Aside from the stone walls and the harsh echo of Bailey’s toenails scratching against the floor, the inside of the step temple wasn’t as creepy as Daisy had expected. Even though it was June, the few students who stayed for summer classes gave it some life, and the recessed lighting that had been carved into the ceiling made the hallway seem a lot like all the other academic hallways on campus - slathered with the slightly intimidating air of academia, but otherwise normal.

“Old auditorium, old auditorium,” Daisy mumbled as they descended the stairwell to the ground floor, Bailey straining on the leash the whole way. “Where is the old auditorium?”

“Are you on your way to the obedience class?”

Bailey gave two sharp barks and Daisy looked up to see a tall man with dark hair looking down at her. For a moment, she felt a bit stunned. He wasn’t an undergrad, that was for sure; the smile lines around his eyes crinkled a bit deep for that. But, taking in his worn black t-shirt and sun-bleached blue jeans, he didn’t seem a professor type, either.

“Um… yeah,” she said. “How’d you know?”

Bailey barked again, and the guy met her eyes with a deadpan expression. “I possess a rare intuitive gift.”

“Right,” Daisy said, tightening her hold on Bailey’s leash. “Duh.”

If I’d known you were here, I would have come into this building sooner.

“Follow me,” he said, and led her deeper into the belly of the building, finally pushing open one of a pair of heavy wooden doors and holding it for Daisy and Bailey.

“Class is going to start in just a minute,” he said. “You guys have a seat.”

“Okay,” Daisy said, watching him as he led the way into what looked to be a large old-style auditorium, the kind that had rows of folding chairs. The windowless room had a square dais set up on shallow stone steps with a big–stone block? sacrificial altar?-podium in the center. Behind the podium hung a heavy black curtain which obscured what Daisy figured was the other half of the room–the cute guy disappeared behind it, so something else was back there–and in front of it were seven folding chairs organized in a half-circle. Five of them were filled, and Daisy chose the empty seat in the middle, between a skinny brunette and her huge black bear of a dog, and a gray-haired professor type with her black and gray wiener dog. Bailey hopped and barked and strained while the black bear stood still and the wiener dog whined and skirted under his mistress’s chair.

“Sorry,” Daisy said, reaching out to grab Bailey’s harness. “He’s not my dog.” She turned her eyes on Bailey. “Bailey, stop.”

Bailey jumped up and licked her face and she shouted “Ugh!” and swiped at her mouth. The room went quiet and Daisy heard a mutter of disgust come from the right end of the semicircle; a wraith of a girl with straight black hair and bug eyes glared at Daisy while the creepy black Chihuahua in her lap breathed a heh-heh-heh sounding growl. Daisy recoiled a bit, then felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see a smiling teenage girl offering her a stick of gum; at the girl’s feet stood a foxhound that kept his cool even as Bailey skittered around him, barking like a maniac.

“Hi, I’m Gen, this is Ziggy,” the girl said as Daisy took the gum. “It’s so gross when they French you, isn’t it?”

“Oh my god, totally,” a voice said from behind Gen. Daisy leaned forward to see another teenage girl with a round face smooching at her fat, ancient poodle, who was wearing what appeared to be a tiara and a pearl necklace. “Isn’t it, Baby? Yes, it is. It’s so gross.”

“Thanks.” Daisy tucked the gum in her pocket as Gen moved back to take her seat at the left end of the circle, next to Bun and Baby. Bailey yipped in mourning as Ziggy retreated with Gen, then, recognizing the limits of his leash, he darted under the professor’s seat and did something to which the wiener dog objected mightily.

“I’m so sorry,” Daisy said, pulling Bailey back on the leash. “He’s not my–”

“You are welcome to this place.” A husky female voice came from behind the altar–no, podium, podium–and Daisy looked up to see a big-busted, wasp-waisted, dark-haired woman in a long, tight, linen wrap dress emerge from the curtain and look down on them. She was extraordinarily beautiful in a piercing-dark-eyes, stern-full-lips, jaw-like-a-commando kind of way.

She could make a fortune as a dominatrix, Daisy thought, as the woman said, “I am Kammani.”

She said this as though announcing that she was Madonna or the Pope, obviously expecting a reaction, but only the bug-eyed girl lowered her head in reverence. The teenagers giggled, the skinny brunette and her huge dog seemed unimpressed, and the professor sighed and shifted in her seat as if exasperated.

