Feline Fatale by Linda O. Johnston Page A

office. See how he was doing.
    Determine whether I could further mend our fragile relationship.
    As we went inside, Lexie immediately dashed off to play with some of her Indulgence pup pals. Kiki was the one to sign her in. She glared at me, but didn’t say anything especially nasty.
    Maybe she was waiting for her boss to do that, since Darryl came over to me after ending a conversation with another pet owner.
    “Could we talk for a minute in your office?” I asked.
    He seemed somewhat reluctant, but he shrugged his narrow shoulders beneath his orange—today—Doggy Indulgence knit shirt and said, “Sure.”
    Inside, with the door shut, I took one of the seats facing his messy desk. His window on his world, the day care facility, was behind him, and the mostly soundproof glass kept out the noise.
    It was just him and me.
    “Darryl,” I began, “I—”
    He started speaking at the same time. “I’ve been acting like an ass, Kendra.” His head drooped before he raised it again to look at me sadly through his wire-rimmed glasses. “I apologize. I know you can’t help being a murder magnet, and you certainly didn’t wish this on Wanda—or me, for that matter.”
    “So what’s the ‘but’?” I urged him on. Foolishly? Maybe. But since we’d started to try to clear the unhealthy air between us, I figured we’d better try to finish it, too.
    “ But . . . I’ve been blaming you in my mind because I’m just so frustrated. Have you ever loved someone so much that you’d do anything to protect them?” His tone was anguished. So was his look.
    Even worse were his words. I’d had relationships before, and every one of them had ended badly.
    Now, I was involved with a man who had it all—wealth, power, sexiness, and, yes, sweetness. Would I do anything to shelter Dante?
    I knew he would for me. He’d even tried to force protection on me the last time I’d looked into a murder, but at least then he’d known some nasty secrets about the guy who was killed, plus his enemies—and Dante himself was the major murder suspect. Now he was doing it again as I leaped into attempting to fix things for Wanda. Sweet, sure, but also a bit too controlling.
    Or caring. He’d once lost a woman he’d loved in a car accident. He mentioned it the first few times without follow-up, but I’d eventually managed to extract some additional details. It happened just after he’d opened his first HotPets stores. She was a rep for a major pet food manufacturer. He’d fallen for her—hard. Her death occurred on a slick freeway during an early-season Los Angeles rain. An accident, and that was that. End of story—and he didn’t really want to talk about it.
    I suspected he was being so overprotective of me now because his wound reminded him of his loss, and life’s fragility. Never mind that he’d formerly enjoyed a potentially toxic government job. That was then, and this was now.
    As sweet as his caring was, I’d remind him—often—that I could take care of myself. Would I do anything to protect him, like Darryl asked? I’d certainly managed to blame myself a bit after Dante got stabbed . . .
    “How much I’ve cared for anyone isn’t the point, Darryl. You obviously feel that way about Wanda, and that’s a wonderful thing. She’s my friend, too. And I’ll do everything in my power to help her out of this mess—even though I didn’t really get her into it. You know that, don’t you?”
    He was staring at me. For a horrible instant, I thought he might contradict me and claim I’d not only chosen to be a murder magnet, but I’d also wished suspect status on many of my friends, including Wanda. Instead, he nodded. “I do know that, Kendra. I’m sorry for even considering otherwise. Can we still be friends?”
    In a second, I was on his side of his desk, hugging the long, lanky, lovable guy. “Friends,” I said soggily in agreement. I backed away. “Now I’m on my way to my law office. I plan to follow up on at