Groomed for Love

“It’s hot for autumn.”

“But the evenings are so nice. Doc has a couple of kenneled dogs this week and he’s letting me walk them. Then they get to spend the night with us. As you saw, there’s plenty of room, and they enjoy it so much more than being locked up in pens.”

Noah lost the battle with his curiosity. “Us?”

“MG and me. My dog.”

“And MG stands for...?”

“Mommy’s Girl. They told me when I got her from the shelter that they’d named her Marnie, but it was soon apparent that we were going to be very close, and she’s seriously maternal. She instinctively steps in to help whenever she decides I need her assistance with an animal.”

Noah was sorry he’d asked. Sure, he believed there were special relationships between some pets and their owners, but Mommy’s Girl? That was laying it on a bit thick.

Unlocking the BMW with his remote, he opened the passenger door for Rylie. Looking over the hood of the car, he considered the grassy area and the woods beyond it where she said she walked. It was more a wild pasture than a park. “Aren’t you concerned about snakes, or getting eaten up by chiggers and mosquitoes?” Texas also had more than its share of wild hogs, coyotes and an increasing number of abandoned dogs, too, he thought.

“We haven’t been bothered yet,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe there’s safety in numbers. In any case, I tend to take a live-and-let-live approach. It’s more important that the dogs get some attention and exercise. They’re missing their homes, and some are overweight, so being constricted in pens for days is just unhealthy.” She began to put the dog on the BMW’s black leather seat only to rear back. “Oh! Please put on the air conditioner and give us a moment for things to cool down. She’ll get burned.”

“Try putting her on the floorboard.” When he saw her stubbornly resist, Noah did get into the car and start the engine. Sure, it had gotten warmer in the short time that he’d been in her RV, but it was nowhere near as bad as it had been in July or August. As the vents quickly blew cold air through the inside of the vehicle, he reiterated, “The floorboard, please. I don’t want claw runs in the leather.”

“But she won’t be able to see, and it’s a rougher ride down there.”

The Mother Teresa of furry creatures really was beginning to push his buttons. “For crying out loud, this car’s shock absorbers are the embodiment of foreign skill in cushion and spring. She has no idea what rough is.”

With a sigh of exasperation, Rylie said to the dog, “Your big brother is determined to be disagreeable, isn’t he, precious?”

Big brother? “Okay, that’s enough,” Noah said, having had his fill of this nonsense. “Put the damned dog in now. Please.” He had to get out of there before she fried what brain cells he had left.

With a mournful glance, Rylie did as ordered. Carefully shutting the door, she backed away.

As Noah cut a sharp U-turn, he decided he was going to tell his mother that her pet’s groomer—cute as she was—was a nut job who needed a reality check. There were kids, even in this area, who needed help with essentials—food, clothing—not to mention finding a safe family environment. Spending any more time on inanity like this was ridiculous. How could a woman be so adorable, yet irritating at the same time?

As he circled around the clinic and cut a sharp turn onto the service road, Bubbles barked at him as the force of the turn tipped her over.

“Oh, put a lid on it,” he muttered.

Chapter Two

As Noah expected, his mother was parked in her wheelchair within sight of the front door and applauded with excitement as he entered Haven Land with Bubbles. Adding to his soured mood, she immediately started complimenting Rylie’s work the instant her precious four-legged princess leaped into her arms. Even if he wanted to pass on Rylie’s comments and messages, he couldn’t get a word in due to her effusiveness.

“Isn’t that shade of purple ribbon adorable, Aubergine?” she said to her housekeeper, who was standing with the glass of tea and the small cup of medications Audra needed to take. “Livie—look at her nails! A perfect match. And she’s so happy to be home.”

Aubergine Scott had been with the family since before Noah had graduated from high school. She was a single mother of two children, now grown, gratefully educated by his parents. Daughter Rachel was a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and son Randolph was a teacher in Houston. Each had tried to make the sixty-year-old retire, to pay her back for all she’d done for them, but Aubergine liked her independence and was devoted to his mother.

Olivia “Livie” Danner quit her RN job when Noah’s mother had been discharged from the hospital in Dallas, and joined their makeshift family. Quiet, bookish and athletic, at fifty-seven, she was as reserved as Aubergine was outspoken, but both possessed a dry sense of humor that Noah appreciated, even though quite a bit of it was directed at him. What he cared about most, though, was that his mother liked and trusted her.

