Troublemaker by Linda Howard

twitch.
    Tricks’s head shot up, though, and her attention riveted on the new game. She trotted over, every muscle alert with eagerness. To head heroff—because she was completely capable of leaping onto his stomach after her bear—Bo dropped the duck she’d picked up and said, “Come on, sweetie, let’s get you fed.” Only food would derail Tricks’s attention from playing.
    With Tricks prancing along beside her she went back into the kitchen, opened the plastic bin of dog food, and dipped out the appropriate amount. Because Tricks liked treats to enliven her meal, she chipped up a little bit of sliced turkey into the dry food, then set the bowl down in the raised feeder.
    Tricks looked at the food, then up at Bo. She waited.
    â€œOkay, it’s one of those nights,” Bo sighed. Having fought the food wars for all of Tricks’s life, she knew the battles to pick. This wasn’t one of them. She bent down and selected a piece of kibble, offered it to Tricks. Tricks turned her head away, as if the kibble wasn’t worthy of being considered and she was offended that Bo had offered it.
    Bo dropped the kibble back in the bowl, then rubbed behind Tricks’s ears and crooned to her how pretty she was, that she was the prettiest puppy in the world, and sometimes she needed her head pinched off for being such a PITA, but it was said in that loving croon and Tricks ate it up. Bo selected another piece of kibble, offered it for inspection. This time Tricks sniffed at it as if this one had possibilities, then turned her head away again. Bo once more went through the ear-rubbing and love-talking routine, then picked up the third piece of kibble. Tricks sniffed it, thought a minute as if weighing whether or not she’d been praised enough, then daintily took the kibble from Bo’s fingers. It passed muster because she gave a pleased wag of her tail and without further ado lowered her head to the food bowl and began eating.
    Bo rolled her eyes at her canine diva and while Tricks was occupied, hurried back to her guest/patient. Hands down, he was more trouble than the dog.
    She grabbed the stuffed duck from the floor and tossed it at him. It landed on his stomach. He didn’t wake.
    â€œDamn it,” she muttered, and pick up the one-legged giraffe. Tricks had torn off the other three legs but used the remaining one to sling thegiraffe from side to side when she was “killing” it. Now that Tricks had started eating, it wouldn’t take her long to finish, and Bo needed to get him awake before that happened. She wound up and put some muscle behind the throw. The giraffe hit him full in the face.
    He started awake pretty much the same way he had before when he’d choked her, except this time his attacker was a mangled stuffed animal. She saw the fierce glitter of his eyes as he lunged upward, then he gave a deep groan and collapsed back onto the sofa, his free hand going to his chest and his expression a grimace of pain.
    Horrified, Bo’s eyes widened and she clapped one hand over her mouth, then immediately removed it to say with fervent guilt, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
    He fought off the pain and opened his reddened lids. “What the hell?” he rasped, breathing hard.
    It was almost a replay of the choking episode, with some aspects swapped. Apologetically she said, “I was trying to wake you up—again. I tried calling, but that didn’t work. You said to throw something at you,” she added, then winced. “In practice, not a good idea.”
    Cautiously, moving as slowly as a ninety-year-old, he levered himself to a sitting position. The bear and duck fell from his lap to the floor. He looked at them, then at the one-legged giraffe still clutched in his fist in a death grip. Loosening his fingers as laboriously as if the joints had frozen, he dropped it to the floor with its fellow toys, his expression carefully