Page 52 of Sneak Attack

Some nice guy, I’d thought. The guy who had kissed me less than seventy hours earlier smiled at Hilary, so openly and easily, I’d worried about throwing up at his feet.

Because then those eyes of his I got lost in earlier on his front porch had turned to me—and turned to shards of ice. Hard. Pointed.

Accusing me of doing something wrong when I was the innocent one.

…and it’d never stopped me or made me start doing the right thing after.

Seven years later, and I wasstilltaking all the wrong steps.

How in the hell did I fix it now?

CHAPTER18

EDEN

“Do you have plans tonight?”

The question came from Sarah, owner of the Waggin’ Tails Rescue. She’d stopped into BarkTown to pick up one of the boxer mix puppies to take them for a home visit and was returning Lucy to the doggy daycare, walking toward me and wrapping the pink leash around her hand.

“No. Not really.”

I didn’t end up coming into BarkTown until after four. After I left the park and went to check on Marley, she and I both fell asleep in the living room for an hour. I’d made her lunch, and packed up leftovers for her for dinner to reheat since I didn’t end up getting to the doggy daycare until after four.

“Nora called. She and I are meeting up at McLaughlin’s for some dinner. Want to join us?”

“McLaughlin’s?”

“Yep. Irish pub, right around the corner from the Buckin’ Brews. It just opened last year, and the food is incredible. It’s always so busy on the weekends Nora and I usually go during the week.”

“Oh.” Marley would be fine for dinner and a night out? I wasn’t sure if I could go back to the walls of her house with its pasts and stew in the memories of this morning, but my last trip out to town for dinner hadn’t gone so well, either. “Um. Maybe for a little while.”

“Awesome. I’ll see you there, in thirty?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Forty minutes later, I was walking up to the pub. I must have had tunnel vision last weekend when I was at the brewery because McLaughlin’s was highly recognizable and very Irish in origin with the name in green and white above the dark wood doors. Two Irish flags bookended the name and Celtic music filtered out onto the sidewalk before I was out of my car.

The inside was dark, and while there was a hostess right when I walked in, I excused myself from needing her assistance. Nora was in a booth past the bar and near the back of the narrow restaurant. It was just the back of her head, but considering she was the only woman alone, and most of the other tables were empty, she was easy to spot.

“Hi,” I greeted her, and she slid over to make room for me.

“Good to see you. Come on in. Sarah’s in the restroom.”

“Awesome. This place is cozy.”

“Best bangers and mash I’ve ever had are served here. You’ll love it.”

What I was loving was how welcoming Nora had been, and I supposed now I could add Sarah to the list.

She joined us and we placed our drink orders, but I was sold on the bangers and mash, so when our drinks arrived, we all ordered three servings of the food Nora swore by.

Soon, conversation drifted to Nora’s day at the vet clinic, being called sweetheart by over a half dozen men who brought their animals in and asked if they were looking to hire a male veterinarian to receive the same standard of care they had been.

She rolled her eyes, but none of us were surprised. Some men still had difficulties realizing a penis didn’t make them more capable of doing most jobs. “It’s just annoying,” she said. “And that they ask what qualifications I have or if my grandpa just left it to me because I was family. And really, I’m not even sure who that’s more insulting to. Me for treating me like I’m not smart enough to get a decent education or my grandpa, who they’re basically saying is dumb enough to give a vet clinic he started and poured his heart and soul into for forty years to someone who has no idea what they’re doing.”

Sarah and I chuckled, but she had a point.

“How did Lucy’s home visit go?”

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