SBC Fighter: Tails Of Love Part 4

Erin laughed. "He's too adorable." Holding the sheet in place, she sat up to pet the dog, and her smile faded.

Gary stood there watching her, basking in his newfound good fortune. She'd agreed to marry him. She'd said she loved him.

Life couldn't get any better than this.

"Poor little thing is exhausted, but I think he's scared and afraid of being left alone again. After al he's been through, it's no wonder he started crying." Erin peeked up at him.

"Do you think it'd be okay if we just let him stay in here with us?"

With us. d.a.m.n that sounded good.

"Are you kidding?" Smiling, Gary got into bed beside her.

"Cupid brought you back to me." He lay down and pul ed her into his arms, and they both heard the little dog sigh in his sleep. "As far as I'm concerned, he can sleep anywhere he wants to."

A KNOTTY TAIL.

Stel a Cameron For Mango, Millie, Jordan, s.h.i.+loh and Little Star And with special thanks to Clawdia for her collaboration!

"Listen up, d.i.c.kens," Madeleine said. "Looks like we're on our last chance. Blow this and we could be history."

d.i.c.kens lay on his back timing his next snap at a circling fly.

"Close your mouth," Madeleine told him, exasperated.

"Flies are bad for you."

"Why?"

"Germs. Didn't mother teach you anything?"

"I never met mother," d.i.c.kens said.

"Oh, my." Madeleine sat with a thump on a wad of tartan fleece and scratched her ears, one at a time. "Of course you met her."

"How's that?"

"You were born, d.i.c.kens. That's when you met mother.

So did I."

"Only in pa.s.sing," d.i.c.kens said. He snapped at the fly again. "I don't remember a thing about her."

"Don't feel bad," Madeleine said. "She probably doesn't remember us either."

She looked d.i.c.kens over. Like her, he was in good shape for a five-year-old dog, but that was probably because of the Jack Russel bits of them. They did a lot of jumping around to stay fit.

When she and d.i.c.kens got adopted this time, Madeleine had heard the man at the adoption place say, "These terrier mixes are hardy. And they're loyal, too. Never any trouble.

They don't bark or bite or get fleas . . ." Wel , maybe he hadn't said the part about the fleas, but he had gone on and on about how perfect they were. Madeleine and d.i.c.kens were afraid the woman deciding if she could take a brother and sister go together would figure there must be something really wrong with them and look at another dog.

But the woman visited with them in the petting area and said, "Yes."

Madeleine stil trembled just thinking about how relieved she had felt.

"You think she's gonna keep us?" d.i.c.kens said.

Madeleine sighed. He talked a good story, but inside he was as scared as she was that this second adoption wouldn't work out, just like the first one. Where they'd been before their people moved and had decided, "It's too expensive to s.h.i.+p a couple of mutts." Madeleine had heard that. She was always hearing stuff because, unlike d.i.c.kens, she listened and faced up to things.

"Do you?" d.i.c.kens pressed, sounding worried now.

"She'l keep us if we're what she wants," Madeleine told him. "We gotta be good. We only gotta bark at strangers and then we gotta look terrifying if she needs us to. No whining, begging, scratching, chewing, or peeing and p.o.o.ping where we're not supposed to pee and p.o.o.p. Got that?"

"Sheesh," d.i.c.kens said. "Life's hardly worth living."

"d.i.c.kens."

"Yeah, yeah, keep your hair on. We've been here a week and I haven't messed up yet, have I?"

"Nope."

"Do you think we'l get to go in the house in winter?"

d.i.c.kens asked.

Their new person, name of Rose Gibb, kept them in a big run at the side of her house. It got pretty warm since it was summer and even though the lot was on a hil , this part of Georgia was having a long, humid spel . Fortunately Rose had made sure there was a roof over part of the pen so it was easy to get out of the sun.

"If you don't forget to go where you're supposed to,"

Madeleine said, looking at a corner of the pen where Rose Gibb scattered fresh shavings each night. "She's got to trust us not to do what she doesn't want us to do where we're not supposed to do it. Then I think she might let us in."

d.i.c.kens settled his mouth together in a wavy line al the way around. It was his grumpy look.

"What?" Madeleine said.

"I want her to like us. That's dumb, but I do. She looks like she does sometimes but . . . it would be okay if she scratched my head."

Madeleine blinked. "Me, too." Bright sun could make her eyes sting. She perked up her ears. "Hush. Someone's coming."

Those two canines didn't know it yet, but they were going to help Clawdia accomplish something important. She stood behind a big clump of orange flowers, put al four of her feet together and sat down.

With her beautiful, sleek tail curled around just so, she knew what a stunning picture of feline perfection she made.

From there she could see the ugly dogs through the flower stems. Dogs were not known for intel igence, so they wouldn't notice her if she didn't want them to.

At first she had been furious about the arrival of the two white, black, brown, whiskery, and who-knew-what-else creatures. This was her hil . Hers and Simon's. Simon was her person and it was one thing to have Rose Gibb living up here-after al , she had been there first-but dogs?

Clawdia's skin quivered over her wel -toned muscles.

Never mind, she was a pragmatist. Opportunity took many forms, even the form of dogs and she would use them.

She and Simon lived in a large, luxurious house trailer in the middle of a fine stand of trees across from Rose's little house. Simon ought to be blissful and completely satisfied up here drawing his cartoons and looking after Clawdia, but humans could be contrary. Simon was pining. Imagine it.

Pining after Rose Gibb.

Fiddlededee, she would have to suck it up and approach the beastly dogs.

