LITMIR.BIZ

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have time to spend the salary she had.

      Truth was, Poppy had realized for some time that she loved animals more than people. More than herself, when it came down to it. And Web gave her a ton of freedom and encouragement to try things that worked. In this case, what worked for Bubba was a treadmill under water.

      The contraption looked like a bathtub set below floor level—because she couldn’t very well lift the heavier animals. Bubba was a love. This was his third time, and initially he’d liked standing in the lukewarm water. Getting him to walk on the underwater treadmill was a way of giving him exercise without putting any pressure or weight on his old hips. It worked like a dream to limber him up.

      The only slight problem was that most dogs couldn’t be coaxed into doing it until she got in the water with them. She didn’t exactly mind. But ten minutes into the session with Bubba, she was wetter and stinkier than he was—and that wasn’t too complimentary, considering how much stinky hound was in Bubba’s genetic heritage.

      Web stopped by a few minutes later but just to chortle in the doorway. “Tell me again—who’s that exercise pool for, you or the dog?”

      She ignored the insult. She was used to it. “Look how good he’s doing!”

      Web stepped in then and hunkered down at the dog’s level to watch how Bubba moved in the water. “I never thought this was going to work when you made me build the damn thing,” he admitted.

      “I don’t know why you keep doubting me. I’ve told you and told you that I’m always right.” Though she easily teased him back, Web wasn’t on her mind. The dog was. Damn, but the old love was able to move with so much more ease in the water. Bubba was even wagging his tail—which contributed mightily to Poppy and the floor being extra wet, but it wasn’t as if she gave a damn about irrelevant stuff like that anyway.

      “You have a helluva gift, Poppy,” Web murmured seriously.

      Sometimes she thought she did. Animals made so much more sense to her than people. A critter never stood you up and rejected you or made you feel like dirt. Give an animal love, they gave back.

      When she glanced up, Web had gone back to his other patients. She did the same, finishing with Bubba, then taking on a Jack Russell named Sergeant. Sergeant’s owner had been bringing him in weekly for grooming. The dog didn’t need grooming, he needed training. But since his owner couldn’t face up to admitting failure, Poppy called it “grooming” and just did the job.

      Sergeant was smarter than most men—not that that was any exceptional accomplishment—and he took pleasure in testing all the humans in his realm to the far reaches of their patience whenever possible.

      Poppy could outpatience him with no sweat, but she was whipped when her hour with him was over. By then it was two o’clock, and she was close to death from starvation.

      If anyone had asked, she’d have claimed that the box locked in her car trunk hadn’t given her a moment’s worry. But it had. She yanked on a clean long-sleeved T-shirt, because she was too disreputable to be seen in public—even by her own loose standards.

      Then she drove back into town, taking Willow Street, past all the blue-and-silver banners at the high school, past Pete’s Pharmacy and Clunkers Shoe Store and Baby Buttercup Clothes for Tots. Link’s was next, one of her favorite takeouts because it had great fresh deli.

      She was still munching on a pastrami-on-rye when she pulled into the parking lot next door, behind Ruby’s Rubies. The name was hokey, but the owner’s last name was actually Ruby, so it wasn’t his fault. And of the three jewelry stores in town, everyone seemed to inherently know that Ruby’s was the best.

      That wasn’t why she’d chosen the place, though. Anonymity was. One of her younger brothers was a sheriff deputy and the other volunteered with the fire department—which meant they heard all the Righteous gossip almost before a juicy story could even happen. When Poppy wanted to do something on the Q.T., she had to be sneaky enough to slip under their radar.

      She was already known here, although heaven knew, not because she’d ever purchased any jewelry.

      She popped in the front door, the box under her arm. The bells jangled over the door, but initially she saw no one and called out, “Hey, Ruby!”

      Ruby was a one of a kind. Agewise, he had to be somewhere between forty and a hundred. He had a nose so hooked it could have caught fish, hair that streamed down his back in wiry strings and quiet gray eyes. He’d never cracked a smile that Poppy had ever seen, but he had a framed photograph over his door. It said Nature’s Most Savage Predator and showed a five-week-old orange-striped kitten peeking fearlessly over the side of a wicker basket.

      Poppy had met Ruby when he’d brought the kitten in to the vet for the first time. She’d seen how he acted with the baby. Didn’t have to know him better than that to know he was a trustworthy kind of guy.

      His store, though, was an alien planet. Two rows of counters gleamed with baubles and glitter. Lots of watches. Lots of wedding rings. Lots of rainbow-colored junk to dazzle the eye. Poppy heard a woman’s voice in the back room and realized Ruby must have a customer back there—but before she could duck out the door, he suddenly showed up in the workroom doorway.

      She opened her mouth to say what she needed, when he simply said, “Come on back,” as if he already knew.

      He couldn’t, but she really didn’t want to display the contents in the public front of the store anyway, so she trailed him into the back room. And then lifted her eyebrows in surprise.

      Bren Price was already there. Her jewelry goodies were spilled out on a velvet scarf, where Ruby had obviously been studying her pieces.

      “I had to know, too,” Bren said as if they’d been carrying on a conversation.

      “I can do this via separate appointments if you want,” Ruby said in his deep, quiet baritone. “But I’m guessing you both have similar kinds of questions. I can do a short, cursory appraisal for you both right now—at least, if we’re not interrupted by customers.”

      “I don’t know what questions either of us have. But I’m okay with your handling us together, if that’s all right with Bren,” Poppy said frankly.

      “It’s all right with me,” Bren affirmed.

      After that, neither woman spoke for quite a while. Poppy figured she wasn’t that surprised to find Bren there. They were both women, after all.

      No female alive could survive a major dose of curiosity indefinitely. Although Poppy couldn’t believe this could possibly be a serious financial legacy—and probably neither did Bren—she just plain had to know what all that gaudy jewelry was worth so she could put her curiosity at ease.

      Clearly Ruby had been working for some time on Bren’s cache of sparklers, because there was stuff all around him—paper, pencil, a monocle, some kind of fancy microscope. Once he went back to concentrating, Poppy could see a pattern emerge. He kept looking at the jewelry, then his instruments, then Bren. “Jesus,” he said.

      And then, “Jesus,” he repeated.

      By the time he spun his stool to Poppy’s stash and dived into her mother lode, he seemed to have that mantra down pat. The only variance in his vocabulary seemed to be an occasional, “Jesus, Mother and Mary.”

      Poppy asked once, “How’s the Lion, Ruby?” referring to Ruby’s kitten, but he completely ignored her. Truth to tell, he didn’t seem to give a particular hoot if either woman was in the room.

      That didn’t bother Poppy, but even for an irreverent antichurch person like herself, his choice of words started to get to her. Eventually she had to interrupt. “Look, I couldn’t care less if you use four-letter words until the cows come home, but you know Bren’s a minister’s wife, right? I mean, I realize she isn’t objecting, but I’d think…”

      He just whispered, “Jesus,” again in an awe-filled tone, as if the two women weren’t even there.

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