turned to walk back to his wife’s room. He wanted an explanation. The nurse tugged on his arm again. “Your wife left instructions that you weren’t to be permitted any other visiting privileges. Just the one. I’m truly sorry, Mr. Lowell.”
“Yeah. Yeah, me too.”
Dennis left the hospital in a daze. The nurse was right, he had to make plans. Serious plans.
His shoulders slumped with misery, his eyes wet, Dennis drove home, still trying to make sense of what had just happened to him and his brand-new daughter.
Chapter 2
He was her client.
A superrich paying client.
And, said client was ticked off, big-time.
A murderous glint in her eyes, Olivia Lowell took one step backward, then another. “I refuse to tolerate this type of behavior, Cecil. I will not be intimidated. I was told you were a gentleman. Ha!”
Alice, the West Highland terrier at Olivia’s feet, barked shrilly and showed her teeth. “She’s a killer, Cecil, so it might behoove you to rethink your actions. Now, what’s it going to be? Be aware that I am a woman whose biggest failing in life is my lack of patience.”
Cecil eyed the woman standing in front of him, then the yapper at her feet. And he did what any red-blooded Yorkshire terrier would do. He lay down, rolled over, and barked. Happily. Bounding back up on all fours, he raced across the studio, whirled, twirled, and did a hind-leg jig. His one and only trick. Alice ran after him and somehow managed to swat his rear end with one furry paw. They ended up tussling on the studio floor.
“Now look at you, Cecil! The executors of your owner’s estate are not going to like this. I need to take your picture, so let’s get with it. You’re big news, Cecil. You just inherited the Manning fortune. You’re going to live a life of luxury. Don’t you want to get your due? It isn’t every day a fortune lands in a dog’s lap. C’mon, let me take your picture. I promise it will be painless,” Olivia pleaded.
Cecil hopped onto a stool and did his jig again, to Alice’s dismay. Olivia resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to get a portrait of the famous dog but would have to go with action shots, which probably wasn’t a bad thing at all. She’d tried to explain to the dog’s handler, a lawyer named Jeff Bannerman, that Cecil had a mind of his own, but he refused to listen. What Bannerman had said was something to the effect that you’re supposed to be the best of the best—now prove it.
Like that was going to happen! If Cecil had been an ordinary dog, maybe. She’d met Cecil two years before, when Lillian Manning had commissioned her to do a sitting portrait of the dog. The picture, while nice, reflected Cecil’s more or less placid puppyhood. Now the moneymen responsible for Mrs. Manning’s estate wanted a grown-up picture, and they were willing to pay ten thousand dollars for it. After all, it was going to be shown around the world, and it would aid her career, they said.
Olivia reached into her pocket and withdrew a whistle, the kind that emitted a loud, piercing sound that only dogs could hear. She blew it three times and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Cecil, get on that bench and pose! Now! Or…or you are going back home with that stiff who brought you here.”
Cecil stopped pawing through the wastebasket, turned to look at the object of his torment, then pranced over to the bench and hopped up. He posed, he preened, he looked haughty, he looked devilish, then he lay down. Alice barked her approval as Olivia’s Nikon clicked and clicked. Then, ham that he was, Cecil stood up on all fours and bowed. He actually bowed. Olivia burst out laughing—until Cecil showed his teeth, which meant the gig was over. He hopped down and chased Alice around the room until the female terrier collapsed. The Yorkie pounced on her and barked shrilly. Alice ignored him. With nothing else to entertain him, Cecil lifted his leg and defiantly peed on the legs of a tripod. Then he walked back to Alice. He lay down and was asleep within seconds.
Olivia smiled as she looked at the two sleeping dogs. She adored Cecil but felt sorry for him. He was now destined to live out his life in a fancy mansion with servants catering to his every whim. The servants wouldn’t love him or play with him the way Lillian Manning had. Poor, poor Cecil. Maybe the money people would allow Cecil to have play dates with Alice. How silly was that? How silly was leaving a hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar estate to a dog? Pretty damn silly, in her opinion.
Olivia Lowell, photographer to the canine world, looked at her watch. Lunchtime. Yogurt, a banana, and a cup of coffee, and she’d be ready to photograph a seven-year-old English whippet named Sasha for her owner’s Christmas card. Christmas was ten months away, but the owner said she didn’t want to have to wait till the last minute.
It was a lucrative living, and Olivia enjoyed every minute of it because she was a devout animal lover.
As Olivia spooned the yogurt into her mouth, she thought about her father. She missed him but understood his desire to retire to the islands and rent out his fishing boat to tourists. He was happier these days than she’d ever seen him. Of course, that might have something to do with his new love, Lea. Maybe she would call him later in the day to ask him how things were going.
Tears pricked Olivia’s deep-green eyes when she thought of her father and how he’d raised her on his own. He’d sacrificed so much for her, even giving up his accounting practice and going to night school to learn photography so he could open a studio in their home to be with her during the day. A studio that he himself built on the side of the house, with its own entrance, bath, and minikitchen. The studio even had a plaque beside the door that said LOWELL AND LOWELL, and underneath their names, the word PHOTOGRAPHY.
Her father had never remarried, despite her urging as she grew older. Not that he didn’t, as he called it, “keep company” with various and sundry ladies. Some of those ladies were to Olivia’s liking and some weren’t, but she kept her own counsel where they were concerned. Until Lea came along five years ago. Lea was the mother she never had. They were friends, good friends. Maybe now that both her father and Lea were in a less stressful atmosphere and retired, they might think about getting married. At least she hoped so, for her father’s sake.
Three things happened simultaneously when Olivia tossed her empty yogurt container in the trash. Cecil and Alice raced into the kitchen; Sasha, the English whippet, arrived wearing a huge red and white Santa hat, granny glasses that were tied to her ears, and a Christmas neckerchief; and a distinguished-looking gentleman carrying a briefcase rang her front doorbell.
Olivia strode to the front door. She really needed to make some rules around here. The least Sasha’s owner could have done was take the dog to the studio door instead of the kitchen door. Now she had to contend with some door-to-door salesman, the barking, howling dogs, and her own frustrations. Her father would have had the situation under control in a heartbeat. All he ever had to do was look a dog in the eye, wag his finger, and he was rewarded with instant obedience. Her clients walked all over her.
“What?” she snapped irritably. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.” She was about to shut the door when the man held up a small white business card. She paused to read it. He was Prentice O’Brien from the law firm of O’Brien, O’Malley and O’Shaughnessy. A nice Irish firm, Olivia surmised. Or else it was some kind of song-and-dance act, and the man standing in front of her was a scam artist.
“What?” she said again, yelling to be heard over the din. “Is someone suing me?” Sasha’s body slammed against the locked storm door. Prentice O’ Brien stepped back, his face showing apprehension.
“No!”
