Silent Night: A Raine Stockton Dog Mystery by Donna Ball

“I made a fire.  Let me explain.”
    Unfortunately for him, I was not quite so well trained.  I stared at him with clenched jaw.
    “She’s mad,” Melanie called over the sound of the television.
    “No, she’s not.”
    “Yes, she is,” I muttered, low enough so that hopefully only he could hear.
    He said, “I brought pie.  Meg had another one in the back.”
    Damn him, anyway. 
    I followed him down the hall to the kitchen, past the living room where Melanie had made herself at home on the sofa with a bag of chips and a cola and was watching some vampire show on TV.  The dogs hesitated when they saw the little girl and the chips, but they calculated the odds and decided their best bet was the kitchen, with us.  Or perhaps they understood the word “pie”.
    My kitchen is one of the big old-fashioned types, with a wood burning stove on the center wall, and a door that can close it off from the rest of the house.  I smelled coffee and wood smoke, and it was pleasantly cozy, which infuriated me.  I closed the door and turned to Miles, fuming.
    “Five seconds,” I said.
    “No heat, frozen pipes, carbon monoxide poisoning,” he replied, deadpan.  “I tried every motel in town.  The nearest vacancy is Asheville. It’s ten o’clock, the overpasses are icy, I thought you’d be home.  I left six messages.”
    I exploded in a hiss, “Are you kidding me?  You’re in charge of multi-billion dollar building projects and you can’t even defrost a frozen water pipe?”
    His eyes grew cool.  “Darlin’,” he said, “I can re-plumb that entire house with garden hose and silicone caulk if I have to, but I’d prefer not to do it while my daughter’s lips are turning blue.”
    I spun away, drew a breath, and took a sip of the wine.  It tasted expensive.  Damn him, anyway.
    He crossed the room and poured a cup of coffee.  The dogs’ claws clicked on the wood floors as they hopefully searched for treats.  I felt like a cad. 
    But I had also been a dog trainer for fifteen years and I knew the importance of boundaries.  And I knew when mine had been violated.  I said, “You shouldn’t have come in here without permission.”
    He turned, leaning against the counter with one of my coffee mugs cupped in his hand.  “I understand.  But if it had been Maude or Buck or Sonny who was in trouble and needed shelter, would you still be mad?”
    I said, sputtering a little, “That’s different.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they’re –” I knew how that sentence ended and stopped it before I could embarrass myself further.
    He supplied for me, “Friends.”  He sipped his coffee, watching me.  “I thought we were past that.  Guess not.”
    He put the coffee cup on the counter and started for the living room.
    “Where are you going?”
    “Asheville.”
    “But the overpasses are icy.”
    “Right.”
    “Wait.”
    I couldn’t believe I was saying it, and I had absolutely no choice.  He turned to me and I looked at him, angry and frustrated and helpless and resigned. There is no worse feeling in the world than knowing you have things to talk about, but not knowing how to say them.  All I could manage was, “You don’t just get to have everything you want, Miles.  You’ve got to respect people’s boundaries.”
    He said nothing. He just waited. 
    After a moment I said, grudgingly, “I only have one guest room.  You’ll have to sleep on the couch.”
    “Thank you.”  And he smiled.  He was incredibly charming when he smiled, and my willpower was not what it used to be.   “May I kiss you now?”
    “No.”
    Of course I was hoping he would try to change my mind, and he wouldn’t have had to try very hard.  But he just gave a little shrug, winked at me, and left the room.  
    Damn  him, anyway.
    __________

 
     
     
    EIGHT
     
     
    I slept restlessly and woke before dawn, creeping around so as not to disturb my guests.  I hate having strangers sleep over in my house.  I’d had to