Dog Collar Couture (10 page)

Ten minutes later, they'd gone around the table, and Lucie and Ro had the breakdown of the group. Two fashion students, one movie buff, one bored housewife and, to Lucie's delight, an investment banker. She'd never met him, but still considered him a comrade from her old life in corporate America.

Thank God she'd been downsized out of that mess.

“Annabelle,” Ro said, “I just love your dress.”

Annabelle beamed. “Thank you, Roseanne. I had it made. I brought the seamstress photos of the original, and, I have to say, she did an excellent job. Even the feathers are pointing in the right direction.”

“I noticed that. It really does look like the original.”

Okay, Columbo. Stop forcing the dress into the conversation.

Lucie kicked Ro under the table, connected with bone—probably her ankle—and she let out a yelp.

Annabelle's eyebrows shot up. “Problem?”

“No. Sorry. I banged my foot on the chair.”

“Speaking of the Max,” one of the fashion students said, “have we heard anything new? Any leads?”

Annabelle rotated her head left then right, moving so slow that Lucie found herself mimicking it.

“Nothing yet,” she said. “I knew we'd have a big crowd tonight with all the activity surrounding the Max, so I checked with the police before I got here.”

As if the police would give some lunatic Cock Head an update? Tim would love that one.

The bored housewife slapped her hand over her head. “I'm miserable over this. That auction has been on my calendar for months. I was so excited. Even if I couldn't bid on the dress, I would have been able to see it. Up close.”

Ro leaned forward, swung left and made direct eye contact with the woman. “Honey, I feel your pain. We—Lucie and I—planned on going to the auction as well. We'd even hoped to bid.”

Bid? Totally off-leash now.

From the corner of her eye, Lucie spotted the sidelong glance from Ro. Right along with the slight quirk at the corner of her mouth.

Game. On.

“I'm in the middle of a hellacious divorce, and making my husband pay when I won the bid on that dress was going to be my farewell gift to that rat-bastard. Now I have nothing. I'm so angry.”

Lucie patted her arm. “I know. But don't fret. The dress
will
be found and we
will
bid on it.”

A round of murmurs came from the table at large, some nodded their agreement while others said “hell yeah” and “that's awesome.” The bored housewife gave a hearty “Amen!”

Blinking back tears—darn, she was good—Ro sniffed and gently ran the tips of her fingers underneath her eyes. “You all are so wonderful. This has been
such
a trying time. But I know the dress will be recovered. It just upsets me. I wanted to teach that cheating bastard to have a little respect.”

The housewife gasped. “A cheater. Men!”

“Hey.” The younger guy at the end of the table held up a hand. “We're not all bad.”

“Sorry,” the housewife said. “But I get it, Roseanne. One of the moms in my son's playgroup just went through the same thing. We stay at home, cook, clean, pop out babies; but gain a little weight and as soon as some twenty-year-old shows a little interest in our man, it's over.”

Lucie hadn't anticipated that speech and wasn't sure it was helping, but—too late now—she'd roll with it.

“Ro has always loved that dress. The auction would have come at a perfect time.” Really laying it on, she once again patted Ro's arm. “Don't be sad. Sooner or later, the dress will surface.”

“I hope so. I'd do just about anything to have it.”

Bam. Mission complete. Ro had just put it out there, sent that sucker straight out into the universe, that she had the means—and the desperation—to do whatever it took to find the dress.

Now all they had to do was wait for the universe to respond.

A
fter the meeting
ended and Ro and Lucie filled out the membership application, they tromped down the stairs and out the front door. A blast of cold wind smacked at Lucie's cheeks, and she zipped her jacket to her neck. October in Chicago, like every other month, could be tricky. Being a lifelong resident Lucie had learned the fine art of layering.

“Roseanne!”

Whoopsie.
The two of them spun back, and found Joey storming straight at them. He sidestepped around a group of people, nearly plowed into a lamppost and bumped a car along the way.

For a big guy, Joey could move.

“Uh-oh,” Ro said. “Did you tell him where we were?”

“Heck no.”

Before either of them could comment, Joey halted in front of them, his face full of hard angles. The mad face.

“What the hell are you two up to?”

Ro flung a hand toward the coffee shop. “Having coffee. What's your problem?”

The old ricochet move of putting it back on him. Excellent.

“Bzzzzttt. Nice try,” he said. “We got a Starbucks ten minutes from your house. There's no way you two wack-jobs are coming all the way here for coffee. And what the hell are you wearing on your head?”

Instead of whipping her headband off, Ro gave the feathers a fluff. “My new headwear.”

Oh. Brother.

Lucie stepped forward half an inch and threw her shoulders back. Not that it did any good since she was the petite one in the family. But she had experience when it came to her brother. “How did you know where we were?”

“I called Tim.”

Of all the things he could have said, that one set her back. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Neither one of you answered. I got worried. We're in the middle of this dress fiasco, and you two go off the grid. I called, and he told me you were here.”

Ro looked at Lucie. “We didn't anticipate that. Good to know for next time.”

Joey's mouth flew open. “Screw next time.”

One of the Cock Heads' board members, a short, middle-aged man from the meeting, appeared next to Lucie and inserted himself between her and Joey. “Is there a problem here?”