Kammani’s eyes trailed over the seats, finally locking on the empty one between the professor and Bug-Eyes. She took in a deep breath, and did not look happy. Daisy wondered if she and Bailey could make a break for it and maybe find a nice, sane obedience class at the Y, but she didn’t want to do it while Kammani was watching. Although she didn’t really believe that the woman could shoot death lasers with her eyes, she kinda believed the woman could shoot death lasers with her eyes. She tightened her hold on Bailey’s leash and he yipped and scrambled his toenails on the floor, trying to rush Kammani.

“Noah Wortham, my attendant, will assist–” her eyes locked on Bailey “–those who need assistance.” Her eyes trailed the room again, from woman to woman and then she disappeared behind the heavy drapes as Noah emerged and walked over to the teenagers, who giggled louder. Daisy leaned toward the professor.

“Times like this, I’m glad I’m not a virgin,” Daisy said, and the professor smiled.

“Why?” the skinny brunette said, her eyes wide.

“Oh, because of the sacrifice,” Daisy said, grinning.

“What?” the brunette said, and her dog moved closer to her protectively.

“Oh, nothing,” Daisy said. “Dumb joke.” Bailey jumped four feet in the air as Noah walked over to them, and Daisy couldn’t help but shift her focus to the cute trainer.

“Why does he do that?” she asked. “That’s not normal, right?”

“It’s normal.” Noah smiled at Daisy as he handed the brunette a dog cookie. “Hi, I’m Noah.”

The brunette took the cookie. “I’m Abby. This is Bowser.” She gave Bowser the cookie and he inhaled it.

“Hey, Bowser.” Noah shifted over and gave Daisy a cookie. “Hi.”

Daisy felt her face spread into a goofy smile. “Hi.”

Bailey scrambled his front paws over Noah’s knees, and Noah knelt down and petted him. “Hey, guy.”

“His name is Bailey. I’m Daisy.”

Noah looked up, his eyes locking on hers, and Daisy was grateful for the poor lighting as she felt herself flush. Criminy. It was like high school all over again, only this time with dogs. Bailey leapt up and slobbered all over Noah’s face and Daisy grabbed his harness and pulled him back, shoving the cookie at him to keep him off the cute trainer.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s not my dog.”

“It’s okay,” Noah said, wiping at his face. “Jack Russells are enthusiastic like that.”

“Enthusiastic, huh?” Daisy said. “That’s some diplomatic phrasing.”

“Let me show you something.” Noah motioned for her to kneel on the floor.

Daisy glanced at the brunette, who had a wry expression that told Daisy she saw right through the whole thing; then she looked at the professor, who was observing them with detached interest.

“Okay.” Daisy knelt down next to Noah as he put one hand on the tip of Bailey’s ear, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. Bailey sat down and panted quietly as though good behavior was something with which he had a passing acquaintance.

“Big faker,” Daisy muttered to Bailey.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing,” Daisy said. “It’s just that he’s impossible no matter what I do, but you rub his ear for half a second and suddenly he’s calm.”

“It’s a pressure point.” Noah took Daisy’s hand, and Daisy put a concerted effort into ignoring the tingles she felt at his touch. He guided her fingers to Bailey’s ear, keeping hold of them there, his touch gentle and yet oddly powerful. “Just put your thumb and forefinger on opposite sides and rub gently right… there.”

Noah kept his hand on Daisy’s, helping her find the pressure point. Bailey panted happily, his focus flickering from her to Noah and back again. As their fingers moved in time together, the lighting seemed to change, to get brighter. The stone floor and walls seemed to shift to a less oppressive gray, and the heavy drapes seemed less black and more a deep, shimmering, midnight blue.

“Weird,” Daisy said, her eyes on Noah.

“Yeah,” Noah said, his voice quiet.

Then he stood, and Daisy looked up to see Kammani standing behind him with a tray of drinks, staring down at Daisy in disapproval. Her presence in the room was huge, and Daisy felt like a little girl being reprimanded by the teacher. Slowly, she shifted back up to her seat as Noah moved on to offer a dog cookie to the professor.

“I’m Noah,” he said.

“I’m Shar,” Daisy heard the professor say. “And this Wolfie. Can you tell me–”

“You will drink,” Kammani said, handing Abby a dixie cup. She almost smiled at Abby–not quite, but there was approval in her eyes as she watched Abby take a sip–but when she turned to Daisy, her eyes were dark again.

“You will drink,” Kammani said again, her voice sharper than it had been with Abby.

“Why?” Daisy sniffed at the cup. “What’s in it?”

Kammani stared down at Daisy; she seemed the type of woman who was not accustomed to being questioned. Daisy squared her shoulders, looked Kammani in the eye, and spoke slow and loud.

