Cupid to the Rescue: A Tail-Wagging Valentine's Day Anthology

by Lisa Mondello

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  She was pretty. Pissed off, but very pretty. Jett arched his back gently so she wouldn’t notice. The scratches from the dog’s claws were starting to sting his back. He’d been injured worse by animals before. Most of the time it was because they were scared and vulnerable.

  Tana actually thought Cupid was trying to save him. As irritated as he’d been when Cupid had climbed on top of him and scratched the hell out of his back while he was swimming, the whole thing was rather sweet. Animals had such big hearts and in the few moments he’d been here watching Cupid, he knew this little girl had a huge one. Too bad this woman didn’t see it that way.

  “Look at her,” Tana said. “She loves you more than she loves me anyway. What does it say about me that my dog loves you more? And you’re a stranger.”

  “Do you want my opinion?”

  “Yes.”

  He chuckled as he bent down and patted the dog again.

  “Your ex is an idiot.”

  She laughed, watching his loving gentleness with Cupid. “Wow, is that your expert veterinarian opinion?”

  “No. Just an observation. She’s a sweet dog. She’s just not trained. Neither are you.”

  “Me?”

  “I’ve learned that the truest of truths are best when delivered with a hug and a tail wag.”

  “For real? That’s how you gauge the truth?”

  “I haven’t had a whole lot of luck with long-term relationships with women, but I’ve had a lot with animals. My sister claims it’s a character flaw.”

  “Which part?”

  He chuckled. “You’ll have to wait a bit to ask her. She’ll be away for a few months.”

  “On vacation?”

  “Doctors Without Borders. She is taking time out of her practice to work in Africa.”

  “Wow, that’s so wonderful.”

  It was. His sister had an amazing heart. “She is actually your neighbor. She has a condo in this complex. I stay at her place while she’s gone while my house is being built.”

  “Oh, that’s convenient for both of you.”

  He glanced at the dog, who was looking up at him with squinted eyes and a smile. He couldn’t help but grin back her.

  “I have learned that a dog can usually spot a good heart even if the owner is resisting.”

  “That’s deep. You get relationship advice from dogs.”

  “I haven’t been steered wrong yet. You’re also very naïve.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I speak the truth.”

  “That doesn’t mean the truth doesn’t hurt.”

  He stood back up and so did Cupid. She nudged his hand with her nose to get his attention again and he naturally complied with her request and stroked her behind her floppy ears.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “About what?’

  “The dog.”

  She sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “Really?”

  He shook his head in disgust as he headed out of the pool area. He’d already been at the condo longer than he should have been. He still needed to go back to the camper to let Duke out and give him a quick run.

  “What?” she said, tugging Cupid as she followed him toward the gate.

  He stopped on the path and turned to her. She was pretty, but a bit…scattered. But that wasn’t a deal-breaker since most of the women he’d met in his life were hard to figure out.

  “I’ve seen it so many times. A person gets a dog. They screw up the dog instead of taking the time to work with him. Then because they can’t be trained, they bring the dog back to the pound or the shelter and let what should have been their responsibility become someone else’s problem.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “Isn’t it? You just told me Cupid is not your dog.”

  “She’s not.”

  “And it’s the dog’s fault that she jumps in a pool and nearly drowns a person—”

  “I already told you. She was trying to save you.”

  “How do you know that? She’s not your dog.”

  She was suddenly speechless. Her upturned nose was getting red from direct sun. Her skin was much fairer than her dark hair. Given her clothes, Jett guessed her job didn’t afford her a lot of time for being outside and her skin was newly exposed to the sun, making it burn.

  “Right,” she said, standing her ground by lifting her chin. But her voice told him how unsure she was.

  “This dog didn’t bond with your guy, Art. She didn’t get her direction or training from Art. And when you bring her back to the shelter, she will have no training at all because you obviously didn’t put in the work. Which dog do you think people are going to adopt when they go looking? The dog with good manners or the dog that no one trained?”

