Mariner's Compass by Earlene Fowler Read Free Book Online

“You posturing pendejo.”
    Scout was home free.
    Gabe sat down next to me on the sofa, scratching behind Scout’s ears, and asked, “Okay, I’ll bite. Who’s he and what’s he doing in our house?”
    “His name is Scout. He’s . . . well he’s mine now.”
    “He’s what you inherited from this guy?”
    “Not only Scout, but a house in Morro Bay. Not to mention all its contents. It was so weird, Gabe. The minute I walked up, Scout greeted me like he’d known I was coming, and he hasn’t left my side since. And you should see what’s inside the house. It’s—”
    His face hardened, and he snapped, “You went inside this house without letting me check it out first? Are you out of your mind?”
    “It’s in a perfectly nice neighborhood overlooking the Embarcadero. I even met one of my neighbors. He—”
    “Benni, I swear, someday I’m going to lock you in our house and wear the key around my neck. I had no idea a house was involved. There could be a bomb there, or it could be a meth lab, or—”
    I interrupted him with a laugh. “For cryin’ out loud, Gabe, a bomb?”
    He jumped up and started pacing, his face turning burnt sienna as he moved right into lecturing without taking a breath. “Not to mention it could have been a setup. Someone could have been just waiting for you to walk through that door. You really don’t have any idea how stupid it was to go to that house alone, do you?”
    I folded my arms across my chest. “Don’t call me stupid.”
    He stopped in front of me, his face pained. “Sweetheart, I wasn’t calling you stupid. What you did was ...”
    I narrowed my eyes at him.
    He inhaled deeply. “Injudicious.”
    “Now there’s a five-dollar way of saying stupid.”
    “Okay, imprudent.”
    “That hole you’re digging is getting deeper by the minute, Chief Ortiz.” This was not going like I’d planned. In fact, it was much worse than I’d expected. He was going to have a stroke when he heard the will’s stipulation.
    I gnawed the inside of my cheek, contemplating how to phrase it.
    His fingers tugged irritably at one side of his thick mustache. “Okay, tell me the rest. Don’t make me guess what that guilty look on your face means.”
    “I resent that! I don’t have a guilty look.”
    He sat down on the sofa and started tickling me. “Spill it, Señora Ortiz.”
    “Stop it, stop it!” I tried to wiggle away. Scout started barking when Gabe pushed me down and lay on top of me, his hands still tickling my sides.
    “Scout, save me!” I cried, laughing so hard tears flowed from my eyes. My new watchdog just stood there and continued barking, his tail wagging triple time. “He’s going to bite you,” I said, gasping.
    “He knows we’re just playing,” Gabe said, stopping long enough to kiss me long and hard. “Are you going to confess now, or am I going to have to continue torturing you?”
    I scrubbed my lips across his mustache. “Forget the tickling, but this isn’t so bad.”
    “The torture is I won’t kiss you again until you confess.”
    I pushed him off me. “Chief Ortiz, you’d better watch that uppity attitude of yours. You aren’t that irresistible.”
    Gabe sat back on the sofa and ran his fingers through his messy hair, no longer laughing. “Seriously, what’s the rest of the story?”
    I told him the requirements of the will in one long run-on sentence. His face turned from cynical to incredulous to immovable stone.
    “Absolutely not. I won’t allow it,” he said in his police chief voice.
    “You won’t allow it? Excuse me, but the last time I checked Roget’s Thesaurus , wife and slave were not synonyms.”
    “It’s crazy. Let the government have the whole thing.”
    “No way!” I protested, standing up and heading toward the bedroom to pack, Gabe and Scout fighting for position to follow me. I opened the closet door and pulled down a canvas duffel bag. ”I’m going to follow the will’s instructions right down to the last comma