“What. Is. In. It?”

Light flashed in Kammani’s eyes, but Daisy didn’t back down. This woman had interrupted her flirting; she was not going to get away with intimidation tactics, too.

“It’s a tonic,” Kammani said. “Very delicious. Drink it, and you will know.”

“It’s really good,” Abby said.

Fixed under Kammani’s gaze, Daisy raised her cup.

What’s the worst that can happen? she thought, and drank.

After half an hour of be-the-alpha-dog lecture from the very attractive Noah who was clearly in a movie with the blonde sitting next to her, Shar got tired of waiting for an opening to ask about Kammani Gula again. So when Noah called two little dogs into the circle, she slipped out of her chair and stole through the curtain in back of the altar to find Kammani, Wolfie padding behind her on the stone floor. The area behind the curtain was as large as the space in front, but dark as all hell, and Shar was moving cautiously toward the back wall, her hand out in front of her to keep from running into anything, when Kammani spoke from behind her, making Shar start and Wolfie yelp.

“You have left the others.”

“Yes.” Shar turned, seeing the woman’s hourglass shape dimly in the gloom. “Could you tell me where you found the name Kammani-Gula–”

“I am Kammani-Gula,” the woman said, a thrill in her voice, and Shar squinted to see if she was kidding. “You have not drunk your tonic.” She gestured to the gap Shar had left in the curtains, and Shar saw the full cup of punch she’d stashed under her chair.

“I’m not thirsty. Look, I think it’s very creative-” Weird as hell. “-that you took the name of a goddess as your own, but what I need is your source, the place where you found her name–”

She stopped as Kammani moved to the gap in the curtains to frown out at the teenagers out who were making kissing noises at two new dogs. She raised her hand, and the dogs came daintily across the floor and into the darkness to her, leaving Noah dogless.

He walked over to Daisy, and said something, and Daisy handed him Bailey’s leash.

I’m sorry I’m going to miss that, Shar thought and turned her attention back to Kammani. “Okay. So what I need to know–” She stopped again, distracted as she looked down and saw the dogs up close: even in the dim light, they looked like tiny tan giraffes with fluffy white pompom crowns and little grinning faces, one taller and more slender, the other one shorter with sharper, deeper, smarter eyes. “My god, those are Mesopotamian Temple Dogs. I thought they were extinct.”

“Bikka and Umma,” Kammani said. “They are at my side always, to serve me.”

Bikka and Umma smiled up at Shar, their bizarre little doggy faces alight with intelligence. Well, Umma’s was. Bikka’s bore a striking resemblance to Paris Hilton.

Wolfie grumbled.

“Right,” Shar said. “About Kammani Gula. I’m familiar with Gula, the goddess of healing whose sacred animal was the dog . . .” She looked down at the Temple Dogs again. “. . . but I can’t find anything about Kammani-Gula except for the first chapter of my grandmother’s book. Could you give me your sources for her?”

“Your grandmother is writing a book on the goddess?” Kammani tilted her head, more human now in her curiosity.

“Was,” Shar said. “A book on Mesopotamian goddesses. After she died, my mother finished writing it, and I promised my mother I’d complete the citations–”

Kammani faded back into the darkness as Umma took a dainty step closer to Wolfie and Wolfie pressed close to Shar’s leg.

“Hello?” Shar squinted after her, annoyed that she was being ignored again, and then Kammani returned, holding another cup of punch.

Kammani tried to hand her the cup. “This tonic is a recipe from my family. You will drink my family’s tonic, and I will show you Kammani-Gula for your family’s book.”

“I don’t think . . .”

“Drink,” Kammani said in a voice that had some thunder in it.

Shar took the tonic. Holding wasn’t drinking, but maybe Kammani wouldn’t notice.

Kammani nodded once. “I will show you Kammani-Gula and then you will return to Abby and Daisy.”

“Who?” Shar said.

“Bring your cup.” Kammani went to the altar again and came back with a flashlight.

Shar followed her to the center of the wall, and Kammani clicked the flashlight on.

A huge naked goddess sprang into sharp relief, carved into the wall, towering over them.

Wolfie barked, and Shar said, “Oh,” and almost spilled her tonic.

“Kammani-Gula and her priestesses,” Kammani said, gesturing to others figures down the length of the wall. “She inspires great passion in those who follow her. Can you not feel it?”

“No.” Shar took a couple steps back to see the stone goddess better, Wolfie still pressing close. “I don’t do passion. I do research.”