  “I…”

  “But hey, she’s not your dog so it’s not your problem.” After giving Cupid another pat on the head, Jett ambled down the path toward his sister’s condo so he could shower and change. A pair of women’s shoes were haphazardly discarded near the flowers and shrubs along the path and he guessed them to be Tana’s. He couldn’t intervene for every dog that came his way. Not everyone loved animals the way he did. And he had a big dog who was waiting at the camper on his property that needed his attention or he’d be the one stepping in a mess like Tana Reeves.

  Chasing Cupid: Chapter 2

  Tana had walked through the door of her condo and it took no more than five minutes before she texted her best friends from college.

  Goddess sisters, I need help!! I have the stick. Log on in 10 minutes or as soon as you can.

  She heard the pings on her phone indicating she was getting replies while she fed Cupid and filled her water dish with fresh water.

  “You’d better not need to go back out to pee until I’m finished.”

  Cupid barked and wiped her kitchen floor with her tail as she wagged in delight.

  Once Cupid dived into her dog bowl, Tana pulled off her clothes and tossed them into the hamper. Then she pulled on some exercise leggings and a T-shirt before she logged onto her computer quickly and signed into the video chat that she used to talk to her friends in their Goddess Circle. Some of the friends they’d made individually throughout the years thought the Goddess Circle was just a stupid group of women chatting and complaining about men. It may have started that way when they had been in college and Koti found out she was pregnant, but the bond Tana and her friends shared was so much more than gossip. The Goddess Circle was an equalizer for all of them.

  All of them except for Jade. Jade was the one grown up in the group who seemed to have it all. The perfect job and the perfect husband and the perfect life. The rest of them were a mess from time to time. Confiding with her Goddess friends was sometimes the only way to work through the pain of loss and uncertainty of starting over, moving on, or just what to wear on a first date.

  The video chat connected and one by one the little squares popped up on the computer screen. Trudy was the first one to talk.

  “You called, I came. What’s going on?” Trudy asked.

  “No fair. We don’t start until everybody gets logged on. Not everyone is here,” Jade said, tapping her glass of white wine with her red fingernail.

  “I see the lawyer has arrived and she is setting the stage for her case,” Monica laughed after hearing the last part of Jade’s usual admonishment to the rest of the group. “Who has the stick?”

  “I do,” Tana said. She lifted the small rope-wrapped stick that they had made the night when they’d all had a little too much to drink a million years ago when they had been in college.

  “Tana has the floor,” Jade said. Being a lawyer by day, Jade loved being in control of the meeting.

  “Are we still waiting on Koti?” Trudy asked.

  Tana huffed within patience. “Koti is always late; she probably has another soccer game or basketball game or whatever it is Braden has going on right now.”

  “Swimm
ing,” Monica said. “Get your season straight. This is the summertime.”

  And then the final square popped up onto the screen.

  “Hey, girls! What did I miss?” Koti asked.

  “Tana has the stick,” Jade said.

  At the same time, Trudy frowned and asked, “Where the hell are you?”

  Koti rolled her eyes and then huffed. “Taco Mexicali.”

  “What the hell?” Trudy said.

  Jade wrinkled her nose. “Since when do you like tacos?”

  “Are you really going to give me advice in a taco restaurant?” Tana asked.

  “The advice is coming from me, not the taco. No one is paying attention to me. I can go in the car if you want. Braden doesn’t want me here anyway.” Koti got up from her table and started walking through the restaurant.

  “Why are you there?” Monica asked.

  As Dakota, or Koti as she was known to her friends as, walked through the door and into the parking lot, her screen washed out and bright. “Braden wanted a summer job and I have to drive him. I don’t even have time to take a pee when I get home from work before I get in the car and drive him to work. Then I get the pleasure of waiting up until after midnight to pick him up at the end of his shift.”

