by Inez Kelley
Her phone broke into her concentration. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and picked it up, letting her grin erupt when Matt’s name popped up in a text.
What R U doing
Mischievousness directed her fingers to lie.
Masturbating
There was no incoming text for a full minute.
rly?
: )
Can B there in 10
2 long
: (
Mmmmmmm
Stop. Wait 4 me
MMMMMMM!!!!!
Kayla?
???
Did U... Okay, now Im hard
Sounds promising. Call me lumberjack
hello lumberjack
Haha Cute. Call me
Her phone rang in less than a minute. He didn’t give her any greeting. “Were you really masturbating?”
“You don’t believe me?” Kayla laughed.
“Didn’t say that, just trying to imagine it. Where are you?”
“In bed.”
“What are you wearing?”
She looked down at her faded jeans and floppy T-shirt. The lime-green ankle socks completed the ensemble. “Nothing.”
A loud exhale echoed through the phone speaker. “Did you...finish?”
Her quick glance at the counter showed a half-full box and three different sample packets that needed to be heat-sealed. “Not quite.”
“I really regret never downloading Skype now.”
She couldn’t keep up the charade and burst out laughing. “I’m kidding. I’m packing up orders in the kitchen.”
“Damn, you’re a textual tease.”
“I’ve been known to give a really good phone job once or twice.”
Matt groaned. “Stop, you’re making me hard. Open the front door.”
“Why? Where are you?”
“Just open the door.”
Kayla pressed End and hurried to the front door. To find nobody. A scratching noise drew her head down. A cardboard box rocked from the force of something inside trying to get out. A tiny mewl shot through her with excitement. She spread the loose flaps of the box and squealed.
“Oh, look at you.”
The gray-and-white kitten was an itty-bitty thing, with huge ears and a pink nose. He meowed at her then started purring when she scooped him up. Inside the box was a litter tray, a bag of kitten food and a carton of litter. A note lay inside the pan.
Dear pretty lady, I don’t have a name. People abandon a lot of cats near lumber mills. The stacks of drying wood make great hiding places and the workers feed us scraps. But it’s dangerous there. So many big machines. Three of my littermates have gone missing. I need a friend to take care of me. Would you be my friend?
“Oh, Matt.” Kayla rubbed her chin on the kitten’s head. The little purr grew louder.
“Was that a good ‘Oh, Matt’ or a bad ‘Oh, Matt’?”
Just off the porch, hands tucked into his back pockets, he smiled. He must have come straight from work. His jeans were worn and filthy, and beneath his red flannel, his T-shirt was soaked with sweat. Sawdust coated his skin, giving it a golden sheen in the late afternoon light. His hair was messy, as if he’d run his hand through it several times.
“He’s adorable.”
Matt took the steps in two leaps. Taking the cat from her, he turned it over, looked between its legs then handed it back. “He is a she.”
“Oops.” She scratched the cat between her ears. “Sorry, little girl. People really dump cats at the mill?”
“Yeah. There’s always a couple feral cats around, some have litters, other litters just appear out of the blue. In the winter, they crawl into the dry kilns to get warm and then die. The temperatures get up to a hundred eighty degrees of baking heat. Forklifts and front-end loaders can’t see them hiding in the stacks and...it’s not pretty.”
Her fingers tightened around the tiny furry body, gruesome imagines painted in her mind. “She’s so little. Doesn’t she still need her mother?”
“Never saw her mother. This one was hiding beside kiln four. I was checking species orders or I’d never have seen her.”
“You saved her life.”
“No, Kayla. I found her. You’re saving her.”
Responsibility pressed down like a boulder. She’d never had to care for anyone other than herself. She’d never even babysat as a teenager. The little life in her hands was fragile. It would depend on her. Her eyes flew to Matt’s. “Owning a pet is a big deal. What if I mess up?”
The look he sent her was indulgent. “You won’t. Cats are easy. Just love her, feed her and change the litter.”
It sounded so straightforward. The soft fur and fluttering purr felt so good next to her heart. “Okay, I’ll try.”
“Are you busy right now?”
She was. She had four orders to package and twenty pounds of rye to grind. “What’s on your mind, lumberjack?”
“Vet clinic’s open until six tonight. She’s bound to have fleas and needs her shots.” His large hand completely covered the cat’s body with his gentle stroke. “But she’s cute and young enough to retrain to be a housecat.”
Cuddled to her chest, the cat yawned sleepily, making no move to escape. “Grab my purse, okay? I don’t want to let go of her.”
His fingers slowed on the cat’s fur and his voice softened as he looked into her face. “Know the feeling.”