Kammani Gula was a large-eyed, full-breasted, tiny-waisted, winged woman standing on two Mesopotamian Temple Dogs, a whip in her left hand and a knife in her right.

“She’s . . . lovely . . .” Shar said. And armed.

Wolfie whined.

“But I need a source for her–” Shar began.

“The inscription is here.” Kammani pointed her flashlight at the cuneiform carved into the wall next to the figure, and Shar leaned closer, trying to translate.

Kammani-Gula, Goddess of Love, Goddess of Life, Goddess of Healing.

Damn. Okay, so it was a source. But it was a source on a stone wall backstage in a college auditorium in Ohio, and it hadn’t been authenticated or even noticed until now, and that was going to raise some questions.

Shar smiled tightly at Kammani. “You know, I’ve been in this auditorium many times, and I’ve never seen this bas relief. This part behind the curtain is always dark and full of boxes, but still, you’d think somebody would have seen this and mentioned it to somebody. My grandfather brought this temple back from Turkey and had it rebuilt as the history building, and even he never mentioned it. So I’m skeptical–”

“Your grandfather moved this temple,” Kammani said, her voice sounding odd.

Shar nodded. “It’s the only step temple in Ohio. We’re very proud. But I think I would have–”

“You know nothing, then?” Kammani sounded upset. She tightened her grip on the flashlight, and the beam jerked onto the next figure.

Shar sucked in her breath.

The figure next to the goddess was male.

He was tall, looming over her on the wall, and his forehead was broad, crossed with comma-like stone curls, and his eyes–

Kammani moved the light back to the goddess. “You can see–”

“Give me that.” Shar took the flashlight from Kammani and focused it on the man again, letting it play over him as she took in the hooded eyes, the square jaw, the broad shoulders, the slim hips, the massive calves . . .

She drank some tonic.

The taste flooded her mouth and filled her senses, biting and sweet, honey and cinnamon and something like the night sky, anise maybe, warm and rich and satisfying. She sipped again, inhaling the scent, and the heat of it went into her bones as she looked at the man.

He looked powerful. Forceful. Certain. Skilled . . .

She felt herself flush, and Wolfie whined at her feet and pressed closer.

“Who is he?”

“Samu-la-el. God of the Summer, King of Kamesh, Defender of the North, Slayer of Demons.” Kammani recited the titles as if she were saying, “Plumber of Sinks, Mower of Grass.” She took the light from Shar and moved it back to the huge goddess on the wall beside him. “Kammani Gula is the great goddess, mother of all things, and those who follow her . . .”

Shar listened with one ear, knowing Kammani Gula was important, but . . .

Slayer of demons.

She took another drink and felt the heat flood her again, and then she saw the knife in the goddess’s hand and realized what it meant.

“Oh, hell. She sacrificed him.” Bitch.

“For the good of the people,” Kammani said, sounding annoyed at the interruption. “A good king dies for his people, and then his goddess raises him again. He serves his goddess.”

Kammani glared at her for a moment and then went back to praising the goddess, and Shar sipped her tonic, trying to concentrate. She had to be practical: the guy on the wall had been dead for several thousand years, and she had her grandmother’s book to finish, and-

Slayer of demons.

She ripped the flashlight out of Kammani’s grasp and put the light back on the god.

Samu-la-el. He was beautiful and that bitch Kammani Gula had killed him. Shar stared up into the hooded eyes, empty sockets now because the clay and stone imbedded for eyeballs were long gone, but still piercing, staring down at her, transfixing her. This was a guy who kicked demon ass and took invader names. In cuneiform, of course, but still-

God, he was amazing. She stared at him, her head swimming, feeling breathless, dizzy–

“Daisy and Abby are waiting for you,” Kammani said, sounding annoyed. “You should be with them.”

Get off my ass, you’re not my grandmother. Shar drained her cup, letting the richness of the drink flood her, and then she put the cup on the floor and reached out to touch the cuneiform that spelled the god-king’s name. Samu-la-el. Not the kind of guy who’d give a woman a taser. She let her fingers slip to trace the line of his side as it tapered to a flat belly, slim hips–

Wolfie barked, and she jerked her fingers away and turned to say something to distract Kammani from the fact that she’d been feeling up a stone god, but Kammani’s gaze was through the curtain and across the room where the two teenagers were feeding one of the Temple Dogs something orange. Kammani yanked the flashlight out of Shar’s hand and turned it off. “You will join Abby and Daisy,” she said and walked off through the slit in the curtains toward the teenagers, leaving Shar in the dark.

