So that much of the rumor mill was true.
“I’m here until…” He let out a breath. “For a while. And yeah, Bitter Bark’s different, but it’s kind of like a movie set, you know.”
Movie set? Maybe he did have Hollywood connections.
He slid a look at Pru that made those butterflies rise up for the second spin around her belly. “What else did she ask?” he mouthed.
“The dog.”
“Oh yeah. Tor is…” He shook his head. “A really good, uh, friend of mine adopted him, and then she…” His voice trailed off.
She. A girlfriend in LA, of course.
“She had to give him up,” he finished with just enough angst in his voice that Pru suddenly had it all figured out. He’d met his match, some crazy-hot blond actress and Instagram star, no doubt. He fell hard for her, and her dog, then she got a part in a movie and broke his heart by leaving and sticking him with her dog. Sure, she promised to come back and get him, but would she?
“But he’s been a good bud,” he added, then laughed, flashing the dimples that really ought to be illegal. “Well, not good. Tor is a little bit, um, undisciplined. He can run, but he doesn’t quite have the whole rule thing figured out.”
“Well, you have landed in a family of dog trainers, lad,” Gramma Finnie said.
Gramma! Pru tried not to choke. He hadn’t exactly landed in the family.
“Really?” Lucas sat up a little. “Tor could probably use some of that.”
“My son runs the largest canine training and rescue center in the state,” she said proudly.
“Your dad?” he asked Pru.
“Actually, my grandfather owns Waterford Farm, but my dad’s one of the trainers of therapy dogs. And my uncles are all some of the best trainers around. And my mom’s a vet.”
&nbs
p; “Get out.” He looked skyward. “Man, you must think Tor is a nightmare.”
“Tor’s sweet,” Pru said, patting the dog’s hindquarters and adjusting the two long, long legs on her thighs. “He certainly isn’t shy.”
“That makes one of us,” Lucas said with a soft, self-deprecating laugh.
He was shy? She filed that away for something to mull over later. No doubt she’d be doing a lot of mulling after today. She might never be able to answer another question in English lit for the rest of the year, she’d be so busy mulling over the boy who sat in the back row next to the pencil sharpener. She might just spend the whole class…sharpening her pencils instead of her lit skills.
“My dad says it’s never the dog’s fault, it’s the trainer’s.”
He notched one brow at the little dig. “I must be a wreck, then, because Tor?” He pushed his ears down. “Is bad to the bone.”
She had to laugh, something about him reminding her again of that day when she met Dad and had no idea he was her father, just an ex-con with scary tattoos and an ailing dog. And look how much she loved…
Oh God. Control the crush, Prudence. Control the crush.
She shifted in her seat, gave him a cool smile, and looked out the window. She couldn’t like this boy. Sure, he was eye candy, and all the girls giggled about him when he showed up at school, but she was Prudence Anne Kilcannon Bancroft, number one in her class, bound for Chapel Hill or maybe Duke, based on her PSATs. She didn’t date guys like Lucas Darling.
And Lucas Darling sure as heck didn’t date girls like Pru.
Who didn’t date anyone…yet. Not a single boy had ever asked her out, and she was sixteen. Maybe it was her reputation as a general—some boys didn’t like girls who were leaders. Or maybe it was all her uncles and her dad with tattoos and his own questionable past. Or maybe she just wasn’t pretty or flirtatious or whatever it was boys wanted.
She hadn’t figured it out yet. But she certainly didn’t want to start her boy journey with Lucas Darling. Talk about setting herself up for failure.
“Right, Pru?”
She blinked at Yiayia’s question, lost. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
“Really?” Lucas seemed a little surprised by whatever she’d just agreed to. “You’d do that?”
Oh God, what?
“Because I could really use some help training Tor, so if you know some tricks…”
She’d agreed to help him train the dog? “Oh, I don’t know anything that you couldn’t find on YouTube, I’m sure.”
She could feel Yiayia’s glare, delivered through the rearview mirror directly at Pru. Of course, she could only imagine the words Yiayia was trying not to say. Hey, the Dogmothers made you a match, missy. Don’t blow it. She looked away, glancing instead at the boy next to her, not expecting to see a little flash of disappointment at her response.
Did he want her to help him train Tor? Or…had her dismissive comment actually hurt his feelings? Would a guy that hot even have feelings?
She cleared her throat and tried to think about dog training. No easy feat in the face of that…face. “It’s always good to train with a toy he loves,” she finally said. “Does he like toys?”
“For breakfast. Then what’s left of them goes in the trash.” He petted the dog again. “Since they train racing dogs by having them chase a lure, he gets kind of overly focused on things. Like…” He jutted his chin toward Gramma Finnie. “Glasses. And pens. And phones—I don’t have one right now because he ate it.”
“You don’t have a phone?”
“My aunt has to sign for me to get one, and she’s out of town for a few days.”
“On Christmas Eve?” Yiayia and Gramma Finnie asked the question in perfect, shocked unison.
“They had plans,” he said vaguely, looking a little uncomfortable. “It’s fine.”
“Christmas alone is never fine,” Gramma Finnie said.
Oh boy. She was about to issue an invitation to Christmas Eve dinner at Waterford Farm. Pru could hear the words before they were formed in her little Irish head. Oh, lad, ye must come to dinner…
“You’re in my English lit class,” Pru said quickly, hoping to head off the invitation before it was issued.
