"Maybe."
"Bert Rosen! Are you hooking up with somebody you just met tonight? At the wedding?"
He looked insulted. "It"s not a hookup. It"s just a drink. An innocent drink."
"Who is he? Do I know him? Did I meet him?"
"You don"t actually know him, but you did meet. He"s actually one of Ryan"s fraternity brothers."
"You"re kidding." Cara giggled despite her weariness. "You"re telling me one of Ryan Finnerty"s frat-tastic macho buddies is actually gay?"
"Shh. He"s not officially out. At least not to Ryan."
Cara opened her door and climbed down out of the van. "If you won"t go with me, I guess I"ll have to wait until tomorrow morning. But I"m telling you right now, if he doesn"t hand over Poppy-I might do something radical."
"Go get some sleep," Bert advised. "I"ll go over there with you myself in the morning before we go get my car and we"ll storm the castle together."
It was the first night she"d spent alone in her apartment without Poppy, and now the apartment was eerily quiet without her.
Cara undressed quickly. She washed her face and pulled on a well-worn oversized T-shirt and climbed into bed. It had been a long, busy day, and she was exhausted, but she couldn"t sleep. The bed seemed too big without Poppy stretched out on the other side of it. So she got up and arranged herself on the sofa in her combination living-dining room.
The living room"s big bay window looked out on the street. She heard cars driving slowly down the brick street, heard doors opening and closing, her neighbors, two SCAD art students, laughing and talking as they came home from one of their customary late nights.
Finally, she drifted off to sleep, maybe around three? She wasn"t sure.
Sunday. It was the one day of the week Jack Finnerty allowed himself the luxury of sleeping in. He was asleep, in a near-coma stage, when his cell phone rang. Blindly, he reached toward the packing-crate nightstand. The phone fell to the floor, but it kept ringing.
Jack leaned over the edge of the bed and groped around on the floor. Finally, his fingers closed on the phone. He thumbed the On b.u.t.ton. Three-thirty in the friggin" morning. The number on the caller ID wasn"t familiar. A wrong number at three-thirty in the morning? He tossed the phone back onto the nightstand, turned over, and tried to go back to sleep.
But the phone was ringing again. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, prepared to give this loser an earful. He wasn"t prepared for what he got instead.
It was Zoey.
"Dammit, Jack," she cried. "What the h.e.l.l are you thinking?"
"I"m thinking it"s nearly four in the f.u.c.kin" morning," Jack said, his voice thick with sleep. "What do you want, Zoey?"
"I want to know why you didn"t let me know you managed to lose Scheherazade," Zoey demanded.
Jack rose up on one elbow and looked over at the dog asleep on her bed, not far from his own. Well, really his bed was nothing more than a mattress and boxspring. But still.
"Shaz is right here," he said, yawning. "Have you and Jiminy Cricket been getting into some of that California weed?"
"His name is Jamey, and for your information, just because he"s a musician, does not mean that he is a dope fiend, not that it"s any of your business," she retorted. "And I"d just love to know how my dog can be in two places at one time."
"I still don"t know what you"re talking about," Jack said, flopping backward onto the bed.
"I got a call earlier tonight from Dr. Katz"s office, telling me that somebody found Shaz running loose on Victory Drive. Thank heavens, some good Samaritan picked her up and took her to the vet"s office. They recognized her immediately, of course, but then they checked the microchip just to be sure, and they called me."
That got his attention. He sat straight up in the bed and turned on the lamp. Now the dog was awake, too. Her ears p.r.i.c.ked up, and her nose was quivering, as though she knew she was being discussed.
"Zoey? Are you telling me that the dog sitting right here in this bedroom is not Shaz?" He buried his head in his hands. The dog edged closer and licked his ear.
Her voice was shrill. "I don"t have any idea who or what you"ve got in your bedroom, Jack Finnerty, but yes, I am telling you that Scheherazade is being boarded at Dr. Katz"s office tonight. The vet tech said it"s a miracle she didn"t get hit by a car, crossing all that traffic on Abercorn Street. No thanks to you."
"You"re saying Shaz is at the vet"s office?"
"Jack! Have you heard a single word I"ve said? Yes! I am telling you Dr. Katz has Shaz. See? You never listen to me, Jack. This is just one more example...."
He turned his head and was staring directly into the dog"s unblinking eyes.
