“You did see who he showed up with?”
She sniffed disdainfully. “That man probably can’t even spell shame. I swear he must have swung by a cotillion to pick up that girl.” The irritation drifted off her face. “So, Emily was just doing that to get back at her ex-husband?”
I nodded.
My mother laughed. “This is perfect, then.”
Her mood whiplash pushed me off balance. Somehow, I’d lost control or even basic understanding of the conversation. “What? Perfect how?”
“If she was willing to kiss you, that proves she’s attracted to you, and there had to be some chemistry there.” She nodded several times. “You can use this to get another date.”
Watching the undisguised glee in my mother’s eye, I bit back a retort. I loved my mother, and she did have my best interests at heart, but if I wanted to have any chance at a future with Emily, I couldn’t do it under the shadow of my mother attempting to manipulate the situation. If I could run a Fortune 500 company, I could handle my own relationships.
Lying might not be good, but sometimes a little white lie is necessary. Or at least a little omission of the truth. She didn’t need to know I was already trying to set up another date.
“You need to let it go, Mother,” I said. “You can’t force these things.”
“But you obviously are meant to be together.”
“Then if we are, then we don’t need any little games.” I shrugged.
The corners of her mouth turned down into a frown. She opened her mouth to say something else, but the waitress arrived.
The food provided a reprieve for the moment. Now, I needed to make sure Emily followed through. She hadn’t called me back yet about Tuesday.
* * *
A couple hours later, I unlocked the doors to my house. I didn’t bother to call out, as I didn’t expect anyone to be home. My housekeeper didn’t work on Sundays.
Sudden movement down the hallway caught my attention, and I turned to look at the source.
Two slobbering masses of black fur charged at me, barking. The dogs skidded to a halt in front of me.
“Hey, Joe and Dean,” I said to my two black labs. They both sat down in front of me, their tails wagging furiously.
The dogs barked.
“You want to go out, boys?”
They barked again.
I glanced down at the suit I’d worn for church. “Just give me a second.”
They whimpered but then barked.
I wasn’t about to go wandering the woods behind my house in my suit, but I also knew my boys could be impatient. I hurried upstairs to change into sweats and a T-shirt. Given how worked up my boys were, I didn’t think I’d get away with a simple walk around the block.
After heading back downstairs, I led the dogs to the back door. They didn’t even wait for me to open the entire sliding glass door before rushing through into the backyard, barking all the way.
I shook my head, chuckling. It was hard not to find their energy infectious.
There was a purity to dogs that I’ve always liked. They were almost better than humans. Maybe just better period. You treat a man well, and he may or may not betray you, but you treat a dog well, he’ll be loyal to death. If only there was some way I could staff my company with dogs. They’d probably do a better job than a lot of guys I’d worked with over the course of my career.
The dogs barked happily from outside, trying to lead me to the backyard. I finished sliding the door open and followed.
I didn’t so much have a backyard as a patch of backyard surrounded by untamed wilderness. I owned much of the backlot acreage in the neighborhood, but I allowed the neighborhood free use of most of the area. Mostly, I’d bought it up so it wouldn’t be more developed, and I could still maintain a connection to nature that I could reach on foot.
Sure, I had a decent-sized yard and landscapers keeping my trees and hedges looking nice, but most of the area directly behind my house was filled by a small forest surrounding a large stream that ran behind several of the houses and eventually fed into the Cumberland River.