My Best Friend's Baby (9 page)

A bird bobbing past the window.

Not flying, not soaring or swooping or
gliding. Bobbing.

It could only be Shep, Chloe's winged
avenger. Where one of her animals were, she couldn't be far behind.
And where Chloe went, trouble followed. Nick decided to
investigate.

Outside, he spotted her halfway down the
block, power walking through the shade of a feathery-leafed
mesquite tree. Her shimmery orange bicycle shorts, yellow T-shirt,
and floral baseball cap glowed bright as the early-summer Saguaro
Vista sun overhead. Chloe added more vibrancy to their small-town
block than all the surrounding Fifties-era red brick houses and
their water-thrifty desert landscaping put together. As he watched,
she waved to an elderly neighbor lady who was outside gathering her
newspaper, then crooked her elbows at her sides and picked up
speed.

Just as he'd suspected, Shep rode on her
shoulder—which explained the bobbing he'd seen earlier, if not the
rest of what he saw now. Her beagle, Larry, secured by an
auto-winding leash attached at Chloe's waist, trotted along at her
side with his tongue lolling. Moe the cat slinked through the yards
bordering the sidewalk, safe prowling distance from the rest of the
menagerie but keeping up, all the same. The only things their
troupe lacked were Chloe's goldfish and her hamster, Curly.

Waitaminute
... Nick peered closer.
If he didn't miss his guess, that hunk of rounded hot pink plastic
spinning at Chloe's heels was Curly's exercise ball. Powered by
furiously pumping rodent feet inside.

He blinked. They were all still there. Only
Chloe would think to walk her hamster.

They turned the corner and disappeared from
sight. He really ought to take advantage of her absence and get
some work done, Nick told himself. Somehow, his feet started down
the sidewalk anyway.

"Hiya, Nick!" Chloe yelled to him over her
shoulder as he approached, almost as though she'd sensed him coming
up behind her—or known he'd follow. Her breath panted out in
measured whooshes, keeping pace with her strides. "Whatsa matter?
Can't keep up with a girl with a bun in the oven?"

She didn't even slow down. In fact, she sped
up a little, making her behind wiggle enticingly. Nick doubted she
realized it.

And wished
he
hadn't. What was the
matter with him? He was ogling his best friend like one of her
hapless lust-crazed Brunos.

Lucky lust-crazed Brunos was more like it,
some aching part of him whispered.
Shut up
, Nick told
himself, putting thoughts of Chloe's wiggle firmly out of his mind.
It wasn't easy. Somehow, ever since he'd learned about her
pregnancy, those... fantasy episodes ... about Chloe had become
more and more frequent. It was becoming impossible to see his pal
as just a pal, when every glance at her gently curved belly
reminded him she was a sensual woman, too.

Frowning, Nick clamped the lid on his libido
and caught up with her in few jogged steps—it wasn't for nothing he
ran five miles around the Saguaro Vista High track every
morning—and matched her pace.

"I can keep up with you," he said, grinning
at the exaggerated way she pumped her arms at Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robot
angles. "It's Larry I'm worried about. He looks ready for a
milkbone and a doggie Gatorade."

She stopped and wiped a trickle of gleaming
perspiration from her neck. "Do you think so? It is pretty hot out
here."

Giving Larry a worried frown, Chloe crouched
beside him and stroked between his ears, working one-handed at the
plastic squeeze bottle strapped to her waist. "I didn't mean to
wear you out, boy. Maybe you do need a sports drink to keep up your
strength, if we're going to keep up this exercise routine."

She aimed a squirt of bottled water between
Larry's sharp canine teeth, then straightened while he licked his
muzzle. "Doggie Gatorade is a good idea," she told Nick. "It would
be better than plain water, at least for long walks. For replacing
electrolytes and things."

"And you'd be just crazy enough to try
it."

She frowned and stuck out her tongue at
him.

Larry, apparently feeling refreshed, wagged
and walked circles around Chloe as they talked. The auto-wind leash
spun out more and more line, creating a frayed purple web around
her white pom-pommed sweat socks and sneakers.

"Crazy in a good way," Nick elaborated with
a grin as she raised the bottle to her mouth and sucked down some
water for herself. He watched her lips pucker around the bottle
top, and then made himself look away. He'd never envied a hunk of
plastic before.

