by Melinda Metz
“You said you were out of practice. Out of practice means out of practice talking to a woman you’re interested in, right?” Lucy asked. “Besides, you must have done more than talk pet supplies or you wouldn’t feel like you made an ass out of yourself.”
Had he been interested? There’d been something about her, standing there talking to herself. Something that had made him decide to talk to her instead of walking by.
Lucy took another bite of cupcake. “This is heaven. I feel like I’m always supposed to be setting a healthy eating example for the kids. I actually scarfed down a Snickers in the closet a couple weeks ago. I felt like a criminal. Anyway, what’d you say to her?”
“Something about making Diogee wear a pink leash so it would be easier for me to be the alpha dog.”
“Yeah, you were sort of an ass,” Lucy said. “Like, of course, making your dog wear something girly would make him more obedient. But you’re cute. And you’re charming. You could have turned it around.”
“There was nothing to turn around. I wasn’t trying to start anything up,” David protested.
“The facts indicate otherwise,” Lucy said. “I bet she was hot.” She took a second cupcake.
David was about to say he hadn’t really been paying attention, but he realized he could call up a detailed picture—curly butterscotch-blond hair scooped into a messy bun, brown eyes, dimples, deep ones, and a great voice. Nice body, curvy, not that he was going to tell Lucy that. “She was cute,” he admitted.
“Talking to her was good, even if you screwed it up,” Lucy told him. “That’s how you get back in practice. That’s why I think you should do counterpart.com. Practice. You go out with some women. If it doesn’t go well, who cares? You don’t have to ever see them again. But you get used to being . . .” She hesitated.
“Single,” he finished for her.
“Yeah.” She touched his arm. “Yeah.”
David put together a bakery box and started loading it with the cupcake experiments he’d already finished. “Those better not be for me,” Lucy said. “The kids will find them. They’re bad enough when they eat sugar. I don’t want to see them both drunk and on a sugar high.” She grinned. “I’ll just have to eat some more here. And while I’m here, I could take some sexy baker man pics for you to use on Counterpart. Adam said he’s working on your profile.”
She wasn’t going to stop pushing. Neither was Adam.
Unless he just told her the truth. Unless he just told her he was barely holding it together. No, it wasn’t that bad. Except when it was. And this week it was a lot. “I’m not ready, Luce.” She started to protest, and he held up one hand to stop her. “At the bar, I almost lost it. It was like all of a sudden it had been days instead of years since I lost her. And then it happened again a few days later. You know our friend Ruby, I mean my friend Ruby.” Sometimes he still said “our,” when he meant “my.”
“With the huge Christmas party,” Lucy said.
“Yeah. Her,” David answered. “And every year she starts decorating for Christmas in September—September fifteenth. And pretty much since they became friends, Clarissa would spend as much of the day as she could helping her. So I’m walking Diogee, I turn the corner, see that the house is decorated, and—wham, I got that feeling again. I thought I’d gotten past that. It took a long time, but I really haven’t had that kind of grief, the kind that sucks the air out of you, for probably more than a year. And now, twice in one week. I can’t think of starting up something when I’m still feeling like this.”
Lucy broke open the pipette of Jager and squirted it on her tongue. “I’m about to go all therapist,” she warned him.
“Okay,” David said. Because it wasn’t like anything he said would stop her.
“Maybe you’ve been feeling that intense grief because you are ready. And being ready feels like you’re really letting Clarissa go.” Lucy’s eyes flicked over his face as she looked for his reaction.
David struggled not to show how hard he’d been hit by her words, by how true they felt. “It’s possible,” he answered. He flipped a page in the notebook he used to write down recipe ideas.
“I’ll let you get back to work.” Lucy snagged one last cupcake. “You know you can talk to me whenever.”
“I know. But I’m fine,” David said. And he was. He liked his job. He had some good friends. He had a big, stupid dog. He didn’t need anything else.
