"Doranna Durgin - A Feral Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Durgin Doranna)

said, "that you will never allow that to happen."

"Sheep, then," Emily said. "Lawn sheep."

Brenna gave a firm shake of her head. "Lawn skunks at the most." She finished the charge slip and stuck
it in the proper cubby slot behind the counter, noted the date and the Sheltie's new wart on his customer
card, and dropped it in with the others to be refiled. "No project supplies in Pets!, unless they're going to
build you a cow out of rawhide bones."

"They wanted to see the big lizards," Emily said, and smiled as she glanced through the glass of the
counter area to the store proper. The grooming room had its own entrance, right next to the main store
entrance; the counter area served as a functional antechamber behind glass. The girls, of course, were out
of sight around the corner, where the reptile area boasted several huge snakes and the biggest monitor
lizards Brenna had ever seen. At nine and eleven years old, Emily's daughters were fearless and outgoing
children, and no one had ever told them that girls don't like that sort of thing. "Say, Bren, have you heard
about the dog pack? I'm trying to figure out a way to put the goats up, but you know they're little escape
artistsтАФsay, who's that?"

Brenna had started back for the Cocker; she looked over her shoulder to see Emily focused on the store
entryway, just beyond which stood Roger and a customer, talking.

No, not just a customer. Something more. Roger was nodding with exaggeration and high frequency,
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and he had a veneer of pleasant enthusiasm applied to his face. The man he spoke to took a more casual
stance, his hands stuck into the pockets of his worn jeans with the thumbs hanging out. He carried himself
in a sort of lounging slouch, and offered the occasional lift of a shoulder, the short nod of his head. And
he looked . . . casually disheveled. It didn't fit. Not a dog-food repтАФthey came in with spit-and-shine
polish, just shy of car salesman-slick.

"Niiice," Emily said, watching them talk.

"Do you use that mouth around the girls?"

Emily tossed her ponytail. "If I'm comfortable expressing myself around them, then maybe when they're
gorgeous teenagers with every single boy in school whining for them to do the dirty in the back of a
pickup, they'll feel comfortable expressing themselves aroundme ."

"Dream on," Brenna muttered, still watching the byplay between her manager and the man he so clearly
wanted to impress with his affability. A man who apparently didn't have the wits to discern the sales job
behind Roger's smile. Brenna gave a mental snort. With her luck the man had an entire van of fully coated
English Sheepdogs and Roger was even now promising them an appointment for today. "Anyway,
he'sтАФ"

Scruffy. That's how he struck her, which was why she couldn't figure out Roger's fawning interest. But
then she realized that his clothes were neat enough despite being far from new, worn jeans and a flannel
shirt with cuffs rolled back to mid-forearm. And he was clean-shaven, and his hairтАФevery bit as dark as