The Secret Wedding Dress

“Please do. Say, I realize I only requested that you bathe and brush Oscar. But since you’ll have him longer, can you give him the works? Check for ear mites and trim his nails? Especially his dewclaws. I heard Ted muttering last week that Oscar’s looking like he’s wearing snowshoes again.”

“I’ll be happy to make him all boo-tiful. Yes, I’m talking about you, sweet thang,” Sylvie purred in an exaggerate drawl. She leaned down to kiss the dog’s shiny black nose. In return, she received a doggie kiss from his rough tongue. “Unlike most of the other dogs I deal with, Oscar loves a bath. When you drop him off, Anita, he knows he’ll get to play in my big tub of bubbles.”

“You might want to toss him in soon,” Anita said with a grin. “I’m well aware that you spoil him rotten and let him sleep beside your bed whenever we board him.” She shook her head. “It’s been such a warm summer, he keeps in rolling in my flowerbeds to keep cool. And yesterday he came in smelling faintly of skunk.”

“Ugh. I’ll wash him right away. I need a break from Kay’s gown. She chose crepe-backed satin, and my fingers are objecting to so much hand-sewing.”

Anita paused in the act of climbing into her vehicle. “Darn, we’ll probably miss the wedding. Please tell Kay and David we wish them the best. I’ll have Carline send their gift straight from the store.”

“You bought their gift from Carline’s kitchen shop? So did I. Pottery? On the invitation, Kay said no gifts, since she and David are merging two households. But Carline convinced me Kay really would love new everyday dishes.”

“People going into a second marriage need some things all their own. And no one’s likely to buy them a new bed.” Anita grinned wickedly.

“Marriage seems a drastic way to get new furniture or dishes.”

“There are other benefits, Sylvie.”

Sylvie made a wry face. “My mom and sisters tell me that constantly. I wish they’d stop digging up so many blind dates for me. Two last week.” She rolled her eyes. “The guy on Friday was a few feathers short of a duck.” Removing one hand from Oscar’s leash, she made gagging motions using her index finger.

“I feel for you, Sylvie,” Anita said with mock solemnity. “Your family is a force to be reckoned with.”

“Yeah,” she muttered glumly. “They’ve begun to recycle men I thought I’d gotten rid of. Listen, this subject needs a whole evening and two bottles of wine. You and Ted drive carefully, Anita. Oscar and I will be just fine.”

“Hey, what if you got a couple of Rottweilers? Those blind dates would get the point faster.” Not waiting for response, Anita slid into her car and sped off.

Sylvie gazed down at the big, happy-go-lucky dog. “Maybe I could teach you to go for the jugular,” she said, dragging him into the backyard so she could turn him loose while she prepared his bath. She used a galvanized feed barrel as a tub for bathing large dogs. Sylvie liked warm water, and hurried in to connect the hose to laundry tubs her grandmother had installed on the back porch.

While she went around the house to retrieve soap and brushes from the motor home that served as her Mutt Mobile, she heard Oscar start barking wildly. Rushing back with her supplies, she expected to find that he’d flushed out a squirrel or a rabbit, both of which her frequent boarder considered great sport. So far, the score remained squirrels and rabbits about fifty, Oscar zero. But this time, Sylvie was startled to learn that Oscar had treed a very frightened, very large gold cat. It perched on a limb that hung over Sylvie’s side of the fence.

“Nice kitty.” She dropped her supplies and grabbed Oscar’s collar. He launched himself at the branch, causing the cat to hiss and spit. The dog’s lunge yanked Sylvie right out of her slide sandals and sent her sprawling on her backside.

“Darn you, Oscar.” Scrambling to her hands and knees, this time latching on to the leather collar with both hands, she said, “Leave that cat alone! She has to belong to my new neighbor. This is no way to make a first impression, Oscar.” The words no sooner left Sylvie’s lips than a child started shrieking.

“Daddy, Daddy, I accidentally let Fluffy out of the house, and…help, Daddy, she’s stuck up the tree.”

Sylvie couldn’t see the child nor, apparently, could the kid see that Sylvie was trying to rectify the situation. Excited by the cat, and the strange voice calling from the next yard, Oscar thought this was fantastic fun. So much so, he tore loose from Sylvie’s grasp and bounded against the fence. Hard enough to threaten its stability.

Deciding she needed leverage to pry Oscar away from his quarry, Sylvie ran to the porch for his leash. It was then that she realized she’d left both hoses running. The dog’s bath had begun to overflow, washing gallons of warm water over the tub edge and down the hill. Sylvie took only long enough to wrench off the faucets, as the din by the tree had grown markedly. Frenzied now, the barking dog drowned out the hissing cat and the girl’s strident cries for help.

Sylvie managed to connect the leash to his collar as an upstairs window next door flew open wide. “What’s going on down there?” a masculine voice bellowed.

“A little cat-dog mixup is all,” Sylvie called breathlessly, doing her best to wrest Oscar aside. Since she was facing the sun, the man framed in the window was no more than a shape. Unfortunately, the muddy trail of water from the tub had made its way to where Sylvie dug in her bare heels. She lost purchase on the slick, wet grass and went down again, this time in a wet, muddy heap.

It didn’t help to have the man yell at her in a tone implying she must be the dumbest, most inept person who’d ever had the temerity to occupy a home next to his. “Lady, you shouldn’t own a beast you can’t control. I’m trying to log in moving boxes. I have two movers anxious to finish and get back on the road. Rianne, get in here right now. Fluffy will come down as soon as that woman takes her horse of a dog away from our fence.”

Sylvie longed to blister the stupid man’s ears. She resisted for the sake of the child—until she heard Iva’s back door slam. As a rule she didn’t swear, but she uttered a nice round curse as warm mud squished below her mud-soaked cutoffs. Anger at her neighbor’s insensitivity gave her added strength. Enough to regain her footing and convince Oscar that playtime was over.

