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buster.”
    “My name is not Buster.” He cleared his throat, and pinned me back with a look that was all business. “I will ask you again—what are you doing with Lenore Faa’s dogs?”
    “Do you know Mrs. Faa?” A sudden realization smote me. The man must be one of her friends, or even her family, and was no doubt lurking in the shrubberies to watch how I did with the pugs. No wonder Mrs. Faa didn’t feel compelled to follow me herself; she was counting on her handsome, if slightly annoying, friend to guard her dogs’ well-being. I’d do the same thing if I were an elderly woman living out in the woods in an RV, and were trying out a potential dog nanny.
    “Why are you refusing to answer my question? It’s a simple one, and I’ve asked it twice. Are you abducting the dogs?”
    “No! I’m just walking them, honest!” I said quickly, trying to focus on my job. If this man was a friend of Mrs. Faa, then I’d better watch my p’s and q’s. Which annoyed me because he was clearly not playing with a full deck. “She asked me to take them out so they could stretch their legs a bit.”
    His eyes narrowed again. “The grandsons had care of the dogs. Are you working for one of them?”
    “Nope. I only know Mrs. Faa and Gregory.”
    “But you admit to knowing Gregory Faa?”
    “I just said that, yes. You know him, too?”
    I was surprised, but I suppose it made sense. Why wouldn’t the two most gorgeous men I’d ever seen know each other? Maybe there was a “looks like a male model” club that they belonged to.
    “Why do you insist on answering every question with another question?” he asked, looking as annoyed as he sounded. His lovely purple eyes raked me over with another look, pausing to focus on my now bared arm. “Do you have some dragon blood in you? Is that how you magicked those annoying furballs into my arms?”
    “Right,” I said, de-snagging my gauze shirt in order to put it back on. I gathered the dogs to me, and edged around the man. “I’m not going to say you’re outright crazy—”
    “You already have. You said I was off my rocker,” he pointed out.
    I took a deep breath and continued on. “I won’t say it because that would be rude, and I really need this job, but you, sir, need to seek some sort of professional help.I’m going to walk these dogs, and I will warn you if you try to hurt either them or me, I will scream my freaking head off, and I have a very big pair of lungs.”
    His gaze dropped momentarily to my chest. “Yes, you do.”
    “Those aren’t my lungs, and you know it. Now, shoo. I have dog-walking to do, and I can’t do it while your chest is right there tempting me.”
    He glanced down at his own chest in surprise, an act that allowed me to finish sidling past him and make my escape.
    “If you are stealing the dogs, I am obligated by law to arrest you,” he called after me.
    “Are you a cop?” I asked, pausing to glance back at him.
    “I am a member of the Watch.”
    “The what, now?”
    “You’re speaking in questions again.” He was back to looking annoyed. “Stop that.”
    “Stop what?”
    The words that followed were bellowed loud enough that nearby birds squawked and fluttered away. “Woman, you are trying my patience!”
    I smiled. “Could you be any more obtuse?”
    He took a deep breath, and much as I enjoyed how that action showcased his chest, I felt the time had come to move on from the clearly unbalanced—if hunky—man.
    “So, he’s a cop, huh?” I murmured to the dogs as we proceeded down the path. “A sexy male-model cop. Who’d have thought, eh, pugs?”
    Jacques paused at a stick and piddled. Terrance flung himself onto a fern with a lusty grunt. Clothilde suddenlyput both front paws on my legs, and clearly demanded to be carried.
    “Oh my god, you are so incredibly cute,” I told the little dog, and, unable to resist her bulging eyes, picked her up and tucked her under one arm. Immediately Maureen and Frau Blucher