Chasing Her Tail (11 page)

Bridget caught herself. It wouldn’t matter if he did buy dog food—she wouldn’t be staying. She had a were-dog mystery to figure out, as well as her
life
to figure out. With a sigh, she rested her chin on her paws and watched John putter around the kitchen. He really was built, she decided dreamily. In the morning light, she could see that his chest 55

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was peppered with the same small scars that marked his face but they didn’t detract from his hotness.

“Want to go to work with me today?” he asked, pulling two plates from the cupboard.

Okay.
There wasn’t anything she could do without his computer password anyway.

Bridget figured she’d see him type it soon enough if she paid attention. Going to work with him would definitely beat out moping around the house all day, worrying about her situation. She wondered what kind of job he had that allowed him to bring his dog.

“I should get you to the vet too,” John said, putting a plate on the floor in front of her. “Get those cuts of yours checked out.” He’d given her a generous helping of bacon and eggs, plus he’d made her toast and even buttered it.

He is an angel,
Bridget thought with a happy sigh, giving his hand a quick lick of thanks as he released the plate.

He watched her eat for the five seconds it took for Bridget to clear her plate. “No offense, muttly, but you’re kind of a pig.”

Bridget would have definitely taken offense, except she was too busy licking any stray crumbs off her plate. He’d refilled her mixing bowl of water earlier, so she went over for a drink, feeling full, warm and very happy. As John ate, she took a quick nap under the table, her head on his bare foot.

Micah was worried. More than worried—he was frantic.

What made it worse was that Joey had taken off with Sam this morning. Micah had been forced to peel the little boy’s arms from around his neck before handing Sam over to Joey. Micah knew it was for the best, that he couldn’t risk the little boy’s safety, but he’d gotten used to having the kid around. The house was too quiet without him.

Micah had listened to the drum of rain on the roof for hours the night before, thinking about Bridget outside, wet and cold, most likely scared out of her mind. Could she turn back and forth at will? Did it hurt to change the first time? He couldn’t remember the first time he’d turned into a dog. He’d been born into it and he hadn’t known anyone personally who’d been bitten. It had always been drilled into him that it was the worst thing he could do, to bite and change a person. Micah still couldn’t believe that tiny Sam had done it.

Micah shook his head. He’d gone over and over this in his mind and all it did was make him feel pissed off and guilty. It was time for something constructive. Picking up her trail from the day before, he followed her scent out of town. She’d cut through fields in full view of houses and he growled under his breath at her lack of caution.

Immediately, he felt a fresh wave of guilt. Of course Bridget didn’t know how to act, how to survive as a dog. She’d only been one for a couple days and she didn’t have anyone to teach her how to avoid attention and keep herself safe. The whole situation was Micah’s fault—he should have been a better teacher to Sam, should have drummed it into his head how horribly wrong it was to bite someone.

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With a sigh, Micah started across a field, only to spot the blur of an oncoming dog.

He could have easily taken the dog on and won, but Micah didn’t want to trigger a community hunt for a vicious stray dog. Besides, he’d hate to hurt another dog.

Micah turned and ran back the way he’d come, swearing mentally the whole time.

Without crossing the field, he couldn’t tell which way she’d gone. Glancing behind him, he saw that the other dog had stopped at the property line, barking furiously. Slowing to a trot, Micah retraced his steps back into the city.

He returned to Bridget’s house and changed inside the garden shed, where he’d left his clothes once again, and then walked to his car. He’d parked a block away again today, just in case Carlson’s men were watching the front of her house. Micah was grateful for her shed—it was a bitch to change in the car. When people saw him putting his pants on in the backseat, they always assumed the worst.

He sat on the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed. Taking out his phone, Micah started making calls.

“Huh. That’s strange.”

John was examining her hind leg, running his fingers over it.

What?
Bridget twisted around to see what he was looking at. When he brushed aside the hair covering the cuts, she could see that they were just pink lines, not at all painful and almost completely healed.