She couldn’t see the relief any more, but he was there. She put her fingers on the wall again, reaching up this time to feel the comma curls across his forehead, wondering who had smoothed them and comforted him after battle, who had put her head on that broad chest and sighed, who had wrapped her arms around him, risen to those hips, cried out in the night–

Wolfie barked, and Shar dropped her hand.

He’s dead, he’s dead, and you are too old and too practical for dreams of heroes.

She turned her back on him and looked down at Wolfie who was trying to avoid the little temple dog Umma’s polite but insistent gaze. “Come on, baby,” she said, “we’re through here,” and led him and Umma through the curtain to the circle where she sat down, dizzy with tonic and a little depressed.

Slayer of Demons she thought and closed her eyes.

Abby shifted uncomfortably in her chair, and Bowser moved a little closer. “I shouldn’t really be here,” she whispered to the tiny blonde next to her. “Bowser’s a perfect gentleman.”

“Heh. Wanna trade?” the blonde whispered back, as the professor picked up her punch cup from under her chair, looking depressed. “So, why’d you come if Bowser’s so well behaved?”

Abby shrugged. “Instinct, I guess. I just arrived in town and I kept running into flyers and I thought it might be a sign.”

“From who? Kammani? Cause I can tell you right now she’s a fruitcake, extra fruit.” The blonde hauled her hyper Jack Russell back towards her.

“No, from my grandmother. I just inherited her coffeehouse, and I …”

“Oh, my god,” the blonde said, taking a good look at Abby. “You’re Bea’s granddaughter?”

The trainer glanced their way and grinned good-naturedly, but Kammani, who was just a little too much like Abby’s mother for Abby’s comfort, glowered. “Did you know my grandmother?” Abby whispered, only slightly chastened.

“Oh, hell, yes. Bea was the best.” She held out her hand. “I’m Daisy. I live on the third floor. You’re my new landlady.”

A moment later Kammani was looming over them, looking pissed. “You are not obedient,” she said in the kind of tone that Abby’s mother used when a client was being difficult.

“Just making friends,” Daisy said with a grin.

Kammani’s eyes narrowed, and to Abby’s surprise she didn’t object. “Good. The three of you shall be friends.”

“Three of us?” Abby asked, confused.

Kammani looked over at the middle-aged professor sitting beside them, holding her cup and looking at Kammani with clear dislike. “The two of you and Sharrat.”

“Shar. Sharrat was my grandmother,” the older woman snapped.

Kammani seemed to control herself with an effort. “The three of you shall be friends,” she said again, and glided away before anyone could do more than stare at her.

“So,” Daisy said, leaning toward Shar. “What’s the verdict on this one? I’m leaning toward spooky with a side of nuts.”

Shar rolled her eyes. “She’s just upset because somebody dropped a house on her sister.”

Abby leaned forward and said, “Beetlejuice!” delighted to find another fan.

Daisy looked confused. “Not The Wizard of Oz?”

Shar shook her head. “Nope, sorry, Beetlejuice. A cinematic masterpiece. You’ll have to come over and watch it–”

Her voice broke off and she looked surprised at what she’d just said, but Abby thought, That would be fun. Movie night with the girls. She lifted her cup. “I’ll be there. As the undead one would say, ‘Let’s turn on the juice and see what shakes loose.’” She looked in her cup. “Except I’m out of juice.”

“I haven’t touched this yet,” Shar said, holding out her cup. “I’ll share.”

“Me, too, please,” Daisy said, holding out her cup.

Shar and said, “Absolutely,” and divided her cup among the three of them. “Because We Shall Be Friends.”

Daisy giggled. “Hell, I can always do with some friends. And Abby’s new in town - she needs friends too.” She knocked her paper cup against Shar’s with an ineffective thunk. “All for one and one for all.” She tapped Abby’s as well, and they all drank the remnants.

“You will take tonic with you,” Kammani said, suddenly before them again, and Abby inhaled her drink in surprise and coughed as Shar started and Daisy said, “Crap, you scared me.”

Kammani presented glazed ceramic bottles to them as if she were handing out treasure.

“About that source–” Shar said as she took hers.

“All will be explained when you return on Tuesday,” Kammani said and moved toward the back of the room again.

Abby squinted at her ceramic glazed bottle. “This tonic is really good.” She took another slug of the sweet, spicy liquid. For tonic like this she could manage to come back, maybe long enough to find out what was in it.

“I don’t want to come back,” Shar said, sounding more like a rebellious child than a dignified, gray-haired professor.

