didn’t take them.”
“I didn’t call the police.”
The police had done nothing when she’d gone to them for help about her parents’ and her brother’s deaths. Accidents. She hated that word with a hot red passion, but that was all they would tell her. They sure weren’t going to bother themselves about her pet.
“You can have a list of my employees with their pictures, but not their employee files. That would be a breach of confidentiality.”
He glared, obviously not liking that she pushed back. Tough for him. She expected a better plan for Tsini’s protection than him harassing her employees.
Other than Greg and her uncle, she had barely any family left. Her staff was her family. They looked out for her, took care of her, defended her from the paparazzi and kept her secrets. She trusted them implicitly and she wasn’t going to hand them over for any sort of interrogation by Mr. Hot and Overzealous here.
Wilder kept going with the narrow-eyed look. If he thought he could browbeat her into doing whatever he wanted, he was setting himself up for steep disappointment.
“You do that so well, Mr. Wilder. Do they teach mean looks in pet-detective school?” she began, then decided to stop there. She shouldn’t antagonize him. But she knew that he’d judged her and judged her unfairly from the moment he’d set eyes on her, probably from the moment he’d taken on the job, or before. She resented it and felt some perverse need to put him in his place. Stupid. She needed to let go of that. Whatever he thought of her, he’d come to help.
Still, every inch of him exuded how much he didn’t want to be here. The restraint that kept him in his seat was admirable. “Miss Landon—”
“Kayla.”
“All I want is to figure out where the threats came from. It would make my job easier.”
He was hired to keep an eye on Tsini for the next four days. Was he going above and beyond to impress her, or did he really care?
He didn’t look as if her good opinion mattered one whit to him, for sure. But how could he care? He didn’t know her and hadn’t even met Tsini yet.
“I like doing my job as well as I can,” he said.
That was it, then. A dedicated man. Her father would have liked him.
Tsini chose that moment to wander out of her bedroom and mosey in. She went straight to the stranger in the room and gave him a few cursory sniffs.
“And this would be my job?” He looked the standard poodle over.
“We prefer to call her Tsini.” Kayla petted her when Tsini finally made her way to the pod chair. Her gleaming white hair was done in show clip, ready for the competition. They were leaving for Vegas in the morning. “Aren’t you pretty today?”
Nash leaned back on the couch, watching the two of them. “So how much would one of these fancy things run a person?”
Not much at all. She’d rescued the abused poodle from a shelter. Some despicable breeder had been shut down just days before and about two dozen purebred poodles had ended up crammed into the already overcrowded cages. Kayla had gone there for a guard dog—right after her older brother’s death. But then she’d seen Tsini with her badly broken leg, the cutest puppy that ever lived, and when she’d been told that the surgery to reset it would cost too much so she’d have to be put down, Kayla had snapped her up quicker than the ASPCA guy could ask for her autograph.
She’d paid for the surgeries, rehabilitation and regular grooming, wanting to erase the frightened, sick mess Tsini had been. And she had succeeded at least in this one thing in her life.
Tsini had turned out to be a real girl. She liked to look pretty and liked to show it off. And it was a pleasure to take her to shows and let her. After Kayla tracked down and obtained the dog’s papers.
None of that would interest Nash who’d strutted into her home with his thinly veiled prejudices, determined to believe her a spoiled brat. “Tsini is priceless,” she said.
She reached for the star-shaped wireless phone on the see-through acrylic coffee table and rang her office as Tsini settled in at her feet. Her secretary picked up on the second ring.
“Could you please send over my schedule for the last month and the next four days? The official schedule of the dog show, too? Thanks.”
She hung up then walked over to the built-in cabinetry that was camouflaged in the wall paneling. She pressed a panel and a deep drawer slid out. She pulled out the plastic bag inside and carried it back to Nash, tossed it on his lap.
Tsini had followed her there and back, taking her time to resettle again. She was a sweet, good-natured dog. Unconditional love. Complete acceptance.
Nash opened the bag with care then pulled out the contents. “What’s this?”
She leaned down for Tsini, lifted her up and hugged her close as even the last bit of her good mood for the day disappeared. “The last message I got. Day before yesterday.”
It still gave her shivers.
Nash looked the thing over. “Did a note come with it?”
“No.”
“So basically this is your death threat?” He did his best not to laugh. Someone sends her an electric-blue fur coat and she runs crying for help. Women.
The job was looking easier by the minute. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Some challenge would have at least kept him from being bored to death.
Maybe she could put the damned coat on, not that there was much of it, just a strip of back and the sleeves. He thought, but wasn’t sure, that they called this sort of thing a bolero jacket. Partially completed clothing seemed to be her thing. There had to be parts missing from the dress she wore. The white silk clung to curves that were made to tempt a man. Tempt him and drive him mad.
She had a perfect figure, which the paparazzi loved, big blue eyes and silky blond hair that tumbled down all the way to her pert little behind.
Temptation in a designer dress, if outside appearances were all a man cared about. But he’d been burned one time too many to be taken in by any of that.
He’d been burned and Bobby was dead. He pushed that thought away, still not ready to deal with it. He’d done many stupid things in his life, but for this one, for “Pounder”—Bobby Smith had been a wizard with heavy artillery—Nash would never forgive himself.
He watched dispassionately as Kayla Landon’s luscious, hot-pink, glazed lips tightened.
“That coat is made of dog fur.” She emphasized the last two words. “Same breed as Tsini, dyed blue. The decoration around the neckline is exactly the same as the collar Tsini has.”
Okay, he could see that now. He dropped the thing back into the bag. He had friends who could go over it for any clues, although he didn’t
