Free Love Is a Four-Legged Word by Kandy Shepherd

media’s right to do their job slipped down a notch.
    Tom broke away from the group and headed toward the reporters. She could tell by his stride and the rigid set of his body how angry he was at the press disruption.
    But it was her they were after. Her and Brutus. What did they want? A shot of her weeping and Brutus whining? She couldn’t trust herself not to cry at this final farewell to her old friend. No way would she give them that photo opportunity.
    Without Brutus she would attract less attention. She handed the leash to Jerome. He’d said he wanted to get to know Brutus better. Now was his chance.
    “Mind him for a moment, would you please?” she murmured, and stepped briskly away from the cameras to the protection of a cluster of palm trees. From there, she could see the proceedings without visibly taking part in them. She couldn’t bear to think that her presence would detract from the dignity of the final rites for Walter.
    There, in privacy, she choked back her tears to offer her own prayer of thanks and remembrance of her old friend. “You must have had your reasons for leaving me this inheritance,” she whispered. “I just wish I knew what they were.”
    She stood in respectful silence, thinking of how kind Walter had been to her and hoping he was reunited with his beloved wife, Isobel, and the child he had never ceased to mourn.
    Then, hearing the final blessings come to an end, she wiped her eyes and waited for the mourners to move away. She turned around and slowly made her way back toward the graveside. Some distance away, Jerome was standing alone, smoking a cigarette.
    “Where’s Brutus?” she asked.
    Jerome shrugged his shoulders. “He ran off.”
    “Ran off? What do you mean, he ran off ?” Her voice started to rise. “I asked you to look after him.”
    He shrugged again. “Couldn’t hold him I’m afraid.”
    “You couldn’t hold him? A small dog like that?” Her heart started to thud. She looked anxiously around her. Brutus was nowhere in sight. The cemetery was a big one. And unfamiliar territory to the little animal.
    A shiver ran through her. Surely Jerome hadn’t let him off the leash on purpose?
    “Brutus,” she called. “Brutus, here, boy.”
    Suddenly Tom was by her side. “Is there a problem?” he said, looking pointedly at Jerome.
    Hurray. She didn’t try to mask her relief at seeing him. Somehow Tom O’Brien seemed the kind of man who would be good in an emergency. “Jerome let Brutus run away,” she said, looking at the Englishman through narrowed eyes, expecting support from Tom.
    “ Jerome let Brutus run away? But you were looking after him.”
    He was blaming her, not Jerome? “Jerome was watching him for me while I ... while I went over there ...”
    “Slipped the leash I’m afraid,” said Jerome in his plummy British voice. He blew out a stream of smoke that made her wince. “Not a well-trained dog.”
    “So where is Brutus now?”Tom demanded.
    Jerome shrugged his shoulders again. Once okay, two maybe, but three times was beginning to bug Maddy. She glared at him. He reminded her of the salads set in aspic she’d made at culinary school—beautiful to look at but when you bit into them they didn’t taste so great. No substance at all.
    Not like Tom, who she was beginning to think would be satisfying in every way.
    “Brutus!” she called again, scanning the rows of headstones.
    Tom scowled. But he was scowling at Maddy, not Jerome. “Why didn’t you bring Brutus over to me?”
    She hunched away from him. “I thought you’d, uh, strangle him.”
    “Strangle the millionaire mutt?” asked Jerome with a sudden show of interest. “Surely not?”
    “He chewed up Tom’s car and—oh, never mind,” said Maddy. Her heart was pounding. Not because she knew how important legally it was to keep Brutus out of harm’s way for the next seventeen days but because she couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to the little animal. “Come on,