Which reminded Abby of Christopher Mackenzie, who was nowhere near gray-haired and far too dignified himself, and if she was going to have to go buy ingredients for his cookies she’d better get a move on.

“We’ll all come together,” Abby said. “We won’t let the scary lady get you.”

Shar shook her head. “It’s not the scary part, it’s the waste of time. I have work to do.”

“Who doesn’t?” Daisy said, and her dog yanked at her leash, practically hauling her out of the chair.

She was small and strong, Abby thought, but not much of a match for a spastic dog like Bailey. She straightened as Noah came around the circle with handouts.

“Here’s the class list with phone numbers.” He handed one to Abby while he smiled at Daisy.

“Thanks.” Abby rose, and as she did she caught sight of Kammani in the shadows at the back of the room.

She was watching them.

“I’m telling you, extra fruit,” Daisy said as Noah moved on, passing out the class lists. She nodded at the thin, dark-haired girl at the end of the circle. “There’s another one in the last chair there. She’s been staring at me all evening.”

“Mortuary Mina,” Shar said, and when Abby and Daisy both looked at her, surprised, she added, “Grad student in the history department. Writes all her papers on disasters. If somebody died horribly in history, Mina’s your woman.”

“Good to know,” Daisy said, and then her dog jerked her away. She met Abby’s eyes. “See you back at the coffeehouse?”

Abby nodded. “Where’s the nearest grocery store? I need to make cookies.”

Bowser woofed beside her, and damned if it didn’t sound like he said the word “cookies.” He’d always had a sweet tooth.

“Kroger’s out on Route 52,” Daisy said absently. “You’re going to bake?”

“There’s a butthole professor who seems to think I inherited my grandmother’s obligations as well as the old building, and I’m not interested in fighting him. You want a ride?”

Daisy glanced toward Noah, who was scratching the tiaraed-head of one of the dogs. “It’s a nice night. I think I’ll walk,” she said, trying to sound innocent.

Shar leaned closer and said, “A professor? I know most of them. Do you need help?”

“I don’t think Professor Mackenzie is likely to be reasonable.”

“Oh, Christopher.” Shar nodded. “He’s a good man, but he has a tendency to tunnel-vision.” She stopped and looked back at the curtain. “I guess we all do.” She turned back to Abby. “Let me know if you need me to run interference. You’ve got my number.”

Abby looked at her, startled. “That’s very nice of you …”

“Well,” Shar said, “you know. Friends. Or else.” She stood up and put down her empty cup. “It was lovely meeting you both,” she said, and then she let her dachshund pull her to the door, a drab, quiet, totally nice woman with not much life left in her, and Abby wondered if she was going to end up just like her. Dried up and old before her time.

The teenagers shrieked with laughter and the sour-looking dark-haired girl-Mortuary Mina–took her black Chihuahua and slipped behind the curtain, shadowing Kammani, and one of the little temple dogs looked after Wolfie and then padded gracefully back to the altar. Abby looked down at Bowser. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand. We got cookies to make.”

“Cookies,” Bowser barked, and Abby jumped, startled.

“What did you say?” The moment the words were out of her mouth she realized how absurd that was. She shook her head, as if to clear the cobwebs that had surely set up shop. “Never mind, I’m imagining things. Let’s go.”

Bowser woofed in agreement, a totally dog-like sound, and Abby felt some of the tension drain away. It had been an extremely long day, and she’d been nuts to come here without taking time to settle in. They walked out the auditorium doors, across the hall, and out of the building onto the quadrangle. Her car was parked nearby, and it wasn’t until she climbed into the driver’s seat and Bowser had stretched out beside her that she let out her breath.

“This is a very weird place, Bowse,” she said absently, rubbing his massive head.

He looked up at her out of his dark, wise eyes. “You’re telling me,” he growled.

And Abby let out a scream.

“Bailey, heel!”

Daisy jerked on the leash as Bailey dragged her to the grassy patch behind the step temple. She leaned back and dug in her heels, trying to balance her purse, the ceramic bottle, Bailey, and her sanity.

“Heel! Heel! Heel!” Something snapped under her left foot. “What the– HEEL!”

Bailey stopped straining against the leash and danced back to her. Daisy dumped her bottle and purse on the ground and sat, then pulled off her left sandal. The heel had broken clean off. Bailey sniffed at it and then licked Daisy’s hand.

“Don’t kiss up now, dog.” She held the broken heel to her sandal, checking for a way to fix it just to get home, because walking on one heel while being attached to Bailey was a suicide mission. She picked up the ceramic bottle and pulled out the cork. Maybe she could substitute it for the heel… no. Too short.

