“I’m going to stop you before you start asking whether her father is still with us.” Ruby held up a hand. “She’s a sweet old lady who doesn’t get many visitors. I like her and promised to help. That’s all.”

“Help her with what?”

Ruby sighed and toyed with her glass of tea. It wasn’t nearly sweet enough to be palatable, but she took a sip anyway.

“Help her with what, Ruby?”

“You still have all my pageant stuff in storage, don’t you?” She couldn’t quite meet her mother’s eyes. “There are a few things I’d like to pull out, if you don’t mind.”

A strong hand drove into her shoulder and pushed her to the nearest chair. Ruby fell with a plop, spilling tea on herself in the process. She’d known it would be a risk, coming over here and saying “pageant” out loud to her mother, but she needed all the help she could get. So far, she and Caleb hadn’t done much except introduce Wheezy to the agility course equipment—the rings and tunnels and posts that would prove him to be a dog in peak physical condition—but that had been enough. Mostly because all Wheezy had done was chew off one end of the tunnel.

“You stay right there,” her mother commanded. “I’ll get the key to the pod.”

“No, Mom. I don’t need you to dig out the entire museum. I only meant—”

It didn’t matter what she’d meant because Laurel Taylor was a woman on a mission.

“What do you want? The gowns? The shoes?” Her mom sucked in a sharp breath, her joy almost palpable as she swung a glittering pink key ring around her finger. “The harp?”

Ruby groaned, but it was no use. It had been too long since her mom had a project—or a hope. There was no easy way out of this.

“No, Mom. The harp isn’t going to do the dog a bit of good.” She paused and reconsidered. “Well, he can’t be any worse at it than I was, but since I can’t even get him to sit on command, I’m not ready to tackle musical scales.”

“The dog?” her mom echoed, the key ring coming to a sudden halt. “Why would you want the dog to play the harp?”

“The only thing I want him to play is fetch. I thought I’d start with that old baton-twirling kit of mine. The spangled hula hoops might come in handy, and I was also thinking maybe I could take that stage platform you had Stepfather Deux build for me. You remember the one with the rigging and the lights?”