“Exactly.” Finally, Stuart thought happily. Someone got it.

  Despite Jen’s apparent recovery Ramos wasn’t quite ready to let it go. ”From college, huh? Are you a professor, Stuart?”

  “No.” He eyed Jen, his countenance a vision of contentment now that he was back in her company, regardless of the inexplicable circumstances. He was happy once more. Although bacon would have improved the situation. “We used to sing together.”

  At this observation the most extraordinary expression came across Jen’s face: a mixture of love, delight, and abject terror.

  “Oh,” Ramos continued. “Grad student, eh? You do look like the musician type.”

  “Thanks,” Jen murmured.

  “Not you.” Addressing her, Ramos nodded at the man in the pink track suit. “Freddy Mercury over there.” He turned back to her. “Come to think of it, where is Stuart? The four-legged Stuart. Your dog. I never see you without him.”

  At this Stuart answered the question by pointing at himself. A frantic Jen waved him off. Her gaze shifted away from him, away from Ramos, and toward the road. Several scooters went by, then a cluster of elderly men riding bicycles more expensive than the average citizen’s car, then a truck flaunting an ad for Alta-Dena dairies.

  Aware that Ramos was watching her closely, Jen stammered a response.

  “He’s, uh—with my aunt. At her farm. Having, uh, some cows….”

  Ramos’s expression tightened. “Some cows?”

  “Uh, yeah. Some cow farm in Alta Dena. He plays with the cows there, you know. They play. He thinks he’s a herding dog, tries to herd them. My Aunt Sally took him there for a change of scenery, for some fun.”

  The officer looked uncertain. “Can’t see a Boston terrier trying to herd a bunch of cows. Or play with them. He’d be about the size of a cow’s forehead.”

  “Yeah.” Jen readily agreed. “That’s why it’s so much fun watching him try.”

  As they continued talking, with Jen continually trying to switch the subject away from Stuart and Ramos doing his best to ascertain if the woman he thought he knew casually had lost her mind, Ringo was busily sniffing Stuart’s human leg. The suit’s faint smell of Jen did not throw him, nor did the lingering Spring-fresh aroma of crushed grass. He had been trained to distinguish between even faint scents.

  “That’s not true. There is no farm and you’re not there. She’s lying. Badly.” The shepherd looked up at the human face gazing blithely down at him. “You’re right here. I’m telling Hector.” Turning toward his partner, he let out a succession of loud barks. “There. I told him.”

  “Good job, Ringo.” For the first time since he had arrived at the park, Stuart was starting to feel a little bit, just a little bit, at ease. “She’s just trying to help me.”

  The police dog shook his head, rattling his collar. “I don’t know, Stuart. Verdampt, this is a tough call. After all, I’m a cop. But—let me get this straight. You can talk to humans now, right?”

  Stuart peered down at the shepherd. “Why do you need to know?”

  Dropping his customary bravado, Ringo lowered his head and whined softly. “I need a favor from you.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Something finally drew Ramos’s attention away from Jen. She was spouting nonsense, but from all he could tell, it was harmless nonsense. What he was looking at now was of far more interest. Not only because it was so unusual, but because it bordered on the unprofessional.

  Ringo was circling the visitor, sniffing at every part of him. Of more interest, and not a little astonishment, Stuart was crouching while Ringo appeared to be whining in his ear. Given the proximity to a complete unknown, Ringo would normally have been more likely to bite off a stranger’s ear than burble into it. A bemused (and not a little startled) Ramos scratched himself behind one ear. The day was growing late, it was getting hotter, and the circumstances in which he presently found himself were as confusing as they were unusual.

  “What’s up with Ringo? I’ve never seen him like this with a stranger. He’s not supposed to interact with any member of the public unless I give him the okay.” He peered harder at the ongoing canine interaction. “And why is he whining into that guy—Stuart’s—ear? Licking I could maybe understand. But whining?”

  Jen stepped forward, trying to block the officer’s view. “Uhhh, he probably smells my Stuart’s scent on the jumpsuit.” Looking behind her, she fluttered a hand at the unlikely pair. “I, uh, had to lend him something to wear to the park and the track suit was the only thing I had that fit him. He travels light.”