* * *
Mac took his secret exit through the rip in the screen door. His skin prickled. He could still feel that harness caging his body. How could Jamie have done that to him? She usually understood him much better than that. She definitely hadn’t understood what he was trying to tell her with the sock. She hadn’t even tried! He’d been watching her though the window, and she’d shoved it back into the house without giving it a single sniff. Then later she’d thrown it away. He’d dumped over the trash so she’d have to pick it up again, and she’d called him a bad kitty. He’d had to remind himself that she was a human and couldn’t be expected to understand everything. When she threw the sock away again, he retrieved it. He’d try to get her to actually smell it again later.
He was even more determined to find a way to make her happy, no matter how long it took. He wanted that for her, because she was his person and he loved her. But it could have benefits for Mac, too. If Jamie had a human around and got her happy smell back, maybe she’d stop doing ridiculous things like trying to attach herself to him with a big string. He couldn’t stand to think of it as a leash. Everyone knew leashes were for dogs. Did MacGyver look like a dog? Uh, no.
He took several breaths of the cool night air, and the itchy harness sensation and the horror of being on a lea—, on a string, faded. He was free. The neighborhood was his. He took off at a lope. He had things to do.
Mac slowed down, then stopped when he spotted something unfamiliar in one of the yards. It looked like an animal was there in the shadows, a large one. But he didn’t smell any animal. He crept closer. The animal-thing didn’t move. Mac crept even closer.
Okay, he’d seen one of these more than once through the apartment window of his old home. But it had only been out during the coldest months. That’s why he didn’t recognize it at first. It was a plastic reindeer.
He padded up to it, and took a sniff just to be certain. Definitely nothing that had ever been alive. His ears twitched. Someone was moving through the house. A moment later, the door opened. A woman stepped out. Mac got a faint whiff of Jamie’s smell on her. That reassured him. The woman poured water on the plant next to the door. Then she walked across the yard. Mac slid into the shadows under the reindeer. He watched as she hung something in a tree. It smelled familiar, too, like the peanut butter Jamie ate.
Was she a pack leader? She was leaving food for someone. As she walked back toward the house, he realized that there was a thread of, not loneliness exactly, but something like it, in her mix of smells. He remembered the lonely little one. Maybe this woman had what the girl needed. He decided he would leave a message for her.
But first, he needed to bring something else to Jamie. Something she wouldn’t try to throw away.
CHAPTER 4
Mac’s loud breakfast-now yowl invaded Jamie’s dreams. This morning it was more like a wail, higher and longer than usual. “Mac, come on, is that necessary? We both know you aren’t, in fact, starving,” she grumbled, still half-asleep. She forced her eyelids up. Mac was sitting on her chest, staring at her. The wail came again, and unless her cat had been practicing ventriloquism in his spare time, it hadn’t come from him.
The wail came a third time. Now that she’d reached one-hundred-percent wakefulness, it sounded like it was coming from a little girl! Jamie scrambled out of bed, yanked on yesterday’s jeans, and pulled a sweater on over the big T-shirt she used to sleep in, then she rushed outside. Al and Marie already stood in their yard. Jamie hurried over to join them. “What’s going on?” Jamie exclaimed.
“I
think it’s the little Brewer girl,” Marie said, frowning.
“Is she—” Jamie was interrupted by another of the wails. This time it sounded like “Paaaaaula.” Jamie tried again. “Is she—”
This time she was interrupted by Hud Martin coming around the corner of the Defranciscos’ house. “Hey there, friends,” he called as he walked toward them. The sun glinted off the white-blond highlights of his freshly gelled hair.
Al gave one of his grunts. This one sounded put-upon.
“I need to talk to you. We’ve had a burglary,” Hud announced, pulling down his sunglasses to look at them. Jamie was pretty sure he looked at her a little longer than the others. “Over at the Brewers’.”
“Did he hurt the little girl?” Marie demanded.
“You ever had a toy you loved more than anything?” Hud asked, his fake drawl getting broader and faker. “Me, it was a Stretch Armstrong. For lil’ Riley, it’s her plastic pony. And that’s what was stolen.”
