The closer he got, the more Sammy Davis Jr. was not having it. Wriggling across the floor, he deposited himself on my feet, laying across them and chuffing out another warning to Lucas.
“Ha! See, he knows what you’re up to.” I giggled, leaning down to pat Sammy lightly on the head. “Now, fix up my dog so I can take him home.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, then looked at the door’s window. “Coast is clear; want to head back up front? Sammy can stay here.”
“Are there any tiny angels out there packing tiny arrows?” I asked, and he made a show of looking again.
“Not that I can see, but there is a Labrador packing quite a large . . . anyway.”
I patted Sammy one final time and was rewarded with a tiny lick, and then we headed to the ranch.
Since we’d ridden together, Lucas had to drive me home before heading back in to start his shift at the clinic. As he pulled into the driveway, he looked over at me. “I’ll call you later, let you know how he’s doing.”
“Think he can come home tomorrow?”
“I’m sure he can. I just want to make sure he’s good to go,” he assured me. He looked like he was going to say something else, but then didn’t. He started once more, but still said nothing.
“Something on your mind, Lucas?” I asked, wrinkling my brow.
“Yes, actually.” He shut off the ignition and turned toward me.
And just like that, the mood shifted. I was aware of everything. His salty/woodsy scent. The way his eyes were deepening almost to indigo. The way his arm now draped casually across the back of the seats, putting his forearm within licking distance.
Luckily, before any licking could occur, my phone rang. “Hold that thought,” I said, then looked at my phone. Fudge. “It’s my mother.” Shaking my head, I turned back to him. “I gotta take this. Call me later?”
“Deal,” he said, and I jumped out of the car with a wave.
I’d started to answer the phone when he called, “Hey Chloe!”
“Yeah?”
“You did great today.” He grinned, and drove away.
I could hear my mother in the background. “Hello? Hello Chloe, are you there?”
“Hi, Mother,” I said into the phone, grinning as he drove away.
“Who are you smiling at?” she asked.
“You can tell that I’m smiling?” I was astonished.
“The same way I know that you’re slouching.”
“You’re four hundred and fifty miles away. How in the world can you tell I’m slouching?”
“Your voice changes; it always has. Spine straight, please,” my mother said crisply. “Now, who was that young man you were talking to?”
I literally looked all around, expecting her to come out from behind a bush. “How did you—never mind. What’s up, Mother?”
“Can’t I call just to talk to my own daughter?” she asked.
I stifled a groan and looked skyward for support. The only thing that told me was that it looked like rain. Sigh. “Of course you can. How are you?”
“Wonderful. Thank you for asking.”
No one said a word. Usually, I’d try to fill a silence. Not anymore.
“So how are the gang dogs, dear?”
“Not gang dogs, Mom: Our Gang. You know very well what the name of this place is; it wouldn’t kill you to say it right every now and again.”
“Fine. Our Gang. Does anyone have rabies yet?” she asked, her tone icy.
I groaned. “Honestly, Mother.”
“You sound like a hippopotamus, Chloe. Why are you groaning? Have you been eating too much dairy? You know what that does to your system—”
“Mother.”
She just continued, “—and what it does to your insides.”
“Mother. Hey. Mother.”
“No one wants a gassy girlfriend—”
“Mother!” I yelled, finally breaking through. No slouching now, I was fully at attention and pacing. “I wasn’t groaning because of dairy, for God’s sake, I was groaning because . . . Oh, forget it. What did you need?”
“What did I need?” she asked, her tone even cooler now that I’d snapped at her.
“Yes, you called me, remember? I’ve got things to do because we just picked up our first dog today, and—”
“We? Who is we?” she asked, changing to search mode. Now she was out for intel. “Is that that young man I just heard you talking to?”
Damn, she was good. “The young man you’re referring to is Dr. Lucas Campbell. And there is no ‘we’; he was just helping me out.”
“Dr. Lucas Campbell, a doctor? I’m impressed. How did you meet him?”