Over His Head. Carolyn McSparren

      “Hi,” she said, and wiggled her fingers at him.

      Lancelot, thoroughly awake now and aware that he was sleeping with a stranger, squealed, fell onto the floor and tried to wedge himself under the bed. Since the bed was low and modern, he only made it as far as his snout.

      “That is a pig,” Tim said, pointing to the bristly butt sticking up on the far side of the bed. He sounded very, very calm.

      “Uh-huh.” Nancy sat back on her heels. She held up Lancelot’s harness and leash.

      “I’m sure there’s a simple explanation why he was sharing my bed. Is it a he?”

      She nodded. “His name is Lancelot.”

      “And an equally simple explanation why you’re crouching at the foot of my bed at dawn.”

      She nodded. “I was after Lancelot.”

      “I see. Apart from the obvious question of how he wound up in my bed, it occurs to me to wonder if you’ve ever heard the term ‘doorbell.’”

      Oh, boy. This guy was a good deal more annoying when he was in the right. She pushed herself up to a standing position and took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

      “Isn’t that kind of you.”

      “Well, you’re the one who left the pet flap unlocked.”

      “My mistake. I should have realized I’d wind up in bed with a pig. Sorry.”

      “Listen, you. It could have been a possum or a raccoon or God forbid a skunk. Not to mention a copperhead or a water moccasin.”

      “I’m curious. Did you also crawl in the dog door? Frankly you don’t look as though you’d fit.” He ran his gaze from her head to her toes.

      She wished she’d taken the time to put on her sneakers, let alone a bra and underpants. She felt her face flame. She knew damned well her nipples were standing out to here, and her shorts not only bared her navel, but covered precious little below it.

      “No, I did not crawl in the pet door,” she said with hauteur. “I used the spare key over the back door.”

      “Ah. The spare key over the back door. My, I wish someone had mentioned that to me.”

      “Here it is,” she said and tossed it onto the rumpled bed.

      “Thank you.”

      “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll put Lancelot’s harness on and take him home.”

      He waved a hand, nearly dropped the sheet and clutched it in front of him again. At that moment, she realized he was standing in front of a full-length mirror that had been propped against the wall beside the bed. The sheet might be concealing the family jewels, but she was learning a good deal more about Mr. Wainwright’s backside than she had thought she ever would. It was an extremely nice backside. Better than nice. Great. She felt her temperature rising just looking at him. If only he knew.

      She gulped and grabbed Lancelot. She had to get away from that mirror before he caught her staring and turned around to see what had riveted her. “Lancelot belongs to the Halliburtons, the tenants you evicted,” she said. “The poor baby’s staying with me because they can’t have pets in the poky little apartment they’re stuck with in Collierville, while they try to find a house they can afford closer to Williamston. He just wanted to come home where his people loved him.” She hoped she was laying it on thick enough. Although she doubted he’d care.

      She clipped the leash to Lancelot’s harness, stood and began to haul him toward the bedroom door. “It won’t happen again. I apologize for our intrusion.”

      “No problem.”

      Now she had to turn her back to him. She knew her shorts weren’t much less revealing of her backside than what she’d seen in the mirror of his.

      “Do you always go barefoot?” he asked.

      “In the summer, often. Seldom in January.” Better than bare-assed, she thought, and despite all her efforts, began to snicker. “Come on, Lancelot, bad pig,” she said and pulled on his leash. He squealed and yanked back.

      She made it all the way to the back steps before uncontrollable laughter broke the surface. She sank onto the back steps, hugged Lancelot to her and laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks.

      At the same moment that Nancy began to laugh, Tim dropped his sheet and turned around. It took him a moment to process what he was seeing in the full-length mirror—and to realize what Nancy Mayfield had been looking at for the past five minutes.

      That’s when he heard her laughing.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      NANCY HAD BARELY dragged Lancelot home and fed him and the cats when her doorbell rang. She froze. It had to be Tim Wainwright. No doubt infuriated. No doubt accusing her of burglary, being a Peeping Tom and assault with a deadly pig.

      Might as well face him now. After all, he was supposed to drive her to the car rental agency. If he didn’t, she was stuck, and she needed to check on the mastiff and the Jack Russell at the clinic. Not to mention the usual Saturday grocery shopping. She opened the door prepared for a frontal assault, no pun intended.

      The kid—Eddy, was it?—stood on the doorstep. He stared up at her with those blank, unblinking blue eyes. He was cradling something in his arms.

      She caught her breath. All puppies looked pretty much alike at this age except in size, but this one had come from small parents and would probably stay small itself. Possibly some mixed variety that included Jack Russell terrier and dachshund.

      Eddy held it out to her. “Please?” he said. His voice sounded rusty from disuse, deep and gravelly for a child his age.

      She feared the pup was dead from the way it lay in the child’s arms, but when she took it, she felt the flutter of a small heart. And the warmth of blood on her palms. She turned and raced for her kitchen, as she called over her shoulder, “Come in, shut the door behind you tight so the animals don’t get out.”

      She heard the sound of the lock clicking into place and then the patter of bare feet on her floorboards.

      She grabbed a dry dish towel off the rack beside the sink and laid the pup on it. Poor little thing, it was too traumatized or too hurt to fight. “Hit by a car, probably,” she said as she gently lifted the satiny brown baby hair away from the place she had felt blood.

      She gasped. The flesh was raw, the burns so deep she could see blistered muscle tissue. The pup wriggled and mewed more like a small kitten than a dog. Instantly Poddy jumped onto the drain board. “Down, Poddy, go ’way. I’m not hurting it.”

      She felt rather than saw Eddy beside her. “Please,” he whispered again.

      “Did you do this?” she asked sharply without taking her eyes off the pup. She ran cold water over a dish towel and, folding it, placed it over the wound, then turned to glare down at him.

      He shook his head. Those blue eyes stared into hers, and for the first time she saw expression in him. A single tear ran down his cheek, cutting a swatch through the dirt. “I found him.” He reached out and touched the brown pup’s little skull tentatively. “Please don’t let him die.” Without warning, he began to shake his head fiercely and backed away from the sink. “Mustn’t die, mustn’t die!”

      She caught his shoulder. He was thin, but wiry. He was as tense as a crossbow. Probably just as ready to snap. “I won’t lie. He’s in shock. Otherwise you’d never have been able to carry him. He’d have bitten you.”

      She turned back to the sink. “Somebody’s poured lighter fluid or kerosene on him and lit it, but they did a lousy job. He must have broken loose and put out the fire in the damp grass. He’s brown. He wouldn’t have been easy to spot in the dark once the fire was out.”

      “Somebody