Page 21 of A Spot of Trouble
Sam frowned into his coffee, swirling with fresh cream and guilt. Cinder glanced up at him from her spot by the sliding glass door where she’d settled down to gnaw on a thick rawhide bone with a big knot on either end.
“You’re happy, aren’t you, girl?”
Cinder lifted her head and looked at Sam with her usual expectant expression. There wasn’t a trace of Dalmatian indignation on her precious face, just pure devotion…
Which somehow made Sam feel even worse.
“From now on, I make my own coffee, okay?” he said, feeling both resolute and ridiculous all at once.
Cinder liked learning new things—at least it seemed like she did. Sam wasn’t sure of much of anything anymore, thanks to his beautiful adversary in the ongoing Dalmatian war.
“And no more making the bed. That’s got to stop. Try to just relax when you’re at home.” He took a shameful swig of coffee and then set the mug down with a plunk. “Come here, and I’ll show you.”
Sam strode back to the bedroom. Cinder scrambled to her feet and followed, identification tags jangling.
“See?” Sam pulled back the duvet.
Cinder’s gaze swiveled toward the bed and then back at Sam. She let out a baffled whimper, followed by a soft woof.
“I’m serious,” Sam said.
He fell onto the bed and flopped around, mussing the sheets as best he could. Then he stood and stared down at the catastrophe of a bed. Maybe he’d gone a little overboard, but surely this would get his point across.
He planted his hands on his hips and waited. Sure enough, within seconds, Cinder scrambled toward the bed and clamped her mouth over the edge of the sheet.
“Leave it,” he said firmly.
The leave it command was one of the most important in Cinder’s arsenal of tricks, and she’d perfected it years ago. The thickest, juiciest rib eye steak in the world could be lying on the floor at the scene of a fire, and Cinder wouldn’t go anywhere near it if Sam told her to leave it. Of course, they’d never actually been to a burning building teeming with premium beef, but if ever they were, Cinder was prepared.
As soon as he gave the command, she loosened her jaws, dropped the sheet, and backed away from the bed. No sweat. Dog training really wasn’t that difficult. Violet should really give it a try sometime.
“Good girl.” Sam stroked Cinder’s smooth, spotted neck. “That’s right. We’re slobs now.”
He laughed to himself as he headed back toward the kitchen to finish his coffee. Sam and Cinder would never be slobs, but perhaps they could afford to be a tad less regimented at home. At least enough to convince Sam that there was no truth whatsoever to Violet’s ludicrous accusations.
Cinder was nothing like a robot, and Sam certainly didn’t think of her as slave labor. He could make his own coffee and tuck in his own sheets. And if the bed never got made at all, so what? They lived at the beach now. This was how relaxed islanders lived.
Or so Sam had heard.
But when he strolled back to his bedroom to get dressed, the bed was back in pristine shape, duvet pulled tight and pillows positioned just so. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn the sheets had been fashioned into hospital corners.
Sam jammed a hand through his hair, tugging hard at the ends. Cinder jumped onto the foot of the bed and wagged her tail, thoroughly pleased with herself.
Or was Sam mistaking that gleam in her soft brown eyes for satisfaction when it was really something else?Deep unhappiness, perhaps?
No way. Not possible.
Sam sighed. One thing was for sure—untraining his Dalmatian was going to be more challenging than he’d anticipated.
***
After a few more rounds of remaking, unmaking, and re-remaking the bed, Sam gave up and headed to work. He and Cinder walked to Seashell Drive, then turned left and made their way through Turtle Beach’s tiny strip of downtown until the firehouse came into view. He knew better than to wave at the police cruiser that crawled past him, but he didn’t hesitate to greet the business owners who were opening up their beach shops and the pedestrians on the opposite side of the street.
That’s how small towns worked, right? Everyone went out of their way to speak to one another, even if only to accuse the newcomer of dognapping.
Weirdly enough, not one person along the sandy stretch of downtown stopped to ask Sam what he was doing with Violet March’s Dalmatian. Sam should have been thrilled, and he would have been, if not for the large number of dirty looks aimed in his direction.
Something weird was going on. In the few days he’d spent thus far as a resident of Turtle Beach, he’d grown accustomed to being glared at by anyone in a blue uniform. Everyone else in town had been perfectly pleasant—Violet being the one notable exception. Even the locals who’d mistaken Cinder for Sprinkles had been relatively friendly about it. They’d been more curious than anything else.
