Rachel Alexander 05 - The Wrong Dog Read Online Free PDF Page B

under Blanche’s right eye. They both had smudges of black under their noses, too, square mustaches that made them seem even more comical than they already did, looking at me with their small, pig eyes, both their heads cocked toward their left. Except for girth, which reflected their age difference, they surely seemed to be identical.
    Not knowing what to think, I glanced over at Dashiell, who was grinning, as if he knew a secret. Then I looked back at the two bullies, sitting hip to hip, waiting for Sophie to get her coat on.
    Well, isn’t that what took the seven and a half months, I thought, finding a puppy with just the perfect markings?
    I looked at Blanche, then at Bianca. Then back and forth again.
    “Let’s go get some food,” I said. “I’m starving.”
    Sophie just stared at me, puzzled.
    “I get five hundred and fifty a day plus expenses, with a week’s fee in advance,” I told her. “I know it’s steep, but I’m worth it. Besides, it includes Dashiell’s services.”
    I bent down to pet the dogs and take a closer look while
    she thought it over.
    She said, “That’s okay. I figured it would be around
    that. I’ve been saving up.”
    For the first time, there were no questions about Dash’s
    fee. If anyone knew how valuable a partner a dog could be, it was Sophie Gordon, my new client.

Chapter 3
    Would You Do It? Chip Asked

    I didn’t get home from dinner with Sophie until eight-thirty and Chip was due back from teaching at the New York State Veterinary Convention within the hour. After feeding Dashiell, I ran upstairs to shower and change. As I passed my office, I saw the light on my answering machine blinking. As much as I would have liked to know who’d called—even if they hadn’t left a message, now that my brother-in-law had gotten me caller ID—I had something more important to do.
    I could hear the phone again from the shower, but my mind was on other things, and once again I ignored the impulse to put business ahead of pleasure. In fact, to help maintain my resolve, on my way past the office to get dressed, I turned the ringer off on the office phone, and later, between opening the bottle of red wine so that it could breathe and having Dashiell help me collect the clothes that had been tossed in various places around the house, I did the same thing on the downstairs phone.
    Dash, hearing the car as my sweetie circled the block, hoping by some miracle he’d find a legal spot, was at the door, head cocked, a full ten minutes before Chip arrived. The way he tore past Chip to join Betty, Chip’s Shepherd, you would have thought he hadn’t been to the dog run in weeks, that he hadn’t fallen madly in love with another bitch earlier that same day.
    Chip set down his bags and put his arms around me.
    “That’s better,” he said into my hair.
    “How’d it go?”
    “I had a good crowd, seventy or eighty. And I’ve been invited back for next year. They finally understand how much they need me.” He pulled back and looked at me. “Did you miss me so much you could hardly stand it?”
    I nodded.
    “That’s my good wench.”
    We never made it upstairs. We never even closed the door. At first, with the sounds of the dogs mock-fighting as mood music, we did okay. But when they decided to join us, hopping up on the couch and continuing to wrestle there, we began to laugh at all the wrong times.
    “Sex is no laughing matter,” Chip told them. But they just ignored him and went about their business. We had no choice but to do the same.
    “That wasn’t half bad,” he said afterward as we sat outside on the top step drinking wine.
    “Which half wasn’t bad, mine or yours?”
    He started to laugh all over again.
    “So what else have I missed by being away?”
    “I got some work.”
    I took a sip of wine before I began to fill him in on the
    details, watching his expression change, as mine must have hours earlier as I heard the story I was now telling him.
    “That was the big