Or, happier thought, maybe she was doomed to lose them all. The first one had walked out the day he discovered the twins weren’t his. I wondered what it would take to drive MacArthur from her bed. If her surly attitude, soft ass, and bad complexion didn’t do it, what would?
Then I wondered why I wondered. I had a wanna-be live-in boyfriend of my own. A man I’d already married once-before I divorced him. Jeb still got my blood boiling. The chemistry between us was as combustible as ever. And he was lobbying hard to be a regular fixture in my life again.
But he hadn’t yet mentioned the M word. Did I want him to? Surely I wasn’t ready for that. If I were, I wouldn’t long for nights spent alone and lust after muscular, deep-voiced Scots who promised to protect me.
Would I?
“Why do you have to act like that?”
Tina’s familiar whine rudely interrupted my reverie. Naturally, I assumed she was snapping at me… 'til I spotted her husband Tim and realized he was the unfortunate object of her attention.
Walking back to my office in a daze, I had failed to notice the Breen family car, a dingy blue Chevy Malibu, parked in front of Mattimoe Realty. As he usually did when he came to retrieve Tina at the end of her shift, Tim had brought along their toddlers Winston and Neville. But today he had apparently managed to do or say something that annoyed Tina so much she wasn’t getting into the car.
“Act like what?” he retorted. “Like I’m sick of being your chauffeur and babysitter? Maybe that’s because I am sick of it! I have better things to do if we’re ever going to make more money than you get paid at this dump.”
Winston and Neville stopped bouncing in the backseat and stared like stone statues.
Since I was on the sidewalk only a few yards away, I couldn’t pretend to be invisible. So I took the opposite approach.
“Hey, Tim!” I called out cheerfully. “Long time no see. How ya doing?”
Tina turned crimson and glanced away. Tim waited a beat and then rolled the driver’s side window the rest of the way down.
“Hey, Whiskey. Tina gave me the good news about Mattimoe Realty representing the new development on Uphill Road. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But Odette’s doing all the work.”
He barked a laugh and said nothing more. I couldn’t help but notice that he failed to make eye contact. That wasn’t like Tim. Never an ambitious man, his usual manner was relaxed and friendly. The opposite of Tina’s, in other words. Today, though, he radiated hostility. Was that what happened to a man too long out of work? Without acknowledging me, Tina climbed stiffly into the car. I waved at Winston and Neville, but they didn’t wave back.
As my volunteer bodyguard had promised, Chester did indeed “have Abra ready to roll” when I arrived at Vestige. Ever dutiful, he had managed to make her look better without formally grooming her.
“She’s still a mess,” he assured me, “because Susan wants her that way, but I got out the worst tangles and the smelliest debris. I wouldn’t want anybody to charge you with animal neglect.”
Always a possibility if Fleggers showed up.
Just knowing Abra’s location was a refreshing change of pace. I was so grateful to Chester that I didn’t have the heart to bring up his waffles. As it was, I blamed Tina more than my breakfast for my prolonged case of the burps.
I had promised Susan I’d deliver the Bad Example in time for the Breeder Meet-and-Greet at five. That meant I needed to hit the road ASAP, just as soon as I could toss a few beige separates and personal items into my overnight bag and wrestle Abra into the car. Or ask Chester to load her for me. I opted for the latter. By the time I snapped my suitcase shut, she was in the back of my Lexus, looking almost demure.
“Did you… do something to her?” I asked Chester.
“I played Jeb’s Animal Lullabies,” he said. “And told her I love her. That usually does the trick.”
I made a mental note to follow Chester’s model, with minor modifications. I couldn’t use love talk to bribe Abra; she’d see through that in a nanosecond. But I could and should make better use of the Fleggers CD. I already knew the happy effects of Jeb’s crooning; during Velcro’s stay, I’d played the tunes 24/7. It was either that or listen to the shitzapoo’s nonstop yaps. By now, however, I was sick to death of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and the like. Trust me, lullabies can make you nuts.
But I played them all the way to Nappanee. As a result, Abra traveled well. In fact, she slept the whole way. I could only hope she wasn’t storing up energy for a manic performance at the show. I could only hope…
As I drove, my thoughts kept returning to Jeb. That was natural since he sang me the whole way to Amish country. Plus, he phoned me en route to wish me luck with my Bad Example. I meant it when I told him I had no idea what to expect. I’d never been to a dog show, let alone stepped into the spotlight as the “how-not-to” human. I could only hope it wouldn’t feel like a three-ring circus with me in the lion’s cage.
So why was I going? What were my motives?
Jeb had insisted that bonding with Susan Davies could help my real estate business. I figured that was true only if she stayed married to her builder-developer husband. And if Liam’s company stayed solvent.
Why else was I going? I’d set fire to my eyelashes before I’d admit it to Jeb, but I wanted to watch Susan in action. Correction: I wanted to catch her being bad. Women know women. Or so my mother always said. I had a feeling that Susan wasn’t the nice person Ramona insisted she was.
For starters, somebody had used Susan’s car for target practice. I didn’t believe that was because Ramona was riding in it. I believed Susan attracted trouble. She was too pretty. And she had too many dogs. There’s something suspicious about a woman who can find the time to groom herself and eight Afghan hounds.
Of course, I now had a bonus reason for going, which I wouldn’t share with Jeb, either: I’d won a one-third timeshare in a handsome Scottish bodyguard.
If the weekend went to the dogs, there would still be treats for me.
Chapter Eleven
What I could see of Indiana Amish country was a letdown. It looked like farmland anywhere. I’d had the same reaction years earlier when traveling in France with Leo. The cornfields surrounding Paris were identical to the ones at home.
Back when I toured with Jeb as designated wife-slash-groupie repellent, I’d visited Amish country. Jeb didn’t play Nappanee, but he did have gigs in Middlebury and Shipshewana. That was during his ill-fated folk music phase when he sang earnest songs about working hard for a living that nobody wanted to hear.
On that tour, I saw lots of white houses, white fences, and very few power lines. Today I was sticking to the main roads, which probably explained why the scenery looked like textbook Middle America: farm fields alternating with gas stations, churches, and fast food restaurants. The Amish didn’t live along U.S. Route 20.
Although I was disappointed by the lack of bonnets and buggies, conditions were perfect for leaf-peeping. I hated to admit it, but the trees here were as richly hued as in Magnet Springs. Sure, we offered quaint shops, superb restaurants, and a scenic shoreline. But if you couldn’t afford a tank of gas and you lived in northern Indiana, you had plenty o’ pretty to gaze upon.
My destination was the ominously named Barnyard Inn, a motel attached to an exhibit hall on the east edge of Nappanee. Susan had assured me that the inn was “canine-friendly.” I hoped dogs were the only livestock.
The moment the motel came into view I understood why dogs were welcome. It was a dump-starting with the sagging roadside sign, which appeared to have been maimed in a collision with an eighteen-wheeler. Plastic letters held together with duct tape perched crookedly atop a cracked cement stand. The second R in Barnyard must have replaced in a hurry; it was backwards. Under the motel’s name was somebody’s idea of an enticement to stay there: FREE TV.
I pulled into the large, mostly empty gravel lot and parked in front of the glass door marked OFFICE. Since Abra, like me, needed all the beauty sleep she could get, I left the CD player running while I went inside to register.
