The look of defeat weighed down the man’s features. “I don’t know—”
“Come on, he’s sticking his tongue out all the time,” Wyatt said, pointing to the aforementioned lolling appendage. “You don’t think a jovial guy like that can laugh at himself?”
The corner of the man’s mouth twitched upward. “He is pretty lighthearted.”
“Yes, yes. See? He’s fine. He’s good. He likes the attention.” Wyatt breathed a sigh of relief. People may laugh at little Wooda, but what they didn’t know was that Wooda was laughing right along with them. And if they happened to be laughing at the guy standing next to Wooda, well, at least the bodybuilder would be none the wiser.
“Wooda, Wooda, Wooda,” the man said, burying his face in the dog’s fur, “I wuv, wuv, wuv you.”
Okay, even the little old man next to them with a Chinchilla on his head was snickering at the sight. This table may require a slightly more aggressive intervention.
“But ya know,” Wyatt added, feeling genius about to descend upon him, “Wooda’s looking for a little change.” Off the man’s frown, Wyatt rushed on. “Not much. Just a little.”
“What do you mean?” the bodybuilder asked as he squinted.
This next part was going to take a leap of faith.
“I’m sensing from Wooda that he’d like a little haircut.”
The frown was back as the bodybuilder stroked Wooda’s long and completely tangle-free coat. “But he loves it when I brush him.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Wyatt barreled on, riffing all the way. “He’s just thinking of maybe going short for the summer. A buzz cut, so those girl dogs can see his muscles.”
“Then the collar will be too big.”
Ding, ding, ding. Could they really get rid of the rhinestones? Could Wyatt really have had that brilliant an inspiration?
“Exactly!” Wyatt said, putting a finger on his nose. “Exactly, yes. Let’s get him a new collar.”
“Well,” the bodybuilder said, “we were thinking of a blue leopard print.”
Yikes. Thank goodness this guy came to the event.
“Really, that’s funny, because I was getting a black one,” Wyatt said. “A basic black vibe from Wooda.”
The recurring frown made another appearance.
“Wait, wait,” Wyatt said, closing his eyes and putting his fingertips to his temples. “A black collar, but with a logo, perhaps? Maybe Orange County Choppers?” Wyatt peeked his eye open. Still, that frown. “The WWF?”
“WWF?” the guy nearly shouted as he pulled the Shih Tzu into an embrace that looked more like a headlock than a hug. “Wooda knows how much I love the WWF!”
The buzzer sounded as the man cooed, “Wooda, Wooda, Wooda.”
As he rose, Wyatt suggested, “And maybe let’s give him a nickname.”
How quickly that frown could come back. Didn’t the guy know that was how wrinkles were created? “Nickname?” the man repeated. “But Wooda loves his name.”
Wyatt once again put his fingertips to his temples. “Am I sensing Sultan of Sexy?” But the frown didn’t leave. “The Rock. How about The Rock?”
“He’s only my idol,” the man gushed.
Wyatt felt pretty damned proud of himself. “It is settled, then. The Rock, with a WWF collar and haircut! I think it’s going to transform both of you!”
* * *
Jazmine had never been gladder for three minutes to pass in her entire life. And that included some rather awkward breakups and finding her college boyfriend doing some “extracurricular” activities with her best friend. Yes, that is exactly how much of a jerk this pet psychic had been.
Martin rose from his chair, smoothing his tie, but he did not move on. Instead, he scanned the crowd. “You know, looking around the room, there’s not much better, so if you want, we could—”
“No,” she said cutting him off.
“I’m not talking tonight.” He said with a roll of his eyes. “I’m booked this week. I was suggesting—”
“Dear God, no.” Jazmine interrupted, pulling Andrea close to her.
“It’s not like I was going to take you to dinner or anything first,” Martin said, shaking his head like Jazmine was the one way off base. “We don’t even have to have the lights on—”
Jazmine hopped to her feet. “For the love of all that’s holy, no.”
