An Accidental Mom. Loree Lough
hugged Cammi. “I know. I’m sorry. You have enough on your mind with all the last-minute plans. I’ll do it first thing tomorrow. I promise.” She brightened to add, “Did you get all the presents put away yet?”
Cammi groaned. “Not yet. There were about a hundred women crowded into the living room. Must have taken you weeks to get the shower organized.”
“Took longer to recuperate, once it was over!”
The sisters laughed, and Missy barked happily.
“Tell you what, since tomorrow’s Saturday, how ’bout when you pick up the dress, we meet for lunch,” Cammi suggested. “My treat. Least I can do for you throwing the biggest, bestest shower a bride ever had.”
“It’s a date.”
“Let’s meet at Georgia’s. I have a ton of stuff to do in town, anyway.”
Georgia’s? And risk seeing Max there?
“If he’s there,” Cammi said knowingly, “we’ll talk loud and fast about the new love of your life.” She giggled and crouched to hug Missy’s neck. “He doesn’t have to know it’s a dog!”
“Maybe I ought to borrow that sweater,” she said, grinning as she plucked a shiny dog hair from Cammi’s shoulder. “He’d think my new beau was a blond!” Lily walked her sister to the door. “On second thought, it would be a waste of perfectly good playacting. Max doesn’t care who I see. Truth is, that scolding he gave me earlier was the most attention he’s paid me, ever.”
“Then, we’ll do something better than try to make him jealous.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ll ignore him.” Cammi headed for the house. “See you at supper, kiddo?”
Smiling, Lily nodded. “Sure.”
Ignore Max Sheridan? It would take more than a wedge of lasagna to give her the strength to accomplish a feat like that!
Chapter Three
“Lily?”
She recognized the dee-jay-type voice immediately: Max. Just what Lily needed—a run-in with him on the telephone just before bedtime. “Yes,” she said cautiously.
“Sorry to call so late, but I wanted to wait until Nate was asleep.”
Why, she asked silently, so he won’t get upset when you start browbeating me again? “What can I do for you?”
Missy padded up, circled several times, and flopped at Lily’s feet. She patted the dog’s head as Max sighed heavily into her ear.
“I don’t blame you for being mad. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I’m calling…to apologize. I had no right chewing you out the way I did this afternoon. Especially since I didn’t have all the facts. Nate and my mother explained things, and, well, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I understand.” She didn’t, but if saying so made his apology easier…
“Do you? Understand, I mean?”
“You’ve got a lot on your mind these days, what with your mom needing surgery and all.”
“Frankly, Mom’s leg was the last thing on my mind when we spoke earlier. I just…”
She could picture him, running one hand through his hair and staring at the ceiling, the way he had as a teenager, when nervousness or frustration got the better of him.
“Max, really,” she said, feeling an unexplainable need to rescue him, “it’s okay. Water under the bridge.” She frowned, wondering why she’d been speaking in clichés lately. Maybe, Lily thought, because the wisdom of each adage “fit” better than brand-new ideas?
“You don’t have to go easy on me. I can take it on the chin. Especially when I deserve it.” He hesitated. “And I deserve it.”
She heard the smile in his voice, and grinned herself. “Okay then, next time I see you, I’ll give you a good whack and we’ll call it even.”
Max chuckled. “You always were a good-natured little thing.”
Always were? Meaning, he’d noticed something about her back then? Lily didn’t quite know what to make of that. She’d always suspected he only saw her as incidental, as someone who stood on the fringes, as a girl who was never a real part of things. To find out he’d seen her, that he’d watched and listened closely enough to know she was good-natured…
She knew her heart had better quit beating double-time or it would jump clean out of her chest. “So, how did things go with Nate? Is he terribly disappointed?”
“Why would he be disappointed?”
Lily rolled her eyes. Oh, no reason, she thought, except, maybe, that Nate wants a dog, and because his dad thinks he’s master of the universe and wasn’t properly consulted, the answer is no. “Well, you’re not going to let him have Missy, right?”
At the mention of her name, the retriever raised her head and met Lily’s eyes. Funny how quickly the pup had adapted to her new moniker. If Lily were the type to read meaning into every little thing…
“Not necessarily. I explained to him that a dog is a big responsibility, especially one like Missy, who’d need regular brushing, especially for a kid who’s only four. Besides, she hasn’t been lost for more than a few hours. Her owners might claim her in the next day or two and…”
Lily didn’t hear anything Max said after “owners.” She’d put a half-baked effort into finding out who Missy belonged to, tacking Lost Dog posters on a few telephone poles, mentioning during the TV interviews that she’d keep the pup until it could be reunited with its family. But there was more she could have done, like running ads in the local papers, placing announcements on the radio. Lily had done it all so many times that “getting the word out” had become second nature.
So, why not this time?
“Nate understands we’ll consider taking Missy—and I stressed the word consider—only if her owners can’t be found.” He paused. “How long does that usually take?”
Lily snapped back to attention. “If she fell off a boat, as the rangers suspect, it shouldn’t take long at all. In fact, I’m surprised she hasn’t been claimed already.” It was true, after all. If Missy had been her dog, she’d have been frantic with worry. Which raised the question: If the dog had fallen from a boat, where was the boat?
“Well, I won’t keep you. I just wanted you to know I didn’t mean to come off sounding like—what was that you called me?—a bully.” He chuckled. “You always did have a way with words.”
And there it was again—“always.”
“If I’d used that tone on the job, maybe I wouldn’t have had so much trouble collecting fees from my clients!” he said.
Georgia had told Lily that Max had earned his CPA, then worked his way up the corporate ladder to a partnership at one of Chicago’s most prestigious accounting firms.
He laughed again. “I can be a blockhead sometimes. I’ll just thank my lucky stars you’re the forgiving sort.”
Lucky stars? This, from the boy who used to depend on the Lord’s help by praying before every game, who sang solos in the church choir, who regularly talked his peers out of smoking and drinking because it wasn’t the behavior of believers?
Georgia had said something else, too: Max had lost his faith after his wife’s suicide.
“You are the forgiving sort, aren’t you?”
“Sure,” she said, “’course I am.”
“Whew. All that silence made me think maybe you were looking through your phone book for the nearest knee cracker.”