“I’d swear these were still bleeding last night,” he muttered, moving his head even closer.

Bridget assumed that accelerated healing was part of the whole dog-transformation thing. She was happy there were a few upsides. So far, it’d been nothing but hassle, harassment by strangers, eating off the floor and peeing outside—not really the most stellar talent. This quick fix of her injuries was good since it meant no trip to a vet, who might recognize all was not quite normal with this dog.

She wagged her tail and whacked John in the back of the head with it.

“Watch it,” he warned. “I could still drop you off at the pound, you know.”

His grin belied his mock-annoyance. Tugging her leg free of John’s hold, Bridget whirled around completely to face him. Tail wagging wildly, she ducked into a play bow. John reached for her and she danced away and spun in an excited circle. Bridget felt better than she had in a long time and energy was shooting through her. Some of it had to come out or she’d explode.

Giving a small yip, she bowed again and watched as John pushed himself to his feet.

“Sorry, muttly. I’d love to play but I’ve got a meeting with a new client at nine. One of us has to go to work and put food on the table—and the floor. I’d better change.” He took the stairs three at a time and she bounded up behind him, not about to let a chance to see him mostly naked go to waste.

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“No, I’m sorry,” the woman on the other end of the phone was saying. “We haven’t had anyone bring in a stray dog this week. Why don’t you give me your number and we’ll call if anything like that comes in.”

Micah rattled off his cell number, thanked the woman and hung up, trying very hard not to throw his phone across the room in frustration. That was the last vet clinic in a fifty-mile radius. He’d already checked all the pounds, humane societies and pet supply shops. Sitting in his car after losing Bridget’s trail, he’d called all the places he could think of and then headed home to call every place in the area he could find on the internet that had any connection to dogs. He even called the dog daycares in case a dog owner mentioned spotting a stray. Micah was desperate.

Unable to sit still, he prowled across the room, trying to think. It would’ve been easier if it had been a different woman—
any
other woman—but it had to be Bridget.

The fact that it was her clouded his brain with worry. Images of her flashed through his mind—soft and smiling at the conference, her face flushed and her eyes heavy-lidded as he touched her outside the bar, her eyes uncertain at the grocery store, her full bottom lip caught in her teeth…

With a snarl, he grabbed the car keys and slammed his way out of the front door.

He’d go look for her. That had to be better than hanging around the house, driving himself crazy with guilt and worry and lust. He knew she’d been heading south when he’d been blocked by the dog. He’d follow the southbound road and see if he could find any trace of her. He had to do something—it was either search or go nuts.

Bridget now understood why dogs traveled with their heads out car windows.

There were just so many
smells
! Although she wasn’t far enough gone to hang her own head out the open window, she couldn’t stop her nose from twitching, especially when they passed the doughnut shop. She actually whined at that one.

Reaching over, John gave her a pat. “Almost there, sweet pea.”

Sweet pea is
much
better than muttly or fuzzy
, she thought. Her tail thumped against the seat.

John pulled the car into the lot of an office park and swung into a space in front of a glass door reading Hammer Investigations. He pushed open the door and got out of the car, unfolding his big frame.

“Coming?” he asked Bridget, holding his door open. Hopping over the console, she joined him on the pavement.

He looked at her a little uncertainly. “I probably should get a leash for you,” he muttered and Bridget sighed. Of course, the collar and leash. She’d known that was coming. At least it wasn’t dog food though.

“Nothing to do about that now,” he said. “Come on then. Just don’t be running off and getting me in trouble.”

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With an agreeable wag of her tail, Bridget followed, waiting for him to unlock the glass door and push it open before she trotted inside.

I like it
, she decided, wandering around the compact, two-room office. It was comfortable without looking worn. In the smaller of the two rooms, she hopped onto the big chair behind the desk.
Nice.

John laughed from the doorway. “You going to do the meeting?” he asked, pocketing his keys. Jumping off the chair, Bridget eyed his fit form in the business-casual attire. Although her favorite was seeing him in nothing at all, she had to admit the man cleaned up well.

