Free Doggone Dead by Teresa Trent Page B

wouldn’t be too difficult. I already knew he was taking Sunshine to the dog park every day at noon. Zach, Butch and I packed a picnic lunch and headed back over to accidentally-on-purpose run into Mr. Cole. Zach of course, had no idea the sneaky thing his mother was about to do. He was more than a little curious as to why I wanted to go to the dog park when it looked like it was going to rain. At the last minute I threw an umbrella into our bag. Right as we entered the dog park, the sky burst open and a healthy Texas downpour drenched us.
    “Mom, it’s raining. Let’s go back home,” Zach said as I scrambled to open the umbrella. We couldn’t go back home. What if this was my only chance to come in contact with Adam Cole and save my dad’s reputation?
    “Come on, Zach. Butch doesn’t mind if it’s raining, now do you, Butch?” Butch looked up at me, his little tail between his legs, the water starting to make him look like a large rodent just crawling out of the sewer.
    I clutched my picnic basket and headed for the covered benches and tables. The lightning crackled just as we got to the shelter.
    “Mom, is this a metal roof? Is that safe in a thunderstorm?”
    I tried to ignore my son and the intelligence he was producing from that darned public school education.
    “We’ll be fine.” I pulled out our peanut butter sandwiches and tried to make light of the situation. Butch now cowered under the picnic table.
    “Mom, are you crazy? We need to get out of here,” Zach pleaded. I was just about to take him up on it when I heard a voice from behind me.
    “Betsy?” It was Adam Cole, holding his briefcase over his head and dragging along Sunshine, who was, needless to say, not feeling her name.
    “Hi there,” I chirped. “What a surprise to see you here!”
    “I could say the same. You must really love that little dog to bring him out in the rain like this.”
    “Yes, we really love him ... Uh, and it wasn’t raining when we got here,” I assured him. I ran a hand through my hair, sure the humidity was turning it into a layer of frizz. “So you didn’t get your fence fixed yet?” I asked.
    “No, I’ve been pretty busy at work. New job, you know.”
    “Yes, new job, new town.” I put on my most seductive smile and then took a little too big of a bite of my sandwich.
    “Boy, you must be hungry,” he said, noticing the hunk I had just taken out of my sandwich. That was it! That was my path to getting him to talk about dinner. I tried to answer him, but found the peanut butter wasn’t budging. I muttered incomprehensibly, but he stopped me.
    “Take your time, you’ll choke.” He reached over and patted me on the back like I was a four-year-old who had gobbled down too much cookie.
    I finally swallowed and took a breath of air. “Yes, I was hungry.” Zach was now looking at me closely, probably wondering if he needed to arrange a nursing home for his loony mother.
    Adam Cole turned back toward his dog and tried to push her out into the rain beyond the somewhat dry space we were in. She wasn’t having it.
    “I was just saying,” I said too loudly. He jumped and turned around from the dog. “I was just saying to a friend of mine that it’s really nice to eat with someone who’s over eighteen sometimes.”
    A look of confusion came over Zach’s face.
    Cole smiled. “You don’t get to do that?”
    “Well, you know,” I motioned to Zach. “Being a single parent, I don’t get to converse with adults all that much.”
    “Oh,” he nodded. I was sure he was going to launch into the dinner invite one more time, but a quiet settled between us as the rhythm of the falling rain pounded on the tin roof above us. This was not happening. My Mata Hari was truly inadequate.
    “I’ll go to dinner,” I blurted out.
    “Oh, um ... great,” he said. “I didn’t think you wanted to go to dinner. I thought you might have a boyfriend or something.”
    “She does,” Zach interrupted.
    “Well,