Open Season (27 page)

He was so intelligent she was amazed; in just that afternoon and night he had learned to go to the back door when he needed to go outside. Finally he seemed to be winding down, so Daisy introduced him to his dog bed, which she had placed in her bedroom so he wouldn’t be lonely and cry at night. She closed the bedroom
door to keep him corralled for the night, placed the stuffed duck in the bed with him, and wearily crawled into bed. She turned out the lamp, and exactly two seconds later he started whimpering.

Fifteen minutes later she gave up and lifted him into the bed with her. He was almost hysterical with joy, jumping and tugging at the covers and licking her in the face. She had just gotten him settled down when the phone rang. It was Jack. While he was talking, the puppy found her robe, which she’d tossed across the foot of the bed, and began tugging at the sleeve. She said, “Killer, no! Put that down! I have to go,” and hung up to lunge across the bed and grab him just before he tumbled backward to the floor.

Not five minutes later, the doorbell rang. Sighing in fatigue, she got out of bed, picked up the puppy, and carried him with her to the door. That seemed the safest thing to do. A quick peek revealed Jack standing impatiently on the porch. She turned on the light and with one hand unlocked the dead bolt and let him in.

He stepped inside and froze, staring at the puppy. “That’s a puppy,” he said in almost stunned astonishment, which was really observant of him considering she’d already told him she had a dog.

“No!” she said, pretending shock. “That lady lied to me.”

“That’s
a golden retriever
puppy.”

She cuddled the baby to her. “So?”

With measured movements, Jack closed the door, locked it, then rhythmically beat his head against the frame.

“What’s wrong with my puppy?” Daisy demanded.

In a strained voice he said, “The whole idea was to get a dog for
protection.”

“He’ll grow,” she said. “Look at the size of his feet. He’s going to be huge.”

“He’ll still be a golden retriever.”

“What’s wrong with that? I think he’s beautiful.”

“He is. He’s gorgeous. But goldens are so friendly they’re no protection at all. They think everyone is their friend, placed on earth just to pet them. He might bark to let you know when someone comes up, but that’s about it.”

“That’s okay. He’s perfect for me.” She kissed the top of the puppy’s head. He was squirming, trying to get down so he could investigate this new human.

Sighing, Jack reached out and took the little guy in his big hands. The puppy began licking madly at every inch of skin he could reach. “So his name’s Killer?”

“No, I’ve just been trying out names. Nothing seems to fit.”

“Not if they’re like
Killer,
they won’t. You name goldens something like
Lucky,
or
Fuzzbutt.”
He lifted the puppy until they were nose to nose. “How about
Midas? Or Riley? Or—
“

“Midas!” Daisy said, her eyes lighting as she stared from him to the puppy. “That’s perfect!” She threw her arms around him, stretching up on tiptoe in an effort to kiss him, but the newly named Midas got there first and licked her on the mouth. She sputtered and wiped her mouth. “Thanks, sweetie, but you aren’t half the kisser the guy is.”

“Thanks,” Jack said, holding Midas at a safe distance as he leaned down and their lips met. And clung. The kiss deepened. The melting started again.

“Do you mind if I spend the night?” he murmured, trailing his kisses down her throat.

“I’d love it,” she said, and was overtaken by a huge, jaw-breaking yawn.

Jack gave a crack of laughter. “Liar. You’re dead on your feet.”

Daisy blushed. “I had a very active day yesterday. And last night.” She glanced at Midas. “And tonight. I can’t turn my back on him for a minute.”

“How about if I stay and we do nothing but sleep?”

Blinking in astonishment, she said, “Why would you want to do that?”

“Just to make sure you’re all right.”

“I think you’re going overboard with this protection business.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Today the mayor got me to run a tag number; he said he’d seen the car parked in the fire lane at Dr. Bennett’s office. Guess whose tag it was?”

“Whose?”

“Yours.”

“Mine!” she said indignantly. “I’ve never parked in a fire lane in my life!”

He hid a grin as he set Midas down. “I didn’t think so. Do you have any idea why the mayor would want me to run your tag number?”

Slowly she shook her head.

