She didn’t look around when Scott stood up beside her. She just gave Hugo’s ball a mighty toss. The ball took a bad bounce and landed right in the middle of the pool.
“Crap.” She started to go after it but Scott wrapped a hand around her upper arm, halting her. When she turned to him his expression was still closed off, all but the beat of pain in his eyes.
“You did more than help. Your being there.” She could see him struggling with the words. She let him. Finally he lifted a hand to her cheek, cupping it so gently she felt the sudden foolish push of tears in her eyes. “Your being here was a good thing for them. Thank you.”
He dropped his hand and turned away. Izzy, feeling bereft, pulled herself to her feet and stared after him.
Cole watched him walk back into the house that had once been his home, thinking that she was watching the loneliest man she’d ever known. Yet that didn’t make sense.
His dad was going to be fine. His mother was already talking about new drapes and paint chips this afternoon, mostly to have something positive to hold on to, Cole figured, when she dropped by the hospital to say farewell. His parents would be staying at a long-term residency inn while their home’s interior was redone. Scott had already found a place for them, close enough to the hospital so that if his dad should need care they could get there quickly.
Something else was wrong. He just wasn’t going to tell her.
The huge splash had her shaking her head before she even turned around. Hugo, all ninety-five pounds of him, was paddling for dear life to retrieve his ball from the pool.
Izzy did a head kick, cocking her head to one side, and woofed her opinion of his action.
Cole glanced down at the chocolate-brown Lab and smiled. “I know. Males. Right? At least you don’t have to share a bus seat with him tonight. Don’t suppose you know where a hair dryer is?”
*
Hugo scooped up the orange prize and pranced around the Harmonie Kennel course as if he was taking a victory lap after winning a race.
“Show-off.” Cole smiled and clapped for him.
For the first time, Hugo had completed the Weave obstacle without stopping or faulting. A week’s effort. It was tenuous at best. Yardley was loaning her the poles so that they could practice every day, wherever they went. They would need all the practice they could squeeze in. Hugo was still tentative in the beginning and slower than she wanted because he was still thinking his way through it.
She allowed him to chew on his prize for a few minutes to extract some of the peanut butter before asking for it back. Hugo reluctantly brought it to her and put it down. She picked it up and tucked it under her arm. “So now you know the joy of winning. Show me what else you’ve got.”
She ran back into the ring and put him through his paces, all the jumps and tunnels, the teeter-totter, and even the A-frame, before bringing him back to the Weave poles.
Hugo slid through the first four zigzags like butter. But he overshot coming out and went in between six and seven, skipping five-six.
“Nein.” She waved him back to the beginning.
Hugo gamely tried again, this time going more slowly, as if he was thinking his way through it again. He paused briefly twice but actually made it through. She didn’t hand him the prize this time but called him back to the beginning. “Hier. Again.”
The third time through he made it without mishap.
Cole tossed him the orange peanut-butter-flavored prize. “Good boy! Zei brav!”
Exhausted, she made her way back to the bunkhouse. Scott was expected back tonight, or so she’d heard from Richards. He hadn’t called or even texted her. Something wasn’t right. She couldn’t put her finger on it but the more she thought about it, his actions didn’t seem to be related only to the bad scare of almost losing his father. The hog’s head, which seemed just an ugly prank at the time, had begun to creep into her dreams. Who brought a hog’s head to an act of vandalism, unless it had a purpose? What purpose? A message. But for who?
“Always a cop, Jamieson,” she murmured to herself.
She’d become accustomed to putting the worst interpretation on every suspicious event. Perhaps the hog’s head had already been there in the Luccas’ freezer. Although she really couldn’t imagine Judge Lucca making roasted hog’s head in her immaculate kitchen.
Or possibly the only thing wrong with Scott was that he’d had sex with his ex.
Cole briefly covered her face with her hands. “Stupid move, Jamieson.”