“If this woman’s allergic, you’re going in the bathroom,” he warned. Ignoring the threat, she brushed past him into the front part of the office—obviously the reception area—and hopped onto the leather couch. She watched him as he turned on lights and started coffee, enjoying being able to stare at him all she wanted without him getting self-conscious or uncomfortable.

His beautiful body aside, John was a really nice guy. It was too bad she had to be a dog when she met him. Bridget let out a mournful sigh. Wasn’t that typical—she finally meets the perfect man and he thinks she’s a dog.

The door opened, startling her out of her self-pitying wallow. A woman walked in, chic and thin and looking very familiar. Her blond hair was streaked with white and cut to frame her face. Although the wispy fringe softened her strong features somewhat, she still looked formidable. Her eyes were intent and her mouth was set in a straight, determined line. Bridget cocked her head, trying to remember where she’d seen this woman.

“Mrs. Carlson,” John greeted, holding his hand out to her.

Mrs. Carlson, of course!
If Bridget had a hand at the moment, she would have smacked herself in the head with it. Mrs. Lila Carlson was a fixture on the local newspaper’s community page. She was big with the charities. Her husband, Bart Carlson, had inherited Blue Star, his family’s multibillion-dollar cleaning products industry. As social as Mrs. Carlson seemed to be, gossip said her husband was just a few acquaintances short of being a hermit. They lived on a huge estate in an upscale neighborhood in the northwest part of the city.

“Mr. Dexter.” She allowed her fingers to be captured in the barest of shakes and then retreated. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“No problem,” he told her, ushering her into the back office. Bridget left her perch on the couch, eager to hear why Lila Carlson was meeting with a private detective. John cut her off before she could slip into the office though.

“Watch the front desk,” he told her with a twitch of his lips before he shut the door in her face.

Ass
, Bridget grumbled mentally.
Good thing I have super-dog hearing.
She lay down next to the back office door, her ear as close to the crack at the bottom as possible.

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“As I mentioned on the phone, Mr. Dexter,” Mrs. Carlson was saying, “I would appreciate your discretion.”

“Of course,” John told her.

“Morton Wellesby had only the best things to say about you,” Mrs. Carlson continued. “I’ve never found it necessary to hire a private investigator before. For any past issues, I was able to use my husband’s security staff but, for obvious reasons, I need to be discreet about this.”

Not obvious to me
, Bridget thought, brimming with curiosity.
What reasons?
She wiggled closer and pressed her ear against the bottom of the door.

“Sure,” John assured her. “Whatever you say to me will not leave this office.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dexter. I just need to know what’s going on. I’m not a woman who can be blissfully ignorant.”

I’m with you on that one. If Mr. Carlson is cheating, you better find out and dump his ass.

Bridget had to stop her tail from thumping against the floor in a supportive wag.

“What do you think is going on?” John asked.

There was a pause, long enough for Bridget to give an impatient wiggle.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Mrs. Carlson admitted, speaking slowly, as if considering each word carefully. “It was small things at first. He’d be gone in the evenings and on weekends—at work, or so he said. One night, though, some pipes froze and burst in the guesthouse. He usually manages things like that, so when I couldn’t reach him on his cell or office line, I drove over to the office and the night watchman told me Bart wasn’t there. After that, I made some inquiries and discovered he was
rarely
there, only coming in for the most urgent meetings.”

“Ah.” There was no surprise in John’s voice. Bridget wondered how many times he’d heard different variations on this same theme.

“I didn’t say anything about my visit to Bart. Since then, there have been a variety of things—mysterious phone calls, ‘work emergencies’ at all hours, that sort of thing.

The final straw, what drove me to ask Morton if he could recommend a discreet investigator, was when I discovered Bart had a second property. One that I knew nothing about until I went through his files.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Carlson gave a short laugh. “As am I, Mr. Dexter. Obviously, my first assumption is that there is another woman.”