19644d8eebdf42e4b611005d94748ece

Jeez.Diamond Guy needed some serious advice on flirting for the modern age. For starters, didn’t he know that my grandmother preferred everyone call her Nan rather than her given name of Dorothy?

“There. That’s done. Now can we please go home?” Nan turned her key over in the ignition to punctuate her request.

“I think Charles and I will just stop by Diamond Guy’s on the way home.” I snickered. “You’re welcome to come with us.”

“Goodbye, dear.” Nan slammed the car door and sped off.

I returned to Charles with that same huge smile on my face.

“What’s got you so smiley?” he asked, before giving me a quick peck on the cheek.

“Nan and her boyfriend. They’re just so adorable.”

“I didn’t realize she was seeing anyone.”

“She’s not exactly, but remember all the flirting happening between her and Mr. Gable over New Year’s Eve?”

He chuckled at the memory.“Do I ever.”

“Good, because we need to stop by his store and see him, and I might need your help playing Cupid.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be focusing on the kittens today?”

I shrugged.“We’ve run out of clues as to where they and the blood came from, the vet declared them healthy, and both Nan and Paisley have agreed to find new homes for them. What more can we do at this point?”

He nodded.“But are you sure it’s right to push them? Shouldn’t we let those two get together in their own time?”

I scoffed at this.“Don’t you remember how she was to me before we got together?”

“Oh, right.” He winced, likely recalling how Nan had forced an awkward confrontation between him and my other potential suitor.

“With that in mind, then yes. We should definitely meddle,” he agreed. “Turnabout is fair play and all that. Um, could you give me the address to his shop? I’ve never headed that way from so far out and I’d hate to waste time taking the scenic route.”

“It’s downtown,” I reminded him. I knew he was still relatively new to town, but surely he couldn’t have forgotten that.

“I know, but the GPS likes it better when I give her an exact address.”

I raised an eyebrow in question.“Her?”

“Yeah. Her name is Carla,” he said as if naming his GPS was the most normal thing in the world.

“Hey, that’s the same name as…” As my raccoon’s Nerf gun. Awkward. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“Seriously never mind. Anyway, I have the address for you. Are you ready?”

“Shoot.”

“It’s 1385 Third Street. Oh my gosh!” I shouted, practically dropping my phone in my lap from the shock.

Charles glanced about in panic.“What? What?”

“Look at this,” I said thrusting my phone in his face. I’d pulled up the picture of the partially obscured address label and sure enough… we had a match.

Charles got it right away.“That looks an awful lot like the address you just gave me.”

My smile was back and wider than ever.“It does. Doesn’t it?”

“Let’s go.”

Chapter Seventeen

Charles and I completed the drive to downtown Glendale in record time. Of course, neither of us had ever come this way from Pineville so it was easy for us to set a new record.

No sooner had we parked than Nan pulled her little red sports car into the space beside us.

“I hoped you were only kidding about interfering in my love life,” she grumbled, getting out of her car and slamming the door behind her. “Luckily, I decided to come by just in case. You’ll have to make whatever you plan on doing quick, because I’m not leaving those kittens for more than a few minutes.”

I peered in the car window and saw the kittens waiting in the carrier on the passenger side seat. Nan had even left the car running, presumably to keep the heat going for them.

“Let’s go see what Diamond Guy is up to.” Charles offered Nan his arm, but she refused to take it.

“You should have chosen the other guy,” she mumbled in my direction as she stormed off across the parking lot.

Charles and I caught up with her in front of Mr. Gable’s jewelry store, and the three of us entered together with Paisley following close at our heels.

“Hello, Dorothy!” Mr. Gable waved from behind the counter. “Hi, Angie. Charles.”

We all said our hellos, and then the shopkeeper returned to his customers.

A mother-son pair stood before him examining engagement rings and occasionally asking to see one closer up.

“Congrats,” Charles told the son who had rusty red hair and appeared to be somewhere in his mid-thirties.

The other man’s skin turned a ruddy shade of red. “Not me.” He jammed a finger his mother’s direction. “Her.”

His mother beamed at me and Charles.“Isn’t it so great to finally find the one?” she asked us.

Charles pulled me to his side and gave me a kiss on the cheek, which made the newly engaged woman swoon with delight.

“We’re just finishing up here, if you could give me a few more minutes,” Mr. Gable said, his eyes focused only on Nan as they blinked an apology.

“I like it here,” Paisley barked, drawing the engaged woman’s attention.

“Oh my goodness. What an angel!” She dropped to her haunches and accepted excited kisses from the hyper Chihuahua.

“Mom,” the woman’s son nudged her impatiently. “That’s not what we’re here for.”