  Why would anyone come to Newport Beach, Southern California, without appropriate clothing? Ramos found himself wondering. Fortunately for Jen’s peace of mind, he was distracted by the hand waving of her three friends. Grinning, he waved back. He was on duty, but there would come a time when he was off duty, and all three of Jen’s companions were attractive. Besides, her explanation for what he was seeing made a certain off-kilter sense. What he had originally seen, he had observed from a distance. Now that he had been introduced to visitor Stuart and Jen appeared okay, there seemed little reason to pursue the matter further.

  Guitarist Jim chose that moment to wander into view. He was picking up bottles and other trash and depositing them into their appropriate public receptacle. Glass in one, metal in another, paper in a third, unalloyed junk in a fourth. Trotting alongside him was his Boston terrier, Sweetie Peters. She eagerly sniffed every piece of trash as Jim picked it up—until a familiar scent diverted her attention.

  Lying down, she put her paws out in front of her. Her tiny tail was generating enough wind to power a small flashlight and she began barking madly. Bending, Jim let go of her leash and urged her on.

  “Go ahead, Miss Mami. Go say hi to your friends.”

  Exploding across the grass, the terrier darted close behind the figure in the pink track suit, grasped another whiff out of the air, did a complete spin, and ended up beside her canine friends, panting hard.

  “That,” she declared as she gazed at the tall bearded individual squatting beside the police dog, “smells exactly like Stuart Louis.” She looked over at Marley. “It cannot be Stuart Louis. The look, the posture, and the—the—humanness, is all wrong! I mean, just look at it—him. He—he’s on two legs.”

  “It is him,” Marley assured her. “The nose knows. He talks to humans, too. Fluently, it would appear. I have no idea what he’s saying to them, but it’s plain that they understand him. Crazy days.”

  Cupcake was watching the unlikely pair. “Can you imagine what we would look like if we transformed like he has? If he looks like that?”

  “You’d probably look like JLo.” There was not a hint of sarcasm in Gizmo’s voice.

  “And you, Gizmo?” Marley wondered. “Who do you think you’d look like?”

  “Marc Anthony, of course. Who else?”

  Unconcerned about Sweetie Peters, who never strayed far from his presence, Jim continued his honorable trash pickup, singing along to the tune that was playing through his headphones. Distracting by their dogs, who had resumed their relentless barking, they monitored them as well as the bottle collector’s progress.

  “That park ranger got nice buns,” Nina observed admiringly.

  “Probably from all the squats he does picking up bottles all day.” Wanda’s comment was met by laughter from her companions.

  While their attention was diverted from Ramos, Stuart chose that moment to divert the officer’s attention from them.

  “Hector!”

  The beat cop tensed slightly. He didn’t know this guy. Only that he was, apparently, an old friend of Jen’s who happened to have the same name as her dog. Jen’s friendship marked him as tolerable in Ramos’s book, but not free of suspicion.

  “It’s ‘Officer Ramos’,” he said stiffly.

  Stuart apologized. To Ramos it sounded genuine. Almost child-like.

  “Sorry. Officer Ramos, Ringo badge number 28897 is suffering with a tooth issue in the rear left molar area. It may be infected, which could spread and do serious damage to this fine animal.”

  Stuart wasn’t sure how Ringo would respond to being called a “fine animal”, but it was already clear that his doggo friends could only comprehend the few human words their owners utilized for commands, such as “Sit”, “Fetch”, “Come here”, and a handful of others. He doubted “fine animal” was on anybody’s list.

  Ramos gave this peculiar Jen-friend the fish eye. “How do you know that?”

  Stuart smiled cheerfully. “He told me.”

  “No, not the tooth thing. For all I know you’re a psychic veterinarian. His badge number. That’s restricted departmental information. What are you, some kind of dog whisperer?”

  “He told me his badge number, too,” Stuart explained innocently before turning serious. “It’s important that you get him to his vet today. He’s in pain and too proud to tell you about it. He’s a great dog.” Though he could not understand why, it appeared to Stuart that Officer Ramos continued to regard him as something better stashed away in a locked box. “Why do you think he’s only been eating canned food and ignoring the dry, no matter what flavor you put in his bowl?”

