The Billionaire's Matchmaker(3)

A bundle of brown and white fur wriggled past the butler’s black pants and barreled into Gabby’s arms. She laughed at the warm and furry greeting. “Hey, Charlie,” she said, giving the terrier a friendly hug. “You getting into trouble again?”

The Jack Russell looked up at Gabby, wagged his tail, and raised his pert snout to let out a happy yip.

“That dog makes trouble a full-time occupation.” A pained expression formed across the butler’s tight face.

“Oh, he’s not so bad. Are you, Charlie?” She gave the dog a pat, then lifted her gaze. “I got your email, Cyrus. Is Mr. B…Mr. Bonaparte here?”

“Mr. Bonaparte is busy, preparing for his extended trip to Europe. He asked me to talk to you in his stead. The job he is offering requires the ultimate in attentiveness and care.”

Yet not so much that Mr. B would take a meeting? How had T.J. managed to secure a face-to-face when she couldn’t? “It’s usually helpful if I talk to the client directly,” she said. “It’s best to get his input on the type of art he’s commissioning.”

Something that could have been a smile flickered on the butler’s face. “Art piece? Mr. Bonaparte didn’t ask me to call you here about artwork. He has a different offer for you.” The pseudo smile blinked on the butler’s lips again. “He would like you to watch his dog while he’s in Europe for the next several months.”

The words hung in the cold January air. Gabby shook her head, sure she had misheard. “Watch Charlie? For months? This isn’t some kind of a practical joke?”

The butler across from her, who had the tottering frame and slow movements of a hundred-year-old man, just nodded. If the cold bothered him, he didn’t display so much as a shiver. “Mr. Bonaparte is not a man given to humorous pranks. He is serious about his job offer.”

She reached in her pocket and tugged out the email that Cyrus had sent. Read it again. A short message, sent via the contact link on her webpage, something Cyrus used from time to time when he wanted to thank her for returning Charlie. No specifics, merely a mysterious missive to come to the house about an important job. The email was as much of a puzzle as Mr. B himself. Not that she had ever met her reclusive neighbor, but it was the impression he gave. A wealthy enigma, that was Mr. Bonaparte, dubbed Mr. B by Gabby and her friends. Hiring her to—

Watch his dog.

She’d known Charlie ever since Mr. B moved into the mansion some time ago. The dog had a habit of escaping the mansion’s grounds and traveling into town. She’d heard that Mr. B made a hefty donation to the local animal shelter, and that made the animal control officer turn a blind eye to the determined Houdini of a dog who often slipped his leash and yard. Thankfully, Charlie steered clear of the traffic heavy areas of town, and nine times out of ten, he ended up at Gabby’s studio, preferring to take his afternoon nap in the sun-dappled renovated warehouse space she shared with a pizza parlor and a dry cleaner. At the end of the day, Gabby would walk Charlie back to Mr. B’s house and hand him back to the butler, something that had become a bit of a ritual.

Charlie dashed away and started rooting in the shrubs beside them. His paws flew in furious intent, shoveling away snow, then bare dirt. “St. Clair Charles Osgood Bonaparte!” The butler waved his hands to no avail. “Stop that this instant!”

Charlie jerked his head up, a tennis ball in his mouth and a who, me? look on his face. His tail wagged once, then he charged back into the house, past the butler, leaving a muddy trail of footprints on the front stoop, the white marble entryway—and the elegant cardinal red Aubusson rug.

“Not the Aubusson!” The butler paled. Behind him, the maid dove for Charlie, but the dog barked and outran her in furious fast circles on the rug. Gabby could swear Charlie was smiling.

The maid cursed like a truck driver, reaching for and missing the wily puppy. The butler dabbed a folded handkerchief against his temples and ashen cheeks, looking like he might stroke out in the well-appointed hall. “Oh God, oh God, the Aubusson.”

“Hey, Charlie, come here, buddy,” Gabby said. She patted her thigh and made a kissing sound.

The dog stopped circling and trotted over to Gabby, his whip-thin tail beating a furious pace behind him. He plopped down on the stoop, as innocent-looking as a red-handed burglar.

The butler glared at the brown and white terrier, then reached into the breast pocket of his black suit and exchanged the handkerchief for a slim piece of paper. “Mr. Bonaparte trusts you will find this amount adequate recompense for watching St. Clair Charles Osgood.”

Gabby’s brain stalled, trying to process the zeroes on the end of the check. She was the typical starving artist, living in a third-floor walk-up in a renovated Victorian a couple blocks from downtown Chandler’s Cove, renting a drafty studio because her one-bedroom apartment was too small for anything more than a double bed and a fridge. She drove a Toyota nearly as old as she was, had forgotten what the word vacation meant, and maintained a savings account bordering on anemic. “This is a lot of money. Just to watch a dog?”

“Mr. Bonaparte wanted his dog in the hands of someone he trusts while he travels to Europe. And…” Cyrus lowered his voice, “that dog is a…spoiled handful. If he was left here, I rather suspect the staff might do something that might…well, let’s just say annoy those PETA people.”