“She’s as pretty as a valentine,” plump and short Aubergine declared.

“Charming,” tall and toned Livie added, with a tolerant nod. “Please take your medication, Audra.”

“In a minute. Oh, she smells good enough to eat,” Audra gushed, all but burying her face in the dog’s fur. “Did you properly thank Rylie for me, dear?”

Ignoring Aubergine’s barely repressed grin, he shoved his hands into his pants pockets to keep everyone from seeing him curl his fingers into fists. “Mother, trust me, she knows how supportive you are of her. She all but rubs it in my face. If anyone should be appreciative, it’s her for having your business.”

His mother gave him a distressed look. “I swear, you are sounding more like an old grouch every day. And you were raised to have better manners. Do I have to call her and apologize on your behalf?”

“No, ma’am, you do not,” he said, with only a modicum of guilt. Also not happy to be scolded in front of the other two women, he continued, “Do you mind if I get back to work now? Vance went home sick, so I’m holding the fort today.”

“What? Then why are you standing there breathing on your mother?” Livie immediately started pulling the chair toward the living room.

“I’ll get the disinfectant spray,” Aubergine assured her partner-in-protection. To Noah she said, “You heard her, get going. You know her lungs don’t need any more work than they already get.”

Noah held up his hands in surrender and quickly backed out of their presence. He knew he’d blundered, and the sooner he made his exit the better.

“Oh, Noah, they’re only being protective,” his mother called after him.

“And they’re very good at it,” he said with a courtly bow. “Don’t worry about dinner. I’ll eat out. Have to work late.” He didn’t really, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to work ahead.

* * *

Judy was on the phone when Noah returned to the office and Ann, the junior clerk, was either still on her lunch break or in some storage room hunting files. Ann was more Judy’s assistant than any help to Vance or himself, and Noah often forgot she was even employed there. From the looks of the poor woman, whom someone had nicknamed “the beige person” for the way she dressed and behaved, she might have easily just emerged from the bland walls one morning and retreated into them at night. She rarely spoke that he could hear.

Back in his corner, where he was framed by a window, a wall and on the third side file cabinets—the closest thing he could develop into an office—Noah took the extra time to check his email account and then on a whim typed Rylie’s name into the search engine box. He wasn’t proud of it, but he had just enough annoyance left in him to want to see what would happen.

As expected, there were no clear results. There was a link to Riley’s Car Wash, another Riley who could read your psychic vibes for twenty bucks and a masseuse. For a second he wondered if Rylie changed the spelling of her name to moonlight in an even more lucrative field. Hindsight being what it was, he regretted not having written down the RV’s license plate number. That would be easy enough to check, even if they were still California plates.

About to start a different search, he saw Judy put her call on hold. “Noah—it’s the sheriff,” she called back to him. “With the D.A. out, he was wondering if you two could meet regarding upcoming cases he thinks are ready for us.”

“Of course.” With reluctance, Noah shut down his web browser. “Where does he want to meet, here or at his office?”

* * *

“Well, if you come now, we’ll see you right away,”

Roy put his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and gestured for Rylie not to leave as she’d been preparing to. Curious more than disappointed at not getting to call it a day yet, she backtracked to wait beside him.

Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he said, “Noah Prescott. Emergency.” After that he said into the phone, “Come to the side door. If people see vehicles in front, they’ll think we’re open for regular business. We’ll be watching for you.”

As soon as he hung up, Rylie commiserated on her uncle’s bad luck, while worrying about Bubbles. Uncle Roy had planned to meet the old-timers at the VFW hall to watch a Texas Rangers baseball game this evening. What could possibly have happened to the little dog? “Bubbles is hurt?”

“Audra Prescott dropped a glass. You can picture the rest. Noah is running the pup over here.”

“Poor little thing. How badly is she cut?”

“Bad enough that neither he nor Ramon could get the piece out. The dog snaps at them when they try to get a good look.”

Rylie wasn’t surprised about her reaction to at least one of the men. “That’s a surprise about her snapping at Ramon.” The caretaker, who was closer to her uncle’s age than Noah’s, appeared to get as much of a kick out of the little dog as his employer did.

“If you ask me, Bubbles is just partial to women,” Roy said. He nodded to MG. “Like someone else I know.”