Double Dog Dare (The Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series) (4 page)

He caught my hand. “Come on, you haven’t even seen the best part.”

“I thought this was the best part,” I teased him, indicating the adjoining rooms.

He stopped and cupped his hands around my neck, looking into my eyes, touching his forehead to mine.  “No,” he said.  “The best part is seeing you here, laughing, not worrying about dogs or competitions or training classes or other people’s problems.  Not getting shot at or threatened or stranded on a mountaintop or nearly blown up or run over by a truck on your own front porch. The best part is being normal for a change.”

I forced an uncomfortable laugh.  “If this is normal for you we have even less in common than I thought.”  But he was right.  My life did tend to be filled with drama, and not all of it was of my own making. 

I resolved, right then and there, to try to be more normal.  At least for a week.

He kissed my nose and stepped away.  “The best part,” he reminded me.  He swung open a door and gestured me inside.

I looked around at the pleasant tiled walls and porcelain fixtures.  “A bathroom?  I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve seen them before.”

Without a word, he extended his arm toward what appeared to be the shower cubby.  I stepped inside
and into a lush tropical garden with the sky for a roof and cedar plank walls.  Bromeliads bloomed from moss baskets that hung from the walls, and a veil of trailing vines dotted with tiny fragrant white flowers hid the shelves that held soap, sponges and shampoo.   

“It’s a Balinese outdoor shower,” Miles explained.  “This side of the house is built into the hill, so all the bedrooms have them.  Cool, huh?”

I turned to him, grinning.  “Do you know what I like best about you?”

“Hard to say.”  He drew me close, eyes smiling.  “There
’s so much to choose from.”

I looped my arms around his neck.  “That you still think things like this are cool.
  This is the best vacation ever, Miles.  Thank you for making me come here.”

“It hasn’t even started yet,” he pointed out, still smiling.  “
It only gets better from here.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”  I tilted my face up for the kiss I’d been waiting for, confident that was one promise he would have no trouble keeping.
  In the middle of paradise with two of my favorite people and my dog, what could possibly go wrong?

That was when I heard a woman’s voice calling from outside the room, “Miles!  Darling, are you there?  It’s me!”

~*~

THREE

M
iles drew away from me slowly, a look of rather abashed resignation on his face.  I simply stared at him, frozen in place.  The voice came again, closer now.

“Miles?”

That voice definitely did not belong to Melanie.  

“Come on,” he said, taking my hand.  “There’s someone I want you to meet.” And, raising his voice, he called out, “We’re here, Mom!”

I was so shocked I actually stumbled as he pulled me forward.

I had never  met Miles’s mother, although I had talked to her briefly on the phone once or twice when she was babysitting Melanie.  Perhaps because Melanie called her “Grandma”, perhaps because I knew she had to be in her late sixties, I had always pictured a plump, pleasant
, gray-haired woman in an apron. The woman who came into the room from the balcony could not have been further from what I imagined.  She was slim and fit looking, with  shoulder-length platinum hair, gorgeous cheekbones and sparkling green eyes.  She wore a long watercolor chiffon beach caftan over her swimsuit and gold sandals with kitten heels.  She came toward us with hands extended, a smile lighting up her whole face.

“Darling, you look wonderful!  It’s so good to see you!”

Miles caught her up in an embrace, lifting her off her feet, and she laughed and pounded his back.  When he set her on her feet again, she turned to me, still beaming.

“And you’re Raine,” she said,
and grasped both my hands warmly.  “It’s so good to finally meet you!  I’ve already met your canine friend, and he’s every bit as charming as Melanie described.  He shook my hand with his paw!”

“I, um, it’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Young,” I managed.

“Rita,” she insisted, and gave my hands a final squeeze before releasing them and turning back to Miles.  “I set up drinks by the pool.  Melanie has gone to change into her suit, she says you promised she could take the dog to the beach.  Come down when you’re ready,” she added with an airy wave over her shoulder as she left the room.  “So glad you’re here, Raine!”

I hardly knew what to say, or to think.  What kind of man brings his mother on vacation with his girlfriend?  The same kind who brings his daughter, I supposed.  But were we really at the stage where we spent family holidays together?  What was it supposed to mean, that he would even take me to meet his mother, much less take me twelve hundred miles from home to spend a week with her?  And why hadn’t he told me?  What kind of man
does
that?

