“You did?” He could tell by the frown on her face that it was the wrong thing to say. He’d been caught off guard as he was used to always picking up the bill.
“I did.”
“They also checked him for a chip,” she said. “He doesn’t have one. They took his photo and said they’d post a notice for a lost dog.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll post a notice online when I get home.”
Once Ric got Gia and her bundle situated in the passenger seat, he closed the door. He rounded the car, hopped in and started the engine. At last he could get some answers that had been nagging him since he’d found the woman in the garden.
But first there was something he had to know. “Where can I drop you?”
She mentioned a trendy little hotel in the heart of Palmas. “But I don’t think it allows pets.”
He grabbed his phone and checked. She was right. He smothered a sigh. Whatever could go wrong with this day had gone wrong.
“We’ll just have to find a place for the puppy,” he said.
“You could take him.” Her eyes held a hopeful gleam.
Ric shook his head. “I’m never home. And I know next to nothing about animals.”
“It isn’t that hard. And we can’t just drop him anywhere. We have to see that he gets his medicine and make sure he doesn’t rip out his stitches. The vet also said we had to watch for signs of an infection.”
It looked like it was up to one of them to look after the puppy until they could find its owner. But with the future of his company in the balance, it couldn’t be him.
Ric shifted the car into drive. “We’ll stop and pick up your things. Then we’ll find you a pet-friendly place to stay.”
He waited for her to argue. But instead, she nodded.
As he made his way into traffic, the questions that had been nagging him returned. Keeping his eyes on the road, he asked, “What were you doing at the house?”
She didn’t say anything at first. He was beginning to think she wasn’t going to answer the question. Did she have something to hide? Was she in fact one of those women who sought him out because of his five minutes of fame?
He halted that thought. Sure, he hadn’t known Gia for more than an hour or so, but in that time, he’d learned a lot about her. She loved animals. She was more concerned about the puppy than her sprained ankle. And he sensed she was a good person.
She didn’t strike him as the type to track him down...for what? A photo? To ask him out? He never was sure what women wanted from him. Whatever it was, they weren’t going to get it. He had his priorities aligned. And they didn’t allow room for him to get distracted.
Then Gia’s soft voice filled the car. “I’m not really sure why I was there.”
That was not the response he was expecting. “Are you lost?”
“No. Not exactly.”
She wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. “There had to be some reason you were at that particular house and not somewhere else.”
“The address was on a slip of paper I found in my mother’s journal.”
If he was confused before, he was even more so now. “So you were searching for your mother?”
“No.” When he pulled to a stop at an intersection, he chanced a glance at her. She once more had her head turned away. “I was searching for my father.”
That answer startled him. It took him by surprise to the point where he sat motionless until a car honked behind them, spurring him into pressing the accelerator once more. His thoughts raced as he tried to put what she’d said into perspective.
He swallowed hard. “You think your father lived in that house?” She didn’t answer, so he looked her way again. She nodded and he continued. “I take it that it’s been a while since you’ve seen your father.”
“I... I, uh, never met him.”
Alarm bells were going off in Ric’s head. Was it possible this gorgeous woman sitting next to him was his cousin? He shifted in his seat, leaving a little more space between them. This day had definitely taken some unexpected twists and turns. None of which he’d seen coming. Not at all.