Which left her with this. She needed a recording of Spencer’s voice saying everything needed to train a dog for showmanship, and Eva was just the person to get it for her. With any luck, Eva could follow him around at work long enough to get her “sit” and “stay,” “roll over” and “present.” Most of all, she needed “mayonnaise,” and as events were proving, she’d stop at nothing to get it.

She was debating whether to include a few compliments in the wish list—“good boy” or “yes, Ruby, I do think you’re a capable and highly intelligent human being”—when Eva cleared her throat.

“So,” she said, her voice and expression so transparent that Ruby’s heart sank. “Those Wilson twins are something else, aren’t they?”

As a twenty-eight-year-old single woman whose mother had been trying to marry her off to the highest bidder for years, Ruby knew exactly where this conversation was headed.

“Don’t you dare,” Ruby warned. “Caleb pees in a sink, and Spencer is doing his best to keep me and Wheezy out of his precious dog show. I’m not interested in either of them.”

Eva laughed. “If it helps, Caleb wasn’t always like this. This feud with his brother is doing weird things to him. To both of them, actually. Spencer wasn’t always like this, either.”

“Like what?” Ruby couldn’t help asking.

Eva pursed her lips and gave the question careful consideration. There were several adjectives Ruby could have supplied her with—annoying, condescending, attractive—but Eva’s eventual response took her by surprise.

“I don’t know. They both seem a little sad.”

“Sad?” Ruby echoed. She had yet to see Caleb do anything but smile and laugh and play, and Spencer… Well. He was Spencer. He was hardly the kind of guy you’d consider the life of the party, but that was what intrigued her. His smile was rare and his laugh even rarer, but when they came, it was like catching a glimpse into his soul. Ruby had seen—and shown—far too many false smiles to feel anything but admiration for someone who refused to play that particular game.