Home > Faux Paws (The Dogmothers #6)(4)

Faux Paws (The Dogmothers #6)(4)
Author: Roxanne St. Claire

He tried to usher her into it, but she was too terrified to move, so he bent down and scooped the dog into his arms, getting a whiff of…he didn’t even want to know. He put the dog on the floor and got right in her face.

“Muttsy.” What a despicable name to give a dog.

She whimpered and quivered, looking down.

“Hey.” He stroked her head over and over. “Can you be real quiet, girl?” He gently rubbed her filthy snout, easing her nose up so she had to look into his eyes. “You stay real quiet, and there’s a hot dog in your future.” He kept petting her, keeping his voice low and steady. “Don’t make a sound. There’s pizza for you, too.”

He put a finger to his lips while he stood. “With a side of jerky. Stay so quiet, baby.”

Very slowly, he closed the door without making a sound, turning as the other door was flung open by a nasty-looking guy with a pockmarked face and a flannel shirt hanging on scrawny arms. This must be the human vermin.

He might have been Theo’s age of thirty-four, but he looked like he’d lived twice that long and drunk his way through most of it. Definitely fit the meth-lab-operator profile.

The man froze at the sight of Theo in front of the closet, his scruff-covered jaw opening as he looked up. Way up. At six-one and change, Theo had this chump by five inches and forty pounds of martial-arts-honed muscle.

“You got a problem, sir?” Theo asked.

He swallowed and narrowed red-rimmed eyes. “Lookin’ for my dog.”

Stay quiet, girl. Stay quiet. I do not want to have to break this guy, which I could, in one move.

Theo widened his stance, crossed his arms, and blocked the closet door. “So…” He jutted his chin to two empty stalls. “Look.”

The man’s nostrils flared with a breath as he turned and lifted his hand, grasping something round and small.

“Here ya go, Muttsy!” His voice was fake-nice. “I got you an orange, girl. It’s your favorite.”

He glanced in one stall, slid a look at Theo, then pushed open the door of the other one. In those few seconds, not a sound came from the closet, not so much as a whimper. But how long would that last? And what would Theo have to do to this miserable excuse for a person to protect her?

The guy glanced at Theo again, as if sizing up his chances of moving him away from the closet. Slim to none, he realized. Then his gaze slid to the floor. Theo followed it down to his shoes, seeing a stream of yellow dog pee trickling out from under the door.

Okay. He might have to replace the dog with the guy in that closet, but it could be done. And they both knew it.

“I got an orange, Muttsy,” he called again, leaning to the side and looking at the door. But the dog stayed quiet and still. Guess she wanted to live more than she wanted that orange.

After a few seconds, the guy dropped a wimpy f-bomb and pitched the fruit to the ground, yanked the door, and walked out.

Theo waited five, ten, then thirty seconds before he turned and opened the storage closet.

The dog had backed into the far corner of the closet, under a shelf, and behind a bucket and mop, hunched over in fear. After a few seconds, she peered up at Theo with terror and hope and confusion in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Theo whispered, crouching down in the doorway. “You have seen the last of him…”

She whimpered, pressing into the back wall.

“Come on, girl.” He reached his hand toward her, but she didn’t move. Her eyes did, though, sliding to the floor.

He looked down and spotted the orange.

“Not to go full engineer on you, doggo,” he said as he snagged the little round fruit, “but this isn’t technically an orange. It’s a clementine.”

By the look on her face? It was the Holy Grail.

“You want this? Must be your weakness if old Human Vermin thought it could lure you.” Shouldering his way closer, he tore the rind, hoping the scent would overpower the smell of bleach.

“Here you go. A clementine. Sweeter than an orange and easy to peel.”

After a minute, she inched past the bucket, eyes on the prize, and let out a soft whimper. When she got close enough, she gave the fruit a lick. But he didn’t give it to her, instead using it to lure her all the way out of the closet.

Then he let her devour the fruit in three satisfying bites once he could get his hand on her collar.

Finished, she looked up, some rind hanging from her lips.

“Better?” he asked.

She answered by licking his cheek, making him chuckle.

“Good girl. Good…” No. He couldn’t call her Muttsy. She deserved so much better than that. A pretty name for a pretty girl. “Good girl, Clementine.”

She licked him again.

“All right. That’s your name.” Theo slid his fingers into the thick chain around her neck and straightened, guiding her toward the door. “I promised pizza and hot dogs and beef jerky, and I’m a man of my word. And just when you think life couldn’t get any better, you’ll be at Waterford Farm, where they’ll know exactly what to do with you. You know what? We’ll drive straight through to Bitter Bark and be there at dawn.”

He leaned over and pressed his nose to the smelly beast, not caring that he’d have to air his car out for days after this. It would be worth it to save this sweet dog.

“My luck may have run out, Clementine, but yours just changed for the better.”

 

 

Chapter Three

 

 

The first thing Ayla Hollis saw when she opened her eyes the morning after the worst day of her life was her discarded wedding gown—currently being used as a bed for a black cat named Ziggy Stardust.

“How’s that dress feel, Zig?” she whispered, her morning voice raspy. “Like a four-thousand-dollar mistake?”

Ziggy purred and sighed and…pictured his favorite windowsill. His eyes closed, and he imagined the view out that window and the squirrel that liked to sit in an oak tree and stare right back.

Ayla could see the entire scene, exactly as this cat did, in her mind’s eye.

Of course, no one would believe her if she told them that, so she didn’t. She kept her secret, because being able to read an animal’s mind was almost as embarrassing as being a…runaway bride.

She moaned at the memory, plucked at the chenille bedspread, and stared at the chipped maple dresser against one wall of the tiny bedroom. Instead of waking up in the honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton, she was at Miz Marie’s Last Chance Ranch somewhere in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, alone and free.

“Knock, knock! I bring coffee and a raspberry croissant from Linda May’s bakery in town.”

Not completely alone, thank God.

The bedroom door inched open, and Ayla spied the familiar gray spiky hair and black-framed glasses worn by the most unlikely—and genuine—friend that Ayla had.

“Oh my goodness, Ziggy!” Marie exclaimed. “Get off that expensive dress right this minute, or you will be sorry.”

Ziggy looked up at Marie and purred, turned, and pawed at one of the covered buttons before closing his eyes, unable to even conjure up an image of Marie making good on that threat.

“Don’t worry about it, Marie. I’m never wearing it again. Raspberry croissant, you say?”

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