“I raise and train retrievers. Working dogs. Hunters’ companions. I don’t have time for show dogs, which is what your sister raises. And I especially don’t have time for show bitches that might be going into heat. Do you understand?”
He gave her a hard look and she nodded automatically. She had to admit that was a reasonable excuse for refusing to take Laurel’s dog. “It’d only be until my sister gets home and I can ship Maggie back. A couple of weeks.”
“As it happens, my mother’s taken a fancy to your sister’s bitch so I’ll keep her while you’re in the area.” He glanced over at the runs again, then continued softly. “But it’s strictly a favor for my mother, so don’t thank me.”
“Oh, I didn’t plan to!” Charlotte retorted, stung. “I’d like to know what you’ve got against me and Maggie, anyway. You don’t even know us!”
“You?” His eyes were wary on hers, then abruptly he looked away again. “Nothing. Your big sister needs her ass kicked, but that’s hardly your fault.”
“Laurel couldn’t possibly have known anything about this mix-up!”
“She knew. She’d contacted me before on this subject. She knew very well that I wouldn’t agree to breed a show bitch. I considered it briefly, as a favor to an old friend, but in the end I decided against any exceptions to my rule.” He began to walk slowly toward the door at the other end of the building, and Charlotte fell into stride beside him.
“And why is that?” Charlotte hurried to match her pace to his.
“Because the dog world is small. Because if other breeders heard I was breeding my top gun dogs to show bitches, they’d be after me to do the same with theirs. I don’t need the aggravation.”
“Maybe Laurel didn’t realize you’d changed your mind. Maybe she thought it was still on,” Charlotte persisted. Annoyed as she was about Laurel’s duplicity—and she was quite certain Laurel had misled her—she still felt a need to defend her sister.
“She knew,” he said again. He glanced at her. “I have a feeling your sister thought you might be able to sweet-talk me into changing my mind, once you showed up here with her bitch.”
“Laurel would never do that!” Charlotte was furious with the turn this conversation had taken—after all, her sister!—but she couldn’t resist the thought: could she sweet-talk him into it? She could be pretty persuasive when she put her mind to it. Would serve him right, Mr. Know-Everything Dog Guy!
He turned to face her. “Don’t even think about it. The answer is no. You can pay me for board by the week. Eighty dollars is what I charge without any training, in advance. Take it or leave it.”
“Oh, I’ll take it. What choice do I have?” She was sure the irony was completely lost on him. “Can I go see Maggie now?”
Anything to get out of his company, since she was obviously so unwelcome! To think she’d been looking forward to meeting Liam Connery again, to seeing what had become of him. To think she’d actually dreamed about him more than once. She was annoyed with herself for the time she’d wasted, for all the tender thoughts and recollections she’d allowed herself to indulge in about her happy childhood years—especially her first feelings of attraction to a member of the opposite sex. The sappy sentimental fantasies she’d spun…. He was nothing at all like the boy she remembered.
“Maggie’s up at the house.”
Without another word, he disappeared into one of the outbuildings, and Charlotte went back to the truck to get her handbag, which contained her checkbook. With her appointment to meet Mr. Busby the next day and her need to get on with the job she’d come to do at the Rathbone estate, she didn’t have time to find anything else for Maggie. If she had the time, she’d scour the Island to avoid dealing with him.
What a man! Lucky for him he worked with dogs. Lucky for him his business didn’t depend on customer relations and people skills. He didn’t have any.
THE RATHBONE HOUSE—a mansion, really—was a large three-story building in the Second Empire style, popularized in the late 1700s in the United States. This house, built more than a hundred years later, had a mansard roof, slate in this case, and a huge wraparound veranda that didn’t really belong to the style and may have been added later. Out back, a glass conservatory was attached to one half of the south elevation, with doors leading from both the conservatory and the house to the extensive gardens, probably well over two acres and, sadly, in a state of serious neglect. Even some of the windows in the conservatory were broken.
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