Slowly, with exquisite grace, Clawdia stepped her way across gra.s.s that needed a good mowing. She undulated her spectacularly supple spine back and forth so that her rear and her head took a look at each other with every pace. And her tail stood tal like a s.h.i.+p's mast, the very end tipping forward . . . like a tiny, fluffy flag.

The question was, could she dumb herself down enough to be understood by these lowlife creatures?

Look at that. They're staring, the rude things. "Good afternoon," she said. She would not turn her face away, she would not, would not. She needed their help.

Al they did was wiggle their stubby whiskers and sniff.

"I said, good afternoon. You're looking, mmm, somewhat better today."

"What d'you want?" the bigger one said, although neither of them were an impressive size. "You didn't have anything to say yesterday, or the day before, or on any day that I remember."

She stretched. "One must have standards. Talking to you at once would have been forward."

"I'm d.i.c.kens. This is my sister, Madeleine. What d'you want?"

Typical lack of grace. "My name is Clawdia. I live over there." She indicated the lot on the other side of Rose Gibb's fence. "I'm with Simon Falzone, a superior sort of person."

"Good for you," the other one, Madeleine, said. "We're with Rose Gibb and we think she's nice."

"You haven't been here long enough to know," Clawdia said. "But, as a matter of fact, I think she's nice, too, and so does Simon. Unfortunately, she's a bit graceless and shy, and he, being a male, is natural y obtuse."

"Ob-"

"Obtuse," Clawdia repeated, curling her lip. "I expect you'd understand better if I said he's thick sometimes.

She's shy and b.u.mbles about, so he thinks she doesn't like him. But of course she does. What woman wouldn't?"

"We haven't met him," Madeleine said. "So we don't know about that, do we?"

Clawdia sashayed closer, raised her nose and did her best to look down on d.i.c.kens and Madeleine. "Do you think you'l be staying long?" She had almost said "long enough for my purposes," but thought better of it.

The smal er dog, who had rather nice dark eyes if one made oneself look, said, "This is our home now," sounding, Clawdia thought, a bit defensive for some reason.

"It's my opinion, and I'm never wrong, that Simon and Rose want to be friends." She flipped her tail. "You're going to help me arrange for that to happen."

The bigger dog muttered what sounded like, "Uppity al ey cat," but Clawdia must have misheard.

"How would we do that?" Madeleine asked.

"Don't bother your heads with al the details. I'l let you know when you're needed."

She could have sworn d.i.c.kens said, "Tabby menace,"

under his breath. She stared at him real y hard and curled her lips when he looked away.

"I hear Rose's car," Clawdia said, twitching her ears back. "Do as I tel you. I'm going to sacrifice myself and you wil , too. We're going to pretend we like each other."

Rose drove from the dead-end lane into her driveway and parked.

Today she didn't feel as nervous about coming home to the dogs she had impulsively adopted. A doctor at the hospital where she worked as a pediatric nurse had suggested that since she lived up here on her own she ought to get a guard dog. She hadn't liked to suggest that she wasn't real y alone since Simon Falzone was across the lane.

The moment she opened her door, heat hit her face. She gathered her purse and a bag of groceries from the back seat and took them inside.

d.i.c.kens and Madeleine were the first pets she had ever had. She shouldn't have al owed herself to be talked into taking two dogs, but once she saw the way they sat there, side-by-side, looking at her with such hope, she hadn't had the heart to walk away from them.

If she could look after sick children, she could certainly take care of two little dogs who needed her. Be honest, Rose, you need them, too.

She needed something or someone. Self-sufficient she might be, but she could get lonely.

Come on, buck up, girl. Get on with it.

Nothing she had bought needed to be put away at once.

She must keep on track and do exactly what she had promised herself. Exercise was what she needed, and so did the dogs.

When she had changed from her uniform into a new black cotton jogging suit and sneakers, she went through the kitchen door to the side of the house. Her responsibility for making sure d.i.c.kens and Madeleine got long walks would help change her own life. She couldn't turn herself into a raving beauty, but she could work on the "pleasantly plump" bit.

Her neighbor, Simon Falzone, popped into her mind as he did far too often. With her arms crossed, she stared across to where his trailer, if you could cal something that big a trailer, was parked. He would be over there drawing, and brooding. Simon brooded a lot. She sighed. Brooding suited him, added to his mystery, and she was certain he was hiding a sense of humor and a heart of gold.

Tal , slim in a muscular way and with the bluest eyes she'd ever seen, she did wonder why he didn't have a wife, or at least a woman in his life. Oh, he probably did. The idea that he didn't was wishful thinking on her part.

Fanciful thing that she was!

Rose snapped to and clapped her hands when she approached the dog run. "Hel o, there," she said, opening the heavy wire door. The run had already been there when she moved in two years earlier. "Walkies time. We're going for real walkies today, not just down the lane and back. I'm dressed for the part now."

The dogs got up. They looked at each other, then back at her before wagging their tails, which Rose found odd.

"Do you like my new suit and shoes?" She pirouetted for them, then held up one foot at a time. "Snazzy, huh?"

Furtively, she checked around to make sure she was completely alone before she laughed at her own expense.

When she led the dogs from the pen, Simon Falzone's big tabby cat walked straight up to her. Rose stood stil , amazed. Clawdia-Rose had heard Simon cal her that- was one of those aloof cats that ignored you, but here she was actual y rubbing herself around Rose's legs.

The cat moved on and went right up to d.i.c.kens and Madeleine.

Rose clutched the dogs' leashes tight and felt shaky.

How horrible it would be if they got into a fight. Simon would be furious if his cat was hurt.

"Clawdia," she said. "Kitty, kitty, good kitty. d.i.c.kens and Madeleine, don't you be mean to Clawdia. She's our neighbor."