“You’re the one who wanted to talk to her,” she said in a voice too low for the woman to overhear. “By all means, continue.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” he said. “What password?”

“It’s Wheezy’s green light,” the woman said.

“His green light to what?”

“To continue. You know—like a danger word.”

That didn’t clarify things in the slightest. “A danger word?”

Ruby choked on a sudden laugh.

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that term,” Spencer said carefully, mistrusting that laugh. He liked it, obviously, but that was the problem. He liked a lot more about Ruby than he wanted to.

“You’re not? What a pity. The good men never are.” The woman on the other end of the phone released a short sigh. “I don’t see what more I can possibly do to help out. He’s only a dog. How hard can it be to walk him out a door?”

She hung up without saying anything more. Spencer stared at the phone for a second, sure he’d missed a step somewhere.

“I could have told you how that would go,” Ruby said as she took her phone back. “Mrs. Orson is a lot like her dog. She doesn’t make anything easy.”

“Neither do you,” he pointed out. “You should have brought a second cheeseburger to lure him out again.”

“I’ll remember that for next time,” she said. “What was that about, by the way? Why did you want to talk to her?”

Rampant curiosity and a desire to know Ruby better seemed like the wrong answers, so he countered with “What’s a danger word? And why do only bad men know what it is?”

The half-choked gurgle of laughter escaped her again. “Oh dear. How to explain this delicately? You see, when mommies and daddies love each other very much—”

Every part of his being balked—reared up, pulled the brakes, and refused to go one step further. “Never mind. I think I just figured it out.”

“—and when those mommies and daddies are feeling a little bored in the bedroom—”

“You can stop now. I get it.” He might not be the most sexually savvy man in the world, but he could put the pieces together. Danger word/safe word. Green light/red light. They were talking full-on sexcapades here—a topic fraught with danger and red lights on all sides. He would not allow himself to discuss mommies, daddies, or any of the things they got up to with Ruby.

Mostly because he wouldn’t mind discussing them with her at all.

“Who is that woman?” he asked, finding it best to change course.

This time, Ruby’s laugh was a full, glorious peal. “The bane of my existence and one of my favorite people in the whole world. She lives at the retirement community where I work.”

“She’s your patient?”

Ruby’s eyes shifted down to her feet. “Something like that. She’s the reason I’m doing all this in the first place.” She rolled her shoulder in a half shrug. “She sort of roped me into it against my will. Wheezy winning the West Coast Canine Classic is her dying wish.”