Free Moon Dance by Mariah Stewart Page B

got.
    "Well, right now Georgia is reading her a story—"
    "Georgia?"
    "Georgia Enright," Laura told him.
    "Oh."
    "Oh, Matt—meet her, would you please, before you form a judgme nt?" Laura sighed with exaspera tion. "You would love Georgia, Matt, she's just the sweetest person."
    "I'm sure she is," he replied dryly.
    "Matt, for someone as smart and clever and kind as you are, this blind spot you have—"
    "I've heard this one before, Lama. Look, it's been a very, very long day. Have a nice visit with your sister. Give Ally a kiss for me. And keep in touch." He lowered the phone to its base and exhaled loudly. More annoyed with himself than he wanted to admit, he went into the kitchen and poured a glass of water, trying to understand just why he saw red every time he heard the name Enright. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't rational, he admitted, but it was fact. He swished the water around in the glass, then blew another long stream of air from his lungs.
    He knew that Laura was disappointed by his reaction to her finding her birth mother. He knew that she wanted him to get to know her new family. He also knew that something unexplainable came over him every time he thought about it—something that caused him to break into a sweat and brought the slightest tremor to his hands.
    Maybe, Matt thought, he should get Dr. Espey's former student to prescribe some of those flower essences—the ones that were said to improve one's mental state and emotional well-being—for him.
    He poured the rest of the water from his glass into the sink and opened the back door. Stepping outside, he scanned the night landscape for something moving across the yard. Artie, black as the very night, could be seen only as a streak of horizontal movement across the vertical background of trees. Matt whistled, then listened to the crunch of dried branches as Artie fled through a nearby thicket from the neighbor's yard.
    "What have you been up to?" Matt asked as Artie tried to slink past his master into the kitchen. "Not so fast, Arthur. Sit."
    To rn between escape and obedience, Artie sat.
    "What is this stuff all over your face?" Matt frowned, hoping that the red liquid was something other than blood.
    The phone rang.
    "Yes, Mrs. Dobson? Oh, he did, did he?" Matt turned a stern face to the dog, who chose that moment to casually turn his back. "I'm so sorry. I'll be right over to dean it up. No, it won't happen again. I'll see you in a minute."
    Matt hung up the phone and stood with his hands on his hips.
    "So, Mrs. Dobson tells me you stopped by for a late-night snack."
    The dog licked at his front paws, as if pretending not to hear.
    "And that you raided her trash can to get it. Leftover lasagna, was it?" Matt pulled several sheets of paper towels from the roll on the counter, wet them from the faucet, and knelt down to wash the dog's face and paws. "Artie, you've got to stop knocking over people's trash cans and helping yourself. It's 'no, no, bad dog' stuff, understand?"
    Matt looked down into the big, warm brown eyes of the rottweiler. The dog looked up. A large pink tongue—now devoid of tomato sauce—slurped across Matt's face contritely.
    "Yeah, yeah, I know. We've had this discussion before." Matt stood up and tossed the paper towels into the trash. "And don't even think about going after them; I'm taking the trash bag out with me. You can just wait right here til l I get back. Stay, Artie… "
    Artie sat, his tail thumping tentatively on the kitchen floor.
    "You just sit right there and think about what you've done," Matt muttered as he closed the door behind him and set off to dean up the scattered remains of Mrs. Dobson's garbage, three doors down.
    Later, the apologies made once again and the cleanup completed, Matt settled into his favorite chair with a favorite book, The Sign of Four, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As he opened to the first page, he recalled the phone calls he had not returned that night. He would call his fraternity brother