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Top Dog Merlot. Crazy Horse Cabernet.” He gave her a slight roll of the eyes. “We have a wine called Sex Kitten. My sister talked me into that one.”
    Kari smiled. “Really?”
    “It’s one of our best sellers. Unfortunately that means I’m stuck with it. Everybody loves doggies and kitties. There are big bucks in that.”
    “You don’t sound happy about it.”
    “On the contrary. Making a buck makes me very happy.”
    “I noticed you have a doggy and a kitty.”
    “My daughter has a doggy and a kitty.”
    Kari came to attention. “You have a daughter?”
    “Yes.”
    “Does she live with you?”
    “Not anymore. I dropped her off at UT this afternoon for her freshman year of college.”
    That astonished Kari. Most men with college-age kids were well into their forties. Marc clearly wasn’t.
    “So you were in Austin this afternoon, too?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You don’t look old enough to have a daughter in college.”
    “I’m plenty old enough.”
    She looked at his left hand again. “I don’t see a ring.”
    “That’s because I don’t have a wife.”
    “Are you divorced?”
    “Do you always talk so much?”
    “Truthfully? Yeah.”
    “Well, I generally don’t. So if you keep it up, pretty soon you may be talking to yourself.”
    Kari took the hint, but it was all she could do not to ask a dozen more questions. Some folks thought she was a little nosy, but she liked to think of it as simply being interested in other people. A highly attractive man who was relatively young with a college-age daughter and no wife? There had to be a story there, but judging from the inaccessible look on Marc’s face, she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to hear it.
    Marc passed the square and turned right onto a street behind it. He pulled into a small parking lot beside yet one more house turned business. It was a three-story Victorian painted blue, with a high-peaked roof and scrollwork detail.
    He parked his truck, circled around it, and unstuffed Kari from the passenger seat. As he guided her toward the big front porch, she noticed paw prints painted on the sidewalk beneath her feet and several stone cats along the way peeking out from behind the shrubbery. Marc took her up the steps and through the front door, shoving her dress unceremoniously into the foyer behind her. A little brown-and-black mutt let out a few barks and trotted over to them. He circled around Kari, sniffing her with the same interest Marc’s dog had.
    Kari looked around, delighted by the interior of the house. To her right was what looked like a parlor. To the left was what had probably once been a living room or library, but it had been rearranged and reworked to create an area for the front desk. Straight ahead was a gorgeous oak staircase with a stained glass window towering over the midfloor landing. It took a moment or two for Kari to realize the stained glass was a representation of Noah’s ark. How cool was that ?
    Over the front desk was a sign that read: “Animal House. A Bed & Breakfast for Cats and Dogs. Feel Free to Bring Your People.”
    Just then a man stepped through a doorway to stand behind the desk. He had a short swirl of gray hair and wore a pair of bifocals around his neck. At one time he’d probably been at least six two, but age had taken its toll and hunched him down to about six feet. He wore a pair of khaki pants and a short-sleeved plaid shirt that barely harnessed the belly that lopped over his buckstitched belt. He took one look at Kari and froze. Then slowly he turned his gaze to Marc.
    “I always assumed I’d be invited to the wedding.”
    “Nobody got married, Gus,” Marc said.
    “Not even me,” Kari said.
    “She needs a room for the night,” Marc said.
    “Or maybe several nights,” Kari added.
    “She had a car accident near the vineyard in the middle of the storm,” Marc said.
    “Wearing a wedding dress?”
    “Long story.”
    “Not really,” Kari said. “I ran away from my own wedding. I