She wasn’t sure if she had ever emphasized a word quite so emphatically before. But Martin just shrugged a casual shrug, as if she was the one losing out as he headed to his next victim.
Taking in a deep breath, Jazmine tried to compose herself, but got bumped from behind. Her leg knocked into the table, knocking over the small flower vase. Jazmine snatched it up before the water poured out.
Annoyed, she turned to the find out who could be so clumsy.
“Oh. Hey.” It was the guy from before, the one with permanent bedhead.
“Look Andrea,” Jazmine said to the little girl. But before she could even explain who the guy was, Andrea leapt from the chair and grabbed him by the leg, giving him a huge hug.
“It’s Wyatt, by the way,” he said as he tried to extract himself from Andrea’s clasped hands. “How’s … uhnng … it going?”
“Well,” Jazmine said, trying to find the humor in it all. She ticked off each one with her fingers. “We found out that Andrea’s aura is black.” Another finger down. “She needs more fiber in her diet.” And a third. “And, shockingly, at a pet-whispering event, we learned that dogs don’t have souls, so Andrea should just move on and get a new puppy.”
Wyatt had the decency to grimace. “Wow. That doesn’t …” He finally managed to free up his captive leg. “It doesn’t sound copacetic.”
“Or even civil,” Jazmine noted.
She would like to be upset with him, too, but with the way Andrea gazed up at Wyatt? Like he was their Lone Ranger? Jazmine had to take another stab at it.
“Look, Wyatt,” she asked softly. “Could you please just—”
He actually looked like he might give it a try, but the organizer flew in on a whirlwind of authority. Her features seemed etched in static electricity. Lord knew her tone crackled.
“Mr. Stampley, there you are! Should we get you a watch, so that you might understand the term ‘clockwise’?”
Slightly chagrined, Wyatt responded, “Yeah, sorry. I’m all about the digital.”
“Come along, come along,” the organizer said to Wyatt, and then turned to Jazmine. “And you two, have a seat. Your communicator is waiting …”
Jazmine turned to find a rather frightening woman sitting across from them. Her hair was tied back in a severe bun, with sharp sticks radiating from her hair like spokes on a deadly wheel.
Jazmine glanced over her shoulder to give one final plea to Wyatt, but there was no sign of him. He must have “hi, ho, Silver and awayed.”
* * *
Wyatt arrived at his next table slightly winded and with a bruised wrist from where the organizer had dragged him across the room. As he looked at his next “client,” a slightly rumpled woman, one observation surfaced rather quickly. There was no pet. Just a rather musty smell.
“Great. Another looky-loo.”
Oh, how he wished it was a looky-loo, as a small brown furry creature leapt from the woman’s lap and scurried across the table. Wyatt hadn’t been around that many exotic creatures, but from the black nose, masked face, and long body, Wyatt found himself in the center of a ferret attack. Wyatt tried to throw himself backward as the click-click-click of its claws sounded right before the creature leapt … right into Wyatt’s pants.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Wyatt scrabbled frantically at the fast-moving critter as it darted back and forth within his pant leg. Dang Wyatt’s fashion sense. Baggy pants had no place in pet-communicating.
To her credit, the ferret lady jumped to his assistance. “ Scamper, no! Get out of that man’s pants!” Okay, maybe the assistance wasn’t all that helpful. Wyatt was trying to play this
whole ferret-in-the-pants thing a little low key. He’d already pissed off the organizer enough. He really did not want her over here, lifting that Julianna Margulies-sized eyebrow at him.
“Wow, he’s got sharp little nails,” Wyatt commented as the paw shifted to the left. “Oh, dear!”
The woman rushed over and tugged on the top button on his jeans. Okay, really not helpful.
“Okay. Please, don’t help. Don’t heeeelp. Oh my gosh, he’s very … Very agile.
Then, thankfully, the movement inside his pants calmed down. Just enough to maybe …
“I’m going to sit down.” Wyatt did. Hard.
He put a hand up to the woman, who still seemed oddly gung-ho about getting his pants unbuttoned.