"I think you'd do almost anything to take
care of your menagerie here," he said when she'd finished, mostly
to distract himself from the surprisingly erotic sight of her
tongue depressing the bottle's snap top. "Even tote along Gatorade
for Larry."

"But a dog's physiology is completely
different than a person's, Nick," Chloe said, stepping out of the
middle of Larry's twisted leash with a grace that bespoke frequent
practice. She straightened her flowery baseball cap, lassoed the
dog, and started walking again. "I'm afraid a sports drink
formulated for people wouldn't be good for him. Too bad,
though."

Too bad he'd brought it up, that is. He
hadn't expected a twenty-minute heart-to-heart about something that
didn't even exist. "Actually," Nick said, "I was only kidding."

She blushed and darted a glance at him—

"Oh. Oh—oh—oh!"

—
and stumbled as Larry
yapped and took off at a barking run more befitting a greyhound
than a low-rider beagle, dragging Chloe behind him.

"Chloe!" Nick chased after her, cursing the
stupid leash that kept her attached to her maniac dog. She yanked
on it, fighting for control, but Larry just kept on running, tail
low and claws clicking sharply on the sidewalk as he gained ground.
The object of his frenzy was in sight, and he scampered hard on his
stubby legs to reach it.

The postal worker walking blithely toward
them didn't know what was about to hit him—but Chloe did.

"Look out!" she screamed, pulling
harder.

The carrier looked. His eyes bulged. His
legs—bared and extra vulnerable in his summertime uniform of jacket
and dark shorts—churned to get him onto the nearest front porch. He
scrambled onto the porch rail, leaving his legs to dangle like two
enormous doggie treats, and dug into his mail bag for
something.

No letter delivery was that urgent. A sick
feeling in Nick's stomach made him run faster, just as the mail
carrier pulled a long slender canister from his bag.

"Nooo!" Chloe screamed, recognizing what it
was.

Nick recognized it, too. Pepper spray. He'd
seen it used once before, on a stray pit bull that had gone after
the newspaper deliverer. The ferocious dog had run off whimpering
with its tail between its legs after just one squirt. There was no
telling what the stuff would do to poor runty Larry.

"Nick, help!" Chloe yelled. She turned her
head to look back at him, both hands pulling her rasping, choking
dog away from the postman's perch. Larry might have been a two-foot
beagle, but he had the heart and soul of a Doberman pincer.

Nick left the sidewalk and headed for the
house's walk where Chloe struggled with her dog. Landscape gravel
crunched beneath his feet, and at the same time a curious whine
reached him. It sounded like . . the ping of a tuneless guitar
string pulled and released, or a tight-stretched clothesline about
to break.

Or a dog's leash about to snap.

A glance at Larry's frayed leash confirmed
his guess. Another few seconds, and he'd be free to commit a doggie
death leap. Chloe wouldn't be able to do a thing to stop him.

She screamed, staring with horror at
something just behind Nick. "No, wait!" she yelled, pointing. "Get
Curly!"

Nick looked where she pointed. Curly's
ball-shaped exerciser plunked off the sloped sidewalk onto the
street, spinning like mad. Inside, the hamster's furry shape was
just distinguishable. Deprived of his focus on Chloe's heels, he'd
steered himself right off their route—and straight into the path of
an oncoming pickup truck.

Larry barked. Nick glanced his way and saw
the beagle lunge forward. His leash, still intact, slithered
through Chloe's hands. She jerked forward like a puppet, held by
the leash holder attached to her waist.

The pickup truck revved closer, gaining
ground on Curly's hot pink exercise ball.

Nick lunged sideways. Gravel spewed beneath
his feet, then the world jogged up and down as he left the smooth
sidewalk for the street below. Hot asphalt rose to meet him,
smelling of tar and engine oil. A flash of pink rolled just past
his fingertips—Curly's exercise ball. He'd be damned if the stupid
hamster wasn't trying to get himself squished on purpose, just to
avoid walking the equivalent of a million more hamster miles with
Chloe.

"Niiiiiick," she cried. "Hurry!"

He scooped up the ball, cradling it like a
running back going for the game-ending touchdown. The pickup truck
rumbled past in a blast of hot air and exhaust fumes, then kept on
down the road, its driver plainly oblivious to the man and hamster
he'd almost flattened.

