Chapter Fifteen
The second shriek came from somewhere beyond the ring toss booth and sent half the crowd spinning in circles while the other half surged forward to see what the fuss was about. How many mothers can lose their babies in one small town in one day?
He turned to call Romeo over, not sure if he’d be able to get the dog to leave his charge easily, but if there was another wandering toddler, they might need his help.
The only problem—Mom was smothering her child with kisses and Romeo was nowhere to be found.
Hand firmly wrapped around Colleen’s, Aiden ran in the direction of the commotion, only vaguely aware of the way people stepped aside to clear a path.
“What is going on?” Colleen panted beside him.
“I’m beginning to think this whole town loses their minds one baby at a time.”
That earned him the briefest flash of a smile before the next scene came into view and he realized the word baby was a matter of perspective.
Both hands fluttering in the air like startled doves, Abigail Fine stood in the middle of the walkway.
Her hat had slipped sideways, one earring dangled lower than the other, and her cheeks glowed with a suspicious amount of color.
Around her, at least three women talked at once and two teenage girls crouched peering under one table then another.
“Oh my precious Shoo Shoo!” Abigail cried. “My Choufleur!”
Frowning, Colleen glanced sideways at him. “Did she just call that dog cauliflower?”
“If I’m remembering my high school French, yes.” He supposed that explained the nickname Shoo Shoo, but who in their right mind named a dog after cauliflower? Then again, he may have answered his own question.
Colleen nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
“Oh my precious Choufleur.” Abigail’s face crumpled in near agony.
It took everything in Aiden not to burst out laughing at the woman’s histrionics.
“Where did you last see her?” Colleen used that calm tone that could probably talk a raging bull into sitting down for tea.
Abigail blinked. “Right here.” Hiccup. “By the candied pecans. Or the kettle,” hiccup, “corn. Maybe both. She was twirling.”
Aiden figured it was best to ignore the signs of having had more than a sip or two of her own homemade wine and focus on what happened to her dog before he went looking for his own charge. “Twirling?”
Abigail nodded emphatically, which looked like a mistake. “She gets excited around music. And men in boots. And anything with feathers.”
“Feathers?” Colleen repeated, her expression mimicking his thoughts. This was going to be a long search and rescue.
Satisfied the problem was not one of life or death, most of the onlookers had dispersed, returning to their afternoon fun. Aiden wondered how awful would it be if he and Colleen did the same—after they found Romeo.
One of the teenage girls popped back up from under a table. “She’s not under the pie booth.”
“She’s not under the bean bag game either,” the other called out.
“How much space can a dog that size cover?” Aiden looked around.
Abigail’s hand flew to her chest. “Size means nothing. My Shoo Shoo has spirit.”
“Yes. Spirit.” At his side, Colleen was doing her best not to laugh.
Another teen appeared. “She’s not by the popcorn machine or the petting zoo. Do you think a hawk or coyote took her?”
“Hawk?” All the color drained from Abigail’s face.
Aiden shook his head. “With all these people around a hawk is very unlikely.” No point in mentioning if the dog got far enough away from the crowd, either guess could be right.
“I just heard.” Alice Sweet appeared, her expression dripping with concern. “How long has she been gone?”
“I,” hiccup, “don’t know.”
Instantly, Alice’s brows shot up and her gaze shifted to Aiden and Colleen.
Like a pair of matching choreographed bookends, they both shrugged at Alice.
“Well,” Aiden started, “we’re not going to find her standing around here. Does she have a favorite place or person near here that she’d go looking for?”
“Or perhaps there’s too much commotion and some place she might try to hide?” Colleen added.
Abigail was either trying to find an answer to the question or pass a kidney stone, Aiden couldn’t tell which.
“She likes to sip wine from empty cups,” Abigail finally commented.
“Right.” Aiden nodded. Why did he feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole in Wonderland? “Colleen and I will hit all the wine booths. Someone should probably find her favorite treat and set it out. She might come back on her own if she picks up the scent of a treat.”
“Oh,” Abigail clapped her hands together. “She does love her chopped liver.”
“Okay. She can’t have gone that far.” Aiden stretched out his arm and snatched Colleen’s hand in his. “We’ll find her.”
A few feet from the table, Aiden leaned into Colleen. “Am I dreaming?”
“If you are, I’m having the same dream.”
The two nearly doubled over with laughter. After all, didn’t everyone spend their Saturday afternoons at the festival chasing down a poofy dog with a penchant for wine and chopped liver?
The minute they were out of Abigail’s hearing range, Colleen lost the battle and hands on her knees, bent over laughing.
Aiden lasted exactly one second longer before joining her. “Cauliflower,” he wheezed. “Who names a dog cauliflower?”