“Okay, we are going to be calm,” Wyatt said, indicating that she should sit down again. On the other side of the table. “We are going to let him settle down. We are going to be fine.”
He wasn’t really sure who he was talking to, the woman or himself. He forced a calm smile on his face, which, given that he had a ferret down his pants, was slightly harder to do than usual.
“Now,” he said, trying to normalize the situation. “Why did you bring Scamper here today?”
“Well … you see,” The woman seemed slightly embarrassed. “Scamper is shy.”
“Wow, really? Because I’m not sensing that at all,” Wyatt said, getting the idea that, if anything, the ferret was downright adventuresome. The ferret took a sudden zag, nearly causing Wyatt to fall out of his chair. “He’s a scamp, all right.”
* * *
Martin stroked the quivering little Yorkshire Terrier’s head as the expensively coiffed, expensively dressed, and very attractive blonde held the dog up to her bosom.
You see, physical proximity was the key. It was also important that she think he liked her dog. It was not nearly so important that he actually did. Which was fortunate, really. Yorkshire Terriers were just so … sickeningly cute.
“His aura is very agitated,” Martin sympathized.
“My husband just doesn’t understand.”
“No, no, he doesn’t. How could he?” Martin soothed, all the while taking in the information. A beautiful woman, a little dog, and no husband in sight? Martin had a pretty good idea of the landscape.
“He’s a workaholic, your husband. Isn’t he?”
The woman gasped. “Yes, how did you know?”
Ah, my dearest paycheck, Martin thought, it’s written all over your perfectly smooth, Botoxed forehead.
“Why Little Leo told me, of course. Your husband’s away from home long, long nights, isn’t he?”
“Then, on the nights he’s home, he gets so angry when I let Little Leo sleep with me,” she said with a pout.
Martin gave a tiny wink to the dog, making sure the woman could see. “Oh, Little Leo, I wouldn’t mind at all.”
As the woman leaned in to him, Martin’s professional grin grew into a genuine smile. Who said you couldn’t mix business with pleasure?
* * *
Wyatt found it increasingly difficult to focus on what the ferret owner was saying. He was sure it was important, but he just really couldn’t devote much brainpower to his ears when his entire body was braced for Scamper’s next move. True, he and the ferret had found some sort of truce, with the devilish little beast roaming around in his pants. However, that uneasy cease-fire was … distracting.
The woman, on the other hand, was riveted. “Normally he’s so shy that he won’t even let me pet him.”
“Yes, his coat is surprisingly silky smooth against my—” Wyatt bit down as Scamper began scamping around again. “Oh, dear. And his tongue is warmer than I anticipated.” Definitely time to change the subject. Wyatt blurted out, “Let’s talk baseball.”
“Why would we—?”
“Any sport. Basketball. NASCAR. Anything. Just anything.”
“But I don’t know about—”
C’mon, lady, help me out here. “Girlie sports. Ice skating. How’s that Kristi Yamaguchi doing?”
Finally the buzzer sounded, offering Wyatt some hope that this diabolical ordeal would end. Carefully he shifted, preparing to stand, when he felt a sharp pain in a region where a man never wanted a sharp pain. Ever.
“Ow!”
Before he could catch the darn thing, Scamper wormed his way down Wyatt’s left pant leg, raced across the floor, climbed up the chair, and wrapped himself around his owner’s neck. A tiny drop of blood was on his muzzle. And if Wyatt wasn’t mistaken, Scamper also wore a very satisfied smirk.
“I don’t know what you did, but thank you, thank you, thank you,” she gushed.
As she smiled, her eyes lit up. The drab woman-impersonating-wallpaper had disappeared. This new person in front of Wyatt was actually kinda cute.
“Don’t mention it.”
“But—”
“No,” Wyatt said, standing up. “I mean it. We will never speak of this again.”
Wyatt turned and meant to stride off, except for, you know, that slight limp in his left leg.