“Hi, Wendel. No. No problem. This is my brother.”

Wendel inched closer to Joey and tilted his head up. His own version of getting in his face. “He's getting a little
loud.
”

Under the glow of the street lamp, Joey's face went crimson, and Lucie swore it inflated an inch. That kind of pressure should have blown it clear off his body.

But kudos to her brother for keeping his hands at his sides.

“Who the hell is
this
now?”

Ro grabbed Joey's arm. “Relax. Why do you have to be such an animal?”

She led him away—
phew
—and Lucie blew out a breath. “Sorry, Wendel. He's very protective. Believe me, he means well. I'm so sorry if he made you nervous.”

“No. Not at all. I can handle myself. I was concerned he'd get violent with you.”

How sweet was this? Wendel, all five feet two and a hundred and thirty pounds of him, wanted to protect them. Who said chivalry was dead? Joey would have flattened him with one shot, but Wendel's willingness to help renewed Lucie's faith in humanity.

“Oh, he's just being my ape of a brother. He's harmless.”

At least to his loved ones.

“All right. As long as you're safe. I guess I'll move along now.” Wendel held out his hand. “It was great meeting you, Lucie. I'm on the membership committee and will be loading all of your contact information into the database tonight. Let me know if you have any questions.”

“Great. I'll do that. Thanks.”

Wendel shuffled off, and a burst of heavy, drowning guilt fell on her. Here this guy thought she and Ro were devoted Cock Heads, and the whole thing had been a scam. A ruse to try and find information about the dress. The Max, as the group called it.

Not only had the meeting been a bust, Ro spent fifty bucks on a ridiculous headband, and they'd lied to these people.

“Luce!”

Feathers bouncing, towering heels barely slowing her down, Ro strutted toward Lucie. Alone.

“Where's Joey?”

“He just left.”

“He's mad?”

“Of course. He's so sensitive lately. I love this protective streak in him, but he'll need medication if he keeps up with this constant worrying.”

Lucie shrugged. “He loves us.”

That made Ro smile. “Yeah, I guess he does. Come on. Let's go home. You can drop me by Joey's. By the time we get there, he'll have cooled off and I'll get naked. He'll forget all about this.”

“Honestly, I don't need to hear this stuff. It gives me a visual I don't care for.”

“What did Wendel say?”

“He'll add us to the database. I think our mission failed.”

Ro linked her arm through Lucie's. “You never know. Something might come up.”

S
ome mornings
—like this one— were made for Lucie to be outdoors.

The bright sun shone in a cloudless sky, and the crisp morning air tickled her cheeks. Perfection.

Buddy, the Wheaten Terrier aka the Wheaten Terrorist, stopped at the corner two blocks from his house and sniffed his favorite tree. He'd peed on that tree so many times, he should have a reserved sign on it.

By this time, already twenty-seven minutes into her first walk of the day, many of the residents on the block had gone to work or school, leaving their precious parking spaces open. Unlike Franklin, people in this neighborhood didn't put lawn chairs or garbage cans in their spot to save it. By five o'clock folks would be rushing home simply to snag parking.

While Buddy busied himself sniffing a rock at the base of his tree, Lucie tilted her head back and inhaled. In Chicago, a morning like this could never be considered cold, but it was enough for her to layer on some long-sleeved shirts and break out her favorite Notre Dame sweatshirt.

Today would be a good day.

Buddy finished sniffing and gave the tree his customary squirt. How that dog had an ounce of urine left in him was just short of a miracle. So far, he'd stopped at every tree, every plant, every leaf.

“Dude,” Lucie said, “we need to get to the good stuff here. Give me a nice poop, and we're done.”

But Buddy was no dummy. Believing he'd get a longer walk if he held off on a bowel movement, he would wait.

And wait.

And wait.

He knew what she wanted. And he knew that she knew that he knew. This was their own screwy little mind trick that occurred on a daily basis. In the early days, before Lucie had caught on to his scheming ways, she'd walk him until he did his business.

Then she wised up.

Now, the halfway point was exactly at the thirty-minute mark. If they went two miles or two feet, at thirty minutes she turned back.

Mind trick declassified.

Still, some days the little pain in the rear—no pun intended—waited until the last possible second. What he didn't know, and she refused to clue him in on by walking him longer, was if he didn't do his business she'd have to walk him until he did. That was the Coco Barknell customer guarantee.

A bowel movement on every outing.

Lucie's ringing phone destroyed the much-needed peace, and she sighed. The challenge—and excitement—of running a growing accessory line while continuing to service her dog-walking clients had started to string her out. The jam-packed days and constant activity set her brain in a state of slow motion. Every thought seemed to swirl, swirl, swirl falling just short of completion. Almost as if two critical wires needing to connect couldn't . . . quite . . . reach.

Exhaustion tended to do that. There simply wasn't enough Lucie to do it all. Something would have to give.

Her fuzzy brain begged for it.

The phone rang a third time, and she swiped the screen before it went to voicemail. As if it would kill her to allow a call to ring through. Maybe that was the answer. Just letting the calls go when she needed quiet.