Troublemaker (14 page)

She actually smiled. “I guess that's the answer to my question. C'mon, Tricks, let's get you fed before I get started on the people food.”

He wasn't surprised that the dog came first.

She went through some weird routine with the dog while she was feeding her, something that involved a lot of sweet talking and a couple of “Let's try this ones.” He didn't turn around to check it out. She was feeding the dog—how interesting could it be? Not very.

She slapped the spaghetti dinner together pretty fast, but from what he could tell, she opened a jar of sauce and didn't bother fancying it up with extra meat and spices.

Trays were another thing he was ready to do away with, so he made his slow way to the small table and sat opposite her. She poured a glass of real milk for him. He'd have preferred a beer or even a glass of sissy wine, but at least the milk wasn't skim. The pasta was a little chewy. The spices and the garlic bread, though, were like heaven. The only thing that came close in taste was the fast-food hamburger he'd stopped for on the way down to West Virginia. He'd managed only a couple of bites, but,
hell,
the ketchup and pickles and onion had almost made him moan as the taste exploded on his tongue.

“You've had a rough twenty-four hours,” he finally said after they'd eaten in silence for a few minutes. The truth was, he was already full, but maybe if he wasted a little time in small talk, he'd be able to eat some more. Besides, he was reluctantly curious about her. This whole setup she had, the chief-of-police thing, was interesting.

She looked up, mildly puzzled. “I have?”

He ticked the items off: “Choking, hurting your hand when you punched me, getting punched in the face, hurting your shoulder.”

“Oh.” Her face cleared. “Also banging the back of my head on the floor. I have a knot back there.”

“That type of thing happen very often?”

“Brawling in the bakery? First time for everything.”

“I'd expect the police force to be small enough that you'd be called in on almost every arrest.”

“I'm administrative, not enforcement. I was hired as someone to do the paperwork and handle the work schedule.”

He frowned, forked up another bite of spaghetti. “But you had to have training to qualify for the job.”

“Not in West Virginia, you don't. It's a small state with a small population, so I guess there had to be other options or half the towns wouldn't have adequate staff. The position of chief can be purely administrative. Jesse didn't want to deal with the paperwork or headache of scheduling, so Mayor Buddy worked out something else. He knew I'm fairly tech savvy because I do technical writing, and he offered the job to me. I took it. It's part-time, and it's a good deal for both me and the town.”

He grunted. That meant she'd thrown herself into a fight without any idea how to protect herself; she was lucky to have come out of it as well as she had. Part of him was appreciative of the guts, while another part of him was a little pissed off she'd been put in that position.
None of his business
.

No sooner had he told himself that than he asked, “So you jumped into a fight without any training?” He tried to keep the pissed-off out of his voice but a little bit leaked through.

If she heard it, she ignored it. She shrugged. “Dumb, huh? Jesse insisted on teaching me how to shoot, some, and showed me a few basic self-defense moves, but that's about it. I know I took a risk. It worked out okay, but I'll sure think twice about trying that again.”

She was so damned reasonable about it that he was frustrated in venting his unreasonable ire. He had to tell himself again that it was none of his business. On the other hand, if she landed herself in the hospital, he'd be in a touchy situation, so he'd rather she stayed hale and hearty. That made it very much his business.

“I can teach you more,” he said.

“You can barely move.”

The accurate assessment pissed him off even more because it was so
true. “I'm better today than I was yesterday. I don't have to be in great shape to show you how to disable someone.”

“We'll see,” she said, but he got the feeling the noncommittal reply meant she had no intention of following through.

Yes, they
would
see.

Having someone else in the house was an ongoing irritant, like hearing
a mosquito buzzing but not being able to locate it to smash. Regardless of that, over the next few days Bo found them settling into a kind of routine. She didn't go into town on the weekends, so she spent most of those two days working on her tech-writing projects, and doing her regular stuff with Tricks.

