But Reg is already sliding out of the booth and getting to his feet. “It was great talking with you,” he says. “I’ll see you over at the barn?” And without waiting for an answer, he’s gone, the bell jingling loudly as he leaves.
The bell jingles again a moment later, and I look over my shoulder, unsurprised to see Grayson strolling my way, hands jammed into his pockets. He slides into the booth across from me, pushing Reg’s mostly empty plate out of the way.
Before he can say anything, Sheila appears. “Good morning, hon.” She looks at Grayson, then at me. “You going to make this one cry, too?”
Grayson beams with delight. “Did you make someone cry this morning?”
“Not just cry. It was a full-on ugly cry,” Sheila says gleefully. “I haven’t had that much entertainment first thing in the morning in years. Now, you two ready to order?”
“Waffles,” I say. “With extra syrup, please.”
“Same,” Grayson says. “Thank you, Sheila.”
She winks and heads off to put our order in.
“So,” Grayson begins. “You broke Reg.”
“I didn’t break him.” I sigh. “He’s not The Witch.”
To his credit, Grayson doesn’t say “I told you so.” Instead he asks, “So what now?”
“I guess we have another day of learning about pigs ahead of us.”
Just then, Sheila appears at our table. “Oh, just to let you know,” she begins. “The gentleman you were with indicated you were paying for his breakfast. I’ll just include it on your check, okay?”
And with a smile that tells me she knows full well she’s giving me brand-new information, Sheila swings away to deal with another table.
CHAPTER 11
Idon’t get a chance to find Reg and make him pay me back for his stupid egg white omelet before Wayne waylays me.
“Today we’re going to learn how to properly fit a pig,” he says as though those words mean anything to me.
“Great,” I say, though Petunia is in his pen, eyeing Wayne with suspicion.
Which, as it turns out, was more than warranted. Because once we get Petunia out of his pen and walk him—with Wayne shouting, “Head up! Headup!” the whole way—Wayne hands me a scrub brush.
“My dad always says a clean pig is a winning pig,” he tells me. “You’re going to want to really give him a good scrub. Get into all the nooks and crannies.”
Admittedly, I kind of skimmed over the chapter in the MBI handbook about sexual harassment, and I’m pretty sure this precise scenario isn’t covered anyway, but I can guarantee that getting into all of a colleague’s “nooks and crannies” with a scrub brush and a hose is something I am not allowed to do on duty.
“Um…”
But Wayne has his back to me as he turns on the hose, and I’m left to stare at the scrub brush in my hands. Maybe it will be okay? I mean, we’re deep undercover. Surely Grayson understands there might be some…bathing involved, right? And I’m not really Agent Jensen at the moment. I’m Sally Conway, pig show hopeful and eager pupil. She would just go ahead and scrub the pig.
But when I look at Petunia, he’s baring his teeth at me in exactly the way I would be baring my teeth at him if he looked poised to get into any of my crannies.
Okay. I’ll take that as a “get close to me with that brush and I will tear you limb from limb.” Good to know.
Wayne turns back and sees me standing there like an idiot, brush still in hand, trying to reassure Grayson with just my eyes that I will not scrub his…well,everything. But Wayne is a kid and doesn’t get subtext, and also there’s no way he would pick up on any of this regardless of his age because when he looks at Grayson, he sees just another pig.
“What are you waiting for? We need to get to work,” he says.
And then he snatches the brush from my hands and takes a step toward Petunia’s hind end.
One minute, Wayne is standing there, blithely unaware that he is in grave danger. The next the pig has wheeled around, teeth snapping dangerously close to Wayne’s outstretched hand. The kid is so surprised he takes a step backward, slipping on the wet ground and falling onto his own hind end in the muck.
“Whoa,” he says, blinking up at me. “Does he do that often?”
