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“We had several adoptions, so it was a good Saturday. My mother came in with me.” Then she whispered into the phone, “She’s getting on my nerves, bossing me around. But I like her help, so I’ll put up with it.”
“Aw, well, thank you. I’ll toilet the dogs tonight so you don’t have to come back.”
Maggie offered daily to walk over before bedtime for one last toileting, but Kelly usually came anyway. The rescue was her baby, and she simply couldn’t stay away.
“Thank you. This time I might take you up on it. Ted invited me on a date, and it feels like it’s been a long time. I could use a meal out.”
“Have a wonderful time. I hear Justin’s truck, so I’ll say goodbye now.”
The ritual was to greet him at the porch when he pulled up. It felt good to see him after being apart all day. It was what she had hoped would happen, that once they moved in together, the desire to see each other would stay strong. They made eye contact as the truck came up to the cottage. But he wasn’t smiling his usual smile upon seeing her. She hoped the issue with Austin Macon would not get blown out of proportion.
“Hey! I missed you today,” she called out, skipping down the steps into his arms.
Kissing the top of her head, he reached back into the cab for their dinner. “I missed you, too. I stewed all day about your visitor. Tomorrow I’ll look at the fence along the back. We’ll put up no-trespassing signs. He had a lot of nerve.”
Justin could hold on to a grudge for a long time, but she wouldn’t tell him not to; that would not end well, so she let him vent.
“What’s for dinner?” she asked. “I have a one-track mind.”
“It’s Lent. Everyone said the same thing today. I really don’t know what it is we’re eating. I grabbed it and ran. Working six days is getting old fast, and I couldn’t wait to get home. I need to take your advice and find out if Grace Breaux would like to come out of retirement and work one or two days a week.”
Grace was a retired veterinarian and dockmaster Gus Hebert’s wife.
“Was that my advice? It’s genius! But I think it was yours,” she replied, giggling. “What about asking your dad?”
“I need to pin him down, too. He was going to keep working, but now that he’s in love…”
“Right. My mother. Boy, her foot-in-mouth disease has gotten no better, either. She let a few whoppers fly today when the women were here for lunch.”
“Ladies who lunch,” he said, laughing. “How was it?”
She purposely wouldn’t mention old wives’ tales around Justin, who was superstitious in the extreme.
“Exhausting. Remind me to keep my mouth shut the next time I’m with my family. I truly do not remember inviting them for lunch.”
They unpacked the food they were having. It was some kind of Mexican casserole, so it had to be Rose’s cooking. “It looks good and smells good. I saved a piece of my mother’s cherry pie for you, too.”
“Thank you, but I shouldn’t.”
“Oh, right! Boy, you are so disciplined.” She looked him up and down. “You’re getting thinner, and I feel like a cow.”
“It’s only been three days,” he said, pleased that she noticed a difference. “I haven’t lost much yet. And you look great. I noticed your butt is nice and round.”
“Oh, wonderful. Just what every woman wants to hear.”
“Ha! You’re so sexy, Maggie.”
Grabbing her, he reached behind her and squeezed her back there, moaning. Maggie giggled. He released her, watching her move around the kitchen, getting a glass for his ice water, plates and leftover fruit salad for dinner.
“Do you want to dance tonight?”
Her heart sank. The last thing she wanted to do was to go out but she would if he really wanted it.
“Would you be disappointed if we stayed in?”
“No, I want to stay in. I just didn’t want you to be disappointed if we didn’t go out on a Saturday.”
“This is exactly what I want to do,” Maggie said. “Have a leisurely dinner with you.”