  Ramos was both uncomfortable and perplexed. Taking a firm grasp on Ringo’s leash, he led the shepherd away, muttering quietly to his four-legged partner.

  “Badge number…how did he know your badge number? And what’s this about a sore tooth?”

  Ringo responded by barking and growling. Accusingly, Ramos wondered?

  Relieved to see the officer go, Jen grabbed Stuart’s arm and started walking him back toward her friends. They were now alternating their attention between her and the busy guitarist.

  “Do you believe me now?” Stuart inquired softly.

  “I do,” she mumbled. “I guess I have to. There’s no way anyone other than Stuart….”

  “That’s me!” he declaimed proudly.

  “…could have known those things you said. Because Stuart—you—were the only one there when they happened.” She looked up at him. That in itself seemed unnatural, because until now she had always looked down at him. “You really think my drunken wish came true? Things like this, they just don’t happen.”

  “You’re telling me,” he whispered back.

  She indicated her waiting friends. “Now I have to figure out a way to rationalize everything to them.”

  “Toss ‘em a bone,” Stuart suggested.

  “Try to make a little more sen….” She paused. “Yeah. Something like that. A diversion.” She patted his arm because, thankfully, she couldn’t easily reach the top of his head. “Good idea, Stuart.”

  “I have lots of good ideas,” he told her proudly. “For example, that black cat that’s always yowling in our yard at night. We could….”

  “Not now.” Putting on a big smile, she halted near the table, took a bow, and curtsied. She couldn’t remember the last time she had curtsied and hoped the gesture came off as sufficiently ironic.

  “How was that? Did you like it?”

  Wanda frowned back at her. “What do you mean? How did we like what?”

  Jen indicated the man on her arm. “Meet my friend from college, Stuart.”

  “’Stuart’?” Cindy eyed the man in the pink tracksuit with fresh uncertainty.

  “Yes. Where do you think I got the name from?” She grinned. “We used to perform together.”

  Nina sounded sufficiently hornswoggled. “That was all a prank? You punked us?”

  “Yeah. Funny, huh?” Jen’s voice was tight. “We did music and drama together. We punked everybody, every chance we got. It was good practice for theater. And a break from Shakespeare. How about it? What’d you all think?”

  Cindy was shaking her head. “Horrible acting. I knew you were putting on the whole time. Your posture, your mannerisms, all that frantic waving. Obvious fakery.”

  “Yeah—obvious,” Nina added, not wanting to be left out.

  Jen would have eagerly agreed, but Jim was quite near now. Having rejoined him, Sweetie Peters trotted alongside. Normally she would have been pawing at the ground, sniffing the grass, barking at her owner. This time, she was dead silent, her attention wholly fixed on the tall figure of—Stuart.

  “Be cool,” Jen admonished her “college friend”. “It’s Jim. Remember? The guitar guy?”

  Stuart nodded absently, his attention wholly fixed (yes) on Sweetie Peters.

  Jim adjusted the guitar bag slung across his back so that it fit more cleanly against his shoulders. Or maybe he was just making sure it was out of Jen’s range.

  “Any luck, Jen? Any word? I’ve kept an eye out all morning and….”

  “Thanks, Jim,” she interrupted him. “No need to worry any longer. I just got off the phone with my mother. She took him to the mooers—I mean, the groomers. I forgot. I’ve been so busy with a new client that I forgot I asked her to look after him today.” She stole a glance at Stuart and his grass-stained tracksuit. “He really needed a visit to the groomer.”

  “I could probably use some sprucing up myself,” he quipped. “Helping to keep the park clean, you pick up more than bottles. Comes with the territory. Although,” he added, eying Stuart, “it’s usually not quite so visible. Anyway, that’s good news. Friend of yours?”

  She nodded. Stuart was now on his knees and Sweetie Peters was rubbing up against him. Despite the inconveniences posed by a considerable difference in size, he reciprocated as best he could.

  “Yeah, old friend from college. He’s visiting. We, uh, used to perform together.”

  Jim nodded. “Interesting. He strikes me as a Method actor.”

  Pausing in her pushing, the terrier looked up at the pink-clad human. “What do you think you’re doing, Stuart Louis?”

