The Diva Serves High Tea (27 page)

KEEP READING FOR A PREVIEW OF KRISTA DAVIS'S NEXT CLAWS & PAWS MYSTERY . . .

Mission Impawsible

COMING SOON FROM BERKLEY PRIME
CRIME!

The greatest love is a mother's; then a dog's; then a sweetheart's.

—POLISH PROVERB

By six o'clock on Thursday afternoon, one Gustav Vogel had failed to check into his room at the Sugar Maple Inn. Ordinarily, this would not be a matter of concern or great consequence. But it wasn't an ordinary day. It was the first day of the Animal Attraction matchmaking event in Wagtail. All our other guests had arrived and were already participating.

We were always booked in the summer, and this particular week had filled up especially fast. Gustav had a mere three hours to go before he forfeited his reservation, and we could give his room to someone else.

It was my turn to take over the Live, Love, Bark table. I left the mayhem at the reception desk as people poured through the door, hoping we still had rooms available. Until nine o'clock arrived, we had to turn them away. I stepped out onto the front porch that spanned the main building of the Sugar Maple Inn and observed the crowd that had collected on the plaza.

Maybe there truly was someone for everyone. People of every shape, size, and possible description milled about, alike only in the fact that a dog or cat accompanied almost every
one of them. Yet all these people hadn't found compatible human mates. Why was it so much harder to find the right person than it was to find the right pet?

I was no exception. My dog, Trixie, left my side to scamper down the stairs and join the fun. The little Jack Russell terrier I had rescued at a gas station had blossomed and become my constant companion.

My calico cat, Twinkletoes, had chosen me as her person. I would have readily adopted her, but as cats do, she was the one who made the decision that we belonged together. She observed the commotion from the safety of the front porch.

Trixie and Twinkletoes were my nearly perfect darlings. Granted, they did get into trouble now and then, but for the most part they behaved very well.

My love life, however, was a miserable mess. Nonexistent, really. Maybe I shouldn't have balked at the notion of being matched to a guy this weekend. My grandmother, whom I called Oma—German for
Grandma
—hadn't pussyfooted around. She had come right out and told me this was my chance to meet a man. I was a little bit sad that she encouraged me, because she had hoped I would end up with Holmes Richardson, a friend from my childhood. No one else had ever stolen my heart quite like Holmes, and I wasn't sure I was ready to give up on him yet. It was complicated, though, because he lived in Chicago and was engaged to be married. It wasn't in my nature to chase a man who was engaged to someone else, so like a fool I waited for his relationship to implode on its own. Sometimes I wondered if it was time for me to give up on him.

The daily Yappy Hour parade had ended. I spied Oma at a table with Macon Stotts and walked toward them.

Oma and her best friend, Rose, had come up with the Animal Attraction matchmaking idea after hearing about a famous matchmaking week in Ireland. They had hired Macon Stotts, a Southerner who claimed to be matchmaker to the stars, to arrange the various events and help match people up. I assumed he meant Hollywood stars, but if the tabloids were
any indication, I doubted that they really needed matchmaking help.

Animal Attraction was a somewhat literal name because the people attending were bringing their dogs and cats with them to help with the matchmaking. The benefits, according to Oma and Rose, were that the animals would break the ice, making it easier for their people to meet, and the human participants would know up front that they all shared a love of animals. Their pets would help them connect.

“Still no sign of Gustav?” asked Oma. She hated that she spoke with a German accent in spite of the fact that she had lived in the United States since before my father was born, over fifty years. Most people found her accent charming, but I was so used to it that I didn't notice it much anymore.

“Not yet.”

She glanced at her watch. “There is still time. You are here to relieve me?”

“Just tell me what to do.”

Oma held up a slip of paper. “Macon has set up a Live, Love, Bark app and a Live, Love, Mew app. This contains the address and password.”

I took it and frowned. Wagtail was notorious for its poor Internet connection. Only one carrier worked at all, and it was iffy at best.

“If they have trouble,” said Oma, placing her hand on a stack of papers, “here are forms they can fill out instead. Make sure they know there will be other matchmaking events. This is only one option. When they bring them back, they go into this box. Macon will pick them up and make the matches.”

Macon jumped to his feet. “My word! These people are clueless.” He swept by me, reminding me of a penguin. His black hair was combed back and gleamed with some kind of gel. He was short for a man, broad through the middle, and waddled when he walked rapidly. In a slightly nasal Southern accent, he cried out, “Dahlin', put-chore puppy down!”

I couldn't help smiling when he dragged out
down
into two syllables,
day-own
.

The stunning young woman with skin the rich color of honey appeared surprised. A fluffy little dog rode in her shoulder bag, his face peering out like a tiny white Wookie.

“Put him down, sweetheart. He can't do his job matchin' you up if he's confined to a bag.”

“On the ground?” Her brow furrowed. “He'll get dirty paws.”

“Anybody with a fancy bag like that must surely have booties.” Macon held out his hands, palms up.

He'd nailed it. She produced tiny blue dog booties and slid them onto the feet of her dog with Macon's help. Once he was placed on the concrete plaza, the dog wasted no time at all mingling with the others.

“They'll bite him!” she said with a desperate look at Macon. “He's so tiny. That big black dog will think he's a snack.”

The other dogs did seem very interested in him, but not because of his size. Even my Trixie wanted to know what those funny things were on his feet.

“I have to rescue him. Look what they're doing!”

Macon placed a hand on her arm. “Honey, that's just what polite dogs do. Sniffin' is how they shake hands. Don't you ever let him play with other dogs?”

A group of young men distracted Macon. He raised his hand, pointed at one of them, and waddled away, shouting, “Young fella, your dog is tryin' to introduce you to that pretty girl with the tuxedo cat.”

The man standing beside me uttered dryly, “Is that Macon Stotts? I thought that old fraud was
dead.”

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