“Pauuuuula.” The wail came again.
“That’s the pony’s name, Paula. Riley’s going around the neighborhood looking for it. Listening to that cry, I’d say it hurt worse than a bite from a bluefish,” Hud answered. “I promised her I’d get it back.” He centered the pliers hanging from the lanyard around his neck.
“Anything else taken?” Al asked.
“I’d say that’s enough,” Hud said. “I’d also say it’s not going to be the last burglary. I think the thief was just getting a feel for the water last night, and decided to nab the pony as a practice run.” He looked at Jamie again. She forced herself to hold his gaze.
Marie gave an exasperated huff. “All that commotion over a toy. She probably just dropped it somewhere.”
“That’s a negative.” Hud turned toward Marie, allowing his staring contest with Jamie to end. “The older sister, Addison, said Riley won’t go to sleep without it. So, she’s sure it was tucked in bed with Riley last night. But this morning—it was gone.”
“So, it fell under the bed,” Marie said.
“I already did a complete search. Not there.” Hud gave Marie a wink. “I know you see pretty much everything that goes on around here. You see anything unusual last night, anyone around who doesn’t belong?”
Marie crossed her arms. “I have more important things to do than stare out the window.”
Jamie knew Marie spent a good amount of time doing exactly that, but she didn’t comment.
“That’s a no, then?” Hud asked.
Riley gave another wail.
“I’m not listening to that all morning.” Marie turned and started for her house. Al gave a grunt of agreement and followed her.
Hud watched them for a moment, then turned back to Jamie. “Not especially cooperative, were they, Toots?”
“I’m sure if either of them had seen anything, they would have told you.” Actually, Jamie was sure if Marie had seen anything, she’d have chased the burglar off herself.
“What about you? You have anything to tell me?” He pushed his sunglasses back up.
“I went in pretty much right after I saw you yesterday,” Jamie said. “And, anyway, I haven’t been here long enough to know who belongs and who doesn’t.”
“Pretty early when I saw you,” Hud commented. “Pretty early for you to go in for the night.”
“I still have a lot of stuff to unpack and get organized.” She realized she’d sounded sort of defensive. But the way he’d said it, it was almost like she was a suspect, a suspect with a shaky alibi.
“Where’d you move here from?”
“Pennsylvania. Avella.”
“Small town?”
“Definitely.”
“So, you’ve just moved here from a Podunk town, and you spend your night organizing instead of getting out there and seeing some of the LA nightlife?”
His questions came fast, almost before she’d answered the previous one. It really was starting to feel like an interrogation. And she was feeling annoyed. Except, why hadn’t she gone out? She should be going out. The Year of Me didn’t mean The Year of Hiding in the House.
Not the point. “It’s none of your business how I spend my time. I can tell you for sure I wasn’t stealing a little girl’s toys.”
“What did—”
This time Jamie didn’t let him finish. “I have to feed my cat,” she informed him, then headed for the house, feeling a little pathetic. She did do other things than organize and take care of Mac. Yesterday she’d gone out. She’d gone to the pet store and bought Mac a leash and a harness—wait, that was cat care. But she’d also taken pictures. And she’d worked on her list of stuff she liked. She had nothing to feel even sort of pathetic about.
As she reached for her funky doorknob, she noticed something on the welcome mat. Another sock. A sweat sock this time. She studied it, as if that would give her a clue how it got there. Just a regular tube sock. No goofy decorations, just a couple blue stripes at the top.
“Whatcha got there?” Hud called.
“Nothing,” Jamie answered without turning around. She hurried inside. She wasn’t going to let herself get sucked into a second interrogation.
“This is getting freaky,” she said. She’d put a few empty boxes by the door to take out to the garbage. She grabbed a small one and put the sock inside, then got the hand towel out from under the sink and stuck it inside, too. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t like someone was going to ask for them back. They weren’t anything valuable.