  He smiled. He would have panted, but he was learning to become a little more discreet in his human habits. “I love when you call me that.”

  “Have you looked at yourself lately? You’re more terror than terrier.”

  “I know,” he whispered. “Walking on two legs. Crazy! I’ve always been able to walk on two legs. Usually when begging for treats. But it can get tiring.” He gestured down at himself. “Not in this body. On the other hand, walking on all fours is out of the question. These legs and hands don’t work together for that.”

  “I don’t mean that. That much is obvious. I’m referring to what you’re wearing. It’s embarrassing.”

  “Is it? I thought you liked lighter shades.”

  Also, you’re dirty. You know how I like a clean- ”

  “Clean butt; I know. What’s worse than walking on two legs is that I can’t taste or smell like I used to. My eyesight isn’t as sharp and neither is my hearing. I swear, I don’t know how humans get through the day. All their senses are feeble. It’s really hard. I mean, everything around me is half of what it normally is. I can’t even lick my….”

  “Stuart! There’s a lady present!”

  “Sorry!”

  “I just hope this goes away. You know it could never work…”

  He stared down at her. “What are you saying, Sweetie Peters?”

  “You know what I’m saying, Stuart Louis.”

  Pivoting, she sprinted off toward a favorite tree. Stuart rose and followed, nearly forgetting to remain upright and not try to run on all fours. A thoughtful Jim contemplated the pair.

  “Sweetie really likes your friend.” He squinted as Stuart began chasing the terrier around the tree. “I mean, she really likes him. I’ve never seen her take to a complete stranger so completely.”

  Jen tried to think of something clever to say, but all she could come up with was, “He’s a dog person.”

  “I can see that.”

  “No, Literally.”

  He blinked, turning away from his dog and her new friend. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just mumbling stupidly. You know me.”

  “Not really, no.” He changed the subject. “So, anyway, I made a few calls and it’s true. They’re gonna close the park. The News confirmed it this morning. Supposed to be a nice development coming. Sidewalk cafes, trendy shops, like that.” His voice fell. “Newport already has acres of sidewalk cafes, trendy shops, and like that. But this is the only dog park.”

  “Close the park?” Despite the distance and his impacted hearing, Stuart had overheard at least that much. Jim turned to him and managed a smile.

  “Hey, I’m Jim.”

  Stuart eyed him intently. “I know.”

  Before the other man could reply, Jen was fumbling in her purse for her ringing phone. “I guess it’s true, then. I’ll call the office and see what my mother knows. She knows everything and everyone.” She glanced at her phone. “It’s Derek. I gotta grab this.” Turning away from the guitarist she spoke toward the phone. “Derek! Hi. Long time no talk. What’s up?” His voice came back over the speaker loud enough for Jim and Stuart to overhear.

  “Jen, this week is bad for me—unless we can do lunch tomorrow.”

  “Lunch tomorrow is perfect.” She replied without a moment’s hesitation. “See ya then. Give me a call later and we’ll pick a place and time.” Disconnecting, she turned to Jim and gave him a thumbs-up. “Doing lunch with Derek tomorrow. Plays Baseball. Pro,” she added by way of punctuation.

  “That’s nice.” Slipping his headphones back over his ears, he resumed grooving to the music. Giving a gentle tug on Sweetie Peters’ leash, he eased her away from Stuart’s side. As they walked off, the terrier looked back over her shoulder. Stuart blew her a kiss.

  “He’s perfect for you,” he murmured unexpectedly.

  Jen blinked. “Who, Derek?”

  Stuart shook his head slowly. “No.”

  She gaped at him, then at the retreating figure of the guitar player. “Who—Jim? C’mon! We’ve got nothing in common, and after last night I’ve already got plenty of empty bottles. You’re not fooling me Stuart. You just like Sweetie Peters.”

  He pursed his lips. “I’m telling you, Jen, and I can tell likes when I smell them. He likes you.”

  “Well it just so happens that I know nothing about him and I don’t go for guys about whom I know nothing and for all I know he’s nothing but a bottle-collecting vagrant although he does seem awfully clean for a vagrant and he does play guitar and….” Breaking off, she stared at Stuart in horror.