Games of the Heart (Crimson Romance) (14 page)

“Janey.” The cowboy formerly known as Gramps, greeted me with a one-armed hug, “Good you’re here.”

“Care to tell me what’s happening?”

“Been a mix up of some sort, and Tuffy is the ringleader.”

“Pastor Angieski? I’m Captain Tom Morales, LVPD. Dogs aren’t my usual beat, but the mayor asked me to check on this.” Add thirty or more pounds to Antonio Banderas, and you’ll get the full, delicious picture. The captain filled out his tan uniform well — broad shoulders, great smile and best yet, no wedding ring.

I looked from his left hand back to his smile. “Does the dog really belong to her?” I asked, turning slightly before Cruella could throw more verbal daggers.

“Apparently.” He pulled some papers off the clipboard he held. “The lady is a prominent person in our city. And Mrs. Wainwright-Dobson breeds Welsh terriers.” He nodded in her direction. The woman was stinking mad. She was stomping a foot — a tiny one, but it was still a stomp — and yelling at a detective.

“When your grandfather and his granddaughter? Harmony? When they had the dog groomed, the owner of the shop remembered something about the missing dog and called the owner.”

Cruella squawked, “He is not just a dog, I’ll have you know. Why, he’s a Westminster champion and now … oh, my word. No.” The driver rushed to her side when she swayed toward the pavement. “He’s ruined. Look at the cut. From a pet shop. Why didn’t they call me before taking clippers to him? My personal groomer will never correct his coat in time for the next dog show. He’s ruined, I tell you, ruined. Wait.” This came out as a shriek. “His ear is torn, oh, I didn’t see that before.” She looked like she was going to faint, but I had a feeling she was made of much stronger stuff than facing a dog that had been homeless and apparently in a tussle or two when he was on the street. “He’s worthless. Throw him away.”

Harmony straightened her spine. “He was living on the street, near the shelter, for about a month before he would even come to me.” Her voice was tiny voice, but we all heard her, especially the captain. “I fed him some scraps, and when some kids were throwing him around like a football, I grabbed him, punched a few, and we ran.”

“Oh, my, no.” The woman let out a scream that could have curdled fresh milk.

It wasn’t because of what Harmony had said, because she was looking through her bifocals at something on the little dog’s, um, well the opposite end of his anatomy from that sweet button nose. The good and handsome police captain and taken her arm as she swayed. “He’s been neutered.”

Of course, we all looked at the dog, you know where, and nodded. Yes, it was true, but one didn’t normally have a heart attack about that.

“One foster home made me take him to the shelter. The shelter fixed him, said it was the law. Then I ran away from that home, earned enough money to bail him out. Now he’s my dog. I have a receipt to prove it.” Harmony sniffed back tears. “I got proof and it’s in my backpack.”

“You might need that, Harmony, but the dog shouldn’t have been placed with you. Ma’am.” Captain Morales turned with a solemn nod. “Do you want me to have the sergeant put the dog in your, ah, limo?”

“In my car? You have got to be kidding.” Cruella squirmed. She brushed something off the sleeve of her linen suit and stepped away from the captain and her dog.

“Don’t worry. He’s clean,” Gramps said. “He got cut, washed and manicured. Got checked by a vet this morning — got shots, rabies and the works. Saw to it myself. The vet said that everything, ah, down under, ah, was healed, and the rip on the ear was nothing for a dog that had been Dumpster diving for food.” Gramps ruffled the dog’s head.

“Are you all idiots? He was my best show animal, a champion ready to take the Kennel Club title at Crufts in London. I cannot let anyone know about this. What would people say?” she said, but it was more like gargled because the words choked her. “He’s useless. You must all promise not to tell the press. Or the American Kennel Club.”

“He’s useless?” I asked, as an itsy-bitsy idea bloomed into a bloomin’ bouquet. “What is the price for a dog that has no show value? That you don’t want anyone to know about? A dog that is useless?” Everyone looked at me. “Just wondering.”

“Nothing. I could never show him again, and breeding is out,” she snapped.

I held my breath and watched as her face suddenly became the color of overripe strawberries.

“What a waste of time. You police people called me here for nothing. Don’t you realize I’m a busy person.?” She examined her ponderously pink and pointed fingernails and picked another speck off her suit. “Get rid of the dog any way you want to, Captain. Give it to your kids, the Humane Society, or even put that thing to sleep for all I care.” If she had long hair, she’d have thrown it behind her shoulder. What she did do was once again stomp her foot. “I hereby release this animal. I’ll sign whatever’s necessary. Just get rid of that dog.”

