Precious is not exactly the term I would’ve come up with for the less than attractive dog, but she’s definitely sweet, leaning her weight against my leg and staring up at me with one adoring eye, as I rub her head.
“Good girl,” I mumble at her.
The next moment the hair on my neck stands on end when I hear someone walk up behind me, and say, “It’s almost time to go, Peanut.”
I don’t need to turn around to know who the owner of that voice is, but I don’t have a choice when my mom speaks up.
“Oh, Jillian, I’d like you to meet my son Lucas.”
I meet those pretty green eyes, now sparkling with amusement. Of course a dog named, Peanut, would belong to this woman. She named her cadaver dog, Emo, after all.
Hell, I knew she recently moved to the area—Sloane mentioned it more than once—but I wasn’t expecting to run into her at my mother’s assisted living home. That’s a little too close for comfort.
“So youdohave a first name; Lucas, huh?”
“You already know each other?” Mom looks back and forth between us.
“I do. How are you doing, Jillian?”
She adjusts the small fur ball she’s holding in her arms. “Good, thanks.”
I turn to my mother to explain. “Jillian and I met working on a search last summer.”
Despite my immediate attempt to identify our connection as a professional one only, I see Mom’s mind already at work behind the gleam in her eyes.
Great.
“Is that so? Well, what a happy coincidence this is then,” she says in a chipper voice and with a satisfied smirk on her face.
My mother has never passed up on an opportunity to try and hook me up with any seemingly available female we’ve come across. She has never given up hope to get me tied down and settled, despite the fact I’ve told her often enough I’m not looking for anything permanent. Certainly not with someone my mother hooked me up with.
“It certainly is a coincidence,” Jillian agrees with a kind smile for my mother. “Unfortunately, I have to run. My time is up here and I have to take these guys home and fed, but I’ll be back in two weeks.”
Mom leans forward to give that ugly mutt a hug, before Jillian heads out with both dogs. Then she nudges my hip with her elbow.
“She seems like a nice girl. Maybe you should walk her out.”
“Mom,” I warn her.
The tiny redhead with the big smile is already enough of a temptation without my mother’s interference.