* * *
There really should be some sort of standard for these events, Martin thought as he watched the lurching gait of that rumpled pet-communicator wannabe. The rookie unsuccessfully tried to get his pants straightened. Martin might not like the earnest Bodhi Stampley, but really, this was too much.
“To think that this is what the Stampley name has come to,” Martin commented, extremely wryly.
“Huh?”
“Next time,” Martin instructed with as much haughtiness in his voice as possible. “Wear a belt.”
At least the whelp had the decency to blush. “They really should put that on the flyer.” He gingerly began moving to his next appointment. “And a cup. They might mention wearing a cup.”
Again. Standards.
“Your uncle would be so proud,” Martin said before moving on to his next paycheck. Oh, wait. He meant client.
* * * * *
CHAPTER 3
Something had changed.
His pack-leader-who-walked-on-two-paws’ breath had the bad smell. Diablo whined loudly. His friend stirred, but didn’t wake. Diablo knew that he wasn’t supposed to, but this seemed like a good time to make an exception, so he began licking up the two yummy holes above his master’s mouth.
Bodhi groaned. “It’s okay, little one. Just a migraine. Nothing to worry—”
As Bodhi rose, his balance shifted. Instead of coming up to his back paws, he collapsed into a sad heap at the side of the bed, his front paws awkwardly splayed beneath him. He wasn’t moving.
Diablo began barking. He first barked to get his master to wake up. Then he barked to get someone, anyone, to help. Even that two-pawed one who smelled like strawberries and kiwis. He barked and barked, but when he stopped, there was nothing but silence. No answering barks. No gentle, soothing voice telling him that he was a good boy and everything would be okay.
He frantically ran back and forth in front of his friend, occasionally stopping to lick his face. There was no response.
After several rounds of licking, Diablo remembered the box. The box for when bad things happen. The dark box with the blinking light.
Diablo clambered back up onto the bed and from there leapt to the nightstand. There was the box. The box with the flashing light. He nosed the light over and over.
“What is the nature of your emergency?”
The voice squawking from the box almost toppled Diablo backward off the nightstand. He paused, then faced the box, and barked three times.
“We’ll send someone immediately.”
That was the voice. Everything would be okay. Diablo climbed down from the bed and curled up next to his big friend to wait. Everything would be okay.
* * *
Wyatt took his place opposite the thin woman with the slightly oversized nose as the parrot clutching her right shoulder screeched, “Men suck!”
“Well, that’s what I call a great first impression,” Wyatt r
esponded as he settled into the chair, careful not to put too much pressure on his left leg. He wondered vaguely if ferrets could carry anything contagious. They wouldn’t let a plague-carrying weasel in, would they?
“Couch potato!”
The young woman squirmed in her seat. “I am so sorry.” She turned to her bird.
“Polly, stop yelling, and be nice.”
“Stop playing video games!” Polly squawked.
Maybe if the setting were different, as in her parrot not harassing him, Wyatt might have found the brunette attractive. But with those pinched lips, haunted eyes, and the harpy on her shoulder? No amount of eye shadow could get him interested.
“Loser,” the bird squawked.
“Please, please, please, can you tell me why she’s doing that?”
“Mooch,” the parrot broadcast. “Get out! Get out!”
All right, now the parrot was getting a little too close to home. Wyatt didn’t come to this event to experience a bizarre case of déjà vu.
The woman looked so earnest, though. “Why in the world would she say those things?”
“Um,” Wyatt stalled. She couldn’t be that oblivious, could she? “Parrots. They mimic what they hear, right?”
“Yes,” the blonde said, but clearly she was just as confused as before. “And your point would be?”
“Cheater!” the parrot offered as counterpoint.
Wyatt wasn’t usually the “pull the bandage off” kind of guy. Well, obviously. He was more the “take a nice long bath and let the bandage soak off” kind of guy. But he only had three minutes, and this chick didn’t seem like she was going to figure it out on her own.
“Let me take a wild stab in the dark,” Wyatt said as he leaned back in his chair, “and guess that you recently kicked your unfaithful and equally unemployed boyfriend out of the house.”
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