In unison, Harmony, Gramps and I yelled, “No.” Everyone within a five-mile radius got the idea that Tuffy was not going to be forced to climb over that dreaded Rainbow Bridge toward the big doggie play park in the sky. Even the rock band next door exited their garage, finally realizing the police were after their neighbor, the preacher, and not them.

I was the first to speak. “You heard her, Captain. She doesn’t want the dog, and he needs a good home. She said you can have him.”

“I don’t have kids,” he said. I swear those eyes were sparkling at me when he added, “And no wife. Did have one a few years ago — a wife, that is — but the lady found my unpredictable hours and being a rookie cop’s wife didn’t mesh with her socialite upbringing. Don’t have time for a wife or a dog.” Then he smiled at Harmony. “But I know someone who does.” He took the now well-groomed terrier, which was barking for the fun of it, from the officer who was cuddling the freeloading pooch, and placed the mutt in Harmony’s arms. “You’ll want to get a license, and microchip him so that if he does start running with the wrong crowds you can find him quicker than Mrs. Wainwright-Dobson did.”

Harmony ran her chin over Tuffy’s fluffy forehead, sobbed like a banshee, and ran into the house as Tuffy barked at a volume that’d guarantee a return of LVPD. Mrs. Wainwright-Dobson, bringing to mind the Big Bad Wolf, huffed and puffed her way to the limo. Odds were it wasn’t the loss of the dog but the sheer inconvenience, not to mention mingling with the unclean hoi polloi. “Case dismissed,” I said.

Gramps was suddenly engulfed by the teenage boys from the garage band next door, who had realized they were living next door to Slam Dunk’s lead guitarist.

Captain Morales and I stood in the minimal shade of the entryway. He looked at me. I sized him up, too. He smiled. I returned it.

“This isn’t my typical MO, Pastor, not by any means. I feel like one of those kids talking to your grandfather. But might you, well, sometime, could you want to have a cup of coffee with me?” he asked, smoothing back the blackest hair — a full, fat headful of it — and the kind I momentarily was lost in.

“Sure.” I was proud of myself for not drooling and not reading anything into this. Lots of police officers need someone to talk with. I was all business, at least in my voice. “Why don’t you come to church with me tomorrow, and we can talk about it?” I figured if he balked at the idea, then I’d know we had a major chasm between us even if it was that he needed a spiritual ear. I didn’t feel any breath coming or going from my lungs. I waited.

He lifted his generous eyebrows, which were as chocolate as his eyes. I got ready to hear, “No thanks.” But then he asked, “Service starts at what time?”

“Ten. Youth Bible study is at nine, and then we go into the sanctuary for the service.”

“I’m pulling the night shift again. We’re short on staff right now. If everything’s quiet, which means the usual chaos of Vegas, I’ll take you up on that offer.” He handed me his business card, but not before he scribbled his cell phone number on the back, nodded curtly, and left the scene of the crime.

You know you know stuff, right? Well, I was certain hat the captain knew I was watching his bum-ski all the way to the patrol car. What I didn’t know was that he was going to turn to see me looking. What I hadn’t expected, too, was that he would lift one side of his mouth, like a secret laugh. And wave. Man, the man was good.

• • •

The rest of that day passed in quiet contemplation of the Psalms and a devout study of Proverbs with a tad of the New Testament thrown in for good measure.

Not.

I scrubbed two toilets, ran the vacuum, dusted a layer of grime off the furniture, and tried to figure out how to immediately get in touch with Clinton Kelly to tell me what not to wear, because I needed help. I had nothing in my closet that would knock that officer’s socks right off.

I was Goldilocks, with one outfit too tight, the next saggy. Another two were frump-o-rama, and the rest I wore when presiding at funerals. Only so much cleavage cuts it then.

By three, I’d worked up a royal sweat pulling clothes on and off, and headed to the Fashion Show mall. The heaven-to-my-fingers blouses at Neiman Marcus made my credit card hyperventilate. Old, dependable Macy’s was an exercise in extensive frustration because it was buzzing with tiny women asking, “Don’t you have this in a size 2?” By the time I got to Victoria’s Secret, the idea of pleasing any man while having my clothes on had caused me to buy a sampler box of Godiva chocolates. Which I ate on the spot.

