Romeow and Juliet by Kathi Daley Read Free Book Online Page B

jealous that I’m with Melanie and she’s stuck with Walter. So how about it?”
    I glanced at Tara. I wanted to suggest that Danny take Tara instead, but that would be too cruel. “Okay, but just one date.”
    “Thanks, sis.” Danny hugged me again.
    Danny turned toward Tara, who had picked the kitten back up and was hugging him to her chest. “Did you do something different with your hair?” Danny asked my smitten friend.
    “No. Why do you ask?”
    Danny had the strangest look on his face as he stared at her. “No reason. Something just seems different about you.” Danny turned back toward me. “Saturday at seven. I’ll pick you up.”
    With that, he was out the door.
    I turned back to Tara, who was smiling at the kitten. Yep, our little charmer had definitely found a home.

Chapter 6
Tuesday, May 19
    I should have known it was going to be a very bad, horribly awful day as soon as I was awakened before first light by an angry banging on my front door. It seemed that I had forgotten to close the downstairs window, and apparently, Romeo had decided to take a midnight stroll to introduce himself to the fair maiden Juliet. I know: adorable, right? Unfortunately, Francine was a lot less charmed by the idea of a romance between her prized show cat and my temporary houseguest and wanted to be certain that I suffered the full extent of her wrath.
    After listening to Francine rant for a good twenty minutes, I promised to make certain that Romeo would never come courting again and offered her a plate of the enchiladas Tara and I had made the previous evening. Francine is a ninety-eight-pound woman who’s shorter than I am but can eat like a truck driver. Needless to say, she was temporarily pacified by my delicious offering and promised not to strangle my adorable visitor as long as he stayed on his side of the hedge.
    By the time I was able to free myself from Francine’s unwanted company I was fully awake, so I decided to get an early start on my day. That turned out to be the first in a series of really bad decisions. On the surface heading out to the beach for my run with Max a good two hours earlier than usual seemed like a harmless idea. The sun rises early during the spring and summer in this part of the country, so I still had a good two hours before I needed to meet Tara for our first class at the community center. A short run to stretch out and get Max some exercise couldn’t possibly hurt. What I failed to take into account was that the long stretch of normally deserted sand that Max and I routinely enjoyed, is, at this time of day, infested with men and women lined up along the water’s edge trying to catch their daily limit.
    You know how, in the movies, they slow down the camera to show that pivotal moment when everything falls apart in extraslow motion? Well, I swear that’s exactly what happened to me. One minute Max and I were jogging along, trying to ignore the buckets of fish lined up along the sand, and the next thing I knew, an extraexuberant fisherman was pulling on his line with a strong force to fling his fish from the water, up into the air, and onto the beach behind him.
    I could see what was coming, but before I could yell at Max to stay, my playful companion veered from my side and dashed toward the bounty from the sea, which by this point was wildly flopping around on the sand.
    “Hey, your dog stole my fish,” a very large and very angry man yelled at me as Max trotted up with the fish in his mouth. The man didn’t look familiar, so I had to assume he was a visitor from the mainland.
    “I’m so sorry. I’m sure he didn’t mean to. Drop it,” I commanded my tail-wagging friend.
    Max obediently lay the slightly mangled prize at my feet.
    “I can’t eat that now,” the man complained.
    “I really am very sorry. I don’t know what happened. Max is normally very well behaved. Perhaps if you had controlled your catch a little better . . . I mean, you did fling it twenty feet behind