What possible reason could anyone have for leaving those things on the mat? Was it a prank? There were some kids in the neighborhood. But if it was a prank, it was a pretty stupid one. She put the box in the narrow broom closet and shut the door. Maybe it—
Mac pulled her away from her thoughts by uttering a particularly put-upon yowl. “Breakfast, I know, I know. Come on.” She walked to the kitchen and opened the cupboard where she kept his food. “What’ll it be?” she asked. “Trout? Lamb? Elk?”
There was no answering meow. She looked down—no Mac. Okay, he was a picky eater, but that didn’t mean food wasn’t way up there on his list of priorities. What was up? She headed back to the porch. Mac was batting the sasquatch sock around like it was made of catnip. He must have gotten into the trash again! Was he acting out because he wasn’t happy about the move? He’d never dug around in the trash before, even when he was a crazy kitten.
Mac snatched the sock up in his teeth, then tossed his head, letting the sock fly across the room. As soon as it landed, he pounced on it, then rolled on his back with it clutched between his paws. A few seconds later, he gave a twist-spring to his feet and flung the sock onto one of Jamie’s feet. She picked it up and tossed it across the room, expecting him to go bounding after it. Not that Mac would ever deign to play fetch, but he did like to chase.
He didn’t chase this time. He walked over to the sock, picked it up, and returned it to Jamie’s foot. “Since you’re determined to have it, I’ll put it in your toy box,” she said. She stuck it in the tub that held his Mousie, the laser pointer, the feather stick, and pretty much one of every other cat toy made. The sock had made Mac happier than most of them. “There, now it’s nice and safe.” She gave the tub a pat and smiled at Mac.
He was giving her The Stare. His tail wasn’t whipping like crazy the way it had when she’d forced him into the harness, but The Stare definitely meant he wasn’t happy with her. “I thought you were done with it for now. My bad.” Jamie took the sock back out of the tub and tossed it to Mac. He didn’t even glance at it, just continued administering The Stare.
Jamie gave him a slow blink. She’d read an article that called it a “kitty kiss,” because it was a sign of love, an indicator that there was no need for fighting or rivalry. When she gave Mac The Blink, he almost always blinked back. Not this time. It was like he’d decided he would never blink again.
“I don’t know what’s got your tail in a knot,” she told him. He’d cuddled up on her head last night
the way he always did, so she didn’t think he was still mad about the leash and harness. She’d snapped at him when he’d gotten trash all over the kitchen floor, but he hadn’t seemed to care. He never cared when she scolded him.
Why was she even trying to figure it out? He was a cat. He had moods.
Jamie left him sitting there, put the sock in the box with the other stuff that had been left outside her door, then filled his food bowl. After she took a shower and got dressed, Mac was still sitting in the screened-in porch. He’d probably blinked sometime while she was gone, but he was pretending he hadn’t.
“I’m heading out to explore,” she told him. “I’d bring you along, but you hate the leash and possibly me, so you have to stay home.”
Do I talk to Mac too much? she wondered as she stepped outside. Nah, she decided. You had a cat, you talked to it. That was normal. Or was it just crazy-cat-lady normal? Wait, was she a crazy cat lady? Nah. Or if she was, then it was too late to do anything about it.
Al was back outside on his front porch, washing a window with what smelled like vinegar. “You ever get a day off?” she asked. It seemed like he was almost always doing some little job outside.
“Secret to a long marriage. Don’t spend too much time together,” Al answered without turning away from the window. A second later his front door opened and a thin hand held out a cup of coffee. Al took it. The hand retreated and the door shut.
Al turned around and handed the cup to Jamie over the porch railing. “I don’t want to take your coffee,” she protested.
He nodded his head toward a cup on the little table that sat between two rockers. “That’s mine.”
“Thanks, Marie,” Jamie yelled. She thought she saw the kitchen curtain twitch. She took a sip, so good, then said, “It’s gotten quiet over here. Has Paula the Pony been found?’ ”
Al shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe the girl just wore herself out screaming.”
“What’s the deal with that Hud Martin guy?” Jamie asked. “He was acting like a real pony had been stolen, and like I might be the thief.”
