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Southern Discomfort

Page 21

by Margaret Maron


  * * *

  The following Saturday, I was still at the breakfast table when Dwight came by to pick me up. K.C. Massengill was having an end-of-the-summer weekend party at her lake cottage, and he'd been invited, too.

  The puppy met him at the back door, yipping importantly like a real watchdog, but then spoiling it by wagging his little tail like a crazed metronome.

  Dwight accepted Aunt Zell's invitation and sat down across from me with a hot corn muffin and a cold glass of milk.

  "What'd you end up naming him?" he asked her.

  "I just can't decide," Aunt Zell sighed. "I thought sure I'd find a name in Paris, but he's too American to be a Jacques or a Pierre, isn't he? I think I've narrowed it down, though. Copperfield, because he was orphaned, too. Or Mowgli. Which do you think, Dwight?"

  "What about Q?"

  "Short for Barbecue," he said innocently.

  I about strangled on my coffee.

  Aunt Zell looked at me anxiously. "You all right, Deborah?"

  "Or Pork Chop's a nice na— Ow!"

  Dwight suddenly reached down and rubbed his shin.

  My sandals weren't designed for effective kicking, but it's like building a house: one does what one can with the tools at hand.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

 

 

 


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