“If he had seen your car, he’d have known it was you, so obviously someone else got him to do it. That has me a little worried. The good thing is, you’ve moved, so your address isn’t the same as what’s on your registration.”

She gasped. “My goodness, I totally forgot about that! I’ll go to the courthouse and change—”

“No, you will not,” he said sternly. “Not until I find out what’s going on.”

“Why don’t you just ask Temple?”

“Because I feel uneasy about the whole thing. Until I’m satisfied nothing suspicious is going on, I don’t want you to give out your new address to anyone. Tell your family to keep it quiet, too.”

“But if anyone wants to know where I live, all he has to do is follow me home from work—”

“After today, I’ll handle that. I’ll drive you home, and I guarantee no one will be able to tail us.”

She stared up at him, at the hard cast of his expression, and realized he was deadly serious. For the first time, a frisson of alarm skittered up her spine. Jack was worried, and that worried her.

Midas scampered into the kitchen, and she heard the splat as he landed in his water bowl. “Get the puppy and take him out in the backyard while I mop up the water,” she said, sighing. “Then we’ll go to bed.”

“With him?”

“He’s a baby. You don’t want him to cry all night, do you?”

“Better him than me,” Jack muttered, but he obediently took Midas outside and was back in five minutes with a sleepy puppy in his arms.

“I suppose he sleeps in the middle,” he said, grumbling.

Daisy sighed. “At this point, I’ll let him sleep wherever he wants. And we have to take him out every two hours.”

“Do what?” he said in disbelief.

“I told you, he’s a baby. Babies can’t hold it.”

“I can tell this is going to be a great night.”

I
f the blonde lived at the address Nolan had given him, Glenn Sykes had yet to see her today. Two older women had come and gone, but not the blonde. In that kind of residential neighborhood, it was difficult to keep watch without being spotted himself, because old folks sat out on their porches and watched everyone who went by.

He got a phone book and looked up
Minor.
There was only one listing, and that gave the same address the mayor had given him, so the blonde had to live there. Maybe she was off on a business trip or something. He was both worried and relieved: relieved because the woman evidently hadn’t been paying much attention to them, and worried because it was on the news that a man’s body had been found in the woods by a hunter—it was always those damned hunters—and if the news-
paper ran a picture of Mitchell, the lady just might remember that she’d seen him Saturday night.

The mayor seemed unusually shaken by the whole situation, which also worried Sykes. He thought everything could be managed if no one lost his cool, but the mayor’s hold seemed to be slipping a little. Because of that, he was reluctant to call Nolan and tell him the Minor woman hadn’t shown up. He didn’t want to send the mayor off the deep end, but neither did he want to just let the situation languish. He needed to find her and get things taken care of so that that loose end was tied off and the mayor would settle down. They had another shipment of girls coming in, Russians, and Sykes wanted everything handled before they arrived. They stood to make some big money off this batch; one was supposed to be only thirteen, and as pretty as a doll.

He drove by the Minor house several times after dark that night, when he wasn’t as likely to be noticed, but the beige Ford still hadn’t showed up. Finally it occurred to him to go to the Buffalo Club.
Duh!
He felt like smacking himself in the head. This Minor babe was into partying, not sitting at home nights with two old women. Feeling certain he’d find her there, Sykes made the drive to Madison County.

But when he scouted out the parking lot, the beige Ford wasn’t there. The traffic was lighter on Mondays than it was on the weekend, so he was certain he hadn’t missed it. Either she had already hooked up with some guy and gone home with him, or she had gone to some other club.

Okay, it was beginning to look as if the best way to find her was to stake out where she worked. That should be easy to find out, in a small town like Hillsboro. Hell, the mayor might even know her. Come to think of it,
he’d sounded unusually subdued when he’d called and given Sykes her name and address; maybe he
did
know her, and his conscience was acting up.

Sykes couldn’t find the woman now, but he was damn sure where she’d be tomorrow: at work. He figured he might as well go home and get a good night’s sleep, then call the mayor in the morning on the chance he knew the woman and knew where she worked—she was such a classy-looking babe, the mayor might even have the hots for her. Sykes hoped not. The mayor had become skittish enough already without Sykes’s having to eliminate one of his playmates.

