Part 2 (2/2)

Why did he seem to think he was hers?

And why, she wondered grimly in the Pets! parking lot the next day, couldn't he just remember how he had trusted her the night before? And just how d.a.m.n long could he keep this up, anyway?

A woman with a s.h.i.+h Tzu waddling along beside her hesitated for a horrified look at the Cardigan's antics; Brenna gave her a forbearing smile and a little shrug. A few moments after that, the dog eased off into wary cease-fire, panting, attractive little bubbles of spit on his lips.

”Are we done?” Brenna asked him, as sardonically as she could muster. And with much relief, because someone else was approaching from behind, and she didn't think she could pull off another forbearing smile. ”Look, dog, I'm already giving up my day off for youa””

”Trouble?”

She didn't recognize the voice, but a glance showed her trouble, all right. The dog must have thought so, too, for as the glazed look left his eyes and he focused on the new arrival, he went into instant action, shrieking and flopping, thirty-five pounds of idiot at the end of the leash. Brenna felt an odd moment of disorientation, a wrongness, and for a moment her world teetered with him. And then she caught herself. She looked at the mana”Roger's friend from the day before, with a cell phone in one hand, a gym bag in the other, a pager visible on his belt through the gaping front zipper of his leather jacket and a reasonably solicitous look on his face.

”Why, no,” she said, with an edge of sarcasm so fine he might or might not perceive it. Trouble? As if it weren't obvious, and as if he'd taken for granted she couldn't handle trouble on her own.

He s.h.i.+fted the gym bag in his grip, easing back on one leg to narrow his eyes at hera”eyes easily as blue as hers, hair easily as dark, glinting with nearly hidden chestnut in the spring sun. And as recognition came into those eyes, the solicitous expression faded. ”You're one of the groomers.”

”And you're the man who was talking to Roger yesterday.” She didn't mention the look he'd given her; he knew he'd done it. And though she was tempted, it would take her just a little closer to b.i.t.c.hy than she liked.

And who wouldn't be, with a manic dog jerking her arm arounda”though he was once again settlinga”spooky things ruining her sleep, a day off slipping away, and Mr. Scruffy adding his presence on top of it all? It was his hair, she decideda”a nice style but ready for a trima”or maybe that he evidently hadn't shaved today.

And he grinned at her words, but it wasn't in apology, it was . . . it was . . .

She didn't know what it was. Acknowledgment of some sort?

”Good luck with the dog,” he said, clearly abdicating the unspoken offer of help. He nodded at the dog. ”Interesting kind of storm for Winnal's Day, I suppose.” And without explaining either comment, he turned on his heel and left, heading for a pale blue SUV with some sort of logo on its side.

She didn't have a chance to note just which logo it was, because the instant he moved, the Cardigan blew his wits again, catching her up in another moment of inexplicable wrongness before she recovered. Poofing her bangs out of her eyes with an exaggerated sigh, she decided she wasn't going to gain anything by waiting for the dog to work through whatever kept triggering him and headed for the store, thankful enough that he was a Cardigan instead of a seventy-pound Lab as he flailed along behind her.

”Oooh, that's special.” Elizabeth, the second-s.h.i.+ft groomer who caught Brenna's early s.h.i.+ft on Brenna's off days, leaned over the counter to admire Brenna's acquisition. ”What do you call that breed, the Freaking Mudball?” She looked closer, and reconsidered. ”Freaking Mudball with Ears.”

But now that they were inside, the dog settled again, clearly exhausted. His tongue hung long from his mouth, and his st.u.r.dy front legs spread wide.

”Doomed Mudball,” Brenna p.r.o.nounced; Elizabeth knew a Cardigan when she saw one. ”Is the tub free?”

”Only if you clean it when you're through with that,” Elizabeth said without hesitation. ”I'm done with my baths for the day.”

Brenna did an automatic glance-about before saying darkly, ”Don't worry. Roger will schedule you something.”

”No way.” Elizabeth popped a thin mint into her mouth from her perpetual stash behind the countera”like Brenna, she rarely had time to eat a full lunch. ”I've got two minutes to do paperwork while my first finishes drying, and then I'm clipping for the rest of the afternoon.”

”Take a look at the schedule,” Brenna said, nodding at the desk. ”See that dog he tried to sneak in yesterday? It was a matted Wheaten.”

Elizabeth made a face. She was a tall young woman, very blond, with generous features that seemed a little too big for her face; when she twisted them up, she got impressive results. Brenna grinned at her and headed for the tub room.

The Cardigan followed her like a gentleman, tired but amenable. He stood quietly in the tuba”three shampooings it took before the mud didn't run off him anymorea”he let her blow the water from his coat with the high-velocity dryer, and he went quietly from her arms into a second-tier crate to sit under the stand dryers while she scrubbed his collar and tags and cleaned up the tub area.

