Page 26 of Always a Bridesmaid
“Oh, I don’t think you can handle him. He has ADD.”
“Omigosh, same.” Plenty of people joked about ADD, and she’d never minded. Well, up until Benjamin rolled his eyes and asked if she’d taken her meds. At the same time, giving people a heads-up helped her feel less rude when she perpetually lost track of conversations. “It’ll be a match made in—oh look a squirrel!”
Ford’s sputtered laughter startled the two puppies at his feet. They glanced from him to her, tan eyebrows twitching. “I’m not sure two distracteds make a whole.”
“Hey, just because someone is easily distracted doesn’t mean they can’t get shit done.” She gathered the puppy closer, and her insides turned squishy on her. The next sentence came out heavy on the baby-animal talk. “We’ll show him, won’t we?”
Four doggy legs pedaled through the air, as if he were ready to prove Ford wrong, too.
“That settles it. Distracto’s with me.” Violet lowered him to the ground, rubbed a hand over his soft doggie fur, and grabbed a scent pad. They headed the opposite direction as Ford and the rest of the crew.
Once they’d gotten far enough away that she couldn’t see the others, she let the little guy sniff the pad.
She’d only placed it a couple of yards away, exactly like Ford had told her to, but Distracto kept getting…well, distracted. He circled a scrawny tree and peed on it.
A yellow-and-black bird landed on the ground and began hopping around, and Distracto towed Violetawayfrom the pad.
His tug jolted her shoulder, and she quickened her pace to keep up with him. “Dude, we’re going the wrong way. We’ve got to head back.”
Clearly the puppy understood, because he immediately changed directions.
For two whole seconds.
Then a shrub dared to quiver in the wind. The puppy barked at it, the noise so tiny and high-pitched that Violet released a squeaky sound of her own—he was too freaking adorable for words.
The puppy then attacked the bobbing branch—and lost.
He followed that up by peeing on another stump.
Violet tapped her foot as she waited for him to finish his business, her sense of urgency growing by the second. “What is Ford giving you to drink? I’m not even sure how your tiny bladder could possibly hold that much liquid.”
Distracto gave anarf!
Violet moved the scent pad in the direction Distracto favored, so naturally he headed in the opposite direction. “No, wait. It’s this way.”
A bug with a disgusting amount of legs required persecution, and she shuddered as the puppy nudged it with his paw. But who was she to prevent one less bug from crawling into town to find her?
After that, she spotted a carpet of green plants with miniature purple flowers, and then she was the one going in for a closer look.
“No, don’t eat them,” she said, holding the puppy back when he tried to chomp on the petals. He nibbled on Violet’s finger instead, and she accepted the slobber so the plants didn’t have to.
Those would be so cute in a wedding bouquet. Like the purple version of baby’s breath.
Not that she needed any more ideas. Much like reaching for her camera, it was second nature. Planning a wedding for a decade did that to you, causing you to catalog each item that might add another touch of perfection.
Over the years, her tastes had changed, but—lucky her—she had more than enough time to update her binder of uselessness.
Enough dwelling on that.
Violet stood and glanced around as Distracto tugged the leash this way and that. “Shoot, where did the pad go?”
It took some zigzagging before they found their target. Since she was afraid Distracto might’ve forgotten the smell, Violet let him sniff, then gave him one of the doggy treats from her pocket.
“Finding this pad means more treats. Got it?”
She relocated him a few yards away, and they started over.
And by started over, she meant another round with a grasshopper and a blade of grass and a fly.
