Unridden: A Studs in Spurs novel (26 page)

Les’ place was an old building, four stories high, broken into eight condominiums and within walking distance to the U of Chicago, if you were a walker. But Les wasn’t. He either drove or exercised by lifting his pinky to hail a cab.

As quietly as she could, Lily unlocked the door and slipped through it, pressing it closed with her backside. She waited, bracing for slobber and unnecessary roughness. When it did not happen, she cleared her throat and wondered how she was supposed to call a dog whose name she didn’t know.

“Here, doggie, doggie, doggie. Here, doggie, doggie, doggie,” was the sole extent of her creativity. Claws scratched against hardwood. They were running-toward-you claws, but not I’m-going-to-knock-you-over claws. They were dainty claws attached to teeny tiny paws that stopped running when they were about ten feet away from her.

The tone of Lily’s voice turned to mush, like the tone you used around babies without even thinking. “Come over here,” she said. The gray and white Shih Tzu, her bangs held up in a topknot, shook her tail and wiggled over. A manly sort of dog, she was.

Lily got down on one knee and turned the tag on the dog’s collar. “Marguerite,” she read out loud. “For goodness’ sake, that’s too big a name for a little girl like you. From now on it’s Maggie. Got that?” The dog barked twice so Lily thought that meant she had. Good. Lily wouldn’t have to bother later with a quiz.

The less she learned about Les, the better off her life would be, so she moved around the apartment as if wearing blinders and packed him a suitcase. If Les could get out of jail without a leash, then so, too, could his dog.

“Come on, Mags,” she called. Out on the street, Lily put the suitcase in the trunk and waited until Maggie had sniffed six parking meters and squirted something important near most of them.

She opened the car door. “Get in. I’m going to take you to see Daddy or Lester or fat boy or whatever it is you think of him in doggie-speak.” But one of the names seemed to inspire the dog because she hurled herself onto the front seat and moved over to the passenger’s side to make room for Lily.

“Sit,” Lily ordered. Maggie turned front ways in the seat and sat. Lily dragged the shoulder strap around the dog, buckled her in and pulled onto the street.

The car was stuffy so she let down her window. A split second later, Maggie ditched the seatbelt, ran across Lily’s lap, leaned her doggie elbows on the window frame, and stuck her nose into the wind. She sniffed not inward, but outward, making happy sniffing sounds. After that, all the weight in Maggie’s back legs went dead in Lily’s lap—a show of trust. Lily glanced at the pup as she drove. The little dog made sticking her head out the window seem like so much fun that Lily wished she could take a turn. But whose lap could she sit in?