She didn't put in any time at the station, but she heard plenty from both Jesse and Daina about the Emily/Kyle situation. The judge had conveniently—and probably deliberately—been out of touch, so Kyle's bail hadn't been set until Saturday afternoon, meaning Emily had time to do whatever she wanted to do. What she wanted to do was file for divorce (which she had), get a restraining order against Kyle to keep him away from her and her family (which she had also done), and pack up Kyle's clothes and personal effects and take them to his father's house (which she'd also done, with Jesse's presence to make sure all went well). Emily was acting with a purpose, getting things done and forging ahead.

The entire Gooding family was occupied in trash-talking Emily and her family. Her uncle on her daddy's side, Harold Patterson, owned the barbershop and of course the barbershop was a hotbed of gossip. The Emily/Kyle scandal was going hot and heavy, with half the town taking sides as Bo had known would happen. Most of them were on Emily's side because Warren Gooding had never endeared himself to anyone, but there were a few who thought Emily was being a bitch.

From Daina came the information that Mrs. Gooding had been in and said that she suspected Emily was running around on Kyle. Also from Daina was the report that the whole bakery incident had started
because Emily found out Kyle was cheating on her and told him to get out.

There was going to be bad blood over this for a long time to come, Bo thought. She might have to arrange a police presence at athletic games and such, anywhere members of both families might come into contact with each other.

But that would remain to be seen; maybe Kyle would move away. Emily might meet someone, and
she
could be the one who moved. Life happened. Bo had enough on her plate at the moment without looking for more.

The weather cooperated by turning sunny, if still cool, so she and Tricks had their long walks and plenty of playing. Spring was finally showing signs of coming to stay, and just in time; she and everyone else had had all of winter they could stand. The trees spent the weekend exploding in buds, as if they knew something humans didn't. The air was filled with a kind of vibrancy as if every plant was humming with activity.

Morgan wasn't a demanding patient. He didn't ask for anything extra, and he wasn't exactly a patient. He didn't have much strength and he still hadn't attempted the stairs, but he could get himself to the bathroom for his needs, take a shower without aid, and she kind of got a kick watching his laser focus as he watched her approach with the morning's first cup of coffee for him. He stared at that cup as if willing it into his hand. He was walking around more. He slept, he read, he watched some TV but not much. On Sunday afternoon, for the first time he went outside, onto the concrete slab porch. He moved one of the chairs into the sunshine, where he sat for a while.

That threw Tricks into a tizzy. Someone was outside who could throw the ball for her, even if that someone wasn't Bo, but she wasn't outside to take advantage. She went from window to window, to the door, got her tennis ball and went to Bo, then back to the door. She dropped the ball and barked, then picked up the ball and started the whole rotation again.

Bo was trying to work, and knew how relentless Tricks could be in getting her way. Giving in would be a tactical mistake. She checked the
clock, but it wasn't quite time to take Tricks out so she said, “No,” and kept working.

Tricks trotted over and butted her leg.

“No.” This time she said it sternly, and raised a warning finger. Tricks huffed, dropped the ball, but gave up for the moment and curled on the rug by the desk to pout.

That was all Bo needed, for Tricks to give up for just a minute so she wouldn't think she'd won. She let a couple of minutes lapse, saved her work, then stood up and said, “Let's go outside.”

Tricks jumped up, grabbed her ball, and raced to the door. She was dancing with excitement, whirling with her feet patting up and down.

A couple of days of rest and the application of ice packs to her right shoulder had done wonders, and Bo was able to throw the ball without pain. As soon as she stepped outside, she wound up and let it go, and Tricks took off in joyful pursuit.

“Good arm,” Morgan commented.

“I've been doing this almost nonstop for two years, as soon as she got big enough to get the ball in her mouth.”

Tricks caught the ball on the second bounce and brought it back for a replay, dropping it at Bo's feet and racing off. “Cheater,” Bo said, bending down to retrieve the ball. She threw it over Tricks's head, but this time it was caught on the first bounce. Tricks stopped, posed, and Bo said, “Good catch!” in an admiring tone. One tail wag, and they did it all over again.

Then Tricks took the ball to Morgan, dropped it beside his chair.

Bo started to go after it, but he leaned down and got the ball, gave it a sidearm toss. He got good distance on it—too good, because it rolled to a stop before Tricks could get there. The dog gave him a disgusted look and took the ball back to Bo.

