They had found it at the RV park when they’d driven in. His mom was pretty sure it was a stray because it had been starving.
“We can’t take this inside the building,” he said, and also, the rideshare driver had now noticed the fur situation and was furious that it had been in his car.
“I’ll deal with the dog,” I volunteered after Ronan calmed everyone down. “You guys don’t want to be late for the ceremony.”
“No, Cate, I’ll—” He shook his head like he didn’t know what he would do.
“Yes, go on. Margaret, can you give me your scarf?” She handed it over and I made a leash.
“There you go,” I said to the animal.
“I’m calling her Blossom,” Margaret told me, and her son looked ready to explode.
“Mom, please go inside. Dad, please follow.” He ushered them in and then returned to where I stood with Blossom. “Cate…”
“This is fine. I think your mom would get upset if we left the dog out here alone.” I could tell by looking at her that she was a weepy type. “We don’t want to mess up your brother’s wedding.”
“We’ll do something with it before we go to dinner. This is ridiculous.” He frowned at Blossom but she was a cute little dog, just overly hairy. “I didn’t think to check them for animals.”
“Have you had to do that in the past?”
He started to tell me but then glanced over his shoulder. “Are you sure about this?”
“Go,” I ordered. Then it was just me and the dog on the sidewalk. “I’m overdressed for this,” I told her. She looked great in the scarf, though.
We were fine waiting.
Chapter 13
“How long?”
“It was two hours,” I said. “It shouldn’t have taken so much time, but the judge was running behind after all the morning ceremonies, and then there was a medical emergency in the building. Everyone was ok, though.”
Kiya shook her head. “They had to stand around and the bride is pregnant? And you were just waiting outside, on the sidewalk?”
It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that Blossom developed a stomach problem. “I don’t know what that dog had eaten,” I said but Victoria held up her hands and said no. Like Blossom, she was also feeling ill. She had probably been out the night before and gone a little hard, like Taylor did sometimes.
“I don’t want to hear it,” she announced, so I didn’t talk about dog diarrhea. We were in the lunchroom so it wasn’t a good idea for anyone—I wasn’t hungry myself but most people were here to eat. But Victoria ended up leaving and Kiya told me to continue.
“Ronan kept coming to check on me and then his dad stepped out to talk for a while, too,” I said next. I hadn’t expected to like that guy and in fact, I had thought that I would more or less hate both of his parents, but I’d found that they were pretty nice people. They made strange (and poor) choices but they weren’t mean or purposefully cruel, and despite how they might have acted like idiots by not providing well for their two sons or appreciating their achievements, they obviously loved them both.
Of course, it wasn’t enough to love someone and it didn’t excuse you acting like a jerk. But I could understand a little more why Ronan had a hard time staying mad at them. Even Cormac had mostly ignored the whole “they brought a stray dog to my wedding” incident, but his bride had obviously been unhappy about it. After they’d finally had their ceremony, Ronan had left and brought Blossom back to his parents’ RV before rejoining us at the restaurant, and we’d done our best to brush all the fur off his dark suit. That dog was going to be bald soon.
“Ronan owes you,” Kiya told me. “And I bet that after you saved the day, his parents are so happy that you guys are…you know.”
I did know what she meant. “We’re not together and he doesn’t owe me. He was grateful, though.”
He had been so grateful that I was almost embarrassed. He’d acted like I deserved an award for standing on the sidewalk for a while with a dog. “I’m fine,” I had calmly assured him every time he’d come outside. He’d given me his suit jacket to wear because I had started to shiver—it was much colder, but I’d been all right. Of course, my calm demeanor had disappeared when Blossomhad started to suffer from her digestive problems. Those were not fine and had been disgusting to deal with, and I’d attracted a lot of angry attention from other pedestrians.
“This is not my dog and I don’t have any way to clean it up,” I’d said a least twenty times. They hadn’t been sympathetic and I’d been pretty angry with Margaret and Gerald when the family had finally emerged from the building. I’d also met Ronan’s brother and new wife for the first time while arguing with a yet another passer-by about the mess “my” dog was making. Margaret had explained that these problems were new, they hadn’t given anything weird to Blossom, and she was so sorry. Then she’d taken over the dog and I’d abstained from shaking hands with the bride, just in case.
Taylor wanted to check on Victoria and Kiya needed to return to her office, so the three of us left the lunchroom. I went back to my own desk and brooded instead of being productive, and then at five, I gratefully left and went to the place that I liked best.
“Stop arguing, because I do owe you for how you helped with that damn dog at the wedding,” Ronan said to me again over dinner at his table. “What do you want? A diamond tiara? A trip to Fiji?”
“Are you really offering those things?”
“No, but how about an oil change?” he suggested. “Because I owe you.”
