LITMIR.BIZ

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much to Mateo Espinosa’s chagrin. And mine.

      Liza turned around, took one look at Princess and her new friend, and screamed. The skunk perked its ears, twitched its nose, and chattered as it lifted its tail and stomped its feet in response. Liza ignored the warning. Again, I pictured that kindergarten student who just didn’t know when to quit. Liza shooed with both hands, and the skunk lifted its back legs in what looked like the most threatening handstand I’d ever witnessed. Liza saw it as a bigger target for a field goal between the two handrails of the steps and cocked her purple pump. The skunk was going to be her football.

      I yelled, “Liza don’t!”

      Mateo forgot the box and turned his attention toward Liza to stop her. Or maybe, it was to save her. I’m not quite sure. Princess however, decided to attack her. She rammed her little head into Liza’s support leg. The only leg the reporter had planted on the floor. It didn’t succeed in knocking her off her feet. It just knocked Liza off balance, and her purple phone went flying in the air as her kick went wide, and Mateo tackled her. I had a split second to grab Princess before she ended up beneath the pile, and as I reached for my pet, the skunk turned around.

      It was one of those slow-motion moments in life. Liza’s garbled cussing filled one ear as she and Mateo hit the floor, while a distressed squeal from Princess filled my other ear as we saw them land precariously close to Princess’s friend.

      I wouldn’t say it was an accusatory look Mateo gave my retreating form, but it was definitely one that I’d remember for a long time. Liza’s phone hit the skunk on the back, and it was done being patient. I heard a distinct hissing sound, like someone decided to spray several aerosol cans at once as I ran for the door that connects my apartment to the store.

      Liza screamed again, and Mateo, bless his heart, let loose a trail of Spanish words I was unfamiliar with, though I could guess their meaning.

      I looked back to see Liza crawling in my direction, Mateo dumping the box on the floor while rubbing his eyes, and a faintly yellow mist in the air. Liza reached toward me, but I was not exposing my apartment to that odor. I closed the door, locked it, and jammed a towel at the base of the door. Then Princess and I ran around to the other entrance. I made it down the stairs and to the front of the bookstore just as Sugar came running outside. She didn’t seem to be wearing any new form of perfume in the scent of eau de skunk.

      She stopped me from going inside. “Mateo said to keep everyone out.”

      “He’s going to need my help.”

      “He said he would take care of it.”

      I was afraid of what that meant. Did it mean he would kill the skunk, whom Princess had somehow lured into the Barn? Or did it mean things were so bad, he didn’t want me to be anywhere near my store? Or did it mean something else altogether?

      I didn’t have time to think about it before the front door to the Barn swished open, and Mateo came out with a box in his hands. His new cologne reached us before he did, and I hate to say that Sugar and I took a step back.

      Mateo’s eyes were red and running. He squinted and rubbed his left eye on his shoulder as he held the box out in front of him. We all took another step backward.

      He looked completely distraught. Hopefully he couldn’t see my reaction, but I seriously doubted that he missed it.

      God in heaven…he stunk.

      “I’ve called animal control to relocate our delinquent,” he said.

      Princess squealed at his feet and then pawed at his combat boot.

      “I think that’s her friend.”

      “You want him?” He took a couple of steps in my direction.

      “Don’t you dare, Mateo Espinosa!” I warned as I backed up into the street.

      He smirked. At least his sense of humor hadn’t failed him.

      Princess followed him and began chatting up a storm. The box answered. It wobbled in his grasp. A violent struggle for freedom ensued. Mateo hugged the box as the weight shifted, and Sugar and I ran behind the police car. Mateo lost the battle and barely got the box near the ground when the skunk escaped through the top and ran for the back of the Barn with Princess on his tail.

      Fuzz buckets. She was going to smell worse than ever when she came home. Just like Mateo.

      “You lost your man,” I said.

      Mateo scowled in my direction. He looked as if he wanted to respond, but Liza exited the Barn.

      She didn’t look bad. Just a little rough around the edges with a scrape on her knee. Her body spray, however, could have been named Eau de Salaud. Aromatic Stinkard.

      Liza eyed the onlookers who weren’t about to approach her. Then she spotted me behind Mateo’s unmarked patrol car and stomped in my direction. As she moved closer, Sugar went the opposite direction I did, and one thought came to mind: Liza’s scent wasn’t light like an eau de toilette. It wasn’t even in line with an eau de parfum. Liza was wearing the strongest variety of heavy-oiled perfume money couldn’t buy. She smelled even worse than Mateo.

      I grimaced and moved around the cruiser. Sugar decided it was time to get the heck out of Dodge. Her blond ponytail bobbed along with her across the street.

      “This is your fault!” Liza accused as she followed me around the car.

      “It was an act of God.” It wasn’t like I had control over the skunk entering the store.

      “Your pet led that thing right to me!” Liza continued to stalk me.

      “But you’re the one who tried to kick it and threw your phone at it.”

      “It was going to spray me!” she sputtered. “And I wouldn’t have thrown my phone if it hadn’t been for someone kicking my foot out from under me!” Liza’s face was pinched. For a pretty woman, she was rather unattractive when she was angry.

      As she rounded the passenger side of the car, Mateo stepped in front of her. “I told you not to move,” he said.

      “I thought you were denying the freedom of the press!”

      Mateo winced at the high pitch of her voice. He held her back as he shot me a warning with his eyes over the top of his car.

      “I’m sorry you got sprayed, Liza. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. If you’d like, I’ve got a bunch of leftover tomato sauce that wasn’t used at the spring picnic. You can use our outdoor shower at the back of the Barn.”

      Liza’s eyes bulged into saucers, then turned to slits as her voice filled with indignation. “Your outdoor shower!”

      My hands rose in surrender. “Sorry, I just thought you wouldn’t want to go home smelling like…”

      Liza tried to step around Mateo, but he blocked her path once more.

      I’d offered enough help for one day. “I’m just going to go check out the store,” I said and made my escape.

      The moment I walked in the front door of the bookstore, however, I was hit with remnants of Princess’s bad choices in friends. The entire store reeked of skunk. I coughed then coughed again. Airing the store out was going to be brutal. I flipped the sign to closed and propped the doors open. I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth and made a beeline for the tearoom. I didn’t want to open the side door and let anyone wander inside and see Cade’s stuff, so I opened the two windows and headed for the back door.

      “O.M.W.,” Scarlet gagged. “I ran into Liza and Mateo, but I had no idea they’d had an encounter inside the Barn.” Scarlet was holding her beauty shop apron over her face. She had on a one-piece, sleeveless, summer pantsuit that hugged all her curves, and her ginger-colored hair fell in loose ringlets over her shoulders, accentuating her rosy complexion.

      “You may want to go back to the beauty shop,” I yelled to her as I made my way to the back door and propped it

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