LITMIR.BIZ

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hunch only grew stronger when a rescue vehicle and fire engine careened into the parking lot with sirens blaring. A troop of firefighters clad in black boots and red rubber coats disembarked. A stretcher was rushed inside.

      Olivia followed. As she passed Gretchen, the girl shook her head.

      “Another accident?” she drawled.

      “As a matter of—”

      “Save your breath. You’re going to need it to talk Owen out of killing you with his bare hands. My guess is he’ll be here any second now.”

      “Okay, I’ll bite,” countered Olivia. “Who’s Owen?”

      Gretchen smirked. “Owen Rancourt? Just about the most hard-assed, hard-driving trainer anywhere, that’s who. That’s dog trainer,” she added with an air of superiority. “As in security, and search and rescue. Danny Dewar is Owen’s right-hand man, and Romeo is his all-time number-one dog. And thanks to you they’re both in there covered with beestings.”

      Olivia could feel a headache coming on. A real doozy of one.

      “Some people die from beestings,” Gretchen informed her.

      “And some are strangled because they don’t know when to keep their mouths shut,” she snapped. “Would you like to guess which is more likely to be your fate?”

      Gretchen’s response was lost in a sudden flurry of activity as Danny was rushed to the rescue vehicle on the stretcher. From the looks of it, he was already hooked up to oxygen and an IV. Olivia’s stomach clenched painfully. She may not have meant for any of this to happen, but it happened just the same and she alone was to blame. It was like a bad joke. She was in Danby to prove to everyone—maybe even to herself—that she was more than a beautiful, essentially useless ornament, suited only to decorate some rich man’s life. Instead she was piling up proof that not only was she useless, she was downright dangerous. Men, hedgehogs, for pity’s sake, even bees weren’t safe around her.

      As much as she hated to admit it, maybe her mother was right. If she had heeded her mother’s advice, she would be on her way home right now and no one would be suffering because of her ineptitude. Doc Allison would still have her treasured hives, poor Danny wouldn’t be swollen and blotchy and strapped to a stretcher, and Owen Rancourt, whoever the hell he was, wouldn’t be on his way there to “kill her with his bare hands,” as Gretchen had put it. That was probably a slight exaggeration, but even if the prediction proved dead-on, she didn’t have it in her to put up much of a fight.

      Gretchen went inside, leaving her alone to watch the rescue vehicle drive away. When it reached the road, the driver was forced to stop by a gleaming black-and-chrome pickup, whose driver seemed hell-bent on making the turn into the parking lot. She continued to watch as the truck pulled parallel to the rescue vehicle and stopped so the two drivers could converse briefly. Then the rescue vehicle continued on and the truck shot toward her with enough speed to spray gravel.

      Even before it came to a complete stop, Olivia knew the menacing-looking truck belonged to Owen Rancourt. Call it intuition. Call it inevitable. Call it the fitting end to what threatened to be the worst day of her entire useless life.

      Hell, call it plain old bad luck. The facts didn’t change.

      Fact one: judging from the expression on the man’s face as he jumped from his truck and caught sight of her, Gretchen had called it exactly. Owen Rancourt had murder in his eye.

      Fact two: she and Owen the Horrible had tangled before.

      Twice.

       Chapter Three

       F or the first time since the frantic call summoning him there, Owen’s adrenaline level began to level off. Not that it was apparent from the way his truck ripped across the paved lot. Whatever relief he felt was a result of seeing for himself that Dan, his only full-time employee and damn near his only close friend in the world, was in good hands and on his way to the hospital. Now he needed to see Romeo. Even within that small circle Owen counted as friends, Romeo stood alone.

      It was the general belief in town that Owen Rancourt preferred dogs to people. It was not an impression he went out of his way to contradict. He wasn’t one of those activists who ranked animal rights equal to those of humans. It was simply a fact that, much of the time, he’d rather be in the company of his dogs than most people he knew. And if that little quirk in his nature prompted others to keep their distance, well, that was just fine with him.

      There was a long list of reasons he favored dogs. High on that list was that they never trapped him into making small talk, or asked questions about things that were none of their business, or demanded more than he was willing or able to give at that moment. A passing scratch behind the ears or an hour of throwing a Frisbee, a good dog received both with a wagging tail and single-minded devotion.

      Loyalty. That was also near the top of his list. Right up there with predictability. Once a dog was properly trained and bonded with his handler, you could count on him doing his job, doing his best, every time out. No surprises. No hesitation. No second-guessing. And his dogs could count on him the very same way. Simple and straightforward. That’s the way he liked things, and he did everything in his power to keep his life working that way.

      There had been nothing simple or straightforward about the phone call some babbling pet owner had made on Doc Allison’s behalf. Even now he wasn’t sure what the hell had happened. The rescue crew had only taken enough time to tell him Danny’s vital signs were almost back to normal and he should be all right once they got him to the hospital. All he had been able to decipher from the phone call was what sounded like “loose bees,” “the poor man” and “the poor dog” Then the plea for him to come in a hurry.

      It didn’t make sense. Allison had been cultivating honey for as long as he could remember, and if she’d ever had a problem with her bees, he didn’t recall it. Besides, Danny and Romeo were both too smart and too tough to be taken down by a few bees.

      It wasn’t until he was out of the truck and standing face-to-face with hands-down the most perfect specimen of womanhood to ever float down from heaven, that it began to make a scary kind of sense. The fact that Ms. Perfection was also crazy was the piece of the puzzle that made all the others slip into place.

      Instinctively his heart went back to jackhammering in his chest.

      “Where’s my dog?” he demanded.

      “Doc Allison is inside with him. Please, you have to listen,” she said, stepping directly into his path and raising both palms. As if that could stop him—or save her—if he felt like doing something more than listen. “I can’t tell you how sorry…”

      That was enough to confirm his suspicion that whatever the nature of the crisis, she was to blame. Not exactly a surprise.

      “Get out of my way,” he ordered, prepared to move her physically if she made it necessary.

      She stepped aside, proving she had at least a modicum of sense.

      He strode through the deserted waiting area and headed for the examining room. First he would check on Romeo. Then he would deal with the lunatic outside.

      He shoved open the door without taking time to knock.

      Romeo, all 140 pounds of him, was lying on his side on the examining table. A narrow white cloth covered his eyes, and the rest of him was covered with swollen bumps, some of then with gauze stuck to them. Beestings. Dozens of them, damn her. The six-year-old German shepherd was absolutely motionless. Doc sat on a stool by his side, her head in her hands. Gretchen was in the corner, looking even gloomier than usual.

      At the sound of the door opening, the vet’s head jerked up.

      “Damn, Doc,” he blurted before she had a chance to speak. “He’s not…”

      He couldn’t even say it.

      “No, no. Of course, he’s not,” Doc Allison assured him as she quickly stood and rounded the examining table

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