Charlie followed on her heels, taking his position at the sliding glass door. Ella landed at the sink, and trained her eyes through the window above it onto the back door of the house directly behind hers.

Like clockwork, the man who lived there came outside as he had every morning of the two weeks Ella had lived there so far.

He was tall, he had short dark hair, Adonis good looks, and the best buns she’d ever seen. Pure eye candy dressed in running shorts that exposed thick thigh muscles and a T-shirt that clung to impressive pectorals and bulging biceps.

Charlie started barking his head off just as he did every day. Ella ignored him, feasting on the sight of magnificent male pulchritude as her neighbor did his pre-run warm-ups on his back porch.

“Wow,” she muttered on a sigh when the man finished and went through the gate to the side of his redbrick house.
“Okay, now you can go out,” Ella told Charlie, moving to the sliding door to open it so the retriever could charge into the glorious June day.

Charlie wasn’t out there more than a minute, though, when he spotted a squirrel on the other side of the four-foot chain-link fence that separated their two yards. He took off to bounce on his hind legs in addition to his frenzied barking.

Ella opened the sliding door again and yelled, “Charlie! Stop!”

But Charlie didn’t stop. Instead, he jumped high enough to actually catch his front paws on the top rail of the fence and pull himself over it.

“Oh, no!” Ella ran out after the dog, shouting Charlie’s name as she did.

Charlie didn’t pay any attention to her. Instead, once the retriever realized he was in new territory he lost interest in the squirrel and made a beeline for the house, where he disappeared through the doggy door as if it were meant for him.

“Charlie! Come!” Ella called firmly.

But Charlie didn’t reappear.

Ella didn’t know what else to do but follow the same path through the doggy door. She got down on her hands and knees and poked her head through the flap.

And there was Charlie all right, watching for her as if he’d been expecting her to do just that.

“Come out here,” Ella said in no uncertain terms.

Charlie backed up a few feet and sat down.

“I mean it! Get over here!” Ella said, pushing forward and forcing her arms through so she could try to grab her dog and make a getaway before her neighbor ever knew she’d been there.

But Charlie just moved farther away, cocking his head to one side as he did.

And that was when Ella made a tactical error.
She lunged for the dog. And got stuck but good.
“Oh, great,” she wailed.

Just then she heard a deep, rich voice from outside say, “What the hell is going on?”