Chapter 22 I’d Do Just About Anything
TWENTY-TWO
I’d Do Just About Anything
Mabel
“And then, I kid you not, Hutch said, ‘Enemy. Attack,’ he unclipped her leash, and that dog shot across his yard and grabbed that dummy’s leg in its jaws and shook for all she was worth.
I was terrified at the same time fighting the urge to start cheering.
It was insane,” I told Abigail the next Thursday.
I was in the shop.
Although we’d been teasing it for a few weeks, we were now going full-on Autumn and Halloween décor.
One of Gemma’s candle scents (called “Autumn Leaves,” and I had no idea how she got that smell in a jar, but she did) was lit in various places around the space, making it all smell amazing.
We were dotting some of the vintage or refurbished fall and Halloween décor I’d acquired in my meanderings around the shop, as well as restocking Gemma’s candles, which were, unsurprisingly, flying out the door.
Melissa’s scarves, cardies and sweaters were going too (and I’d scored a hooded cardie in the lightest gray, softest wool ever).
Not to mention, all the chicks we talked to from the Misted Pines Art Center had come in to grab a vendor contract, signed on the dotted line, so we had quilts and baskets to display.
And Hutch had come in on Tuesday to rig a couple surge protectors on the walls so we could display the glass nightlights.
And I was telling Abigail about going over to Hutch’s yesterday so I could help provide distraction during his training with one of his clients.
During that time, he’d demonstrated what Artemis could do in order to show me what he could teach Tonks because she had “heel” mostly down, so we were moving closer to protective training, and he wanted to know how far I wanted him to go.
“Then he just called, ‘release,’ and, Abigail, that pooch let go of that dummy,”—I snapped my fingers—“like that. She sat down and looked at Hutch, calm as you can be, except panting. I thought his client’s eyes were going to pop out of his head. I knew mine almost did.”
When I stopped talking, Abigail didn’t say anything, so I turned to her where she was arranging a garland that looked like a trail of spiders I found at a garage sale this summer.
She was doing it so the spiders appeared as if they were trailing up to a big, opaque, black glass vase filled with little gourds.
She was also watching me with a funny look on her face.
That was, she was doing that until I caught her eyes.
And then she wiped her face clean and remarked, “I cannot imagine Tonks doing that.”
I looked at my dog, who was in her Groove dog bed (yep, went back to the feedstore), gnawing on a rawhide, then returned to Abigail.
“Me either.”
Before I could inquire after the expression she’d wiped from her face, she asked, “So what’s he going to teach Tonks to do?”
“He’s got a few more basic commands we’re going to start on that she doesn’t know but will need to know when we get into the big stuff.
Like ‘come,’ ‘drop it,’ and ‘leave it.’ Then we’re gonna get into ‘wait,’ which apparently isn’t the same as ‘stay.’ After that, ‘defend,’ and obviously ‘release.’”
“So ‘defend’ is different than ‘attack?’”
“‘Attack’ is what Artemis did. It’s offensive. ‘Defend’ would only happen if I was being attacked.”
“Now I know why everyone talks about what a shit-hot trainer he is,” she muttered just as Tonks let out a half-hearted roo-roo (the rawhide was a thing) and the bell over the door rang.
We both turned that direction, and I saw who I thought was the woman Hutch had been talking to at the Art Center opening (they’d been a ways away, I only caught part of her profile, but this was confirmed by the stroller she was pushing).
She was with another lady who had fantastic, thick, lush auburn hair.
“Gird your loins. Incoming,” Abigail said under her breath for some reason, since she’d not once said that when another customer came in.
As such, I felt my shoulders jerk back.
“Bree?” I whispered, because both those women were certainly beautiful.
I was suddenly wondering where the rubber bands were.
“No, but I think for you…worse.”
I was confused as I watched them smile at us in a friendly way with the redhead throwing a little wave at Abigail before they started perusing our wares.
“Hey, ladies. Can I help you look for something?” Abigail called.
They both quit peering at a three-foot-tall, retro, winking black cat in a bowtie painted on wood shaped as, yeah…a three-foot, retro winking, sitting cat, to us.
“Uh…hey,” the redhead said.
“Hey,” Abigail and I greeted at the same time, but Abigail’s syllable was wobbly, like she was laughing.
Or choking.
“Okay, I didn’t apply for the CIA not only because I never wanted to be in the CIA, and possibly with my family’s Soviet history, wouldn’t get in anyway, but because I’d suck at being a spy,” the blonde with the baby said.
More confusion, this time about her statement, at the same time I was intrigued about the Soviet history mention.
She wheeled her stroller (cute, dressed-up-against-the-cold baby sleeping in it) through our displays with the redhead bringing up the rear, and when she made it to us, she stuck her hand out to me over the stroller.
“Nadia Riggs,” she said like I knew who she was.
