on the steering wheel. Cisco curled up in the bench seat behind me and closed his eyes. The border collies were quiet.
Miles said, “My first wife was gorgeous.”
I glared at him in disbelief, then slumped down in my seat with my arms crossed over my chest. “Thanks a lot.”
“Not as gorgeous as you, of course,” he continued smoothly, “but a head-turner nonetheless. That would have been okay, but she also had this tendency to flirt. I knew it was harmless, but other men would misread her. We use to go out dancing—”
I looked at him in surprise. “I didn’t know you liked to dance.”
“Oh yeah. I’m a hell of a salsa dancer. Do a mean boot-scoot, too. The point is, she would dance with anyone who asked her, and I would spend most of the night feeling like a bouncer, waiting for somebody to get out of line. I didn’t mind if she danced with other guys. I wanted her to have a good time. But she never understood that, while she was out there bringing down the house, I was the one who was in danger of getting my teeth knocked out every time some drunk put his hand in the wrong place. Women just don’t get it. They go off half-cocked with some reckless scheme or another and never think about how it affects the man who’s trying to protect her.”
Miles rarely talked about his ex-wives, and we’d been on the verge of having a nice moment. Now I bristled. “I don’t want or need protecting, thank you very much!”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s the thing you don’t get. Men can’t help it. We’re hardwired to protect the women we care about, and whether you like it or not, somebody’s been doing it for you all your life. Your dad, your uncle, every boyfriend you’ve ever had, your husband. Whether you mean to or not, whether you want to or not, every time you put yourself at risk you’re putting some man who cares about you in danger. And since men are essentially selfish beasts who value our creature comforts, that pisses us off. Which way?”
We’d come to a stop sign, but I was so disconcerted by what he’d said that for a moment I’d forgotten what we were doing here. I glanced at the map on my phone and said, “Left on Randolph Street, then right on High Manor Way.”
I let the street signs roll by silently while I absorbed his words. I’d never thought about it that way before, but deep inside I knew he was right. And I felt bad for it. I said quietly, “I can’t change who I am, Miles.”
“I know that. I’m still around, aren’t I? But if I raise my voice now and then, that’s why.” He reached across the seat and squeezed my knee. “Hey, I like cave diving and parasailing, neither one of which endears me to my insurance carrier. So maybe that’s something we have in common.”
I stared at him. “Stupidity?”
He laughed and then made the turn into a wide, neatly maintained street lined with white brick apartment buildings. “Looks like this is it. What’s the number?”
“Two forty-six, apartment A.” I hesitated. “Probably best if you let me do the talking. I mean, don’t mention the dogs.”
“Because you’re not really going to leave them with him.”
I slid a glance his way. Like I said, sometimes he saves me a lot of time explaining. “I just want to talk to him. He probably knows by now he’s under investigation. If he really values the dogs—and I know he does—he’ll have a plan for someone to take care of them.”
We pulled into a parking space next to a dusty red SUV with a border collie sticker in the rear window and a bumper sticker that read “Faster Than a Speeding Border Collie.” I could see dog crates in the back. Miles left the windows cracked for the dogs, even though the morning was still cool, and we got out of the car in front of Neil’s apartment building. Cisco pressed his nose through the opening in the back window, looking offended to be left behind, and I smiled at him. Then I said to Miles, “Hey.”
He glanced at me.
“Thanks for coming with me.”
He smiled then and dropped his hand to my shoulder. “You’re buying breakfast,” he said.
We went up the walk and I pressed the buzzer to apartment A. While we waited for an answer, I looked at Miles and said, “So