I nodded and headed toward Janet. It sounded like I wasn't getting breakfast at this early morning meeting.

At the booth, Janet took out a pen from the bag beside her and wrote my name on top of the plain white placemat in front of her. Underneath she drew a line and a small dot with "dog walker" next to it.

Interesting.

"I like to get an early start on the day and check my emails while I drink my first coffee," she said while finally raising her head to meet my gaze.

"Me too." Kind of. Mostly it was iced coffee, and I preferred it an hour or two later than we were currently meeting, but the idea was similar enough. "It's important to get a healthy start in the morning."

Janet tilted her head to the side and opened her eyes wider. "Uh-huh," she said, giving me a long glance, as if she didn't believe it. I waited for her to write "liar" underneath "dog walker," but she didn't.

Her white hair and thin glasses gave her a "don't fuck with me appeal." I wanted to be tough like Janet one day but not so early in the morning. And with iced coffee. I glanced at her dark gray pantsuit. And with better attire. But the kickass part definitely.

"It's nice they let you in before the ovens are on," I said, giving the quiet diner a once-over. Besides the hostess rolling napkins behind the tall check-in station, we were the only two in the place.

Janet watched my assessment. "I know the owner."

"Me too."

She widened her eyes again, but it was the truth. Frankie Zanetti owned the Clearwater Diner, or at least had a big stake in the business. Not that knowing him would get me any perks here, but it was interesting that Janet knew him as well, and it apparently afforded her extra amenities.

"Do you hold many of your meetings here?" I asked, giving a new idea some thought.

She nodded. "Everyone before noon. Then I'll have lunch and head to the office. Sometimes later."

Hmm. If Janet, divorce attorney extraordinaire, could set up shop in the Clearwater diner and not have people look at her weird, maybe I should do something similar. Rather than worry about my next office space, I'd work at a table in the bakery.

Janet drew a line on the bottom right of the placemat, arching toward the top. Like she was outlining a border.

No. That would never work. The ladies at the bakery were too nosy. There'd be no secrets, and therefore no one would trust me to take their cases. I needed somewhere with privacy. Unfortunately, Pelican Bay didn't have that many places with privacy.

The lawyer across from me scratched her pen along the paper, drawing little offshoots from her original line.

Would a daily cupcake be enough to talk Katy into letting me have a standing table at the bed-and-breakfast? How much would she interfere with my clients?

Probably a lot.

The offshoots on Janet's drawing slowly became leaves as she filled in lines across each one. The picture becoming a vine crawling up the paper.

I waited until Janet stopped doodling long enough to sip her coffee. "What's there to know about this dog job?"

She set the coffee cup on the table. "I have a client in the process of divorcing her husband. She hasn't filed or served him papers yet. We're still gathering evidence."

"Okay," I said and glanced back at the woman rolling napkins. She'd never approached me to see if I wanted something to drink. Or a piece of pie. She hadn't approached at all.

"She has friendly dogs," Janet continued.

I blew out a breath while waiting for the punch line. This was a lot harder without iced coffee or breakfast pie. "Okay."

Janet added small offshoot vines that circled around each other on her vine. "They're too friendly."

"How do you have a dog that is too friendly?" Isn't that what people wanted? Better than a dog trying to tear off someone's limbs every time they walk into your home.

She removed the pen from the paper long enough to shrug. "Don't fucking ask me, but she says they're too friendly. The client believes her husband is cheating on her with someone in the neighborhood."

"But..." What the hell was I supposed to do with any of this?

Janet smirked. "She says when she walks them, they are too excited with the other neighborhood dogs. She's positive the husband is cheating."

I ran two fingers across my upper temple, resembling Broadrick earlier that morning.

"You want me to follow the husband and take pictures?"

She resumed her vine drawing but missed one leaf slot, making the pattern she'd set up with vines and leaves off balance. "No."

"Then... What am I supposed to do with friendly dogs?"

"I want you to walk the dogs and tell me if they're extra friendly with anyone in particular." She filled in another leaf, completely disregarding the missing one.

I itched to point it out to her but kept my hands in my lap. "That's it?"

"And take some pictures. Clients and courts always like pictures. Maybe a video."

I scanned the still-empty diner. Did Ridge have hidden cameras here? Were the boys at Pelican Bay Security trying to prank me? Would Spencer upload the video to Facebook later?

"It's five hundred bucks," Janet said, as if she caught on to my hesitation. She just incorrectly assumed my reasons for waffling.

Job accepted.

I shook my head. Five hundred to walk a couple dogs and take pictures of our stroll? The madness. "I am in the wrong damn field."

"You have to price what you think your services are worth and add ten percent if you want to make any real money in this world. If you believe you're worth it, so will everyone else."

"Okay, I'm in." I rubbed my hands together under the table.

Janet laid down her pen without adding the missing leaf. "You'll turn over all evidence, of course."

"Of course." I wasn't exactly sure what she expected for evidence, but I'd give her all the pictures of the dog butts I snapped. "One quick question before I leave."

A door somewhere in the back of the diner slammed shut. Seemed the morning shift had finally arrived. "Shoot."

"Do you recommend people get prenups before marriage?"

"Are you getting married?"

"No."

Janet stared at me. Her beady eyes half hidden behind her small, framed glasses. "Are you planning to get married?"

"Eventually."

"Here's my advice." She grabbed her coffee cup but didn't bring it to her lips. "You're young and also a mess. Get your life together so you have something more to lose in a marriage besides your mental health, and then you worry about a prenup. When you're ready, we'll write that thing so well his balls will shrivel if he even looks at another woman."

"How do I do that?" I asked before thinking better of it.

Janet sipped her coffee. "Walk these dogs and help me take everything from a cheating husband."

I smiled. "Deal."

She had way more confidence in these friendly dogs than I did, but as she passed me the information and address of their location, I promised her I'd give it my best.

On the way out of the diner, as the first sounds of a sizzle in the back kitchen echoed on my departure, my phone buzzed.

ANESSA: We're swamped at the bakery. Can you come in for an hour to help?

The work of a kickass PI getting her life prenup ready never ended.