I took her hand. “Hi.”
“Doc Riggs’s wife,” Abigail added.
Where had I heard that name before?
“Hey, Lillian,” Abigail said to the redhead.
“Hey,” she replied. Looked to me and repeated, “Hey.”
“Hey,” I also repeated.
“Lillian is married to Harry Moran,” Abigail supplied.
“Oh!” I cried. “I know Harry. Hi.”
Lillian smiled at me before she and Nadia looked at each other in what I could swear was a she’s not getting it way.
Back to confused.
“And this is?” Abigail asked after the baby in the stroller.
“Cicely,” Nadia said.
At that, Abigail smiled huge and replied, “I love it.”
“Took a while for me to talk Riggs into it,” Nadia replied. “But I got there in the end. Though, he refuses to address the origins of her name and insists on calling her LeeLee.”
“Can I ask the origin of her name?” I requested.
She threw an arm toward the big windows at the front of the store like that was an answer.
It wasn’t.
Lillian came to my rescue and explained, “Some folks think MP is like Cicely, Alaska. You know, from the show Northern Exposure?”
“Oh. Right.” It hit me how apt that was, and I grinned big and cried (not too loud, baby sleeping), “Right!”
“Can’t call her Twin Peaks,” Abigail put in, then added, “Definitely not Laura.”
Since I so got that reference, we all burst out laughing (quietly, again, baby sleeping).
When we stopped, Nadia told me, “Riggs and I got a dog from Hutch.”
“Ah,” I said.
“And I think I nearly broke him because I was intent on looking at Gia as my very big puppy, and he’d spent months training her to be anything but a puppy. He’s good with training dogs. He’s not so good with training soppy women,” Nadia told me.
Through a smile, I asked, “Which kind did you get?”
“Gia’s a Corso.”
“Like Hannibal. So essentially, she’s a puppy and a killer all in one,” I replied.
“Essentially,” Nadia agreed through her own smile.
“I’m just going to keep doing this while you gals chat, is that okay?” Abigail asked as she went back to her spiders.
“Sure,” Lillian said.
“Your shop is awesome. I’ve been meaning to come in here,” Nadia said.
“I’m addicted to Ida’s sugar scrub.” Lillian paused. “And her green tea mask.”
“Ida has some amazing stuff,” I agreed.
“Okay, so, um…just to be clear, you know Lug?” Nadia asked.
Back to confused.
“Yes. I met him at The Link,” I answered.
“Jaeger?” Lillian asked.
I shrugged. “I haven’t met him, but I know Hutch knows him. He met him in town for a game of one-on-one the other night, and they went out for a drink.”
“Add Doc, Harry, Rus, maybe Bubbles, definitely Jace and Jesse, and occasionally Cade, and that’s Hutch’s bestest buds friend posse,” Lillian shared.
It was then it hit me.
“Oooooooooooooooooh,” I said.
“Yeah. Sorry, we’re here checking you out,” Nadia admitted.
I started laughing softly. “That’s okay.”
“Well, Lillian is here to check you out. I’m here to do that too, but also to possibly recruit you and Hutch as pinch-hit babysitters when Riggs’s mom or Kimmy are out of commission,” Nadia added.
“And me and Harry,” Lillian put in.
“And you and Harry,” Nadia agreed.
“And Cin and Rus and Cade and Delphine. Not to mention Celeste,” Lillian kept at her.
Nadia smiled and said, “Just you wait. You think a babysitter list will be a mile long, but it’ll seem super short when your mother-in-law is out of town, Kimmy is stapling Christmas lights to someone’s house and there’s a double bill of Sunset Boulevard and Chinatown you’re dying to see at the Misted Lake. ”
Lillian’s lips turned up in a gentle way. “We have Ronnie and George right next door.”
“Oh. Right. With Ronetta around, when you have a baby, you might find yourself needing an appointment with her to see it,” Nadia joked.
Lillian laughed.
I peered down at the rosy-chubby-cheeked baby girl in her chunky, cable knit sweater, thermal leggings, baby hat with a big bow at the side, and fuzzy socks, and said, “I’m all in for babysitting.”
“I also thought you and Hutch could come over for dinner,” Nadia went on. “Maybe next week?”
I was about to tell her I’d like that, and I’d talk to Hutch, but she kept going like she had to convince me.
“He would never admit it, but I know he likes to be with Gia. He misses his kiddos when they fly the coup.”
I was sensing this the closer we got to tomorrow, and he’d have to say goodbye to his current round.
“I’ll ask him,” I promised. “He’s letting go all three of the dogs he has tomorrow. We’re heading out to pick up the next litter Saturday. But new doesn’t erase old. It might be good he has a distraction and the reminder that, when he places his dogs, they’re with people who care about them.”
“Yes,” Nadia agreed. “Should we trade phone numbers?”
“Absolutely.”