He grabbed her flowered bag from inside the house, then shut the door, using her keys to lock it. Walking as if the tiny bundle in her arms were made of glass, she settled into Matt’s vehicle. He pulled a ragged ball cap on his head, then laughed at her. “She’s hooked you already.”
“I don’t mind being hooked.” Kayla cradled the kitten the entire drive to veterinarian. The cat licked at her fingers, the rough tongue tickling her skin. She kneaded at Kayla’s stomach, curled herself into a ball and went to sleep. The low purring snores vibrated against her belly.
“Matt?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you. I promise I’ll take good care of her.”
He squeezed her hand, shooting her a gentle look before focusing back on the road.
Inside the veterinary clinic’s squat building, Kayla couldn’t make herself disturb the animal sleeping in her arms so Matt filled in the paperwork. His pen paused above the fifth line. “She needs a name.”
“Four.”
One eyebrow dipped. “Four?”
“It’s where you found her, right?” Kayla rubbed her nose against the little fuzzy head. “Wait, should I give her a better name? Like, uh, Fluffy or Mittens or...”
Matt dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “She isn’t fluffy and isn’t wearing mittens. Four is fine.”
The tech called them back, took the kitten and started the exam. Kayla watched with anxious eyes. Four was scrawny and the tech handled her so cavalierly as she weighed her, checked her temperature, looked into her ears and mouth.
The vet was a thin man with a hooked nose. He felt the cat’s stomach, made a few other checks and declared her healthy as could be, although a little on the underfed size. He did a flea treatment, prescribing monthly ones for a while.
Kayla’s nails dug into Matt’s hand as Four got several shots in her neck. The vet pushed the plunger on the last syringe. “Breathe, Mom. Four is fine.”
“Mom?” Kayla blinked. “Oh! Me!”
“Yep, and here’s your baby.” He handed Kayla the kitten and Matt a new-owner’s packet. “I love new pet parents.”
Parents? Kayla shot a fast glance at Matt. Something odd crossed his face. He wouldn’t meet her eyes as they scheduled a follow-up appointment. He handed over his credit card before Kayla could dig into her wallet.
“Matt, she’s my pet, I’ll pay for this.”
“Four is half mine. Consider it pet-support.”
Back in his SUV, Four cleaned her face then crawled into Matt’s hard hat on the seat. She promptly curled into a knot, buried her nose in her paws and went back to sleep. Matt was strangely quiet on the drive back. Kayla distracted herself by stroking the gray patch on Four’s side, but her mind whirled with realized desires.
“Do you want children?” Her teeth snapped shut. Hello, out of the blue. She pulled back, wishing she could snatch the words from the air. “I mean, someday, you know, down the road.”
“Eventually, I guess. Haven’t thought much about it, really. Abby lived with me while she was pregnant with Garrett and for about a year after she had him. Babies are work, no doubt, but it was cool seeing him change, discover stuff like his nose and his fingers.” The timbre of his voice deepened, softened. “Yeah, I think I’d like to have kids.”
He’d make beautiful babies. Pictures formed in her mind, mingling his coloring and hers, imagining his hard, gentle hands cupping her swollen stomach, feeling a flutter beneath his touch. It seemed so real, so vivid she had to blink to erase it.
“What about you?”
She kept her eyes on the sleeping cat. “I built a house with three bedrooms, what do you think?”
Matt said nothing. The air inside the truck cab pulsed with unspoken dreams.
Shaking them off, she tossed her hair back. “I hadn’t planned anything fancy, just gluten-free spaghetti, but want to stay for dinner?”
He kept his eyes on the road, his hands clenched tight around the steering wheel. The gruffness hadn’t left his voice. “I want to stay.”
* * *
“No, you stay here.” Matt scooted the kitten away from the door with his foot then slipped out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him. The worried look on Kayla’s face made him grin. “She’s fine. It’s best to leave her in the bathroom until we know for sure she understands what her litter pan is for.”
“But it’s dark in there.”
“Kayla.” Matt climbed into bed wearing only his boxer briefs and propped himself against the headboard. “You made her a bed, put food and water down for her and gave her lots of cuddles. She’s had a big day. Let her sleep and in the morning, if she did her business in the box, then you can let her roam free.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Kayla snapped his T-shirt straight, folded it then added it to the basket. She’d washed his clothes so that he could spend the night and go directly to work in the morning. It cut about an hour of driving time down for him and let them spend more time together. It also added a new, domestic dimension to their relationship.
Her bedroom wasn’t super frilly, which he liked. The walls were a pale green and the wood trim a crisp white. An old-fashioned ladies’ vanity held a collection of antique perfume bottles and small framed pictures. It was easy to pick out her parents. Her father wore a uniform in most of them and her mother looked like Kayla.
“Your mom’s pretty.”