But everything would work out tomorrow. Tuesday looked like a busy day.

Daisy and Jack took turns getting up every two hours and taking Midas out. Like a little trooper, he did exactly what he was supposed to every time. Unfortunately, every time they brought him back in, he thought it was playtime and it took another half hour or so before he cuddled up and went back to sleep.

“This is like having a newborn,” Jack said at seven o’clock, sitting at the table and sipping his second cup of coffee. His face was rough with stubble and his eyes had dark circles under them. Daisy lacked the stubble, but her eyes matched his.

She looked down at Midas, who was lying on his back with all four paws in the air, and the stuffed duck in his mouth. “Except you don’t have to chase down newborns,” she said. “They pretty much stay where you put them.”

“I’ll get him a ball. Chasing it should wear him out, so he’ll nap longer—and more often.”

Despite her fatigue, Daisy beamed at him. That
was so sweet, buying her puppy a toy. He’d been very good natured about the whole thing last night, but then he
had
volunteered to stay. She would have loved to have made love with him, but at the same time, sleeping together and not having sex had been . . . kind of wonderful. They had even managed to cuddle, though Midas had been right there, squeezing his fat little body between them as if that was his natural place.

“Since you got a welcome mat instead of a guard dog,” he said, with a pointed look at the puppy, “I want you to be especially careful until I satisfy myself there’s nothing to worry about with this tag-number deal. There are a few things I want to check out. Until then, I’ll drive you to and from work, and stay here at night.”

“Okay,” she said, a little astonished. It sounded as if he planned to move in, at least for the short term. What astonished her was how pleased she felt. She should be out trying to find a husband, but she didn’t feel as enthusiastic about it as she had just a few days before. Of course, a few days before, she hadn’t had a lover, and she hadn’t watched him cradle her puppy in his strong arms to carry it out for a nature call in the middle of the night. Just remembering that made her feel squishy, as if she had turned to mush inside.

Maybe Jack wasn’t her type, but somehow she didn’t much care.

“The city council meets tonight,” he continued, “so I’ll bring you home, then go to my house to shower and change clothes, and come back here when the meeting’s over.”

“Should I wait with supper?” she asked, just as if they did this all the time.

“No, go ahead and eat. If you have the chance.” He gave Midas a wry glance, then began chuckling. The
puppy had dozed off, still on his back with his feet in the air.

While she was thinking of it, she called her mother to see if she was still willing to puppy-sit.

“I’ll come over there,” Evelyn said. “As far as I’m concerned, that fenced back yard is priceless. I’ll be over about eight-thirty, so you’ll have plenty of time to get to work.”

That taken care of, Daisy hung up the phone and immediately began to worry about how she would explain to her mother why Jack was driving her to work. As for explaining his presence—she was, after all, a thirty-four-year-old woman—she didn’t owe explanations about her love life to anyone.

“You have to leave,” she said. “My mother’s coming over.”

He seemed to be fighting a grin. “If you feed me breakfast, I’ll be out of here by eight o’clock I’ll go home, shave and change clothes, and be back here in plenty of time to get you to the library.”

“It’s a deal,” she said promptly. “It doesn’t take long to whip up a bowl of cereal.”

“Biscuits,” he wheedled.

Exasperated, she turned on the oven.

“And eggs and bacon.”

What was a home-cooked meal, compared to the trouble he was going to on her behalf? He was just lucky she had stocked up on all the necessary things out of habit before she realized she wouldn’t be doing much cooking for herself. Cereal in the morning and a sandwich at night was much more practical when there was only one sitting down at the table.

She put the bacon in the flying pan, covered it with a screen so the grease wouldn’t splatter all over her new
stove, then got out the flour, oil, and milk and began mixing up the biscuit dough. Jack watched in amazement. “I thought you would use the canned kind.”

“I don’t have any.”

“You actually know how to make homemade biscuits?”

“Of course I do.” She stopped to take out her new biscuit pan and coat it with nonstick cooking spray. She didn’t roll out the dough, but did it the way her mother had taught her: she pinched off a certain amount of dough, rolled it into a ball, flattened the ball with a quick pat, and placed it in the pan.