Diamond In The Ruff. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ walked out of her small inner office and regarded the animal, her expression completely unfathomable.

      “I’m sorry I’m late,” Lily apologized to the woman who wrote out her checks. “I ran into a snag.”

      “From here it looks like the snag is following you,” Theresa observed.

      She glanced expectantly at the young woman she’d taken under her wing a little more than a year ago. That was when she’d hired Lily as her pastry chef after discovering that Lily could create delicacies so delicious, they could make the average person weep. But, softhearted woman that she was, Theresa hadn’t taken her on because of her skills so much as because Lily’s mother had recently passed away, leaving her daughter all alone in the world. Theresa, like her friends Maizie and Cecilia, had a great capacity for sympathy.

      Lily flushed slightly now, her cheeks growing a soft shade of pink.

      “I’m sorry, he was just there on my doorstep this morning when I opened the door. I couldn’t just leave him there to roam the streets. If I came home tonight and found out that someone had run him over, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

      “Why didn’t you just leave him at your place?” Alfredo asked, curious. “That’s what I would have done.” He volunteered this course of action while bending down, scratching the puppy behind its ears.

      “I normally would have done that, too,” Lily answered. “But there was one thing wrong with that—he apparently sees the world as one giant chew toy.”

      “So you brought him here,” Theresa concluded. It was neither a question nor an accusation, just a statement of the obvious. A bemused smile played on the older woman’s lips as she regarded the animal. “Just make sure he stays out of the kitchen.”

      Lily gestured around the area, hoping Theresa would see things her way. This was all temporary. “Everything here’s made out of metal. His little teeth can’t do any damage,” she pointed out, then looked back at Theresa hopefully. “Can he stay—just for today?” Lily emphasized.

      Theresa pretended to think the matter over—as if she hadn’t had a hand in the puppy’s sudden magical appearance on her pastry chef’s doorstep. After Maizie had mentioned that their late friend’s son was opening up his animal hospital two doors down from her real estate office and went on to present him as a possible new candidate for their very unique service, Theresa had suggested getting Christopher together with Lily. She’d felt that the young woman could use something positive happening to her and had been of that opinion for a while now.

      The search for a way to bring the two together in a so-called “natural” fashion was quick and fruitful when, as a sidebar, Cecilia had casually asked if either she or Maizie knew of anyone looking to adopt a puppy. Her dog, Princess, had given birth to eight puppies six weeks ago, and the puppies needed to be placed before “they start eating me out of house and home,” Cecilia had told her friends.

      It was as if lightning had struck. Everything had fallen into place after that.

      Theresa was aware of Lily’s approximate time of departure and had informed Cecilia. The latter proceeded to leave the puppy—deliberately choosing the runt of the litter—on Lily’s doorstep. Cecilia left the rambunctious puppy there not once but actually several times before she hit upon the idea of bribing the little dog with a large treat, which she proceeded to embed in the open weave of the welcome mat.

      Even so, Cecilia had just barely made it back to her sedan before Lily had swung open her front door.

      Once inside the catering shop, the puppy proceeded to make himself at home while he sniffed and investigated every inch of the place.

      Lily watched him like a hawk, afraid of what he might do next. In her opinion, Theresa was a wonderful person, but everyone had their breaking point and she didn’t want the puppy to find Theresa’s.

      “Um, Theresa,” Lily began as she shooed the puppy away from a corner where a number of boxes were piled up, “how old are your grandchildren now?”

      Theresa slanted a deliberately wary look at the younger woman. “Why?”

      Lily smiled a little too broadly as she made her sales pitch. “Wouldn’t they love to have a puppy? You could surprise them with Jonathan.”

      Theresa raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Jonathan?” she repeated.

      Lily gestured at the Labrador. “The puppy. I had to call him something,” she explained.

      “You named him. That means you’re already attached to him,” Alfredo concluded with a laugh, as if it was a done deal.

      There was something akin to a panicky look on Lily’s face. She didn’t want to get attached to anything. She was still trying to get her life on track after losing her mother. Taking on something new—even a pet—was out of the question.

      “No, it doesn’t,” Lily protested. “I just couldn’t keep referring to the puppy as ‘it.’”

      “Sure you could,” Alfredo contradicted with a knowing attitude. “That you didn’t want to means that you’ve already bonded with the little ball of flying fur.”

      “No, no bonding,” Lily denied firmly, then made her final argument on the matter. “I don’t even know how to bond with an animal. The only pet I ever had was a goldfish and Seymour only lived for two days.” Which firmly convinced her that she had absolutely no business trying to care for a pet of any kind.

      Alfredo obviously didn’t see things in the same light that she did. “Then it’s high time you got back into the saddle, Lily. You can’t accept defeat that easily,” he told her.

      Finding no support in that quarter, Lily appealed to her boss. “Theresa—”

      Theresa placed a hand supportively on the younger woman’s shoulder. “I’m with Alfredo on this,” she told Lily. “Besides,” she pointed out, “you can’t give the dog away right now.”

      “Why not?” Lily asked.

      Theresa was the soul of innocence as she explained, “Because his owner might be out looking for him even as we speak.”

      Lily blew out a breath. She’d forgotten about that. “Good point,” she admitted, chagrinned by her oversight. “I’ll make flyers and put them up.”

      “In the meantime,” Theresa continued as she thoughtfully regarded the black ball of fur and paws, “I suggest you make sure the little guy’s healthy.”

      “How do I go about doing that?” Lily asked, completely clueless when it came to the care of anything other than humans. She freely admitted to having a brown thumb. Anything that was green and thriving would begin to whither and die under her care—which was why she didn’t attempt to maintain a garden anymore. The thought of caring for a pet brought a chill to her spine.

      “Well, for starters,” Theresa told her, “if I were you I would bring him to a veterinarian.”

      “A vet?” she looked at the puppy that now appeared to be utterly enamored with Alfredo. The chef was scratching Jonathan behind the ears and along his nose, sending the Labrador to seventh heaven. “He doesn’t look sick. СКАЧАТЬ