Harry, who’d never set foot on a pageant stage in his life. Harry, who’d once thrown Mrs. Dewan’s Maltese into the community pool after Ruby had spent two painstaking hours combing the tangles out of its hair. Harry, who’d gladly let Ruby do every bit of work around the retirement community and then proceed to take credit for it.

If Ruby had stopped to think for five seconds, she’d have seen Mrs. Orson’s tactics for what they were. The older woman had been threatening to die for as long as Ruby had known her and always rallied the moment she got her way. But Ruby, with her pride on the line and the image of Harry Gunderson in her stead, had ruffled up, hotly defended her ability to claim any crown no matter the odds, and accepted the task set before her: to bring home a dog-show trophy for the world’s most useless animal.

In theory, putting Ruby in charge of a golden retriever’s show-dog debut was a sound plan. For the first eighteen years of her life, she’d been a show dog herself. Okay, she’d technically been a show human, but the idea was the same. She’d been primped and curled and trained to jump through the right hoops. She’d spent hours every day on grooming and deportment. She’d gazed longingly out the window at the other children chasing balls and going for walks.

She’d won, too. Her childhood bedroom—untouched by time or her mother’s hands—was a testament to all she’d once been and would ever be. The walls were lined with obscenely large tiaras, stacked and organized by size and weight. Should the Big Quake ever hit Seattle and raze it to the ground, no one standing inside that room would survive. They’d be buried under a mountain of Ruby’s gilded—and wasted—potential.

“Where’s his owner, anyway?” Spencer asked with a glance at his watch. “It’s past ten. The show’s probably closed to new entries by now.”

“Probably?” Ruby echoed. “Shouldn’t you know? I thought you were one of the judges.”

“I am,” Spencer was quick to say—almost too quick, if you asked her. “Which is why you’re in luck. For the small price of dinner with me, I’d be willing to fudge the time stamp in your favor.”

Every part of Ruby recoiled. Like most women who’d grown up on the stage, she was well aware of the image she presented to the world. Her hair was a tangle of golden-blond curls that she tamed into submission every morning, her eyes a rich brown that she made the most of with carefully winged eyeliner. Add her mother’s fantastic bone structure and years of good skin care into the bargain, and Ruby had all the traditional Eurocentric beauty standards checked.