Sparkle. Jennifer Greene

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СКАЧАТЬ word respectful, but she felt the same. “I don’t care if you do it or I do.”

      “Same here.”

      Neither seemed willing to push the other to a decision. They stood on the porch for a while longer until the awkward silence between them stretched like a too-taut rubber band. Poppy couldn’t think of anything to say to the other woman. It just felt weird leaving her, almost as weird as the impossibly strange last hour they’d just spent together.

      Craziest of all—even kind of funny—was that Maude Rose must have thought the two were similar if she’d chosen them out of the whole population in Righteous to give her special legacy to. Poppy felt as much in common with Bren as a can of peas and had no doubt the other woman felt the same way.

      “Well,” Bren said finally, “I have to get going. I’m sure you do, too, Poppy. Good luck to you.”

      “Same back.”

      And that was that, Poppy thought. She stashed the infamous box on the passenger seat of her mint-green VW and headed out of town—which only took a couple of minutes. Righteous was built in the curl of a hillside, with three main streets curved in a semicircle. Past Cal Asher’s office and the short sweep of stores, came the Baptist church, then Righteous Academy—a parochial high school—and then zip. Open road.

      Two miles out of town, tucked in a nest of curly maples, was the sign for Critter Care. Web’s house stood a few hundred yards beyond the clinic. He could have walked to town, but the nature of the property made the place look secluded and protected.

      Conscience nagged at her—the attorney was probably right about her needing to see a jeweler or at least to put the jewelry in some kind of protective place. But when Poppy climbed out of the car, she just felt stubborn about the whole thing. You couldn’t drop a bomb on a woman’s head and expect it to gently sink in. At least, nothing ever sank into her head that easily. She needed a few minutes to take it in, think about what it all meant. Besides which, she was already twenty minutes late for an appointment with Bubba.

      An extraordinary number of dogs in Virginia were named Bubba. This one happened to be a thirteen-year-old black and tan with a really mean case of arthritis.

      Heaven knew where the receptionist was—Lola Mae seemed to need a cigarette break every fifteen minutes—but Web was bent over the front desk when she charged in. Typically he looked as if he’d just wakened from a tryst with a lover—his jacket was wrinkled, his shock of dark hair rumpled, his chin haphazardly shaved. He shot her one of those God’s-gift-to-women grins. Poppy didn’t waste time taking offense, because Web couldn’t help looking like a George Clooney clone.

      “It’s been hell on wheels around here since you left, Poppy. So what was the deal with the lawyer?”

      “I can’t wait to tell you. It was just unbelievable.” But she could see at a glance there was a crying cat and a bluetick hound waiting for him, and her plate was just as full. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”

      She headed straight in, past the reception desk. Her two rooms were off the left, with an outside entrance. Four years ago—after his second divorce—Web had plucked her from a life of misery behind a desk in an insurance office and conned her into being a part-time groomer for him. He’d kept adding hours as the clinic grew and her skills with it. Heaven knew, she had no formal education or training the way he did, but she’d long felt secure that she was a valued part of the clinic team. Primarily she focused on grooming, training and rehab—and jumping in whenever they had a difficult critter to handle. She loved the tough ones. And Web kept raising her salary, until she didn’t have time to spend the salary she had.

      Truth was, Poppy had realized for some time that she loved animals more than people. More than herself, when it came down to it. And Web gave her a ton of freedom and encouragement to try things that worked. In this case, what worked for Bubba was a treadmill under water.

      The contraption looked like a bathtub set below floor level—because she couldn’t very well lift the heavier animals. Bubba was a love. This was his third time, and initially he’d liked standing in the lukewarm water. Getting him to walk on the underwater treadmill was a way of giving him exercise without putting any pressure or weight on his old hips. It worked like a dream to limber him up.

      The only slight problem was that most dogs couldn’t be coaxed into doing it until she got in the water with them. She didn’t exactly mind. But ten minutes into the session with Bubba, she was wetter and stinkier than he was—and that wasn’t too complimentary, considering how much stinky hound was in Bubba’s genetic heritage.

      Web stopped by a few minutes later but just to chortle in the doorway. “Tell me again—who’s that exercise pool for, you or the dog?”

      She ignored the insult. She was used to it. “Look how good he’s doing!”

      Web stepped in then and hunkered down at the dog’s level to watch how Bubba moved in the water. “I never thought this was going to work when you made me build the damn thing,” he admitted.

      “I don’t know why you keep doubting me. I’ve told you and told you that I’m always right.” Though she easily teased him back, Web wasn’t on her mind. The dog was. Damn, but the old love was able to move with so much more ease in the water. Bubba was even wagging his tail—which contributed mightily to Poppy and the floor being extra wet, but it wasn’t as if she gave a damn about irrelevant stuff like that anyway.

      “You have a helluva gift, Poppy,” Web murmured seriously.

      Sometimes she thought she did. Animals made so much more sense to her than people. A critter never stood you up and rejected you or made you feel like dirt. Give an animal love, they gave back.

      When she glanced up, Web had gone back to his other patients. She did the same, finishing with Bubba, then taking on a Jack Russell named Sergeant. Sergeant’s owner had been bringing him in weekly for grooming. The dog didn’t need grooming, he needed training. But since his owner couldn’t face up to admitting failure, Poppy called it “grooming” and just did the job.

      Sergeant was smarter than most men—not that that was any exceptional accomplishment—and he took pleasure in testing all the humans in his realm to the far reaches of their patience whenever possible.

      Poppy could outpatience him with no sweat, but she was whipped when her hour with him was over. By then it was two o’clock, and she was close to death from starvation.

      If anyone had asked, she’d have claimed that the box locked in her car trunk hadn’t given her a moment’s worry. But it had. She yanked on a clean long-sleeved T-shirt, because she was too disreputable to be seen in public—even by her own loose standards.

      Then she drove back into town, taking Willow Street, past all the blue-and-silver banners at the high school, past Pete’s Pharmacy and Clunkers Shoe Store and Baby Buttercup Clothes for Tots. Link’s was next, one of her favorite takeouts because it had great fresh deli.

      She was still munching on a pastrami-on-rye when she pulled into the parking lot next door, behind Ruby’s Rubies. The name was hokey, but the owner’s last name was actually Ruby, so it wasn’t his fault. And of the three jewelry stores in town, everyone seemed to inherently know that Ruby’s was the best.

      That wasn’t why she’d chosen the place, though. Anonymity was. One of her younger brothers was a sheriff deputy and the other volunteered with the fire department—which meant they heard all the Righteous gossip almost before СКАЧАТЬ