Retribution by Elizabeth Forrest Page B

gave her a look of immense devotion and happiness.

    "Did he help with your… problem?"

    Charlie gave a little sigh which was followed immediately by one from the dog, and John bit the inside of his lip slightly to hide his amusement at the unconscious emotional rapport between them. She frowned and took a step away from him, and he knew he had crossed some kind of boundary with her.

    "My father and a few others overreacted to a situation with my ex-agent, I'm afraid," she answered slowly. "But Jagger here performed heroically anyway. He showed his teeth and Valdor gave up his hope of forcing me back into painting."

    "Good. Glad to hear that. He's a good dog. He wasn't cut out for the kind of work your father wanted from him." John cleared his throat. For Jagger to do everything Quentin Saunders had insisted upon, he would have had to deprogram the dog thoroughly and most likely would have ended up with a confused and worthless animal. As it was, Rubidoux was not sure that Jagger would perform the aggressive guard and attack acts they had worked so hard on. Worse, he feared that the dog would begin refusing his service commands, misplacing the aggression John had tried to instill in him.

    Seeing him here and now, though, made Rubidoux feel a little more at ease. Happy dog, happy owner. He backed up a step. "Sorry about the painting though. I didn't realize you had stopped."

    Charlie tilted her head slightly, offsetting the slant to her features. He wondered if it was a studied act or just something she did naturally. "It happens. Sometimes you just lose the desire."

    "I understand that—" John suddenly felt as if he were walking on eggshells, and very unsuccessfully.

    "I don't talk about it much any more," Charlie told him. She tugged her mouth into a smile. "Surely you didn't get a tux and come out tonight just to say hi to Jagger."

    "Of course not. As an independent businessman, I'm told I should support functions like this." He stretched his neck against the tightness of his collar and flushed as she noticed him fidgeting. "It's called networking in the nineties. And my accountant said, 'You need the write-offs anyway.' "

    She laughed. "Well, that's one way of doing it. I'm not sure too many of them here would look you up on a website. They prefer to schmooze. You look like one of the harder working donors. Let me give you a guided tour. There's food and drinks with that ticket and I'm sure you wouldn't want to miss a good meal." She clucked to Jagger who lurched promptly to his feet and squared himself away in his harness.

    John followed after her, wondering if he wore the same hungry look on his features that he often saw on his dogs. How did women know? How did they unerringly home in on a signal he was not aware he gave? Or was a man's stomach something a woman could take for granted?

    Or, he thought ruefully, as they neared the food tent and buffet line and he could smell the rich fragrance of some mighty good-smelling dinner plates, and his stomach gave off a growl, maybe he had been signaling after all. Some well-heeled folks cut her away from him and began to talk to her earnestly in low tones. She waved him by to the food line and after a sorrowful look from Jagger, John decided that he would get a tray for himself and make a dent in the hundred-dollar ticket. It looked as though his guided tour had ended.

    Jagger alternated between watching him hopefully and scanning the people who continued to press around Charlie. No sooner would one group drift away, then another couple or threesome would surround her. John wanted to think that she stayed in order to talk with him, perhaps share the intimacy of dining with him, but that not only no longer looked possible, it looked as if she had not even had that in mind. He filled his dinner plate with an assortment of goodies that made Jagger lick his chops as he passed by to an available table.

    He sat down, too hungry to think about the difficulties of eating