Free Double Dog Dare (The Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series) by Donna Ball

couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It’s just that Cisco was pretty excited, and I could have sworn somebody bumped into me.” 
    Cisco was snuffling at something on the ground, and I bent quickly to pick it up before he could.  It was just a bag of hot dog treats that I must have dropped that afternoon.  I tossed it into the trash can by the gate that was designated for beach trash.  “What about the lights?”
    “Power failure,” he said.  “We get them all the time here.  The generator kicks in after ten seconds.  Still, maybe I’d better—”
    There was a sudden commotion in the bushes a few feet away and we both spun toward it.  Cisco gave a whoop of alarm and then burst into startled barking as a big white bird whirred up from the ground and soared away.  Both Miles and I laughed in relief.
    “Well, there’s your intruder,” Miles said.
    I knelt to comfort Cisco, who looked both disappointed and mildly embarrassed.  “Guess so,” I said, rubbing Cisco’s neck briskly.  “Good boy, though.  You’re on the job.”  I stood.  “I hope we didn’t wake everybody in the neighborhood.”
    “Honey, everybody i n this neighborhood except us is just now getting dressed for dinner.”  He crooked his finger under my chin and tilted my face upwards for a kiss.  “I, on the other hand, prefer an early bedtime.”
    I liked the way his eyes gleamed when he said that, and I settled happily into the crook of his arm as we started back toward the house.
     
    ~*~
     
    I awoke the next morning to the whooshing of the ocean outside my window, a gentle yellow sunlight pressing against my closed eyelids, and the weight of a warm body next to mine.  For a moment I thought it must be a delicious dream and I tried to settle back into sleep, and then I felt the pressure of someone’s gaze, watching me.  I cracked open one eye cautiously.
    Melanie sat cross-legged on the bed beside me, wearing her swimsuit and a Batman tee shirt, her expression impatient.  “Hey,” she said.
    I responded, “Hey,” and turned over on my back, plumping the pillows beneath my head.
    “Dad said to tell you he took Cisco for a run on the beach.”
    I yawned.  “That’s nice.”
    “Grandma’s making crepes for breakfast , with croissants from the bakery in town.”
    Crepes?  Now I was awake.
    “And there’s a woman downstairs looking for Dad.  I thought you’d want to know.”
    I sat up , pushing back my hair. “Do you know who she is?”
    “Nope.”  She slid off the bed and stood up. “ I’ll keep an eye on her for you, but if I were you I wouldn’t waste any time. See you at the pool.”
    I was dressed and downstairs less than five minutes later.
    I found Rita and Melanie sitting at the table beneath the shade pavilion by the pool.  The table was set with colorful crockery and glasses of juice, a silver carafe of coffee and something wonderful-smelling beneath a domed platter.  With them was a woman in a crisp white shirt, cropped designer jeans and bright red stiletto heels.  She was one of those women who proved the adage that “forty was the new thirty”, with expensively groomed butterscotch colored hair that brushed her shoulders, salon-maintained nails, and flawlessly applied makeup. Melanie, as promised, was watching the newcomer as though she expected her to try to steal the silver.
    I approached the table and said, in my usual cheerful fashion,  “Good morning, everyone.”  Okay, perhaps my tone was more guarded th an cheerful, but my intentions were good.
    T he strange woman turned around at the sound of my voice.  Rita, looking a little flustered, said, “Raine, Good morning.  Susan, this is our friend Raine Stockton.  Raine, this is Susan Barry.”
    Her smile was weak and distracted, and when I moved forward to offer my hand I noticed she barely glanced at me.  I was getting used to that from the women in Miles’s past.  Her fingers were cold and boney, but her grip was