“This is what you get when you buy cheap shoes.” She took a breath, catching the sharp scent of the temple tonic wafting up from the open bottle. She glanced at it, focusing on the pretty carnelian flower embossed on the side, the rich orange-red coloring almost swirling under the glossy surface. She lifted the bottle and took a generous swig. Damn, that stuff was good, sharp and exotic like an umbrella drink on a beach. It made her feel… not drunk. Relaxed. Calm. Happy, as if her life was better than she remembered it being. She took another drink, then looked at Bailey who was doing his signature LET’S GO! LET’S GO! shuffle-dance two-step.

She re-corked the bottle and turned her attention back to the sandal. “I’m telling you, these classes better work, or I’m going to throw myself in the river.”

“River!” Bailey barked.

Daisy’s grip tightened on the sandals in her hands, and she slowly turned to look at Bailey. Either she was crazy, or she just heard words in his barks.

“Did you just…? No. You didn’t.” She tried to relax her shoulder muscles. “Because that’s impossible.”

“Possible!” Bailey barked again.

Daisy froze, feeling a little dizzy, then looked at Bailey.

“Maybe… there’s a… throat condition in dogs…,” she stammered, gripping her sandals as though they were her firmest link to reality. “It’s a condition. Sure. Because there’s no way I’m really hearing a dog ta–”

“Dog!” Bailey barked.

“Holy crap!” Daisy screamed and shot up.

Bailey hopped straight up in the air. “Crap! Crap! Crap!”

She felt a snap in her hand and looked down to see she’d snapped the toe off the good sandal. “Crap.”

“Everything okay?”

Daisy twirled to see Noah walking toward them. “I heard a scream.” Noah’s eyes locked on Daisy and he smiled as he recognized her. “Hey there. You okay?”

“Yep.” Daisy looked down at Bailey. “Saw a spider. A terrifying, but likely imaginary, spider. I think it’s gone now.” She tightened her hold on Bailey’s leash, then knelt down to pick up her purse and–her whole body relaxed as she saw it–the ceramic bottle.

Right. She wasn’t crazy. She was sauced. Thank god.

“Everything’s okay.” She straightened up. “I think maybe I drank too much.”

“Too much!” Bailey yipped.

Daisy turned the bottle in her hands, searching for some kind of labeling. “This has got to be… what? Seventy, eighty proof?”

“I don’t think there’s any alcohol in that,” Noah said.

“No?” She glanced down at Bailey. “Yes, there is.” She raised her head and her breath caught as she looked in Noah’s sharp blue eyes, all warm and…

Whoa. Daisy wasn’t sure if the sudden whoosh she felt was from the guy or the bottle, but either way, it was time to go home.

“Well, it was nice meeting–” Daisy started, but then Bailey jumped straight up into the air, twirled, and landed.

“Ta-da!” he barked.

“–you,” she finished, then jerked on Bailey’s leash. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Noah said.

“Not you. Him. He keeps –” She stopped herself before she could say, “talking,” and then Bailey leapt into the air again, and she said, “–doing that.”

“The jumping?”

“And…other stuff. He might be making me literally insane. Can dogs do that?”

“Jack Russells are challenging dogs, but you can handle it.” Noah gave her an encouraging smile.

“I’m beginning to doubt that,” she said, then a flash of hope shot through her. “Hey, but if I come back for Tuesday’s class, can you fix him? Because I have to tell you…” She looked at Bailey, daring him to speak again. “…I’m not sure anything we picked up tonight has been all that helpful.”

“Training takes time. You’ll get it.”

Daisy noticed the crinkles around Noah’s eyes deepening as he smiled down at her, and felt a flutter of excitement, and then Bailey barked, “I want a cookie!” and she decided striking up a flirtation during a mental breakdown wasn’t the best timing.

“Well, I’d better get him home,” she said. “It’s been hours since he’s humped my couch pillows. I wait any longer, he’s gonna get the shakes.”

“Wait.” Noah motioned down at her feet, then met her eyes again. “I can’t let you just walk off barefoot. Where are you going?”

“I’m on Temple Street, right over the coffeehouse.”

“Then you’re right on my way.” He nodded in the direction of town. “If you don’t mind taking the scenic route through the park, we can get to Temple Street without touching pavement.”

“Park!” Bailey said. “Park! Park!”

“OKAY,” Daisy said to Bailey, then smiled up at Noah. “Let’s go.” She gave him the bottle to hold for her, held onto Bailey’s leash with one hand and tucked the other in the crook of Noah’s arm.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s nice of you to be so concerned about my feet.”