Heart pounding, Nick straightened. "Good
thing I got you," he told Curly between breaths. "Next time you
want to go AWOL, just roll into the bushes and hide, okay?"

Curly stuck his furry hamster snout up to
the air vents carved into his exercise ball and sniffed. Nick could
almost understand the little runt's appeal ... until Curly bit
him.

"Ouch!"

"Niiiiick! I can't hold on much longer!"

He turned. Chloe sprawled facedown, half
across their neighbor's sidewalk and half across the
artfully-graveled yard. Her arm stretched forward, her hand
maintaining a desperate, wobbly clench on Larry's leash as she
tried to pull him back. The mail carrier squinted down at them
both, pepper spray at the ready, poised to shoot from his porch
railing if need be. It looked like a stand-off—unless Larry managed
to break his leash.

And all of it with Chloe in the middle.

Nick didn't remember getting there, but the
next thing he knew, he was hunkered down beside Larry's growling,
stiff-spined body, trying to talk him down. Paying no heed, the dog
went on staring down his postal quarry, his white and black spotted
fur bristling straight up. It was enough to make the hair stand up
at the nape of Nick's neck, too. Stark, unreasoning terror made his
gut clench. It didn't take a veterinary genius to spot the signs of
a pissed-off, territorial doggie defender.

Only a lunatic would get in Cujo's way.
Guess what that makes me?
Nick thought as Larry's rumbling
growl got louder. The dog's lip lifted to expose several pointy,
vicious teeth. Nick's gaze met Chloe's; only briefly, but it was
enough to tell him what he needed to know. She was depending on
him.

He put Curly down in the gravel, where he
couldn't roll far, and edged closer. "Don't try anything stupid,"
he warned Larry as he scooped up all fifty squirming pounds of him.
"I'm way too tough to make a good doggie treat."

In his arms, Larry's body vibrated with a
fresh growl. Luckily, it was still aimed at the postman, not at
him. "Go on," Nick yelled to the mail carrier. Groaning beneath the
dog's weight, he stepped back to let some slack into the leash and
looked Mr. Pepper Spray in the eye. "I've got him. You can put that
stuff away now."

The postman eyed him suspiciously. As though
egged on by the mail carrier's blatant distrust, Larry morphed into
Superdog in Nick's arms, lurching hard to get free. Then the
postman got wise and put away his pepper spray, Chloe got to her
feet, and everything turned right with the world.

"Oh, Nick!" She leapt toward him, enfolding
both him and Larry in a bone-crushing hug. The dog squirmed, trying
to lick her face. "Thank you! You saved us."

Her gaze shifted to Curly, rolling his
exercise ball uselessly atop a patch of volcanic rock gravel, then
upward again. "You saved us all."

Sure
, Nick thought, gazing down into
her shining eyes. The way she looked at him made him feel ten feet
tall, like the greatest hero ever conceived of.
And I saved
myself right into your arms
. What was he, nuts?

Chloe's flowered baseball cap was askew, her
hair damp at the ends and clinging to her neck, her outrageous
lipstick mostly melted away by the Arizona afternoon and her
fluttery eyelashes devoid of mascara and whatever other girly gunk
she usually used. She looked wrung out.

She looked gorgeous.

And he was a goner.

Where the hell had that thought come
from
? Nick shook it out of his head. Clearly a case of
testosterone talking. It had to be, because he was Chloe's platonic
male friend and nothing else. Nothing else, because her romantic
side belonged to a mysterious marine named Bruno. The reminder
snipped the last strand of his already wire-thin patience.

"Well, you damn well needed saving," Nick
said, scowling. "What the hell were you thinking, anyway, taking
your whole stupid menagerie out for a walk like that?"

Chloe backed up. The sunlight left her eyes,
but he couldn't let that deter him. She'd get over being mad at
him. She might not get over the next ditzy stunt she decided to
pull.

"You could've broken your neck!"

"You're right. Curly could've gotten—" Her
voice broke, and she tried again. "Larry might have been hurt,
or—"

"
You
might have been hurt! What's it
going to take to knock some sense into you? Because, God knows,
your baby hasn't accomplished that miracle yet."

Her hands went to her belly, cradling the
child within. He doubted she was even aware of it—or of the tears
that shimmered in her elfin eyes. "That's not fair, Nick. You don't
know—"