Digging Up Trouble

BeBe. Kit’s dog.

“Get her off me!” I cried, trying not to open my mouth.

Drool oozed down my face. Ewww! “BeBe, down! Down!”

This was some sort of cosmic justice, I just knew it.

A sharp whistle pierced the air. BeBe immediately re-treated and began prancing around, her tongue lolling out of the corner of her mouth. She pranced rather gracefully for an enormous 150-pound, wrinkly-faced, drooling English mastiff.

Dazed, I glanced up. Kit’s goofy grin split his whole face.

“She missed you,” he said.

Lifting my head, I saw that Jean-Claude stood behind Kit, a leash in his hands. He shrugged. “Sorry. She got away from me.”

“What’s BeBe doing with you?” I sputtered, still confused.

“Kit had me babysitting her.”

Kit snatched the leash out of Jean-Claude’s hands. “Lot of good it did me.” He attached a hook to BeBe’s collar.

“Well you didn’t tell me she’d freak out when she saw Nina.” Jean-Claude gestured to my prone body.

Tiredly, I asked, “What’s BeBe doing here?”

BeBe lunged toward me when she heard her name. Kit’s muscles bulged as he held her back. “Daisy got an emergency call and had to drop her off.”

Daisy? I craned my neck to see down the street. “Daisy was here?”

“Thirty minutes ago,” Jean-Claude said.

“What? You saw her?”

“She’s not a ghost,” Kit snapped.

Digging Up Trouble

37

“Actually, I didn’t see her.” Jean-Claude scratched his eight a.m. shadow. “I just saw the car driving away. It’s a sweet ride.”

Damn. I’d missed her!

“You better not be looking at her ride,” Kit warned, his eyes dark.

Jean-Claude had a history of stealing cars in his youth. I wasn’t so sure he’d given up the pastime. Not with his weird behavior lately.

Jean-Claude held up his hands, palms out. “What ride?”

Kit nodded.

My butt ached. I groaned and accepted Jean-Claude’s hand to help me up.

BeBe strained at her leash to get back to me. “Why bring her here? Why not leave her at home?”

Kit’s eyes widened. “By herself?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s harsh, Nina. She’s just a baby.”

A hundred-and-fifty-pound baby.

“She’s a dog.”

Kit’s face contorted in disbelief.

“Fine, fine,” I said, giving in. “Just keep her out of the yard and get back to work.”

“What am I supposed to do with her?”

I gave him a how-am-I-supposed-to-know look.

Jean-Claude cleared his throat. “I’ll watch her.”

My jaw dropped open. “Hello? You work for me. Besides, look what happened last time you watched her.”

“She was just excited to see you,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared for it. Now I am.”

Kit rubbed BeBe’s ears. They flopped back and forth. “He has a point. And if he doesn’t watch over her, I’m going to have to run her over to my mom’s.”

“Your mom lives in Lima.” Four hours away round-trip.

“Exactly.”

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Heather Webber