Mistletoe Matchmaker. Lissa Manley

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       He furrowed his brow as he twisted open the water bottle’s top. “Oh, yeah…playtime.” He shook his head, then drank some water. “I forgot.”

       She’d thought so. “Well, again, don’t worry. If she escapes again, Jade always comes to visit me and my two dogs, so I can just bring her back.”

       “Okay,” he replied, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve never owned a dog. This is all new to me.” He turned and looked at the mangled bright yellow remnant of what had to be a tennis ball Jade dropped on the floor behind him. “Do they all have such…disgusting toys?”

       Molly smiled. So, he was clueless about dogs, something she found surprisingly endearing. Good thing she was the resident dog expert around Moonlight Cove. She had a lot to teach him. “Pretty much. My two schnauzers each have four or five tennis balls rolling around, and they’re all pretty slobbery.”

       “And smelly,” he replied, making a face. “Maybe I should buy her a new, clean one.”

       Molly appreciated his suggestion. He caught on fast. “Well, you could, but it’ll be gross, too, pretty quickly, won’t it?”

       He smiled. “I guess so. Maybe I need an endless supply.”

       Molly’s heart rate kicked up a notch at his gorgeous smile—including dimples—and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.

       She forced her thoughts back to the conversation at hand, wishing her heart rate would slow down a teensy bit. “The Sports Shack sells them. I’d give you one, but Jade likes the ones fresh out of the can.” She remembered something. “Hey, I’m guessing you can get a family discount since Kim is married to the Sports Shack’s owner, Seth.”

       Seth and Grant’s cousin, Kim, had met five months ago when she and her seven-year-old son had come to Moonlight Cove to live with her and Grant’s aunt Rose. Seth had saved Kim from drowning in a riptide off Moonlight Cove Beach, and Kim had ended up working in his store. Soon after, they fell in love, and the rest was history.

       “Good point. I met Seth when he, Kim and Dylan came to visit me in August.”

       A thought occurred to Molly. “You weren’t at their wedding, though, were you?” The happy bride and groom had been married this past September in a lovely ceremony at Moonlight Cove Community Church, followed by a reception on the beach where they’d met.

       Grant shook his head. “No, I couldn’t make it.”

       “For your cousin’s wedding?” Kind of an important event to miss.…

       His jaw tightened, and he seemed to be squirming. “I was out of the country for work.”

       Molly nodded. Seemed as if Grant was a workaholic. Remembered pain shot through Molly. Her father had missed her high school graduation because of work, too. Never again.

       Shoving aside past hurts, she said, “Well, since you missed the nuptials, I’m happy to report that Seth and Kim are very happy, and completely devoted to each other and Dylan.” Truth be told, Molly kind of envied the love they shared and the family they’d built, though she knew that kind of love wasn’t in the cards for her. From now on, she would only let God into her heart—she could depend on Him to never let her down.

       “Good to know,” Grant said evenly.

       “My friend Phoebe told me they went to Seattle.”

       “Yeah. Seth had some kind of Mariners function for former players.”

       Seth had played for the Seattle Mariners for three years before coming back home to Moonlight Cove to take over running the Sports Shack from his father.

       “Did they kennel Cleo?” Molly asked. “I hope not. I would have been glad to keep her.”

       Jade had had a litter of pups in June, and Rose and Benny had given Cleo, one of Jade’s puppies, to Dylan soon after Kim and Seth got engaged.

       Grant shook his head. “Nah, they took her with them. Rose told me Dylan just about had a hissy fit when they talked about leaving her here.”

       “Not surprising. Dylan and Cleo come in here all the time to play with Peter and Parker and to pick out toys. He’s pretty attached to her.” She made a face. “But I’m not sure I’d want to take her on vacation.”

       “Why not?”

       “She’s even wilder than Jade,” Molly said, quirking a brow.

       He looked horrified. “Is that possible?” he asked, glancing sideways at Jade. She was still madly chasing the jingling Peter and Parker in circles around the predominantly green and red displays, their toenails clickety-clacking on the dog-practical linoleum floor. “She seems pretty wild to me.”

       “You think this is wild?” she asked, gesturing with her head toward Jade. “Wait till you meet Cleo.”

       He took a swig of water, then returned her smile, his eyes sparkling. “I’m not sure I want to,” he said, clearly joking.

       She stared at him for a moment, really liking his sense of humor. Then she caught herself and dragged her gaze away. “Listen,” she said, moving around him and out into the middle of the store, next to the leash display, where there was more space. “If you want me to pick up some tennis balls for Jade after work, I’d be happy to drop them off later.”

       He raised his blond brows. “No, that’s fine. I don’t want to put you out.”

       “Oh, you wouldn’t be putting me out. I need to pick up some fishing lures for my elderly neighbor from the Sports Shack, anyway. Floyd broke his leg and still wants to go on a fishing trip, wheelchair and all, with one of his buddies. I promised when I checked on him last night to deliver some lures later today.”

       “Well…that’d be great.” Grant glanced quickly at his sporty-looking watch, then frowned slightly. “Oh, wow. Look at the time. Tick-tock. I really should get back to work.”

       “Tight deadline?”

       “Extremely tight,” he replied, rubbing his jaw. “I have to have this job done by January 1 for initial system testing, and then the rest completed by the middle of January, which is an insane deadline for this kind of a product. So that means I have days and days of nothing but work ahead of me.”

       She had visions of him working day and night, alone and isolated, his job his only focus.

       Sounded sadly familiar. Would Grant someday be like her dad, all alone, because he chose work over everything else? She hoped not. Her dad had ended up pretty unhappy, with no one. Molly couldn’t think of anything worse.

       Thankfully, she had her large group of friends to keep her company. And God, of course.

       Molly hadn’t grown up going to church, but ever since she’d come to Moonlight Cove, she’d found great comfort and sense of family at the Moonlight Cove Community Church.

       “I’m happy to help out,” she told Grant. “Your aunt asked me to look in on you and Jade. She said you get all tied up in work and forget СКАЧАТЬ