Finally I managed, “Your mother is, um, nice.”

“I thought you’d like her,” he agreed easily. “She came in yesterday to open up the house.  By the way, all the bedrooms share the balcony.”

I tried very hard not to glare at him.  Apparently I wasn’t particularly successful, because he raised an admonishing finger and said, “Don’t start.”

My smile was stiff. “Start what?”

“Start with what does it mean when
a guy invites his girl on vacation with his mother, are we ready for this, am I rushing things, blah blah.  My mother is here because I like having her around and I thought it would be good to have someone to look after Melanie if you and I wanted some private time. End of story.”

“I’m glad you invited her,” I said, as genuinely as I possibly could.  “But why didn’t you tell me?”

“That one’s easy.”  He kissed me lightly.  “You never would have come if I had.”  He gave me a light pat on the bottom and added as he left, “Get changed.  I’ll see you downstairs.”

I watched him go with a small incredulous shake of my head, then went to find my swimsuit.  Even in paradise nothing was perfect, I supposed. 

~*~

My green maillot swimsuit had last been worn
white-water rafting down the Nantahala River, and was looking a little frayed around the seat.  The only other swimsuit I owned was a cute little patchwork plaid bikini that I had bought a couple of years ago when I’d thought I might be able to get in some pool time while attending an Association of Pet Dog Trainers conference in Orlando.  There was no way I was wearing that to have drinks with Miles’s mother, so  I put on the one piece and the only cover-up I had brought—a big white shirt that did what it was supposed to do but wasn’t nearly as glamorous as the one Miles’s mother had worn.  I almost reconsidered a trip to one of those fancy shops downtown, but only for a moment.  I packed my beach bag with bottled water and Cisco’s folding travel bowl, pick-up bags, a dog towel and a people towel; sunscreen, a tennis ball, a floating flying disc, bug spray, dog treats, my phone, my camera, and a lightweight sand mat for Cisco to lie on.  I grabbed my hat and sunglasses, hoisted the beach bag over my shoulder, and I was ready to go.  

I had apparently dallied over my appearance longer than I had intended, because when I arrived poolside Miles and his mother had already settled into lounge chairs with drinks in their hands and Melanie was
bouncing impatiently on the edge of her seat, Cisco’s leash in her hand.  Cisco, his fur still damp and rumpled, sat alertly in front of her with an expression of expectant anticipation in his eyes.

“There you are!” Melanie exclaimed, jumping up.  “We’ve been
dying
!”

Cisco rushed over to greet me, and I knelt to give him a kiss, grateful for the distraction.  “Sorry to keep you waiting, buddy,” I said to him.  I winked at Melanie. “You, too.”

Miles said, “Lemonade or wine, Raine?  We have some cheese and fruit too.”

I stood up.  “Nothing for me, thanks.”

I was happy to see that Miles was not one of those middle-aged men who liked to show off his hard-won physique in a Speedo.  Not that he wouldn’t have looked great in one, but he looked even better in swim trunks and an open Hawaiian shirt.  In fact, he looked so great that I really would have liked to see him without the shirt, tossing a flying disc for Cisco on the beach.  But now I had a dilemma.  Miles and his mother seemed to be settled in with drinks and snacks, and the polite thing to do of course would be to join them.  But what I really wanted to do was go to the beach with Melanie and Cisco.     

“We were just talking about what to do for dinner
,” Miles said.

I laughed a little.  “We just had lunch!”

“I say we should stay in and let the service bring dinner,” his mother said. “They make a wonderful poached fish… what’s it called?”

“It’s
our first night here,” Miles objected.  “I want to take my girls out on the town.  What are you in the mood for, Raine?”

“Really,” I said, “I’m fine with whatever you decide.”

“Daaaad,” Melanie said, drawing out the word to emphasize her frustration.  “Some of us have to go to bed at nine, you know.  Any chance of getting in some beach time before bedtime?”

I couldn’t help grinning, and Miles lifted his sunglasses to give his daughter a level look.
“Would you like to try for eight?” he said, but I noticed his lips were twitching too.

