Prologue

I wasn’t on the premises when my human mom and dad met, but that doesn’t stop a basset hound of my intelligence and charm, not to mention my mismatched radar ears, from being the best dog to tell the story. After all, I’ve heard it a million times from Ruby Nell Valentine (Callie’s mama), who likes to think she runs the show around this little corner of northeast Mississippi. Of course, that honor goes to yours truly, but I don’t let on to Ruby Nell. She’s my source of peas and cornbread.

Naturally, I’ve heard the story from Lovie (Callie’s cousin), whose version is slightly altered from that of Callie and Jack (my human parents).

I’ve even heard it from Fayrene. She’s Ruby Nell’s best friend and the owner – along with her husband, Jarvetis Johnson – of Gas, Grits and Guts, the best little convenience store in downtown Mooreville, Actually, it’s the only convenience store in Mooreville (population 652 since Callie’s manicurist Darlene moved in with her little boy). Of course, she also moved in with a vicious cat named Mal and an uppity dog called William, if you want to count them. But who in his right mind would count a mean-eyed cat and a Lhasa Apso with legs so short he can’t even lift them to mark a tree?

Back to Gas, Grits and Guts… Considering the Johnsons sell everything from pick axes to pickled pigs lips - and that Fayrene knows every morsel of gossip about everybody and is more than willing to tell it - they’ve put Mooreville on the map.

Of course, Fayrene’s version of Jack and Callie’s story is slightly different from Ruby Nell’s. And I’m not even going to discuss how far off their version is from all the rest. But listen….I’m dog who can bury a bone where Callie’s silly spaniel can’t find it; not to mention that I was a world- wide icon in my other life as a singing sensation in a white sequined jump suit. I know how to dig up the truth. I know how to patch it up so that all the different versions make a coherent whole. Well, sort of.

Besides, I know more about love me tender than anybody in the Valentine family. After all, I once spun love and heartbreak into a hit record faster than you can say, “Pass the PupPeroni.”

I admit that my motives for telling this story are mixed. Naturally, I want to keep my fans happy by letting them be the first in the know. There’s nothing I like better than a horde of adoring fans.

But I also want to turn Callie and Jack’s impossible dream into another wedding between my human parents. What could be better than seeing two people who are soul mates together again?

Before you start pinning a medal on me, I have to confess that I’m a noble hound with a selfish side. I’m tired of being swapped back and forth. In spite of the fact that Jack put the star on Callie’s Christmas tree after Corky’s arrest in what the Valentines are calling the Blue Christmas caper, he’s still got that tacky apartment he rented after Callie threw him out.

Maybe a stupid fish wouldn’t care whether his fish tank sat on the bedside table in Callie’s charming house or landed on the scruffed-up kitchen table at Jack’s place. But I’ve got a brain.

Not to mention a mission.

Why do you think I got sent back here in a dog suit in the first place? So I could take care of these misguided humans, that’s what. If I’m over at Jack’s place, how can I make sure Callie stops trying to take care of everybody else and takes care of herself? Who will be there to lick her face when she needs to hug a compassionate dog?

And if I’m snoozing on my pink silk guitar shaped pillow by Callie’s bed, how can I teach Jack that he deserves a home? How can I be the amazing dog-on-the-spot who teaches him that dirty laundry left more than three weeks is a hazard to health and courtship?

I could go on all day about the things I need to teach my humans, but I promised the real story of Jack and Callie. Never let it be said that Elvis Valentine Jones is not a dog of his word. ***

Chapter one

Callie and Jack have been Mooreville’s hottest topic of conversation since he pulled a gun at Gas, Grits and Guts to catch the Blue Christmas killer. Until then, everybody thought he was an international businessman. Now the speculation runs from FBI to CIA and even CNN, thanks to Fayrene.

But the biggest speculation is personal. Trixie Moffett’s going to have a Christmas wedding to a man everybody barely knows, and you know how gossip runs sideways and crossways and even backwards. Now folks are talking about Jack and Callie wedding. Where did they meet? How did they get together? Where did he propose? Who was at the wedding? What was Mooreville’s premiere society wedding like? Will Jack ask her to tie the knot again so he can have Christmas dinner down on the Valentine farm as part of the family instead of a bad boy loner with a smart dog and a tacky apartment?

About the only thing everybody agrees on is that when Jack Jones first blew into Mooreville, he was wearing a black tee shirt that showed every muscle he’s got and the tightest black jeans this side of decency.

