“You’re the one who hired the first dog trainer you could find,” he said, forcing the words out despite the sudden tightness in his chest. “Don’t be mad at me if you get what you pay for.”

With that, he turned on his heel to leave them to their work—or play, if Caleb had anything to say about it.

Which he usually did.

Chapter 5

“Oh, thank goodness, darling. You’re just in time.” Ruby’s mom popped her head out from the kitchen, a beige phone receiver in her hand. “Will you please talk to these people about the electric bill? They keep saying they’re going to cut the power off and plunge me into darkness. It’s inhuman, the things they’ll do to make a buck. Down with capitalism! Eat the rich!”

As these last two remarks were shouted into the phone, Ruby wasn’t surprised to find an incredibly annoyed woman on the other end.

“Yes, ma’am, I am aware that you make minimum wage. No, ma’am, I don’t think it’s effective to shout at customer-service workers.” Ruby stuck her tongue out at her mother, but not until she was sure her mother’s back was turned. Sticking out a tongue was right up there with nail-biting, fidgeting, and blinking too much—all things that marked a pageant score down and were therefore banned under this roof.

Even with her back turned, her mother was a sight to behold. She’d had Ruby at a young age, so she was only forty-six to Ruby’s twenty-eight, but she could easily pass for a decade less. In fact, she did pass for a decade less. One of her favorite pastimes was to visit bars with her daughter in tow, telling everyone who’d listen that her younger sister had come for a visit. Her hair was a more brittle platinum than Ruby’s honey-tipped curls, and her figure more carefully honed by celery sticks and regular visits to the gym, but no one who saw them standing side by side doubted the sincerity of this claim.

“I’ll swing by the office this afternoon with the payment in full,” Ruby promised. She lowered her voice and added, “And in the future, it’ll be better if you call my number instead of this one. You might as well forward the bills to me while you’re at it. They aren’t going to get paid otherwise.”

She rattled off her phone number and her address, unsurprised when the woman didn’t protest this unorthodox billing method. Over the years, Ruby had learned that most companies didn’t care who did the paying, as long as the check didn’t bounce.

It took some careful budgeting and more overtime than she cared for, but Ruby’s checks never bounced.