“Well, it’s not just that,” he said. “I hate to see a couch pillow get lonely.”

Daisy laughed, and Bailey hopped up and twirled. “I like him.”

“Me, too,” Daisy said.

They made their way across the rolling green of campus, the grass tickling Daisy’s feet, keeping them cool, making her feel powerful and connected to the earth. I need to walk barefoot more often, she thought. As they walked, Noah showed her how to get Bailey to heel, and it almost worked. Then he told her a joke she’d already heard, but it was so funny when he told it that she had to stop to catch her breath. She didn’t get her first uh-oh until they were almost through the park, when he mentioned that Bug-Eyes from class was his cousin Mina.

“You’re related to her?” she asked. “By blood?”

“That’s usually how it’s done.”

“No, I mean–” She shot him an exasperated look. “You know what I mean. She’s just… no offense, but she seems–”

“Insane?” Noah nodded. “She is. My father got out of the family with his sanity mostly intact, although he’s doing this comb-over thing that has me concerned.” He nudged her with his elbow. “I just threw my family’s crazy closet wide open for you. I usually don’t let women meet Mina until never. Now it’s your turn. Fair’s fair.”

“Well,” she said, “my mother believes there’s no outfit in the world that can’t be made better by a pillbox hat. No one’s seen the top of her head since 1982.”

Noah stopped walking and looked down at Daisy. Daisy stopped walking and looked up at him. Bailey leapt in the air and barked, “Hat!”

“That’s the best you’ve got?” Noah said. “Hats?”

“Well, it starts with the hats, revs up with her total lack of boundaries, and ends with her pretending to have allergies so she can dump her dog on me and go shopping in New York under the guise of seeing a specialist. It’s a whole gestalt of crazy.”

He hesitated, then nodded and started walking again. “All right, I’ll give you a pass. Plus bonus points for coining ‘gestalt of crazy.’ Can I use that?”

“In what?”

He lowered his eyes. “I write songs.”

“You’re a musician?” Daisy had a vision of Noah surrounded by braless teenagers and empty beer bottles in a smoky room while his bandmates cooked heroin with spoons and Bic lighters. Uh-oh.

“I wouldn’t call myself a musician,” Noah said. “I write songs. Play when I can. The rest of the time, it’s odd jobs to pay the rent.”

“Oh.” Relief. “Like dog training?”

“Like whatever. Dog training is the flavor of the week.” He shrugged. “I’m good with dogs, and my aunt Miriam–Dad’s sister, Mina’s mom, the source of all batshit–asked me to help out her old college roommate with the class, so I figured, why not? I’m not one to turn down a job that pays.”

“Don’t you want… I don’t know. Something more stable?”

“Not really.”

Daisy went quiet as the uh-ohs flew fast and furious around her. No goals, no real job, family tree full of nuts. Great. Well, she didn’t have to marry him.

She could just sleep with him.

“So,” he said, “what do you do for a living?”

“I write web code for the humanities department. It’s pretty boring.”

He eyed her sideways. “But stable.”

She gently squeezed his arm. “Is that a dig?”

“No. I’m just saying everyone makes choices. You can’t have it all.”

They moved closer to cut through a line of buckeye trees, and then they were at Temple Street, almost home. Despite the fact that she saw Temple umpteen times a day, Daisy found herself suddenly awed by its colorful strip of storefronts and bars, its streetlights just starting to break into the haze of dusk. How could she have lived there so long, and never noticed how pretty it was?

Because you’ve never had Kammani’s temple tonic before…

“So, hey,” she said, “back to Kammani, I have to ask: is she full-on nuts or just suffering from delusions of goddess?”

Noah stopped short at the sidewalk and handed her the bottle, then turned his back to her and lowered down a bit. “Hop on.”

Bailey jumped up in the air. “Hop on, hop on, hop on!”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Noah glanced over his shoulder at her. “Piggyback. Let’s go.”

She laughed, then noticed he didn’t laugh with her. “You’re serious?”

Noah straightened. “This is a bar street in a college town. The sidewalk is made of broken beer bottles. You’re going piggyback.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” She flushed and looked down the street. “It’s childish. And embarrassing.”

“Half the fun in life is doing things that are childish and embarrassing.”

“But–”

He put his hand on her shoulder, and the warmth shot through her so strongly that she almost felt dizzy just from his touch. He lowered his head and spoke quietly, his eyes on hers.

“Trust me, okay?”

She looked up at him, and before she even understood why, she heard herself say, “Okay.”