Sweet Ethan Crane. He was a good man, and he cared for me, but I was stupid to have agreed to go on a date with him. It would never work. For one, I was still reeling from my parting with Guidry, and … and what? It just didn’t feel right. If I was being honest with myself, it was impossible to know if what I was feeling for him was love, and not loneliness or lust or fatigue looking for a resting place.
Anyway, if a woman decides it is love she feels, how can she ever be sure the man she loves is the right one? Then I pictured myself in that ridiculous purple dress and laughed out loud. I must have been a fool to think I could pull that off.
Alright. Clearly I had fallen into a funk.
I knew it had mostly to do with Mr. Harwick, and I tried to give myself a break. Apparently, failing to save a man’s life can put a real damper on your mood. I sighed and looked up at the starlit sky. Somehow without even trying I had yet again gotten myself mixed up in a whole mess of trouble, and yet again I had no idea why it kept happening. One day I’m minding my own business, brushing out cat hair and picking up dog poop, and the next I’m locking lips with a dead man on the side of a pool. I needed to try to keep my mind on my own problems and my own life. I’m a pet sitter, damn it, not a social worker, not a marriage counselor, not an emergency medical technician, and not a homicide detective.
I told myself that Mrs. Harwick was no shrinking violet. She was a smart, capable woman. She didn’t need me to help her with the death of her husband, and no matter how much experience I had in that department and no matter how strong the bond I had felt with her, there was nothing I could do to make what she was about to go through any easier.
Furthermore, Becca had a loving mother and a loving brother. She could depend on them for any support she might need, and it was completely egotistical and frankly a little crazy for me to think that I could help her through her stepfather’s death or the mess she and Kenny had gotten themselves into. No matter how much I could relate to what they were going through, there wasn’t a single thing I could do to make it easier on any of them. The only thing that was going to help was the passage of time.
I didn’t know what to think about Kenny, but I decided he was none of my business either. I’d spent too much time and energy defending him and trying to help him out, and now I was beginning to see that Michael and Paco had been smart to be suspicious of him. Perhaps Paco was right and I had been swayed by Kenny’s scruffy good looks, or maybe somewhere hidden deep inside him was a genuinely good person, but he was clearly making some very bad choices.
And if he’d had anything to do with Mr. Harwick’s drowning, I knew it wouldn’t take Detective McKenzie very long to figure it out. She didn’t need my help either.
I told myself that if there was anybody that needed me right now, it was Corina, and there was plenty I could do for her. She might have made some bad choices, too, but at least she was trying her best to do better and make a better life for herself and her baby, and she wasn’t hurting anybody in the process or acting out of pure selfishness or greed. All she needed was a little push in the right direction and she’d be fine.
As for Ethan, I’d have to figure out a way to let him down easy. I needed to take things a little slower and with a little more thought.
I remembered how I hadn’t been filled with so much angst and doubt when I first met Todd. I didn’t believe in love at first sight, but Todd changed that. There was never even the slightest doubt that he was the right man for me. When I held him in my arms, it literally felt as if our hearts beat at the same exact rate. Sometimes I wonder if my heart will ever find that particular rhythm again.
I decided that I’d been through too much bullshit in my life to complicate things now, and losing Guidry to New Orleans was no bed of roses either. If Ethan didn’t understand that, then he wasn’t the right man for me in the first place.
Feeling emboldened, I clattered down the stairs and hopped into the Bronco. The two pelicans on the hood sullenly unfolded themselves and flapped off toward the water as I backed out of the carport. I rolled down the driveway and turned onto Midnight Pass Road, determined to have a nice, normal, boring day.
Rufus was as happy as usual to see me. As soon as I opened the front door he came clicking across the hardwood floor, hopping up and down on his back legs and pawing the air excitedly. Then he ran barking into the living room and grabbed his chew toy. He shook it with all his might and then came racing back and dropped it at my feet as a welcome gift.
Whenever I spend the night with any of my dogs, which I usually do if their humans are going to be out of town, I always take their collars off before bed. I figure they don’t want to sleep in their day clothes any more than I do, and I think they actually sleep better that way. Now almost all of my clients do the same thing. Rufus scampered around my feet while I got his collar out of the drawer in the hall desk. He stood as still as he could, or at least as still as his eagerly wagging rump would allow, while I fastened his collar around his neck.
Rufus isn’t a power-walking type of dog. Most schnauzers would rather sniff and hunt when they’re outside, and Rufus is no exception. He’s always on the lookout for lizards and squirrels and snakes. I don’t think he’d have the slightest idea what to do with one if he ever caught it, but he thoroughly enjoys the chase. I brought along my handy thirty-foot retractable leash so Rufus could skitter here and there while we walked.
I hooked the end of the leash to his collar and snapped a couple of clip weights to the handle and headed out the door. While Rufus did his business and scampered about, I did some arm raises and bicep curls. I wanted to keep myself occupied. From now on I was going to start being a little more disciplined with myself, and that included getting a good workout every day. I must have looked like a deranged person flapping my arms up and down at the end of Rufus’s leash, but I didn’t care.
After a perfectly uneventful walk around the block and a good long brushing session, I gave Rufus a kiss on the nose and a little hug. The Graysons were taking him to visit their son in North Carolina later in the afternoon, so I knew I wasn’t going to see him for a few days.
At the Kitty Haven, Marge was on the phone talking to a rescue center in Jacksonville about two older cats they had brought in but couldn’t afford to keep. If Marge didn’t take them, they’d have to be put down. She was arranging for Jaz to make the four-hour drive to pick up the cats and bring them back to the Haven. Marge waved and pointed me to the back, where I found Charlotte in one of the private cubicles.
She was her usual snarky self. With all the food and love she was getting from Marge and Jaz, I wasn’t too worried about her, but I knew she’d probably be a lot happier once she was back in her own home. I didn’t allow myself to think about what her life was going to be like without Mr. Harwick, or whether she knew that he was gone. It was too much to bear.
She hissed dismissively at me as I sat down on the floor next to her, but I knew she didn’t really mean it. Stroking her from head to tail while she arched her back and pushed herself against my hand, I told her it wouldn’t be much longer before she was back home, and I did my best to form a mental picture of her curled up among the pillows in the Harwicks’ big canopy bed. I like to do that just in case cats can read minds. Of course it’s crazy, but I do it anyway.