In Dog We Trust (Golden Retriever Mysteries) Read Online Free Page B

single bamboo screen, teak and bleached linen, with the occasional statue of a grinning monkey or a reflective Buddha. When I asked, she told me that she’d lived in Korea for a couple of years as a teenager, and it had formed her sense of style.
    I could even see it in the way she dressed—very simply, with just a hint of Asian influence. She’d traded her usual sneakers for black Japanese sandals with white socks, and around her wrist she wore a thick gold bracelet she told me was made of Thai gold. “They call it a baht bracelet,” she said. “That’s the Thai money. A friend of my dad’s in the service had one, and he used to joke that if you were ever captured in the jungle you could break a link off to bribe the chief to let you go.”
    I wondered if she’d seen that friend of her dad’s as the same kind of romantic hero as Rochester—like Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone , or Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. It would be hard for an average guy to match up to those role models—a desk job in Philadelphia or some Bucks County hamlet doesn’t lend itself to larger-than-life escapades. But maybe she’d like a guy with a criminal record—even if it was only for computer hacking. I filed that thought away for the future.
    I heard the buzz of the coffee grinder, and then a percolating noise as the brown liquid dripped into the glass pot. Rochester came over and rested his big golden head on my leg, leaving behind a trail of drool and a fine coating of blonde hairs on my black jeans. He settled into a heap in the doorway that led back to the living room. Yet another reason to have a dog, I thought—to create an obstacle course in your own home.
    As we drank our coffee, we traded bits and pieces of background. I mentioned my divorce and relocation, but left out the part about meeting Santiago Santos at a nondescript office building in Doylestown and showing him the ways I was becoming a solid citizen. I learned she had relocated from New York to take a job in finance with a bank in Philadelphia, an easy commute from the train station in Yardley, the next town downriver.
    “There’s a guy I used to date who lives in New York, and I see him now and then, but it’s nothing serious,” she said. “But other than him, the guys I’ve met around here are total washouts. You know, sometimes I feel like behind my back someone has enrolled me in the Dork of the Month Club, and every few weeks, instead of books or CDs or baskets of fruit, I get some dufous standing at my door, wearing high-water pants, a pencil folder in his shirt pocket, and one of those ribbon things running around behind his head holding his glasses in place.”
    I laughed. Of course a guy like that couldn’t match up to a man who wore a gold baht bracelet, knew how to shoot a semi-automatic weapon and how to perform first aid on a sucking chest wound. Could I? Or would I end up another on Caroline’s list of losers, the computer geek who was too dumb to avoid prison?
    While we talked, Rochester remained sprawled on the white tile floor in the doorway, snoring softly. At one point his body began to twitch and he made some whimpering noises. “He’s probably chasing ducks in his dreams,” Caroline said. “There’s a dog park in Leighville, and I’ve taken him there a couple of times, but I spend the whole time making sure he doesn’t try to hump every other dog.”
    The way she looked at him was so sweet and loving; I could tell she and the big golden had a strong bond, and I envied that a little. Some people like dogs, I figured, and some didn’t. I was one of the ones who didn’t. And I wasn’t willing to accept the chaos that a dog would bring into my life. I was still enjoying my solitude, the way I didn’t have to answer to anyone but Santiago Santos.
    “I guess I should get home,” I said then. “I’ve got a stack of freshman comp essays to grade on ‘a food that has a personal meaning to me.’ I figure I’ll be reading