“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.”
“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.