Jennifer Crusie - Love and Laughter 04 Anyone But You

Welcome to another month of LOVE & LAUGHTER, a look at the lighter side of love. Taking our inspiration

from the beloved screwball comedies of yesterday to the romantic comedies of today, we searched high and low,

far and wide, just about everywhere, in fact, for authors who love and write romance and comedy. The results,

if we dare be so immodest, have been absolutely fabulous.

This month New York Times bestselling author Kasey Michaels, known bothfor her romance fiction from Silhouette and mainstream historicalromance novels, delights with Five's a Crowd. Her comic tale of lovers

who never get to be alone is warm and emotional and funny. We are thrilled to have Kasey in the LOVE

& LAUGHTER lineup.

RITA Award-winning Jennifer Crusie simply continues to amaze us with her talent. She has very quickly become

a reader favorite, and Anyone But You will win her many more fans. Herheroine, Nina, was beginning her life freshnew job, new apartment. Nohusband. All she wanted was a puppy. A happy, perky puppy. Instead she

got Fred. Part basset, part beagle, part manic-depressive...and things only get crazier from there. With loveand laughter,

Malle Vallik Associate Senior Editor

Jennifer Crusie

ISBN 0-373-44004-9

Copyright 1996 by Jennifer Crusie

For Meg Ruiey,

Fred's godmother and my partner in crime and Lit-ra-chure

Acknowledgment

My heartfelt thanks to Laurie Grant for her ER expertise

One

The last thing Nina Askew needed was Fred.

"I want a puppy," she said to the dumpy brown-uniformed woman behindthe scarred metal counter at Riverbend Animal Control. "Somethingperky."

"Perky." The woman sighed. "Sure. We got perky." She jerked her headtoward the gray metal door at the end of the counter. "Through there,one step down."

"Right." Nina shoved her short dark curls behind her ears, grabbed herpurse and walked through the door, determined to pick herself out theperkiest birthday present on four paws. So what if yesterday had beenher fortieth birthday? Forty was a good age for a woman. It meantfreedom. Especially freedom from her overambitious ex-husband and theiroverpriced suburban castle which had finally sold after a year ofopen-house hell. There was something good: she was out of that damnhouse. And now she was forty. Well, she was delighted to be forty.After all, that was the reason she was getting a dog of her own.

The attendant joined her and said, "This way," and Nina followed hertoward yet another heavy metal door. She was going to get a puppy.She'd always wanted a dog, but Guy hadn't understood. "Dogs shed," he'dsaid when she'd suggested they get one as a wedding present to eachother. She should have known that was A Sign. But no, she'd married himanyway and moved into that designer mausoleum of a house. And thenshe'd spent fifteen years following her husband's career around,without a dog, in a house she'd grown to hate. Sixteen years in thehouse, if she counted this last year in divorced-woman limbo, waitingfor it to sell. But now she had freedom and an apartment of her own anda great, if precarious, job. The only thing she needed was a warm,cheerful body to come home to. The attendant opened the door, and thefaint barking Nina had heard before became frantic and shrill. Ninastepped into the concrete cell block and stopped, blown out of herself-absorption by the row of gray metal cages where dogs barked to gether attention. She let her breath out, horrified. "Oh, God, this isawful."

"Spay your pets." The attendant stopped in front of the next to last cage. "Here you go." She jerked her head again. "Perky."

Nina went to join the woman and peered into the cage the attendant hadshown her. The pups were darlingsome sort of tiny, bright-eyed,spotted mixed breedclimbing over one another and tumbling and whiningand barking. Perky as hell. Now all she had to do was choose one... Shemoved closer and glanced in the last cage almost by accident. Then shefroze. There was only one dog in the cage, and it was midsize anddepressed, too big for her apartment and too melancholy for her stateof mind. Nina tried to turn back to the puppies, but somehow, shecouldn't. The dog had huge bags under his dark eyes, and hunchedshoulders, and a white coat blotched with what looked like giant liverspots. He sat on the damp concrete like a bulked-up vulture and staredat her, not barking, not moving. He looked like her great-uncle Fredhad before he'd died when she was six. She'd liked her uncle Fred, andthen one day his heart had gone, as her mother had put it, and that hadbeen it.

"Hello," she said, and the dog lifted his head a little, so she stoopeddown and reached through the cage doors to scratch him behind the ears.He looked at her and then closed his eyes in appreciation for thescratch.

"What's wrong with him?" Nina asked the attendant.

"Nothing," the attendant said. "He's part basset, part beagle." She checked the card on his cage.

"Or he might be psychic. This is his last day."

Nina's eyes opened wide. "You mean ..."

"Yep." The attendant sliced her hand across her throat.

Nina looked back at the dog. The dog looked back at Nina, death in his eyes. Oh, God.

She stood and shoved her hair behind her ears, trying to look efficientand practical in an effort to be efficient and practical. She did notneed this dog. She needed a happy, perky puppy, and on his best day,this dog would look like a professional mourner. And he wasn't even apuppy. Any dog but this one.

She looked down at the dog one last time, and her hair fell forward, acurly black frame for his depression. He bowed his head a little as ifit had grown too heavy for him, and his ears sagged with the bow.

She could not take this dog. He was too depressed. He was too big. Hewas too old. She took a step back, and he sighed and lay down, notexpecting anything at all, resigned to the cold hard floor and no oneto love him and the certainty of death in the morning.

At least, that was what Nina was sure he was resigned to. She couldn'tstand it. She turned to the attendant, and said, "I'll take him."

The attendant raised an eyebrow. "That's your idea of perky?"

Nina gestured to the puppies. "They'll all be adopted, right?"

"Sure."

Nina took one long last glance at the tumbling, chubby puppies. Prozacwith four legs and a tail. Then she looked at the other dog, depressed,alone, too old to be cute anymore if he ever had been. "I have a lot incommon with this dog," she told the attendant. "And besides, I'd neversleep again knowing I could have saved him and didn't."

The attendant shook her head. "You can't save them all."

"Well, I can save this one." Nina crouched to the dog's level. "It'sokay, Fred. I just rescued your butt." The dog rolled his eyes up tostare at her.

"No, don't thank me. Glad to do it for you." Nina stood up and followedthe attendant down the hall. At the end, she turned, and Fred movedforward, pressing his nose through the bars. "Hey, it's okay," Ninacalled to him. "I'm coming right back as soon as I get you sprung fromthis joint." Fred moaned and stumbled back into the depths of the cage.

"Oh, yeah, you're going to cheer me up," Nina said and went to sign thepapers and pay the fee. He didn't get much happier when the attendantopened the cage and he waddled out into Nina's arms, fragrant beyondbelief. "You stink, Fred," she told him, and then she picked him up andheld him to her, telling herself that her silk suit was dry-cleanable,and that at least it was brown and so was most of Fred so the dog hairwouldn't show. He looked up at her and she added, "And you weigh aton." He was like dead weight in her arms, round and bulky, and most ofhis weight seemed to be centered in his rear end, which gave him adefinite droop as she balanced his hip on hers. Still, as much as hereeked, it felt good to have her arms wrapped around him. "I saved you,Fred," she whispered into his ear, and he twitched as her breathtickled him, patient but not by any means enthused about the new turnof events. He perked up a little when she carried him out into the Maysunlight, but he seemed annoyed when she tried to balance all of hisweight on one hip while she maneuvered open the door to her whiteCivic.