Diamond in the Ruff (Matchmaking Mamas Book 13) by Marie Ferrarella Page A

it.
    “Let me give you my address in case we get separated,” Lily said to him, taking a very small notepad out of her purse. Finding a pen took a couple of minutes longer, but she did and then she began to write down her address.
    “Separated?” he questioned. “How fast do you intend to be driving?” he couldn’t help asking.
    “Not that fast,” Lily assured him. “But there are always traffic lights turning red at the most inopportune time, impeding progress. I might make it through a light, but you might not, that sort of thing.” Finished, she handed the small piece of paper to him. “Can you read it?” she asked. “My handwriting is pretty awful.”
    He looked down at the paper—and laughed. “You think this is bad? You should see the way some of my friends write—it’s enough to make a pharmacist weep,” Christopher told her with another laugh.
    Glancing one last time at the address she’d written down for him, he folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Just let me get to my car before you start yours,” he told her. “I’ll take it from there.”
    “Okay,” Lily answered gamely.
    She rounded the back of the vehicle—Jonathan eyeing her every move—and got in behind the steering wheel. Buckling up, she not only remained where she was until Christopher got to his car but waited until he started the vehicle and pulled out of the row where he had been parked, as well.
    Only then did she turn her key in the ignition, back out and head for the exit. Within less than a minute, she was on the thoroughfare leading away from the dog park.
    Lily glanced in her rearview mirror to make sure that Christopher was following her.
    He was.
    Meanwhile, Jonathan had taken to pacing back and forth on the seat behind her as she drove them home. Each time she came to a stop at an intersection light, even when she rolled into that stop, Jonathan would suddenly and dramatically pitch forward.
    After emitting a high-pitched yelp that sounded like it could have easily doubled for a cry for help, the puppy apparently decided it was safer for him to lie low, which he did. He spread himself out as far as he could on the backseat and seemed to all but make himself one with the cushion.
    “It’s not far now,” Lily promised the Labrador, hoping that if he didn’t understand the words, at least the sound of her calm voice would somehow help soothe him.
    If it did—and she had her suspicions that it might have because he’d stopped making those strange, whiny noises—the effect only lasted until she pulled up in her driveway some fifteen minutes later.
    The second she put the vehicle into Park and got out, Jonathan was up on all fours again, pacing along the backseat—when he wasn’t sliding down because of a misstep that sent his paws to the floor.
    Since she had kept the windows in the back partially open, she didn’t immediately open the rear door to let him out. Instead, she waited for Christopher to pull up alongside of her vehicle. She felt that he could handle the Labrador far better than she could. For one thing, the man was a lot stronger.
    The minutes began to slip away, banding together to form a significant block of time.
    When Christopher still didn’t show up, she began to wonder if he had somehow lost sight of her. She’d stopped looking in the rearview mirror around the time when Jonathan’s head was in her direct line of vision, blocking out everything else.
    And then she realized that it didn’t really matter if Christopher had lost sight of her car or not. She’d given him her address, so even if he had lost sight of her vehicle he still should have been pulling up in her driveway by now.
    Since he wasn’t, she took it as a sign that he’d changed his mind about coming over.
    The more the minutes ticked away, the more certain she became that she was right. Somewhere along the route, he had obviously decided that he had given her enough of his time.
    She felt a strange sensation in her