She bathed him at once. Fluffy the cat still hadn’t budged from the tree. Sylvie blow-dried Oscar while Fluffy continued to glare at them from the woefully sagging branch.

“Now who’s too stupid to live?” Sylvie shook her fist at the owl-eyed feline. She shoved a squeaky-clean Oscar into the safety of her laundry room. Then she drained the dirty tub and scrubbed as much mud off her legs as she could. Assuming the cat would indeed come down once everyone left the yard, Sylvie went to take a shower.

An hour later, she peeked out her kitchen window and realized Fluffy was still frozen to that branch. “Darn it,” she grumbled, only too aware of the many tales about firemen summoned to rescue stranded cats. And unless she coaxed that cat out of the tree, Oscar could never be allowed to go into her back yard.

The sun had dried most of the wet grass, Sylvie saw after stepping out a side door Oscar wasn’t watching. Standing on her side of the fence, hands on hips, Sylvie studied the cat—and heard soft sniffling coming from the other yard. Concerned, Sylvie shinnied up the tree to its first fork. That placed her high enough to look into her neighbor’s yard. “Hi,” she said to a small girl who sat with both arms wrapped around her knees. “My name is Sylvie. Are you Rianne?”

The girl nodded, her face streaked with tears.

“I’m worried about my cat. Daddy’s real busy, but Fluffy’s only ever lived in a ‘partment. I don’t want to leave her, ‘cause maybe she’ll get lost.”

“Ah.” Sylvie considered the distance from her to the cat. It wasn’t that the span was so great, but the limb seemed pretty frail. “Where was your apartment?”

“Atlanta. I’m six, almost. I loved my school and my teacher. Do you think they’ve got a nice school here?”

“I’m sure of it. I lived in Briarwood all my life, well, except for a few years I went off to work in New York City. There’s a bunch of things that’re way better here.”

The girl stared at Sylvie with huge, watery eyes. “I’ll like it okay. My daddy said it takes time to get used to somewhere new. What happened to your dog? My daddy said that dog’s gonna be trouble.”

Sylvie smiled at the girl who obviously planned to parrot everything her father said. No telling what she might discover about her new neighbors at this rate.

“Oscar isn’t really my dog,” she explained. “Normally he’s friendly and loveable. I bathe pets and sometimes dogsit, too. Look, honey, why don’t I try to get Fluffy down?”

“I’d like that, thank you,” the child said politely.

Sylvie inched out on the limb. “Is your last name Whitaker?”

“Uh-uh. Mercer. Rianne Mercer. My daddy’s name is Joel, and my mommy’s name is Lynn.”

Creeping out several more inches, Sylvie absorbed those facts. It must mean that Iva’s great nephew had sold his inheritance. She was about to ask, when she heard the limb crack. Her heart jackhammered wildly. The Mercers’ back door flew open and the man with the gruff voice called, “Rianne? Where are you, sweetie? The movers need you to tell us where you want your bed.”

The girl swung around. “Can I come in a minute, Daddy? Fluffy’s still in the tree.”

Sylvie heard dark muttering that mirrored the thoughts running through her head. Then she heard a sound like pebbles striking metal. Rianne’s dad was pouring dry cat food into a bowl—but that only occurred to her when, big as you please, Fluffy leaped down from her perch. She landed safely below on all fours and dashed through her back door. Rianne shouted gleefully and raced after her pet.

Sylvie was glad her ignominious fall into her yard, limb and all, took place after her obnoxious, arrogant neighbor had closed his door. Luckily, her pride was all that suffered injury. Although, she mused, limping toward her cabin, who knew what aches and pains she’d have come morning?

JOEL MERCER had gotten a fair glimpse of his neighbor, wrapped tight around a sagging tree branch. His earlier impression had been of a scrawny dark-haired woman in her mid-to-late twenties, who behaved in a somewhat bizarre fashion. Hell, what was he thinking? She’d acted like a complete fruitcake.

Seeing her on to that branch was his second glimpse, and it did nothing to alter his first opinion. She’d changed clothes to climb trees, apparently. Her hair no longer hung straight to her chin as it had; she’d secured a twist atop her head with what resembled a large metal chip-bag clip. Spiky hair poked out every which way. Joel wondered if she’d been attempting to spy on him. Was that why she’d decided to swing through the trees like Jane of the jungle? God only knew, but Joel had run into of some pretty odd women hanging out in Atlanta’s singles bars. Women he’d labeled predators. In spite of his weekly comic strip, which centered on a couple of zany cartoon girlfriends named Poppy and Rose and described their dating misadventures, Joel usually managed to keep his private life fairly tame. Making his life tamer still had been his one goal in moving to laid-back Briarwood, North Carolina, into the home he’d inherited from his great-aunt. That, and keeping Rianne from seeing her mother’s face splashed all over half the billboards in town because it confused and upset her. Joel didn’t begrudge Lynn her newly acquired high-powered TV anchor job. He did resent that she never made time to spend with their daughter.

“Rianne, let Fluffy eat in peace. I need you to come upstairs and pick the bedroom you’d like. Then we’ll set up your bed.”

The girl skipped up the curving staircase, landing hard on both feet at the top. “I never choosed my room in our ’partment.”

“Choosed isn’t a word, honey. It’s chose. And you should say apartment.”

“Why?” She slipped her hand in Joel’s.

Answering his daughter’s endless whys had been his second-biggest challenge as single dad to a precocious child. The first, he discovered, was figuring out how to safely shuffle Rianne in and out of women’s public restrooms in restaurants, malls and parks. Now, that took charm and ingenuity. He always had to garner the aid of kind, elderly ladies; he’d learned to sense which faces to trust.