A Christmas Mystery in Venice and Other Winter Tales : 3 Short Stories (The Homeswappers Book 4) by Adriana Licio

Author:Adriana Licio [Licio, Adriana]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: The HomeTravellers Press
Published: 2022-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

After lunch, Dora went to help Kerstin prepare the dinner in the kitchen. The newly widowed Lisa Kornprobst joined them while Gabriel went to his bedroom to do his homework. Etta buried her nose in a book, enjoying the warmth of the Stube and determined not to set foot outside again that day. Except that determination wavered when Leon woke up from a long nap and stared at her intensely. She tried to ignore him, but the dog’s mournful gaze struck chords she didn’t even know she had hidden within her. Resistance was futile when the dog moved to sit right in front of her, his head tilted to the side.

She finally broke her silence. “What do you want?”

The dog didn’t budge.

“Is it pee time?”

A little gleam in the dog’s eyes told the slow-witted biped she had made a lucky guess.

“Why don’t you go to the kitchen and call your favourite human?”

Such provocation was too much for a dog to bear, even one imbued with saintliness. Leon had to react.

“WoRRRRf!” he said, which even this slowest-witted of bipeds should know meant the women in the kitchen are doing something useful while you’re lazing around here like a couch potato. A dog’s vocabulary tends to be rather succinct compared to a human’s.

“OK, OK, but just a short pee. I will open the door and you go out and come back. Quickly!”

So they went to the cloakroom at the entrance to the malga, where the humans had left their jackets and shoes, and Etta opened the door. A fierce wind swept in, carrying a mini storm of snowflakes, but the dog went out cheerfully. Etta stayed inside, watching from the window and wondering if she was doing the right thing. What if something happened to Leon? What if Dora asked her where he was?

Five minutes passed and Leon had not returned. In fact, he was nowhere in sight. Etta opened the door and tried to call him without shouting too loudly in case Dora heard and found out she’d let the dog out on his own. Then something large loomed out of the snow – something far too big to be a Basset Hound. And it walked on two feet, not four. Behind the figure was a troop of other bipeds.

“Hello!” said a cheerful voice. “If I haven’t lost anyone, my wife and children should be right behind me.”

“Here we are, Daddy,” cried two laughing voices at his back.

Etta was shocked. “It looks as if your wife is here too,” she said, peering into the snowstorm. “You could have checked everyone was with you before arriving at the door…”

“I was actually hoping to lose one or two of them along the way, all the more dinner for me.”

“Daddy!”

The family came in, sitting on the side benches of the cloakroom to remove their shoes. The woman introduced herself as Barbara, then took off her coat and hat and went to look for Kerstin, saying she wanted to announce their arrival and pick up their room keys.

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