Finally, she turned to the collar, blotting it dry and taking her first good look at the tags. Rabies tag, though it didn't look quite right to her eye and she couldn't say why; it had the vet clinica”her vet clinica”stamped on the tag, along with Rabies I/II and the serial number. But here was something usefula”a round ID tag, phone number and all. She took the collar out to the grooming room and dangled it up before Elizabeth, who was trying to get a smooth clipping line on a perpetual-motion Springer. Not her strengtha”Brenna specialized in the exacting breed clips. But Elizabeth could take any odd hairy breed and turn it cute or handsome, so she didn't begrudge Brenna her breed certifications.

Brenna grinned at her from behind the collar. ”Score!”

”What's the deal with him, anyway? That's not a breed you see very often.”

”Showed up on my porch last night,” Brenna said. ”But he ought to be home tonight.” She caught up the receiver from the wall phone, stabbed an unlit outgoing line b.u.t.ton, and dialed the number, twirling the collar around her finger as the line rang.

”I'm sorry, but that number is not in this service area. Please check the number you are dialing and try again.”

”Huh.” Brenna frowned at the phone, hanging it up with much less flare. She looked at the tag again. ”Number doesn't exist, according to them. But who'd keep a tag with the wrong number on it?”

”What's the address?”

Brenna shook her head, running her thumb over the engraving. ”There isn't one. Just the phone. Dumb.”

”Well, it'd be fine if the phone worked.” Elizabeth's voice came out m.u.f.fled; her head was in the vicinity of the dog's flank as she fought for control over its foot. Giving up, she straightened and glared into the Springer's eye long enough to bellow in a startlingly loud voice, ”Straighten up!”

Astonished, the dog stood stock still, watching Elizabeth with wide eyes as she quickly went back to work. ”Sometimes it gets 'em, sometimes it doesn't,” she said. ”I give it three feet.”

”Mmmm,” Brenna said in agreement, staring at the other side of the ID tag. ”Champion Nuadha's Silver Druid.”

Elizabeth snorted. ”Yeah, there's a name for you. It'd make more sense if he was blue merle. What was that, New-AHD-ja?”

”NWUH-dja,” she said absently, looking at the name and thinking Elizabeth was right. Silver could describe merle, but not a black, white, and brown tricolor. Elizabeth grabbed the collar to look with vast uncertainty at the tag.

”Noowahja?” she said, coming close. ”Do you think?”

Counterintuitive as the p.r.o.nunciation was, Brenna didn't doubt ita”although as she retrieved the collar, she gave it her own thoughtful look. She ought to doubt it.

But she didn't.

So she tucked the question away to think about later, and stuck her head in the tub room to offer an experimental, ”Hey, Druid!”

From behind the wind of the dryers, he got to his feet, c.o.c.king his head at her. No mistaking that. ”Never mind,” she told him, and retreated to the grooming room. ”Druid for a call name, that's not too bad. But you'd think anyone with a champion would make it easier to return him!”

”No kidding. All right, Springer, you've had your last chance,” Elizabeth said with some exasperation, as her fourth attempt to trim under the dog's tail was met with a spinning tactic. ”At least I got all the feet done,” she said, shortening the noose and using a second noose to secure the dog to the front of the grooming elbow. ”If these people would just handle their dogsa””

”Yeah, yeah, you're preaching to the choir here.” But Brenna slid Druid's collar down her arm and let it dangle at her elbow while she went to the Springer's head and distracted her with kissy-kissy noises. Fortunately, the dog was fundamentally sweet, if uncivilized, and she was glad enough to squint her eyes with happiness at Brenna's attentionsa”although the tail-wagging didn't necessarily make things much easier for Elizabeth.

Elizabeth moved on to the dog's head and ears, and Brenna went back to check the Cardigan, flipping off the dryers and rolling them out of the way. She laughed, then, at the somewhat stunned look on his face; he'd had all the dryers on him, and his coat was as flyaway as it could get. Except for his haunches, which of course he'd been sitting on.

She considered the temperaturea”nice for early March, mid-fiftiesa”and decided against taking him out in it without some spot-drying. A few moments on one of the tables was all it took, and then she stepped back to consider her new charge.

”He's got a lot more white on him than I thought,” Elizabeth admitted, pausing in her own work.

Or than Brenna had thought. No way, under the mud, to see how broad his blaze was, how symmetrically it encompa.s.sed his muzzle, narrowed just enough to miss his eyes, and broadened again at his forehead. Or to see the dark freckles on the bridge of his nose, or how richly his brown cheek patches stood out against the black on the rest of his head. He had a white bib and undercarriage anda”except for brown points, a white tail tip, and a jagged white collara”the rest of him was sleek black. Black, aside from his ears. The interior of one was stark white; the other light brown. But it was the backs of those huge ears that were so beguiling, mostly white with thick brown freckles. Utterly unexpected, utterly charming.

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