Cisco picked up the leash that Melanie had dropped and made a soft whining sound in his throat. 
Both Miles and his mother laughed at that, and Miles swung his feet to the ground.  “Okay, let’s hit the beach.  Did you put on plenty of sunscreen?”

Melanie assured him that she had, and then asked, “What about Cisco?  Do dogs need sunscreen?”

I clipped on Cisco’s leash and said, “Actually they do, especially if they have white coats or if their fur is really short.  That’s why it’s sometimes a bad idea to shave your dog in the summer.  They make a special spray for dogs.  I’ll put some on Cisco when we get down there.”

Miles picked up my beach bag and lifted his eyebrows.  “How long are you planning to be gone?  Your luggage didn’t weigh this much.”

“Dogs need a lot of stuff,” I replied defensively.

“Grandma, are you coming?” Melanie called.

“Right behind you, sweetheart.  Miles, you forgot your phone.”

Miles had one of those super-duper smart
-phones with satellite technology—some of which I was pretty sure wasn’t even on the market yet—that worked anywhere in the world.  He had given Melanie and me one just like it and had probably given one to his mother too.  There once was a time when I might have chided him for taking a phone like that on vacation.  After all, did he
really
  need to be able to reach Hong Kong from St. Bart’s?  But I knew better now.  And I had my phone in my beach bag.

“Thanks.”  He took it from her and dropped it into
his shirt pocket.  “I’ll make dinner reservations when we get down there.” 

There was a walk-through gate opposite the pool where a set of
stone steps wound down the hillside fifty feet or so to the white sand below.  It would be no easy climb under the best of circumstances and for safety’s sake I decided it would be best if I handled Cisco’s leash, at least on his first trip down.  There was an electronic keypad set into the stone pillar at the side of the gate, and I watched Miles punch in a code.

“It’s always the day’s
six-digit date,” he explained to me. “Month, day and year followed by a code word.  This week the code word is—”

“Cisco!” 
cried Melanie proudly.

He grinned.  “We wanted it to be easy for you to remember,” he told me.  “If you get stranded on the beach
, there’s no other way in.  And remember the code resets at midnight.”

It seemed like an awful lot of security for paradise, but I supposed that was the way rich people lived.  I said, “They do the same thing at the nursing home.  The day of the week part, not the Cisco part.  Seems to me like the hardest thing in a place like this would be remembering what day it is
.”

Miles’s mother laughed.
“You’re right about that.  That’s why I find it easier never to leave the property.”

The gate swung open and Melanie skipped through, scrambling down the steps without so much as a backward wave to us.
Both Miles and his mother called after her, “Be careful!” and I was glad I hadn’t succumbed to the same impulse. Cisco started to lunge after her, but I quickly brought him into a close heel as we started down the steps. Miles and his mother followed behind me, and the gate swung closed automatically.

“
I didn’t want to bring it up in front of Melanie,” Miles’s mother said,  “but did you hear the awful news about Rachelle Denison?”

“The driver told us,” Miles said.  “He said the police had closed down the dive site.”

“I should imagine so. They’re still trying to recover the body from what I understand.”

Cisco’s eagerness had taken me two steps below them, but now I brought him to a halt and looked back.  Mile
s’s expression was as confused as mine, but I was still a little shy around his mother so I was glad that he asked the question.  “What do you mean? I thought she was diving with her husband.  How can they not have a body?”

“Oh, darling, I don’t know.”  She took his arm for support and
caught up the billowing skirt of her caftan in the other hand.  “The whole thing is just so awful.  Apparently there was some kind of equipment failure underwater, and he tried to help her get to the surface by sharing his oxygen, but something went wrong and he had to surface without her.  Of course he kept diving and searching, but never found her.  The poor man.  They think she was caught in a current near one of the caves, although it seems to me so much time has passed that they’re not likely to find anything now.”

Miles sighed.  “Let’s try not to discuss this in front of Mel, okay?  I don’t want her to be afraid of the water.  But I am glad she put off starting scuba lessons,” he added.

“Good heavens.”  Her expression was not easy to read behind the oversized dark glasses, but the horror in her voice was unmistakable.  “Scuba lessons?  Out of the question!  I wouldn’t sleep a wink.  For the rest of my life,” she added pointedly, and Miles tightened one corner of his lips.  Apparently they had had this argument before.