Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
They tangled.
Hannibal settled in on the rug by his side.
Tonks jumped up and crashed on their feet.
Moxie joined her.
And two people in a defined situationship, which was not even loosely a situationship (and how they lay proved it), settled down for the night with their fur family, and they all fell asleep.
TWENTY-TWO
I’d Do Just About Anything
Mabel
“And then, I kid you not, Hutch said, ‘Enemy. Attack,’ he unclipped her leash, and that dog shot across his yard and grabbed that dummy’s leg in its jaws and shook for all she was worth. I was terrified at the same time fighting the urge to start cheering. It was insane,” I told Abigail the next Thursday.
I was in the shop.
Although we’d been teasing it for a few weeks, we were now going full-on Autumn and Halloween décor.
One of Gemma’s candle scents (called “Autumn Leaves,” and I had no idea how she got that smell in a jar, but she did) was lit in various places around the space, making it all smell amazing.
We were dotting some of the vintage or refurbished fall and Halloween décor I’d acquired in my meanderings around the shop, as well as restocking Gemma’s candles, which were, unsurprisingly, flying out the door. Melissa’s scarves, cardies and sweaters were going too (and I’d scored a hooded cardie in the lightest gray, softest wool ever).
Not to mention, all the chicks we talked to from the Misted Pines Art Center had come in to grab a vendor contract, signed on the dotted line, so we had quilts and baskets to display. And Hutch had come in on Tuesday to rig a couple surge protectors on the walls so we could display the glass nightlights.
And I was telling Abigail about going over to Hutch’s yesterday so I could help provide distraction during his training with one of his clients.
During that time, he’d demonstrated what Artemis could do in order to show me what he could teach Tonks because she had “heel” mostly down, so we were moving closer to protective training, and he wanted to know how far I wanted him to go.
“Then he just called, ‘release,’ and, Abigail, that pooch let go of that dummy,”—I snapped my fingers—“like that. She sat down and looked at Hutch, calm as you can be, except panting. I thought his client’s eyes were going to pop out of his head. I knew mine almost did.”
When I stopped talking, Abigail didn’t say anything, so I turned to her where she was arranging a garland that looked like a trail of spiders I found at a garage sale this summer. She was doing it so the spiders appeared as if they were trailing up to a big, opaque, black glass vase filled with little gourds.
She was also watching me with a funny look on her face.
That was, she was doing that until I caught her eyes.
And then she wiped her face clean and remarked, “I cannot imagine Tonks doing that.”
I looked at my dog, who was in her Groove dog bed (yep, went back to the feedstore), gnawing on a rawhide, then returned to Abigail.
“Me either.”
Before I could inquire after the expression she’d wiped from her face, she asked, “So what’s he going to teach Tonks to do?”
“He’s got a few more basic commands we’re going to start on that she doesn’t know but will need to know when we get into the big stuff. Like ‘come,’ ‘drop it,’ and ‘leave it.’ Then we’re gonna get into ‘wait,’ which apparently isn’t the same as ‘stay.’ After that, ‘defend,’ and obviously ‘release.’”
“So ‘defend’ is different than ‘attack?’”
“‘Attack’ is what Artemis did. It’s offensive. ‘Defend’ would only happen if I was being attacked.”
“Now I know why everyone talks about what a shit-hot trainer he is,” she muttered just as Tonks let out a half-hearted roo-roo (the rawhide was a thing) and the bell over the door rang.
We both turned that direction, and I saw who I thought was the woman Hutch had been talking to at the Art Center opening (they’d been a ways away, I only caught part of her profile, but this was confirmed by the stroller she was pushing). She was with another lady who had fantastic, thick, lush auburn hair.
“Gird your loins. Incoming,” Abigail said under her breath for some reason, since she’d not once said that when another customer came in.
As such, I felt my shoulders jerk back.
“Bree?” I whispered, because both those women were certainly beautiful.
I was suddenly wondering where the rubber bands were.
“No, but I think for you…worse.”
I was confused as I watched them smile at us in a friendly way with the redhead throwing a little wave at Abigail before they started perusing our wares.
“Hey, ladies. Can I help you look for something?” Abigail called.
They both quit peering at a three-foot-tall, retro, winking black cat in a bowtie painted on wood shaped as, yeah…a three-foot, retro winking, sitting cat, to us.