I trudged home with ten pairs of new panties. Hey, Victoria was having a sale. I resigned myself to a red linen jacket, a creamy colored skirt with a slit that stopped six or seven inches above the knee, and a cross-my-heart white silk blouse. Outfit du jour. I’d have to win the guy with my intellect, I thought, swilling more iced coffee on the way home.

My insta-family was lounging on the shady patio, tossing a tennis ball for the pooch. I brought out water and a bag of oatmeal cookies and plopped down next to Harmony and Gramps. I peeked her way and wondered what was going to come of Harmony when her dad was released? She pushed her chair closer to Gramps. Maybe I should have been thinking about our relationships. It’d work out. Or not. I’m a realist with relationships as long as they’re not with handsome men.

As for Gramps, I knew we’d turned a corner. He was strumming Bertha, and that was good. The guitar sang and so did he. When Harmony got up to refill the pooch’s water bowl, I whispered, “What’s your two cents on Harmony?”

He snorted. “You’re asking me? You’re the overly educated expert in psychology.” He played “She’ll be Coming ’Round the Mountain,” as if that would mean something to me.

Sunday came, church was church, just don’t ask me what was said because I spent the morning with my head bouncing like a bobble head as each shadow crossed my peripheral vision. No sign of the smooth Antonio Banderas-looking police captain, who had been told to arrest my foster child of less than twenty-four hours.

I grunted, “No show,” sometime between the service and the hospitality time that followed. I went back to my office and stacked supplies for Monday and VBS, then I cleaned the shelf above my desk. I organized my top desk drawer and took out the trash. I’d been jilted even before I could form a deeper, absolutely unrealistic crush on the man.

I shrugged, shaking off the sting of rejection even before acceptance. See, I knew it would never work. Heck, I was way too busy with Harmony and her problems. I had other kids in the ministry with shattered teenage hearts, messed-up home lives, parents addicted to crack and meth, and a few juveniles with police records thrown in for good measure. Besides, there was a little concern about the spiritual leader of Desert Hills Church and the head of what could be the killing machine of black-market babies, the bangled Delta Cheney. I couldn’t forget that Petra and the delicious Carl were in this, too. Plus there was, looming larger than life, my appointment with the District Council’s representative on Friday. And let’s not ignore the entire Dancing with Vegas Stars fundraiser balanced on my trusty shoulders.

Okay, I was bummed. Tom had discarded me. If you think you have problems catching a man’s eye and keeping it, try being a preacher. My chances of sexual attraction are about zippo to nil. Heck, I can’t even get male clerks in Home Depot to wait on me. That’s not what I hoped to achieve with Tom, although I hadn’t gone as far as naming our children or writing Mrs. Jane Morales in a notebook. I might be sophomoric, but I’m not a total idiot, only a part-time one.

I wallowed the rest of the evening. It’s asinine to admit to others that one is wallowing over something that wasn’t, so I stiffened my upper lip and put on a good show. I even fooled myself. For about two seconds.

• • •

Monday came, as it often does. Here in Vegas it was hot and bright. Spreadsheets, budgets, and reports littering my desk screamed for attention, so when Vera’s voice on the intercom sounded tighter than typical, I jumped. She said, “There’s a police officer here asking for you.” Then added, in a creepy, lowered, sexy voice, “Quick, he’s a fox. You’ve got to see him.” Then in a louder voice, “Thank you, Pastor, yes, I told him I’d get some coffee and we could wait in the hospitality room. But he said he’d see you in the lobby.”

“I’ll be right up.” I sighed and wondered which of my kids was to be handcuffed this time. Harmony was in the recreation room talking to the four-year-olds about pet kindness, with Tuffy yapping his two cents. There were dozen or so others who were more in trouble than out, which worried me, but at least the kid who held up the liquor store a few months ago had checked in with her parole officer and with me fifteen minutes before. Another with arrests for shoplifting was doing community service at the hospital. The kids who had counterfeited tickets to a rock concert had real jobs to pay off the scam. The boy who’d decided to blackmail the mayor by videotaping him with a vivacious blonde in a romantic lip-lock and, unbeknownst to the boy the hot mama was the mayor’s wife. The kid had been invited to a film school at the University of Southern California. Apparently the video flashed on YouTube and a professor at the film school saw the kid’s work so the teen blackmailer won some kind of prize for it. Isn’t life a hoot in the patootie?