Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Advice. Purrfect Passion. A Purrfect Gnomeful

“You don’t glue a hairpiece in place, Dooley,” I said. “You loosely attach it to your scalp and hope the wind won’t pick it up and deposit it on your date’s plate.”

All this talk of weaves and hairpieces didn’t appear to capture Odelia’s attention, for she headed straight for the bathroom, fully intent on getting ready for bed.

“I still think it was a toupee,” said Dooley.

“Must have been a weave,” I argued.

The thought then occurred to me that there was only one way to settle the argument once and for all: we could simply go over to Mike’s villa and see for ourselves. It’s a rare man who sleeps with a toupee, as it tends to shift when he turns in his sleep. A weave, on the other hand, stays firmly stuck in place.

And as we walked back out of the villa, I briefly wondered if we weren’t forsaking our sacred duty as Odelia’s watch-cats. Then I figured that with all the cameras watching her every move, it would be a very dumb kidnapper indeed to try and snatch her now.

Five minutes later Dooley and I were gazing in through the window to see if Mike the seducer was a toupee man or a weave man.

As luck would have it, he came walking out of the bathroom just when we arrived. And much to my surprise, he was rocking a Jason Statham, cleanly shaven dome and all.

“See!” said Dooley triumphantly. “It was a toupee!”

“Touché,” I murmured, gracious in defeat.

And just as we were about to hop down from the windowsill, much to my surprise a second person came walking out of the bathroom. It was Jackie, and she was only wearing a towel, and as she dropped it, she was wearing even less.

I gulped, and so did Dooley.

“Oh, my,” I said. “Looks like our friend Mike has gotten over his cat-induced trauma pretty quick.”

And as Jackie joined Mike in bed, I gulped some more, and then, for some reason, my right hind leg suddenly developed a cramp and shot out, neatly hitting Dooley in the buttocks and sending him flying off the windowsill. These kinds of R-rated scenes were not fit for the likes of him.

“What happened?” he asked, having neatly landed on his feet.

“I don’t know,” I said, joining him on the deck. “I got a sudden cramp in my leg.”

The sound of the gong echoed through the air, but judging from the giggling sounds inside the room, Mike nor Jackie seemed to mind.

“We better get back to Odelia,” I said, before Dooley could hop onto that windowsill to watch the sequel.

Dooley immediately picked up on my hint. “You think she’s all right?”

“Let’s go and find out,” I said, and soon we were trotting back to our own villa.

We hadn’t even set foot inside when a loud scream rocked me to the core, and we covered the last couple of yards in a flash.

Inside the bedroom, Odelia sat up, looking dazed. Next to her, I recognized one of the other seducers. I think his name was Fred.

Fred was grinning, even as Odelia was looking at him as if she’d just discovered dog poo on her shoe.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” she cried.

The anatomically gifted young man grinned even wider, then shrugged. “I just figured, with Mike out of the way… Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”

“Wrong,” said Odelia decidedly, and slapped the guy across the face so hard the sound echoed through the room and made even me wince at the impact.

“Hey! What did you have to go and do that for!” Fred yelled.

“Out!” said Odelia. “Get out!”

“Hold your horses,” said the guy, but did as he was told. “If you didn’t want to hook up why did you sign up for the show?” he grumbled.

“Out!” she repeated, her voice ringing in my ears.

“I’m going, I’m going,” he said, and headed for the door. Before walking out, though, he turned and said, “This could have been a night you’d never forget, babe. Your loss.”

Odelia picked up the first object that was available and threw it across the room. Unfortunately for Fred it was the iron she’d used to iron her dress earlier in the evening. It hit the guy in the face with a clunking sound and he went down hard.

“Oops,” said Dooley, when the avid seducer didn’t come up.

“Looks like this will be a night he’ll never forget,” I said.

Just then, a loud gong sounded, reverberating through the room. It was the second gong of the night, and I had a sneaking suspicion it was triggered by the presence of Fred in Odelia’s bed. Even though nothing had happened—apart from him getting knocked out cold—according to the rules it was still a breach.

Looked like Odelia wasn’t going home with an extra 50.000 in her bank account.

Chapter 31

Vesta wasn’t exactly feeling on top of the world. In fact she was feeling at the bottom of the world, or at least the bed. Dust bunnies tickled her nostrils, and she wondered briefly if the dark shape she saw near the wall could be a dead cockroach or, worse, a live one.

The closet creaked open, and Scarlet loudly hissed, “He’s taking his sweet time, that grandson of yours!”

“He’s not my grandson yet!” she hissed back.

And she was starting to wonder if Chase was really worth the aggravation. He was a great guy, sure, but there were lots of great guys in the world. And if Chase and Odelia couldn’t be trusted with an island full of seducers and seductresses maybe their bond wasn’t to be and she was simply wasting her time trying to protect him from making a mistake.

Suddenly she heard the sound of voices approaching. “Get back in your closet, you!” she loud-whispered, and Scarlett did as she was told and closed the door again, but not before emitting an excited giggle. Clearly she was loving every minute of this.

The door to the villa opened, and she heard the telltale sound of shuffling feet. They’d arrived. Now all she needed to do was wait until they were both in bed and then she was going to pop out from underneath and give Chase a good talking-to.

“Ooh, Chase, you’re so sweet!” a woman cooed, and Vesta pressed her lips together.

“It’s Donna!” Scarlett said, opening the closet a crack. “I knew it!”

“Get back in there!” Vesta returned.

“Can I offer you something?” Chase was saying. “Wine, beer… something stronger?”

The son of a gun! Shamelessly liquoring up his conquest!

She had half a mind to crawl from under the bed and leave them to it. He didn’t deserve Odelia, that much was obvious.

The sound of voices continued, and as Vesta tried to pick up words, she was also keenly aware of the passage of time, as it seemed to take Chase an awfully long time to make his move. Unless he planned to conclude his business on the living room couch. She didn’t think so. Chase had always struck her as an old-fashioned kind of guy, and old-fashioned kind of guys still preferred bedding their conquests in their actual beds.

She must have dozed off, then, for when she woke up, the room was awfully quiet, and she wondered if she’d missed her window of opportunity.

She directed a glance at the closet, but of course she couldn’t see if Scarlett was still in there or not.

“Harriet!” she whispered, but Harriet was a no-show. “Brutus!” she tried, but once again there was no response.

Dang it. What was going on? Had she slept through the whole thing?

She decided to find out the only way she knew how: by checking the bed for signs of Donnas.

So she crawled from under the bed with some effort, probably covered in dust bunnies from head to toe, and raised her head to check the bed. There clearly was someone asleep in there, and possibly two.

Her face set, she took executive action and jumped into bed, intent on catching the lovers in the act.