Cat Playing Cupid by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Page A

dread held Ryan cold and still.

9
    D ON’T LET THE EXPLOSION at the Harpers’ wedding eat at you,” Mike said. “Things like that don’t happen twice. Or…” He looked at her more closely. “Is there something else bothering you?” Sounds of the party drifted upstairs to them, and to the tomcat listening from the adjoining room beneath the king-size bed. “You don’t have second thoughts about marrying Clyde?” Mike asked. “You’re not regretting this new step in your life?”
    â€œOh, it isn’t anything like that. It’s just…Maybe I’m a bit tired.”
    There was something else, of course, something she couldn’t share with her dad, ever. “It’s…someone else’s secret,” she said inadequately, “that I’m committed to keep.”
    â€œWell, that’s okay, then,” he said easily. Then, “You care if I take Rock in to the station now and then? He’ll be bored out of his mind if I leave him here all day, this breed was never meant to be idle.”
    â€œTake him, if Max doesn’t mind. Rock loves a crowd, it would be good for him.” She studied her dad. “Dallas and I’ve talked about training him to track. He tracked Charlie when she was kidnapped, he figured it out on his own, and showed a fine natural skill. But then, he loves Charlie.”
    â€œNo question he’s smart and eager,” Mike said. “He’s how old? Three? It’s easier to start a puppy. But Rock…the way he watches a person, wanting to be part of the action, wanting to do something. He needs some kind of work.”
    She knew that too well. A dog like Rock, with so much desire and drive—he was too fine an animal to be lying around doing nothing, or looking for trouble. But she never seemed to have the time to give him what he needed, there weren’t enough hours in the day.
    From the shadows beneath the bed, Joe Grey listened first with amusement, then with rising interest at the idea of training Rock to track, to find felons or lost children. This, the tomcat realized, might solve the problem that had been eating at him. The dilemma for which, until this moment, he’d had no solution.
    Rock could find the body that neither Charlie nor the secret snitches dared report. I can teach Rock to track! I can train a tracking dog in ways no human ever dreamed! And then…
    The more he thought about the idea, the better he liked it. He lay working out the details, deciding which humans to enlist, to do the legwork, as it were, and by the time Ryan and her dad headed back downstairs, the gray tomcat was grinning with anticipation.
    Quietly he followed father and daughter down to the living room where Clyde was changing discs in the CD player, putting on some old ragtime from early in the last century—how many cat lifetimes ago? Hiding his grin, he sauntered past Ryan and Mike and Clyde, leaped to the back of the love seat and to the top of the six-foot bookcase, startling Mike, who stared up at Joe as he stretched out with his paws hanging over the edge.
    â€œThat cat sneaks around like an undercover agent.”
    â€œNature of the cat,” Clyde said easily, setting aside some discs. “It’s the sneaky cat that catches the mice.” And he turned away to sort through the remaining CDs.
    Ryan had turned away, too, hiding a grin as she brushed lint from her jeans. Behind Mike’s back she glanced up to the bookshelf where Joe was washing his paws. She winked at him, then turned back to Clyde. “We were talking about Lindsey Wolf,” she said. “She’s lived in the village off and on. Do you know her?”
    â€œI used to see her in the vet’s office,” Clyde said. “She had a golden retriever, and we’d swap anecdotes.” He glanced at Mike. “Didn’t you date her for a while? Is that the cold case you’re working,