  “So what else is new,” Jade said. “You’ve been driving him from one athletic event or another for years. Why not work?”

  “Don’t you ever wish you could just put him back up there to save yourself the trouble,” Monica said, laughing.

  “At fourteen?” Jade asked. “Girl, you’re insane.”

  “Fifteen,” Koti corrected. “He’ll be sixteen at the end of the summer. Can you believe that? And he’s taller than me.”

  “No!” Monica said, and then added, “He can’t possibly be almost sixteen.”

  “We graduated from college fourteen years ago. He has to be almost sixteen,” Tana said, tapping her foot on the kitchen floor. Cupid was whining at her feet so she bent down and patted his head. “You already peed. Go lay down while I talk.”

  “Who peed?” Jade asked.

  “The dog,” Trudy said.

  “Whose dog?”

  “Mine. Well, Art’s dog,” Tana added.

  “Where is Lacey?” Monica said.

  “On a plane to Madrid with Tony,” Jade said.

  A collective groan came through the audio feed.

  “I’m surprised he wanted to spend the money,” Monica said. “She is definitely in need of the stick next. There is definitely something going on there.”

  Jade swayed side to side in her chair as she always did when she had a piece of news but couldn’t say. “Oh, it’s definitely going on there but she’s not saying. Much.”

  “You know?” Trudy asked.

  “I’m not saying. It’s Tana’s time. Since why do you have Art’s dog, Tana?”

  “I thought Art was gone,” Koti said.

  Tana clenched her fist. “I have the stick! If you all give me the floor, I’ll explain.”

  “Okay, I’m ready,” Koti said, as she sunk into the driver’s seat of her car and then slammed the door. The chiming of the key being put into the ignition blared through the audio and had Tana leaning back as if that would help soften the sound. “Okay, the A/C is on. I’m ready. What’s going on, Tana?”

  Tana picked up the rope stick and showed them all. That was the signal they used when someone had the floor. The stick was their way of focusing attention on just one issue, and one person. Otherwise, they’d all talk over each other. She and her friends had been together since their first year of college and helped each other through unplanned pregnancies, marriage, divorce, job loss, and anything else life threw at them. All these years later, they all still showed up for the call when one of them needed the others.

  She suddenly felt foolish for what she was about to say when Cupid howled.

  “I’m in trouble,” she started.

  Everyone was silent, but she could tell Jade was ready to jump in with her usual “Do you need a lawyer” line.

  Tana cut to the chase. “I don’t need a lawyer.”

  Jade relaxed in her chair.

  “Art left for Milwaukee two months ago. Before he left, he got a beagle from the rescue shelter. He was originally only supposed to be gone a few days and then he was supposed to pick her up. We’d already really broken up by that point, but something made me say yes and I still have the beagle.”

  “Awe,” Monica crooned. “You have a beagle? Can we see?”

  The girls glared at Monica’s block on the video.

  “Later,” Tana said. “Trust me, you’ll hear her first.”

  “Sorry,” she said quickly. “Go on.”

  Tana proceeded to explain how Art left for his new job and what a mess it had been for her at her condo with the dog not listening to her.

  “And the worst part is I don’t think Art is taking the dog at all. He sent me a text earlier saying he met someone else who has a cat and he basically told me that I should just bring Cupid back to the shelter.”

  “Cupid?” Jade said. “That’s its name?”

  “The swine!” Monica said with a grunt. “Art, not the dog. He sent a text?”

  “What an idiot,” Koti said. “Who does that?”

  Trudy was silent.

  “Please tell me you weren’t thinking of bringing that poor puppy back to the shelter,” Koti said with a gasp. “Tana!”

  “She’s a pretty beagle but the condo board said that Cupid is too fat. Three pounds fat, if you can believe that.”

  “I bet they were all men with skinny wives,” Trudy finally said.

  “I bet they were all fat and and bald and spend their days hitting on twenty-four year olds at the pool,” Monica said, folding her arms in disgust.