She had to laugh. “You failed the ball-throwing test,” she said.

He scowled. “It was a good throw.”

“It went too far. She likes to catch it on the bounce.”

“She told you that, huh?”

The mild skepticism in his tone put her back up a little. “Watch her. A two-bounce catch is acceptable, but she likes the one-bounce catches. She'll stop, pose, and wait until I praise her. She gave you the honor of throwing her ball and you failed.”

He snorted.

Bo threw the ball, and Tricks caught it on the second bounce. She brought it back, dropped it, took off again. Bo picked it up and heaved it over her head. It was a one-bouncer, and as soon as Tricks caught it, she froze in a proud, head-high pose. Bo let her hold the position for a few heartbeats before she said, “Beautiful catch!” Tricks acknowledged the praise with a quick tail wag, and brought the ball back.

Bo laughed. “I don't know if I've trained her or she's trained me, but I've learned not to underestimate her ego, vanity, persistence, or intelligence. She'd be a pain in the butt if she wasn't so happy and loving.”

He just shook his head. He looked as if he thought Tricks was a pain in the butt regardless of how happy she was, but so what? Tricks would be here long after he was gone.

“She's two years old, then?”

“About two and a half, now. She was originally bought—and registered—by old Mrs. Carmichael. I couldn't have afforded her. But about two weeks after Mrs. Carmichael got her, the old lady had a heart attack on the way to visit a friend and crashed the car. Tricks was with her, in a travel crate, thank God. Mrs. Carmichael died from the heart attack.” Bo watched as Tricks sniffed around, found a suitable place, and finally deigned to empty her bladder. “The puppy was terrified and trembling. I took her with me to the station while Mrs. Carmichael's son was notified and just held her in my arms. Then it turned out Mrs. Carmichael's son didn't want her and told me to give her away to anyone who wanted her.”

“That would be you.”

“Yes, indeed,” Bo said ruefully. “I didn't know anything about puppies, I'd never had a pet, but by then I'd been holding her for a few hours and I suppose she'd imprinted on me. The son went to his mother's
house and gathered up all Tricks's food and toys and brought them to me. He was sleepwalking from shock, but he knew his wife didn't want a dog. I brought Tricks and all her stuff home with me and did some panicked research on how to take care of a puppy. She was still terrified, in a new place, and wouldn't stop shaking unless I held her. When I put her in her little crate that night, she cried. It broke my heart. So I got her out and let her sleep curled against me. That was that.”

“Pushover.” His mouth quirked with humor.

“You think you could have resisted a little ball of white fur? She looked like a baby's stuffed animal, or a cotton ball with big feet.” A
demonic
cotton ball, at that. The first year had been hell on wheels until Tricks decided she had to defer to the human who controlled the food.

“We always had pets when I was growing up,” he said, which didn't really answer the question. Then he shrugged. “Now, I'm not at home enough to take care of a cactus.”

“Didn't you say you're from Florida?” She thought he had, but she'd had other things on her mind that afternoon.

“Yeah. What about you? That isn't a West Virginia accent.”

“All over. I was born in Arizona, but I don't remember it. Mom moved a lot.” And married a lot, hence the moving. Morgan was good, spotting the difference between her accent and Jesse's. Over the years, she thought her speech had modified. In the rare instances when her mother got in touch—both times—she'd said something about how “hick” Bo sounded now. Maybe the accent was a good mother-repellent because she hadn't heard from Rebecca in a few years now. She loved her mother, but she loved her best at a distance.

“How long have you been here?”

“Seven years.”

That seemed to dry up their small talk for a while. He sat quietly in the sun, looking at the greening grass, the budding trees. Whatever he did for a living was obviously hazardous, so Bo guessed he wasn't accustomed to either the quiet of country living or his current state of inactivity. She threw the ball some more for Tricks, who joyously retrieved for a good forty-five minutes before going to the bowl of water Bo kept
outside, getting a good drink, then flopping down on the concrete to pant and bat the tennis ball back and forth with a paw.