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But he didn’t come after her, at least not in the time it took her to get inside and find Suzy had made it in for her shift.
“Oh, thank God you’re here,” Dani said. “There is a guy from Alpha Dog Training Program, and he’s going to be evaluating the dogs scheduled for euthanasia today, but I need to get Noah before my mom has a meltdown.”
“Yeah, yeah, go, I’ll handle the guy.” Suzy was an average brunette a few years older than Dani. “Hey, is he cute though?”
Cute? Cute was for puppies and kittens, not six-foot-tall men with broad shoulders and male-model faces.
Dani grabbed her purse out of the locked desk drawer and glanced out the front office window. Tyler was just getting out of the van, looking a little bewildered. He probably wasn’t used to women yelling at him and then running away from all that sexiness.
“Cute is not the word I would use,” she said.
Suzy’s shoulders slumped as she misinterpreted Dani’s meaning, and she used the opportunity to sneak away. The last thing she wanted was another interaction with Tyler.
Dani exited through the back door and got into her car. As she turned the key, the engine sputtered, an issue it had been having lately, and she groaned. Running her hands over the dash, she tried to coax it in a low, husky voice. “Come on, baby, work for me, and I promise I’ll get you a tune-up soon.”
Several seconds ticked by, and Dani tried the engine again. As the car came to life, Dani gave a little thank-you to the car gods and headed out toward Carmichael, a suburb of Sacramento next to Citrus Heights. Her parents had lived in the same house since they got married, and she knew the way there even on autopilot. Which meant that her mind wandered a bit as she tried to imagine where she was going in the next few years.
If it was up to her mom, Dani would go out and eventually marry one of the nice, sensible men she’d been trying to set her up with, but Dani wasn’t interested in men, let alone blind dates with men her mom spoke highly of. The only boyfriend her mom had ever liked was Dwight, who was a super-smart, clean-cut guy who’d asked her to homecoming junior year. But Dwight had just been an asshole in a nice-guy exterior, constantly putting Dani down about her looks, how she wasn’t as intelligent as he was, how she had no direction. After six weeks, Dani realized she was dating her mom, and she dumped his ass in the middle of the quad after he’d asked her if she really wanted her personal pizza.
But her mom had been disappointed and always cited Dwight as the one who got away. In her own way, her mom’s taste was just as bad as Dani’s—with the exception of her dad—and therefore she could not be trusted to find Dani a man.
Twenty minutes later, Dani pulled into the driveway, and as she climbed out, she heard screaming coming from inside the house. Noah’s screaming.
Racing to the front door, she burst inside and found her mom rocking Noah as he cried.
“What happened?” Dani wasted no time crossing the room and holding her arms out to her son. When he reached for her, she saw the swelling lump on his forehead and gasped.
“He was running and ran right into the doorjamb. He’s got a nasty bump, but he’s okay, I think—”
“Did he lose consciousness?” Dani realized she was shouting at her mom, but it was only to be heard over Noah’s cries.
But in true Laura Hill form, she stood up with her hands on her hips, her green eyes narrowed. “Danielle Louise, do you really think I wouldn’t take my grandson to the emergency room if he had knocked himself out?”
“No, of course not, I’m sorry.” Dani held Noah against her, rubbing his back and humming. As his sobs started to subside, she said, “I think I’m going to take him anyway, just to be sure. That is quite a goose egg on his head.”
“Can you really afford to do that? I’m sure he’s fine. Kids are tough,” her mom said.
Dani didn’t respond; there was no point. Her mom and dad were older than her other friends’ parents and were big fans of saying “shake it off” and “rub some dirt in it.”
Whereas Dani would rather take on another hospital bill if it meant peace of mind.
“You’re earlier than I was expecting. Did something happen?” her mom asked.
“Nope, the girl I was covering for finally showed up, that’s all.”
“So what are your plans, then?” she asked.
After the emergency room, you mean?
“Noah and I will probably take it easy. Make some food. Watch cartoons.”
“You shouldn’t let him watch too much TV.”
Why was it her mom couldn’t go one minute without giving her unsolicited advice?
“I don’t, but thank you for watching him.” Dani carried a sniffling Noah over to the couch and picked up her diaper bag.
“I only tell you these things to help. I saw this study the other day on television and the effects it has on—”