"Poppy?"
The dog tilted its head and thumped its tail on the scarred wooden floor.
"Christ," Jack moaned. "You really are Poppy."
"Have you got a woman there, Jack?" Zoey asked.
As if.
"None of your d.a.m.ned business," he growled.
"Scheherazade is a very valuable dog, Jack," Zoey went on. "The breeder said once she"s old enough to breed, her puppies could fetch as much as two thousand dollars. So I don"t appreciate your letting her wander around town without so much as a collar."
"I didn"t let her do anything," Jack said. "I was taking her to that groomer of yours, who she detests, by the way, and she jumped out the window of my truck. I went looking for her and found another goldendoodle wandering down the lane behind West Charlton. I naturally a.s.sumed she was Shaz, so I tied a rope around her neck and walked her back home. What I didn"t know, since you couldn"t be bothered to tell me, was that I"d actually dognapped somebody else"s dog. A very angry somebody, who tried to sic the cops on me."
"Not my problem," Zoey said airily.
"Actually, it is your problem, since Shaz is your dog," Jack pointed out.
That shut her up. At least momentarily. Any other woman would have been feeling painfully guilty by now, for abandoning her lover and her seven-month-old puppy, to run off to California the day after hooking up with a Jimmy Buffett impersonator she"d just met at a bar on River Street. A guy who called himself Jamey b.u.t.tons, for G.o.d"s sake.
But Zoey was not just any other woman.
"You told me you wanted a dog," Zoey said accusingly.
"And you told me you loved me and wanted to have my children someday," Jack said. "And just for the record? The dog I wanted was a black lab, not some funny-looking designer dog."
"I"m not going to let you put a big guilt trip on me, Jack," Zoey said. "I actually wanted to let you know that Jamey has a gig playing on a cruise ship out of Fort Lauderdale for the next three months, and I"ve signed on to be the ship"s Pilates instructor. I"ll send for Scheherazade when we get back. Probably in August."
"Yippee," Jack said bitterly. "Bye, Zoey."
"Wait, Jack," she said quickly. "Don"t forget, you"ve got to pick Shaz up by noon, or pay an extra day"s boarding fee. As it is, you already owe them seventy dollars."
7.
Jack tried, but couldn"t get back to sleep. Poppy was no help. She rested her muzzle on the edge of the mattress, watching him with her big, sad puppy eyes. He turned away, facing the wall, but he could feel Poppy"s warm breath on his neck.
Finally, he relented. He flipped back over and scratched under her chin. "There. Okay? Now can we get some sleep around here?"
Maybe he couldn"t sleep because he was dreading the coming morning. And seeing Poppy"s owner again.
The woman was a pistol, for sure. Her name was Cara Kryzik, Ryan told him. She wasn"t bad-looking, if you went for that kind of look. Which he didn"t. He"d always enjoyed blondes: tall, cool, athletic blondes. Like Zoey.
This Cara person, on the other hand, was the opposite of his type. She had shoulder-length, flyaway not-quite-brown, not-quite-blond hair. Big brown eyes that glittered dangerously when she was p.i.s.sed off, a heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, and full, pink, lips that reminded him of overblown roses.
She dressed funny, too. That night, at the wedding, she"d worn an old-fashioned-looking pink silk rig that looked more like a nightgown, with its lacy inset bodice. She"d somehow managed to look s.e.xy and demure at the same time, although he totally didn"t get how that look worked with pink cowboy boots.
Every time he"d turned around at the reception, she"d been right there in his face, telling him off, demanding that he return her dog.
His lamebrain brother, Ryan, found the whole scenario highly entertaining. But then, Ryan had notoriously eccentric taste in women. Take Torie, for instance.
"She"s worth the trouble," Ryan said, when Jack pointed out the differences in their personalities. "I like a woman with fire." Especially, he"d added, "in bed."
It had been Ryan who"d coaxed Cara into dancing, despite her protests. His brother was a consummate party animal. He"d danced with almost all the women at the reception, including the seven-year-old flower girl, most of the bridesmaids, and their arthritic aunt Betty.
And he"d forced Jack onto the dance floor, too.
"You"re my best man," he"d informed Jack, who would have preferred to melt into the woodwork. "It"s on the list of duties. Right up there with planning the bachelor party and making the first toast."
