Taken by the Alien Next Door (Aliens Among Us #1) - Tiffany Roberts Page 0,31

she muttered. “Though he does give some good cuddles and loves. Guess that makes up for some of this…”

Tabitha reached the hole the dog had dug, and her heart jumped. There was no Dexter.

There was no Dexter because he’d tunneled under the freaking fence and was now in her hot neighbor’s yard!

“No. Nope. Cuddles and loves definitely don’t make up for this.”

The fence was too high for her to see over, so she leaned forward and peered between two of the wooden slats. She spotted Dexter roaming the lawn—a very nice lawn—with his tail wagging as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Dexter! Get back here,” she said, trying to instill her voice with as much authority as possible.

Dexter paused, glanced back at her, ears perked, and continued wandering. He stopped when he reached a cluster of yellow daisies.

“Dexter. Come. Here. Now.”

The dog sniffed around the daisies before pawing the ground, digging up a few of the flowers. The daisies flew behind him and fell on the grass, crumpled and limp, looking like shadows of their former selves. Dexter turned and squatted.

Tabitha’s eyes widened in horror. “No! Don’t you dare take a—Dexter, stop!”

Unwilling to bear further witness to the desecration of those daisies, to the desecration of her neighbor’s yard, she closed her eyes.

What was she going to do now? She couldn’t just walk up to Logan’s door, smile, and be like, Hi, my dog is in your back yard, and he just took a massive dump on your daisies. Good news is that his business is done, so he probably won’t pee on your foot again. Mind if I go get him? This was just another thing to add to the growing list of how horrible of a neighbor she was.

“He’s going to hate me.” Tabitha tipped her head back and opened her eyes. The sky was bright blue with big, puffy white clouds, far too beautiful for the defilement taking place here on the ground.

“I got this. I’ll just sneak over, get Dexter, and repair the damage he did without Logan ever knowing what happened. Simple.”

Okay, well, maybe not simple, but how hard could it be?

Tabitha darted back into the house, stuffed a doggie poop bag into her pocket, and returned to the hole Dexter had dug. She placed her hands atop the fence slats and frowned. The fence was taller than her; how was she going to get over without tearing the planks off?

Taking a deep breath, Tabitha turned her head toward the overgrown flowerbed at the back of the yard. It was a shady area with a tree in the center that had flowers, ferns, and bushes growing around it. The flowerbed also happened to be raised a couple feet above the rest of the lawn, walled in by bricks and stone.

Bingo.

She moved over to the flowerbed and climbed onto the mossy stone wall. Once she was standing atop it, the top of the fence was just above her waist. From this vantage, she could see over a few of her neighbors’ fences, could see their landscaping, their décor, their barbeques and patio furniture. But only one yard mattered.

She watched as Dexter, the naughty mongrel, moseyed over to Logan’s patio and jumped up onto a wide, blue-cushioned chair. He turned about in a couple circles and lay down.

Tabitha glared at him. “You’re lucky I love you.”

He just looked at her and yawned.

Stepping closer to the fence, Tabitha leaned forward and looked over it. Logan didn’t have a raised flowerbed on his side. Just a lovely, six-foot drop to the grass. “Oh, this is going to suck.”

She grasped the top of the planks with both hands, tightening her hold carefully so she wouldn’t end up with palms full of splinters, and swung a leg over the fence. She extended her leg down until her toes touched one of the wooden beams that spanned the planks on the other side. Unfortunately, due to her height, that left the top of the slats digging into her crotch and ass.

Tabitha winced. “So glad these are flat.”

Pushing her weight down on her toes, she lifted her other leg over the fence, and once it was clear, she lowered that foot onto the beam beside the other.

“Okay. Nearly there, Tabby.” Taking a deep breath, she let go of the fence and hopped down onto the grass.

Her feet slammed onto the ground. The impact was jarring enough that it made her teeth clack together; it was the only sensation she had