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“So am I.”
And now I love the little fur ball, too.
I shoot him a quick glance at him and then at Sadie before focusing back on the road. An odd sense of comfort and peace comes over me. I’ve heard Daire talk about feeling this way when he looks at Everleigh and their unborn baby. I’ve never experienced it before. Is it normal? Temporary? I don’t hate it, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t scare me. I scratch my hot neck and slam on the horn when a truck tries to cut us off.
Sadie gasps and squeezes Detective Pickles’s cage.
“Sorry. That driver just thought he’d get over without looking, I guess.”
“It’s okay.”
“How’d you come up with the name, or did Nina’s daughter name him?”
“She called him Hamster.”
I laugh.
“I thought he deserved a real name, something unique.”
“Which led you to Detective Pickles?”
“Not necessarily. I was struggling to come up with a good one. Names are important.”
“My dad would agree. Livingston is an old family name that will forever be tied to the farm and pecans around the world.”
She smiles at that. “I might have been watching Dateline and eating pickles at the time, and the name just came to me when this little cutie tried to eat my mini dill pickle.”
I laugh again. “Did he like it?”
“No.” She makes a face. “He bit a piece and then backed away, actually falling off my thigh. But we were on the couch, so he was okay.”
I chuckle. “Only you would have a story like that.”
She beams, not offended at all by my remark. I love that about her, how she doesn’t get uptight or offended easily.
“Have you brought Detective Pickles to the farm?” She’s stayed there a couple of times before the renovations, back when the house was huge.
“Once, when my mom and Tim were in Hawaii.”
“Hawaii. That’s a place I’d want to visit sometime.”
“You’ve never been?” she asks, surprised.
“Not yet. We tend to stick to this side of the US. I’ve been all over the Caribbean on my dad’s yacht.”
I adjust the wheel a little lower in the Lexus. The older coupe pulls slightly to the right. The mechanic said it needs an alignment and the tires need rotated. I didn’t have time for that, and I wasn’t sure if he was trying to get more business and money from me. Now that I’m on the highway, I can tell it needs a lot of work. The oil was low, so she had noticed the light. The mechanic checked for a leak but said it’s fine. I had him do what he could so we could get to the farm, but it’ll need more repairs. Did Dash never check her car for her?
“The mechanic noticed some other things that need fixed on the car when I brought it in,” I mention. “We can get it done at a place near the farm. I know the owner.”
Her hazel-green eyes, so bright in the car, widen on me. “Oh no. What does it need?”
“Nothing major, but you’ll notice it drives better once some work is done.”
“Oh. Okay. Thank you.” Her shoulders relax.
She checks the GPS.
“It’s the fastest route.”