  “That’s not the point,” Tana said.

  “So they do chase twenty-four year olds at the pool,” Jade said.

  “No. Mr. Baxter has been married to his wife for years.”

  “Three pounds is nothing. I probably gained three pounds having tacos tonight,” Koti confessed.

  “Ewe, you actually ate Taco Mexicali?” Jade’s face showed disgust as if she were about to barf.

  “Well, gee whiz. Not everyone is married to Andre the chef. It’s actually not bad. Braden eats it.”

  Tana held the stick in front of the webcam. “Stick! Rules!”

  The girls gave a round of sorries and then went silent.

  “Anyway, I met this guy today at the pool. A vet.”

  “A Vet like in the military or a veterinarian,” Monica asked.

  “Veterinarian. Cupid almost drowned him. Anyway, he said that I should train Cupid before I take her back to the shelter because if she has training problems, then I’ll just make my problem someone else’s problem. Someone might bring her home and bring her back like…”

  “You?” Trudy chimed in. “Sorry.”

  “Yes. Don’t look at me like I’m a monster. Cupid howls all hours of the day when I’m at work and my neighbors complained to the condo board. She breaks free when I walk her to the park. I just…don’t have time for her. I shouldn’t even be talking to all of you right now. I have a big proposal I need to start working on tonight.”

  She fell silent for a moment. Usually that was a sign for one of them to ask a question.

  “And the vet?” Jade asked. “Is he fine?”

  Tana cocked her head to one side. “That’s not the point. Jett is…well, yes, he’s handsome.”

  “Jett? She’s holding back,” Koti said, addressing the rest of the group.

  Monica chuckled. “Damn straight she is. You wouldn’t have mentioned this vet otherwise.”

  “What gives?” Trudy asked.

  “He’s…”

  She held up the stick in her hand and they waited for Tana to continue.

  “He’s a vet. What do you want me to say?”

  Trudy pointed at her. “He lives in your condo complex?”

  “At his sister’s
place.”

  Jade’s eyes widened. “He is a professional and he lives with his sister? Trouble right there.”

  “Not necessarily. Shush, Jade,” Monica said.

  “His sister is working with Doctors Without Borders for a few months. He’s staying at her place while he builds his house by his clinic in town. That’s what he told me today. I’ve never seen him here. I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen his sister. I don’t exactly know my neighbors.”

  Trudy had her head down and was rummaging through her purse. “You work too much. Don’t you move again just because Art dumped you.”

  Koti tapped the steering wheel, making her phone rock. “Sounds like you had a good conversation at the pool.”

  “It was mostly him being pissed at me.”

  “Stop that, Koti!” Monica huffed. “You’re rocking so much you’re making me sick. And she’s not going to move again. You aren’t moving from your condo, are you? You always do something drastic after a breakup.”

  “I do not.”

  There was a chorus of yes, you dos.

  “So Tana, what is your real problem here? You aren’t broken up about Art. I know that much.”

  All the girls nodded their agreement.

  “So is this about the dog or this Jett guy?”

  “I…” She didn’t know. So much had been thrown at her that day that she wasn’t sure exactly what she thought of any of it. “I honestly don’t know.”

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  “It’s better this way. Trust me,” Tana said out loud as she drove.

  Cupid was in the back seat, lifting herself up on her front paws in an effort to get footing on the console between the front seats in order to climb into the front seat. Tana put her arm across the two bucket seats to keep Cupid in place.

  “Look, I don’t even have a car seat for you. I’m a dangerous person on the road just trying to keep you in the back. This is no good for either of us.”

  Cupid barked in protest.

  Tana had spent the night bouncing between listening to the sound of Cupid snoring on her blanket and her trying to climb into bed with Tana. She’d never gotten a dog crate as some people had suggested because Cupid was only supposed to be a temporary overnight “guest”. Well, two months later it looked like she’d been made a fool of, especially after she’d finally gotten through to Art.