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“Yes, honey, I know he’s in the Army.”
“Wasn’t he so nice?”
And handsome. But Cameron couldn’t, no, she wouldn’t, go there. She would not remember how he’d smiled at her when he realized their daughters were friends. Or how gentle and sweet he was with Mariana. Those butterflies in her stomach needed a stern talking to. She was not attracted to the tall, handsome soldier. She just couldn’t be.
And why was Lizzie was going on about Alex, anyway? She’d met any number of parents of her friends before. Then again, Mariana was her best friend. Lizzie had never declared someone her best friend before. That meant Cameron would be seeing more of Alex, because of course she wanted to know the parents of her daughter’s friends.
Cameron pulled into the driveway and mentally reviewed what she had to do: conference call, debug web site, walk the dog, make dinner, shower.
Perhaps little miss “Forgot My Project” needed to help out a bit tonight since she’d contributed to Cameron’s time crunch. “How about you go let Boomer out? He probably wasn’t happy to be shut up in his crate while I was gone.”
But had she… put him in his crate?
Uh-oh.
Cameron opened the front door of the house slowly, afraid of what she would find on the other side, and Lizzie darted past her.
“Mom, Boomer got out. Again.”
“Argh!” Cameron flung the door open and stepped into the living room. The couch cushion had been dragged onto the floor, stuffing protruding from a hole that hadn’t been there when she left. The living room looked like an early snow, with flecks of white all over her carpet.
And no dog in sight.
She hurried through the house. There was no telling what their beloved pest had gotten into now. “Boomer. Where are you?”
Lizzie’s voice echoed from the back of the house. “Mom. In here.”
Cameron hurried into the kitchen where Lizzie was standing in front of the open door to the back yard. “Did you open that door, honey?”
“No.” Lizzie giggled. “Boomer did it.”
How in the heck had he managed to master the latch? “Well, go get him.” He’d never opened one of the outside doors before. Had the dang mutt grown thumbs?
She didn’t really need to ask. It was no surprise that he’d stepped up his tricks. That dog was constantly jiggling the hook loose on his crate. He loved to escape and curl up in her favorite recliner, which wouldn’t be so bad, but Boomer was not a great smelling dog.
Nothing like a waft of dog stink when she sank into her favorite chair at the end of a long day.
Lizzie dragged Boomer in from the back yard. His fur was covered in splotches of dark brown mud
. White fuzz from her couch cushion hung out of his mouth as did… “What in the heck did you eat, Boomer?”
A rumble started deep in his chest, and Boomer let out a huge belch. And then proceeded to throw up all over the floor.
“Boomer!” Lizzie cried and ran behind Cameron. “You stink.”
While Lizzie hopped up on a kitchen chair and Cameron fumbled for paper towels, Cameron’s mom stepped into the house from the garage, her face glowing from her refreshing spa treatment. At least someone in this family had had a good day. “What is happening here?”
Before Cameron could get a word in, Lizzie launched into an extensive diatribe. “I missed the bus and Mom had to come pick me up and Boomer got out and then he puked on the floor and you should have seen Mariana’s dad. He’s so cool and he’s in the Army and was wearing his uniform.”
Her mom set her purse on the counter and snatched a couple of paper towels off the roll. “In the Army, huh?
Of everything that Lizzie spouted off about, that was what Mom chose to home in on? Nothing about the dog throwing up on the kitchen floor… or the fact Lizzie missed the bus.
Lizzie and Mom kept up a steady chatter while Cameron wiped up the dog puke. Boomer ambled over to his bed, curled up, and rested his giant head on his paws, as if he hadn’t just emptied the contents of his stomach onto her kitchen floor. At least it wasn’t on the carpet. There wasn’t enough stain remover in the world for this mess.
By the time she finished cleaning up, Lizzie had disappeared, and Mom was pulling a frying pan out of the cabinet. “So, tell me about Mariana’s dad.”
“Alex Sanchez. Mariana missed the bus, too, so he was picking her up. Mariana’s the girl Lizzie has been talking about constantly for the past few weeks, so I guess it was about time to meet him. He had come from work and was wearing his uniform and it seems that’s all Lizzie can talk about.” Cameron downplayed it as much as possible. All of it. She tossed the last antibacterial wipe into the trash rather than meet her mom’s gaze. She couldn’t risk Mom realizing Cameron had been just as impressed with Alex as her daughter.