So Jack had danced with their mother, he"d danced with Aunt Betty, he"d danced with Torie, and he"d even, at one point, been tricked into dancing with Cara Kryzik.
Torie had dragged him from the safety of the bar to do some stupid line dance, and he"d somehow ended up right beside Cara, who glowered at him with undisguised venom. Two dances later, Ryan shoved him into Cara"s clutches.
It was a slow dance. She was a decent dancer, and she actually felt pretty good in his arms, with his hand sliding over the smooth pink silk, and the warm, sun-browned skin of her back and bare arms. Her figure was full and rounded in the right places. She wore the lightest of perfumes and her hair smelled faintly of cherries.
But then it happened. Louie Armstrong"s wonderful world ended, and the DJ was playing "Come Monday."
He felt his face flush and his feet grow leaden. She"d looked up at him in shock. And that was that. Jimmy f.u.c.kin" Buffet. He"d fled like a thief in the night.
Smooth move, he told himself now, reliving that moment. Real smooth move, Ace.
So, just to recap. He"d stolen this woman"s dog. Called the cops on her, accused her of stalking, insulted her, and then abandoned her in the middle of a dance.
She, in turn, had called him a jerk and a liar. She was moody and dressed weird, and according to Ryan, she was just coming off a lousy divorce and seemed to hate all men, with the exception of her gay a.s.sistant.
He flopped over on his other side, facing away from the still-vigilant Poppy. Tomorrow morning, first thing, he would have to return the dog and face her wrath.
8.
Cara heard a buzzing from somewhere far away. Still dead asleep, she flung an arm in the general vicinity of the nightstand, searching for the alarm, to shut it off. She slapped wildly in the direction of the clock, but the buzzing wouldn"t stop.
Annoyed, she flopped over, opened one eye, and stared at the clock. It wasn"t buzzing. And she hadn"t set it. But something, somewhere, was buzzing. And at eight o"clock on a Sunday morning. Her doorbell?
Cara jumped out of bed, wide-eyed and startled. Who would be ringing her bell that early on a Sunday?
She stumbled over to the window and looked down at the street below. A man stood by the recessed entry to the apartment. He had a big, fluffy white dog on a leash.
Poppy!
Cara flew down the wooden staircase, barefoot, dressed only in her sleep shirt. She unlatched the chain guard and flipped the deadbolt.
Jack Finnerty stood on the street just outside her door. He wore paint-spattered jeans, a faded T-shirt, and a look that could best be described as sheepish.
"Uh, well, here"s your dog."
"Poppy!"
The dog stood up on her hind legs, put her front paws on Cara"s hips, and shook all over with joy. Cara wrapped her arms around the dog. "I missed you! You bad, bad girl. I missed you so much. I hardly slept last night, worrying about you."
"Yeah, uh, she didn"t get much sleep either," Jack volunteered. "Look, I"m really sorry about this. I"ve been a jerk. I should have listened to you yesterday."
"Yes," Cara said severely. "You should have. And yes, you were a jerk. And worse."
"You"re right," he said, staring down at his shoes. "And I apologize."
"Where"s your dog?" she asked, sticking her head out the door and looking around.
"At home. Now. After she jumped out of my truck yesterday, she made it all the way to Victory Drive and Abercorn. A woman managed to corral her and she took her to the vet, and they recognized her. Shaz is chipped, so they read the chip, just to be sure, and called the owner."
"You," she said accusingly.
Jack winced. "My ex. Shaz technically belongs to her. But she"s out in California, so Shaz is mine. Sorta. The vet called Zoey yesterday to let her know Shaz had been found. But Zoey, being Zoey, decided to torture me by not calling me until three this morning."
Cara looked him over. His hair was mussed and there were dark circles under his eyes, so it was apparent he"d gotten about as much sleep as she had.
"Look." Jack"s voice was low. "I really am sorry. Truly. Your dog looks almost exactly like Shaz. But if I hadn"t been such a p.r.i.c.k, I would have looked closer and realized I had the wrong dog. Especially since when I got home last night, I discovered she"d peed all over my hardwood floors. Shaz is housebroken. Your dog, on the other hand, is fairly neurotic, but I guess you already know that."
"Neurotic! She is not," Cara said sharply. "And Poppy is housebroken. She never pees at home. She was probably traumatized by being dognapped. And then left alone in a strange house for hours and hours."