“Yeah,” he said. “And I can’t believe old Thorgrim gave us homework over winter break.”
“Just reading,” she said. “That’s not work. Although, I guess you…”
He tipped his head. “Contrary to rumors, I can read. And not just comic books and video game screens.”
A splash of shame heated her cheeks, making her swallow and hold his gaze long enough to at least try to let him know she was sorry. “So, did you pick Jekyll and Hyde or Sense and Sensibility?” Gah, dumb question, Pru. Not one guy in the class would read Jane Austen.
“I already read Sense and Sensibility,” he said, making her draw back in surprise. “In fact, I’ve already read everything on the list. Thorgrim said I could pick something else.”
Well, color her…impressed. “California schools must be ahead of North Carolina.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Or I might just read for fun.”
“Jane Austen?” she asked, unable to keep that one inside.
“My, um, friend liked Austen.”
Oh, the movie star girlfriend who broke his heart. Wow, he’d read Jane Austen for her? That was…really stinking attractive.
“Okay, it looks like we’re at the mall,” Gramma Finnie announced as they stared at a line of red brake lights about a mile long after they got off the highway.
“And we might have parked in Bitter Bark and gotten inside faster.” Yiayia let out an exasperated sigh.
“I told you this place would be packed.” Pru checked her phone. Would they have enough time to rack up RACK points?
“While you’re on your phone, Pru,” Yiayia said, “can you check the mall’s website? Maybe they have information about the Santa schedule.”
“Sure, although I’m sure Santa’s already at work,” she said, tapping the screen. “Just let me check the RACK IT UP app real quick.”
“They came to see Santa?” Lucas asked Pru in a whisper, understandably confused.
No, they came to spy on a mobster who Yiayia is considering dating. “He’s…a friend of theirs.”
Another look from Yiayia. Pru flashed one right back. Did she really want to be that honest with a complete stranger?
“I think he mentioned that he may only do the morning shift,” Yiayia said, stress tightening her voice.
“Then he has to go put a hit on his bookie,” Gramma added softly.
Lucas’s eyes widened. “What?”
Pru waved off the question with a nervous laugh. “Inside joke.”
“This is going to take hours.” Yiayia tapped the steering wheel with impatience. “I’m going to miss him.”
Lucas shifted in his seat, no doubt starting to get the idea these ladies were cray-cray. “Take this right,” he said.
“That’s the wrong direction,” Pru told him. “The mall’s over there.”
“Take the right,” he repeated.
“Says the guy from California.”
He just smiled. “The same guy who was here a week ago with his aunt who knows a back way into the Macy’s parking lot.”
Yiayia whipped out of the traffic. “I’m game,” she said.
In a moment, they found a side street, Lucas gave more directions, and before long, Yiayia parked the Buick within sight of the Macy’s entrance.
“You, my son, are a genius!” she exclaimed as she threw the car into park. “I’m so glad we brought you.”
“At least someone is,” he murmured, the soft-spoken zinger hitting Pru right in the gut.
She looked up from her phone, expecting that dark gaze to be nothing less than disgusted with her. But there was just enough of a tease and a challenge in his eyes that her heart flipped around and went tumbling down into the butterfly pit.
Then he winked…and she was toast.
Chapter Four
Agnes checked her reflection in the glass doors as the crew marched into Macy’s at the massive two-story Vestal Village Mall. She smoothed a stray black hair and checked her lipstick, feeling confident and attractive enough to catch the eye of Aldo Fiore.
“Don’t worry, Agnes, you look gorgeous,” Finnie whispered as they stepped into the warm air of the department store.
“Hardly.”
Finnie smiled. “I like when you are humble,” she said. “It’s one of your best looks.”
Agnes smiled, always appreciating Finnie’s unending attempts to help Agnes’s self-improvement efforts. Finnie was one of the few people who knew that a little more than two years ago, a heart attack had had Agnes literally knocking on heaven’s door, only to be sent back with some vague instructions to “do better.” From that day on, Agnes Santorini had set about to change herself, inside and out.
It had been relatively easy to lose weight, have a few injections, dye her hair, and shave a few years off of Agnes Santorini. She’d never felt healthier or stronger. But, oh, the inner changes had been a little more challenging.
It hadn’t been easy to soften a sharp tongue or dial back her natural sarcasm or even reserve judgment after a lifetime of passing it on everyone and everything. But each year, especially since she’d forged a friendship and family connection with sweet Finnie and her loving clan, Agnes had gotten closer to what she thought was a changed life.
And now, for the first time in years, she longed for another change, this one with a man. She had no desire to get married again, or even fall in love, nothing so permanent or serious. But all the family matchmaking she and Finnie had been doing had awakened something Agnes had thought had gone to sleep for good.
Now, she sometimes opened her eyes in the middle of the night and ached for the feel of her dear Nik by her side. She remembered the thrill of having his warm lips on hers and the deep comfort of threading her fingers through his. She liked the smell of a freshly showered man, the power of a deep voice, and the sense of balance in her life when it included a loving man.
She’d had fun this past fall with old Max Hewitt, plotting the romance between Finnie’s grandson Declan and Max’s granddaughter Evie. She liked Max, as a friend and card player. And he certainly held his own in the matchmaking game. But she didn’t feel a zing with Max, and for all his flirting, he was truly a one-woman man, biding his time until he could join his beloved Penny in heaven.
Feliz Naughty Dog (The Dogmothers Book 7) Page 3
