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“Grandpa!”
“What? The boy managed to spend hours and hours with you today without even trying.” Grandpa whistled. “That’s the definition of smooth move.”
“Hmm...” Isabel chewed on her bottom lip as she considered this. “Are you saying we had like a... like a date?”
Grandpa nodded. “Complete with cake.”
“It didn’t feel like a date. Not with everyone else there.” Isabel fiddled with a loose thread on her sundress. “Jackson did ask me to go on a date with him though.”
Grandpa raised his eyebrows, a hopeful expression on his face. “Chapter One of the sequel begins...”
Isabel elbowed him. “I didn’t say yes yet.”
“Why not? You said you had a nice time with him today.”
“I said I had a nice time at the party. I didn’t say it was a nice time because of him in particular.”
“So did Jackson make it not a nice time for some reason?” Grandpa asked.
Isabel huffed out a breath and got up from the couch. She couldn’t think if she sat still. “No, he was fine. I didn’t answer about the date because he was a little buzzed on birthday fun. I don’t know if he really wants a date or if that was the cocktails talking.”
“I see. So you told him no?”
“I told him maybe.”
Grandpa grinned and Isabel pointed at him.
“It doesn’t mean I’ll say yes, Grandpa,” she said quickly. “It means I need time to think about it.”
He threw up his hands. “Fair enough. But don’t overthink it, Belly. Things like this are sometimes best decided by the heart.” He rubbed a hand over his chest then looked down at Blaze. “The man has already saved your dog and taken you to a fun party. He might be what you need right now.”
“What I need right now is to make you some tea, okay?”
“Tea sounds lovely.”
“Okay.” Isabel marched toward the kitchen, but she swiveled back around when a knock sounded on the front door. “Are you expecting someone?”
Grandpa shook his head as Blaze barked over the potential of a visitor.
Could it be Jackson? Was he not going to wait until tomorrow to ask again about the date? Well, he was going to have to wait. She wasn’t giving him an answer tonight.
Isabel opened the door and in the next second, her arms were full of Charlene Moyen.
“Charlie!” Isabel squealed as she squeezed her best friend. “I thought you weren’t coming back to Maplehaven until mid-week!”
Charlie stepped back when Isabel released her. “I wasn’t, but we finished up our rescue work early and because I knew my best bestie was in Maplehaven, I chop-chop-choppered my way north.”
“Yay!” The two of them locked hands and jumped around in circles until Blaze’s barking rose to obscene levels.
“Okay, okay, poochie,” Charlie said, crouching down to let Blaze lick every square inch of her face. “You know I came to see you too. In fact...” She stood and plunged a hand into the front pocket of her cargo pants and produced a dog treat. “This is for you, my friend.”
Blaze’s butt immediately slapped down to the floor, but the motion hurt his injured back legs and he let out a whine.
“I’ve never heard that noise from him.” Charlie hooked her short black hair behind her ear. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s a bit of a story,” Grandpa said, chuckling.
Charlie gave Blaze the treat then looked at Isabel, her dark eyebrows raised over her gray-blue eyes. “Sounds like a story I need to hear.”
