Diamond in the Ruff (Matchmaking Mamas Book 13) Read Online Free Page B

she dialed her defensiveness back a little. “Well, not entirely.” And then, after another beat, she amended that by saying, “He’s cute and everything, but he has these teeth...”
    Christopher suppressed a laugh. “Most dogs do. At least,” he corrected himself, thinking of a neglected dog he’d treated at the city’s animal shelter just the other day, “the healthy ones do.”
    She wasn’t expressing herself correctly, Lily realized. But then, communication was sometimes hard for her. Her skill lay in the pastries she created, not in getting her thoughts across to people she didn’t know.
    Lily tried again. “But Jonathan’s always biting,”
    “There’s a reason for that. He’s teething,” Christopher told her. “When I was a kid, I had a cousin like that,” he confided. “Chewed on everything and everyone until all his baby teeth came in.”
    As if to illustrate what he was saying, she saw the puppy attempt to sink his teeth into the vet’s hand. Instead of yelping, Christopher laughed, rubbed the Labrador’s head affectionately. Before Jonathan could try to bite him a second time, the vet pulled a rubber squeaky toy out of his lab coat pocket. Distracted, Jonathan went after the toy—a lime-green octopus with wiggly limbs.
    High-pitched squeaks filled the air in direct proportion to the energy the puppy was expending chewing on his new toy.
    Just for a second, there was a touch of envy in her eyes when she raised them to his face, Christopher thought. Her cheeks were also turning a very light shade of pink.
    “You probably think I’m an idiot,” Lily told him.
    The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was judging her—harshly or otherwise. But he could admit he was attracted to her.
    “What I think,” he corrected, “is that you might need a little help and guidance here.”
    Oh, God, yes,
she almost exclaimed out loud, managing to bite the gush of words back at the last moment. Instead, she asked hopefully, “You have a book for me to read?”
    Christopher inclined his head. He had something a little more personal and immediate in mind. “If you’d like to read one, I have several I could recommend,” he conceded. “But personally, I’ve always found it easier when I had something visual to go on.”
    “Like a DVD?” she asked, not altogether sure what he meant by his statement.
    Christopher grinned. “More like a
P-E-R-S-O-N.
”
    For just a second, Lily found herself getting caught up in the vet’s grin. Something akin to a knot—or was that a butterfly?—twisted around in her stomach. Rousing herself, Lily blinked, certain that she’d somehow misunderstood the veterinarian.
    From his handsome, dimpled face, to his dirty-blond hair, to his broad shoulders, the man was a symphony of absolute charm and she was rather accustomed to being almost invisible around people who came across so dynamically. The more vibrant they were, the more understated she became, as if she was shrinking in the sunlight of their effervescence.
    Given that, it seemed almost implausible to her that Christopher was saying what it sounded as if he was saying. But in the interest of clarity, she had to ask, “Are you volunteering to help me with the dog?”
    To her surprise, rather than appearing annoyed or waving away the question entirely, he laughed. “If you have to ask, I must be doing it wrong, but yes, I’m volunteering.” Then he backtracked slightly as if another thought had occurred to him. “Unless, of course, your husband or boyfriend or significant other has some objections to my mentoring you through the hallowed halls of puppy ownership.”
    Her self-image—that of being a single person—was so ingrained in her that Lily just assumed she came across that way. That the vet made such a stipulation seemed almost foreign to her.
    “There’s no husband or boyfriend or significant other to object to anything,” she informed the man.
    She was instantly rewarded with the flash