“Callie and Jack first met at the annual barbecue down on my farm.” Ruby Nell, who is wearing one of the sequined caftans she wears from Thanksgiving through New Year’s in honor of the holidays, makes this pronouncement as if it’s law and gospel.

“No, they didn’t. They met at Gas, Grits and Guts.” Fayrene says her piece with equal certainty.

“I ought to know. I’m the mother of the bride.”

“Which makes you prodigious and therefore unreliable.”

In Fayrenese, prodigious means prejudiced. She’s Mooreville’s Mrs. Maloprop. She can mutilate a word faster than I can dig up my treasured ham bone from Callie’s back yard.

“That’s just plain tacky to sit here and argue with me in my own house, Fayrene. Especially during the Christmas season.”

We’re not actually inside the farmhouse. Callie’s mama and Fayrene are sitting in rocking chairs on Ruby Nell’s front porch, and I’m flopped on my belly on the top step enjoying one of those sunny days down South that makes winter feel like summertime. I’m down on the farm waiting for Callie to finish up dispensing cut Christmas hairdos at her beauty shop and take me home. It goes without saying that Ruby Nell and Fayrene are meddling in Callie’s business.

Which is fine with me as long as they have a good motive. And they do. Nothing would please Ruby Nell more than to see her only child back in the arms of Jack Jones. Permanently. She thinks he walks on water.

And whatever Ruby Nell wants for Callie, Fayrene declares she wants it twice as bad. Ruby Nell may be the one to swoop around in colored caftans and have Callie change her hair color more often than most women change purses, but Fayrene is the one who always dresses in the color of money and drives a neon green hearse. In the drama queen department, I’d say they’re about equal.

“Well, Ruby Nell,” Fayrene says, “if we want to settle the argument, we can ride up to Hair.Net and ask Callie.”

“We will do no such thing. I’m not about to have my daughter know that we’re down here discussing her business.”

“I don’t think that would be news to her.”

“Yes, but as long as I don’t admit it, she can pretend not to know. It’s easier that way. “

“Why don’t we call Lovie? She can collaborate my story.”

But Ruby Nell is in no mood for corroboration or collaboration. As usual, she just wants to be right.

“Flitter, Fayrene. Those two tell each other everything. They grew up more like sisters than cousins. Suffice it to say, Callie and Jack met at the farm.”

“Suffice it to say, I was taking Mayor Earl Getty’s credit card for a tank of gas and Callie was holding onto a bag of Lay’s potato chips when Jack Jones drove up in that fancy silver Jag.”

“That was after my Fourth of July bash.”

“It was not. I still had a table full of fireworks.”

“You always have leftover fireworks after the Fourth.”

Fayrene ignored that remark and went right on with her tale. I’ve heard it before and could quote it word for word, but it’s best to hear it from her lips.

“He walked in looking like a movie star, all dressed in black, and my jaw just about came unhinged. When he took off those sunglasses and I saw his black eyes, I like to have had a heart prostration attack.”

I don’t know whether Fayrene means the heat was about to do her in or if it was her heart. Either way, she’s not the star of this tale. If you’ll recall, the stars are Jack and Callie.

“At least you’ve got the effect of my son-in-law right.”

“Ex.”

“Not yet. And not at all if I have anything to do with it.”

“I agree a hundred per cent, Ruby Nell. If ever any two belonged together, it’s Jack and Callie. Why, when they saw each, they created such sparks I could have lit a match and blown Gas, Grits and Guts to Kingdom Come.”

“They’re always like that, Fayrene. That doesn’t mean they met at your store first.”

”You can’t prove they didn’t.”

Fayrene is right. Ruby Nell is too close to the situation to be a reliable witness, plus she’s always getting facts mixed up with her more colorful fiction.

If the two of them would ask yours truly, they’d find out they were both wrong. Jack and Callie are the ones who tell the truth. Jack has told me the story a gazillion times, especially since he lost Callie. And my human mom has spent many an evening sharing popcorn and Hershey bars with Lovie, spilling her guts and more than a few tears over Jack Jones.

Both Fayrene’s and Ruby Nell’s stories have a grain of the truth – Jack came to Gas, Grits and Guts first, but Callie wasn’t there; and Callie brought Jack to Ruby Nell’s Fourth of July picnic that first evening, but that wasn’t where they met. The real story is best told by Jack Jones.

Lying on Ruby Nell’s front step while my ears blowing in the wind while she and Fayrene drone on about stuff they’re making up on the spot, I rewind my internal record of Jack telling how he met Callie. ***