“It was an accident,” Elsie said. “My trigger finger slipped when that creep knocked into me.” She looked at his shoe and snorted. “That don’t hardly count for nothing. It barely nicked you. Can you move your toe?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it can’t be too bad.” She shook her head. “They don’t make men like they used to.”

There was a low growl and the Schneiders’ pit bull appeared in the doorway of his doghouse.

Kate took a step backward. “Ohmigod, we woke up Daisy.”

Dave turned toward the growl. The ground seemed to shake with stampeding pit bull feet, he saw a flash of white teeth, and felt the jaws of death clamp on to the bottom of his jeans. Daisy? This foaming, homicidal hound from hell was named Daisy?

“Hold still!” Elsie ordered. “I’ll shoot the privates off the beast.”

Dave gritted his teeth. “Elsie, you better be talking about dog privates!”

Daisy planted her feet, gave a yank, and tore the lower half of Dave’s pant leg off. The dog viciously shook its prize, gave Dave one last cursory glance, and slunk back to its doghouse with the shredded denim.

Elsie glared at the departing dog. “Man, that is one dumb pit bull. Satisfied with a piece of your pants. Dang.”

Dave closed the door and propped a garbage can against it. “You sound disappointed, Elsie.”

She looked at the gun in her hand. “It’s all them missed opportunities.”

The thought of Kate on the couch flashed through his head. “Yeah, missed opportunities are always depressing.”

“Well, I gotta go home and get some sleep. I got burgers to fry in the morning,” Elsie said.

Dave looked at Kate’s feet and scooped her into his arms. “Next time you chase down desperadoes, remember to wear shoes.”

“I was in a hurry.”

Dave opened one eye and looked at his bedside clock. Five-thirty and someone was playing music. Someone was playing it loud.

“Damn.” It was the only word he was capable of forming. He freed himself from a tangle of sheets, lurched out of bed, and kicked at the clothes on the bedroom floor until he located a pair of jeans. It had to be Kate, but why was she creating this racket in the middle of the night?

He tugged the jeans over his hips and ran a hand through his hair, making it even more rumpled than it had been. Narrowing his eyes against the bright light in the hall, he thumped down the stairs and padded barefoot to the kitchen, where he found Kate seated on a straight-backed chair with her cello between her legs and a cassette player at her feet.