“She didn’t.” Colleen pressed one hand to her stomach. “Her husband did. She only thought it sounded exotic. I believe she didn’t talk to her husband for a year or two when she found out he’d not picked a romantic French name but a vegetable.”
“Lucky man,” he teased.
That set her off again. When she finally straightened, fanning herself with one hand, Aiden watched her with that half grin that made her feel far too light for a woman who ought to know better. “You done?”
“Not even close, but I can walk and laugh at the same time.”
“Good. Because if that little dog is really missing, we’d better find her before Abigail starts drafting a funeral program.”
Still laughing, they headed toward the nearest row of booths. Colleen didn’t have to think about it; they’d already fallen into a rhythm. He scanned ahead, quick and practical. She watched faces and listened for scraps of useful information.
At the lemonade stand, she asked, “Have either of you seen a tiny white Pomeranian?”
The high school girl at the till blinked. “A small white dog barked at my brother.”
“Did she go anywhere after that?” Colleen asked.
“She chased a balloon.”
Aiden looked up at the sky.
Colleen bit the inside of her cheek. “A balloon?”
The girl pointed. “Pink. She really wanted it.”
“Of course she did.” Aiden bit back another laugh.
Next stop, several onlookers claimed to have seen Shoo Shoo. None of them agreed on where.
“She went that way.”
“No, she was under the duck pond table.”
“I thought she belonged to that cheerleader.”
“She tried to steal my corn dog.”
“Actually,” the kettle corn woman interrupted, “she only sniffed at it. Then she sneezed and left.”
By the time they circled back toward the center of the field, Abigail had acquired an audience and was standing on tiptoe waving both arms. “Choufleur!”
Several heads turned.
“How many people do you think know she’s calling for vegetables?” Aiden sighed.
“Everyone local. It was no secret once Iris Hathaway told her.”
“Of course. It all makes perfect sense now. Town gossip outed her husband. Got it.” Aiden squeezed her hand and walked in the opposite direction shaking his head and muttering, “Glad Romeo is an easy to find large breed.”
“Which reminds me. Where do you suppose he wandered off to?”
That question shoved all the amusement behind and left Aiden biting down hard on his back teeth until his jaw muscles twitched with the effort. “He can take care of himself.”
Colleen wasn’t sure if those words were meant to convince her or reassure himself.
Combing every inch of the field, they found themselves back by Abigail’s booth once again. “Did you find my baby?”
“Not yet,” Colleen said gently. “But we’re not giving up.”
Abigail clutched at her chest. “She’s never done this before.”
One woman behind her coughed. Another offered, “She did wander off at the Christmas parade.”
“That was different,” Abigail snapped. “There were reindeer.”
Pressing her lips tightly together, Colleen silently told herself—do not ask. From the way Aiden was tugging at one ear, she suspected he was telling himself the same thing. This woman and her dog were quite the pair.
At least a dozen people besides Aiden and Colleen were searching for the missing pooch to no avail.
Standing at the foot of the school parking lot, once again, Aiden took in his surroundings.
The momentary intensity had her wondering was this what he was like in the army?
Was he always so aware of his surroundings?
Always thinking? Planning several moves ahead?
“I don’t understand.” Aiden heaved a deep sigh. “Maybe those kids are right and a hawk did swoop in and fly off with the dog.”
“Don’t even think such a…” not finished with her sentence yet, she stopped speaking when Aiden squinted, honing in on a particular sound.
“Do you hear that?”
She stopped scanning her surroundings and listened to the quiet around them—until it wasn’t. “Is that…snoring?”
“That’s what I thought.” His hand rubbing the back of his neck, Aiden seemed to be fighting off a tension headache.
Together, they listened carefully.
“Is someone snoring?” Colleen squinted as if that would help her hear. All it did was make her wonder why people did that?
“Don’t tell me someone is taking a nap in the porta potties?
” Aiden began moving to the edge of the lot where the portable bathrooms sat.
The closer they got, the louder the snoring.
Still holding Colleen’s hand—something she was growing used to—he bent over and tilted his head, looking behind the blue phone booth sized portable potty. “Well, I’ll be.”
“What?” Colleen inched closer until she could see what he saw. “And here I thought it was a drunk sleeping off too much wine.”
“Don’t eliminate that scenario. You may be right. Although your suspects are most definitely not the drunk human kind.”
Colleen had to blink a few times before she believed her eyes. Curled up in the gap between the portable potties and the parking lot curb was one very large and soundly sleeping German Shepherd. “I guess saving toddlers is more exhausting than I thought.”
“What do you think Abigail will think?”
“That depends.”
“On what?” Aiden asked.
“On whether or not she finds out that her precious little vegetable is sleeping off a drunk in the arms of a big bad German Shepherd.”