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He had me there. It was only natural that with all the focus on my family Octo-Cat would also wonder about his.

“Okay,” I said, nodding for emphasis. “I’ll help you.”

“Don’t make me pull out my—” He stopped suddenly. “Wait, you’ll help? That easily?”

“That easily,” I confirmed, my smile widening now.

“Well, okay, then. Thank you.” He returned to his lobster roll, making such fast progress of it that I was worried he may choke.

Just then, a raccoon skittered up the porch steps and grabbed the remaining sandwich with greedy black fingers.

Octo-Cat growled and took a swipe, but Pringle had already managed to climb up onto the railing and out of reach of the irate tabby.

“For me?” the raccoon crooned. “Why, Angie, you shouldn’t have.”

“She didn’t!” Octo-cat yelled and flicked his tail wildly behind him.

Pringle stuffed the entire thing in his mouth, cheeks bulging, then swallowed it down and slowly licked each of his fingertips.

“I hate you,” Octo-Cat muttered before running back in through the pet door.

I let out a long sigh.“Why do you have to get him riled up like that?”

“That cat has never liked me. So, frankly, I don’t trust his taste. Although that lobster roll was delicious. Would have been even more delicious without the cat spit on it, though.” Pringle chuckled to himself, then clambered down from the railing and came to sit at my side. “So when do westart our next case?”

I sighed again—something I did often in my raccoon neighbor’s presence. “When someone hires us.”

“Hey, not being hired hasn’t stopped you before. You’ve gotten involved in plenty of cases just because you happened to stumble upon them. Let’s go for a nice walk through downtown, see what trouble we can stir up there.”

I stared at him for a moment, but when I realized Pringle had no idea why this suggestion would be problematic, I attempted to explain.“If I show up with a raccoon in broad daylight in the middle of a crowded street, there will definitely be trouble. And not the kind either of us would enjoy. Besides, maybe I don’t want another case right now. Honestly, I could really use a break.”

“Level with me here. I’m going stir crazy. I’ve almost finished my second watch-through of all forty-ish seasons of Survivor. What am I supposed to do when I’m through with that, huh?”

“Start a third watch-through,” I suggested with a shrug.

His jaw fell open as if I’d just made the most shocking and offensive recommendation of all time. It looked like he wanted to say something more, but before he could a car pulled onto our long driveway and began its approach to the house.

Pringle scurried off to hide, because as much as he liked bugging me and Nan, he was still wary of other humans. If he would have waited just a couple seconds longer, though, he would have seen that the new arrival was someone he’d come to trust, thanks to our recent adventures forcing them to work together while the rest of us were out of town.

“Hi, Charles,” I said when my boyfriend parked and got out of his car. He wore his button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and still wore his suit pants, although he’d ditched the jacket and tie.

“Ready to go?” he asked, waiting at the car door and eyeing me suspiciously.

I stood and brushed away the crumbs that had fallen to my lap while Octo-Cat and Pringle battled over the lobster roll.

“Angiiiie,” Charles ground out. “Don’t tell me you forgot!”

Somehow“forgot what?” didn’t feel like the right response here, so I just smiled and batted my eyelashes.

“About the movie,” he prompted. “It was your idea for us to see it tonight.”

“Oh! Oh, right! I am so sorry, Charles. Things have just been…” I popped to my feet as I searched for the right word. Busy wasn’t accurate, but I was still very overwhelmed, regardless. “They’ve been a lot lately. If you give me five minutes, I can run a brush through my hair and then we can go.”

He shook his head and trotted up the steps, taking me in his arms before I could slip away.“Let’s stay in tonight,” he said, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead and reminding me all over again why I was crazy about this particular man.

I looked up at him with half-lidded eyes.“You don’t mind?”

“Nah.” He pulled me to his chest and held me tight. “As long as I get to spend time with you, it doesn’t really matter what we do. How about you choose tonight, and I’ll choose what we do next time around.”

We shared a slow kiss. I practically melted into him as he held me.

That is, until Octo-Cat rushed back through the pet flap and shouted,“Gaaah! You know I hate it when you two groom each other in my presence.”

I laughed and kissed Charles again. Octo-Cat would just have to deal with it.

Chapter Three

Charles and I ended up watching a made-for-TV movie on the Disney channel, which offered just the right amount of wholesomeness mixed with campiness to lighten my mood—and to send me drifting to sleep early.

The next morning, I woke up and took a quick shower, hoping it would help make me more alert for the day ahead. It didn’t.