Her smile lit up her face. “She was. Daddy called her his sunshine girl.”
“What did he call you?”
She mated his socks then tucked them into the basket. At the foot of the bed, a cedar chest acted as a bench. She popped the latch and opened it. “Mostly he called me pumpkin. Hold on, let me find it.”
She hefted out a huge photo album and crawled up beside him. The book was heavy and she opened it between them, using both their laps as a desk. Flipping through a few pages, she murmured, “It should be right—here it is. Me, age eight months, dressed as a pumpkin for my first Halloween.”
Matt laughed. Baby Kayla was all cheeks and eyes. Usually looking at other people’s family pictures was an exercise in boredom but he was captivated by Kayla’s photos. From chubby baby to gangly preteen to knock-out young woman, pages and pages let him glimpse her life.
“Mom was a camera-hound.” Her finger caressed her mother’s face in one snapshot. “She was always taking pictures. Look, this was in Egypt. My father was so sick in this. He’d eaten something at a roadside stand and got food poisoning.”
For a few minutes, she talked, turning pages and pointing out people and places. Matt’s finger landed on a blond soldier with his arm around a beautiful young Kayla. “Who’s this?”
Her lips thinned. “I thought we agreed not to talk about our dating pasts.”
“Old boyfriend,” he grumped. “He looks like a used-car salesman.”
“Moving right along.” Kayla turned the page. “Let me show you my Grandmother Eunice. She was a firecracker. Used to carry a derringer in her purse.”
“What was his name?”
Kayla’s eyes were dancing despite her firm jaw. “Matt, do you really want to go there?”
“What? I just asked his name.”
“Josh, okay? Can you drop it now?”
“Fine.”
He stayed quiet for three pages but the image never left his head. “Did you sleep with him?”
“Matt!” The album thumped his groin. “It was ten years ago. I’m sure you’ve had your arm around a woman or two in the past ten years.”
Matt shifted. “Point taken. But I don’t keep their pictures.”
“My mom is in that picture.”
Her mother was a much better topic of conversation than that sleazy soldier-boy. “You look like your mom.”
“Thanks.” The mattress dipped as she wiggled off it to put the album away. “Does Abby look like your mother?”
“A bit. Garrett really looks like her, though.”
“What about you? Do you look like your dad?”
His stomach knotted. “Abby thinks so.”
“Did he work in logging, too?”
“He worked in the mines.” His tongue seemed to swell in his mouth. Shoving the sheet away, he stood. “I’m going to get a drink. Want something?”
Kayla’s eyebrows dipped into little squiggles. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” The smile he gave her felt stiff. “Your spaghetti sauce was good. You said you put carrots in it? Didn’t taste any.”
“I puréed them.” The cedar chest clicked as she closed it. “You don’t talk much about your family. How long has your dad been gone?”
“Twenty years next month.” His fingers tightened on the door. “Sure you don’t want something? I’m going to grab a beer.”
“I’m fine. I’d love to see a picture of your father.”
Matt scratched at his neck. “Uh, Mom has most of the albums in Florida. Do you mind if I reheat some spaghetti while I’m downstairs?”
“I’ll do it.”
“No, I got it. You should check on Four.”
Suspicion darted across Kayla’s face. “You said to let her sleep.”
“Yeah, but she’s little. Can’t hurt to peek in.”
Tension throbbed in his skull and knotted the muscles along his shoulders. He made his escape into the hall, aware that her questioning gaze was nailed to his spine.
* * *
Kayla adjusted her sunglasses against the bright glare. She might be a transplant to West Virginia but one thing was familiar. Country fairs were the same all over the country, and not that different from festivals all over the world. There was food galore, from fried everything on a stick to funnel cakes and hot sausages, local craftsmen, music and hordes of people from every walk of life. The Lumberjack Games differed only in that there was a high number of steel-toe boots, saws and wood carvings.
Indian summer turned the October sun brutal, stinging along the back of her neck and tingling on her cheeks. They strolled the booths, Matt calling out greetings to people he knew. More than one curious set of eyes raked over her, but she was used to being
the new girl and simply kept a smile on her face. Even though he’d grown up in a different part of the state, he’d lived in this area over ten years and seemed to know everyone here. She marveled at that, wondering what it was like to not be the odd one out all the time. Ten years sounded like a lifetime to her.
“We’ve looked and sampled for two hours.” Matt pulled her from the line of fair booths. “I can hear your brain spinning with ideas. Stop. You’re supposed to just enjoy the games, not discover more stuff for your business.”
He was right but still, those blackberry pies were better than hers. The Volunteer Fire Department’s Ladies’ Auxiliary cookbook was only thirteen dollars and it was a fundraiser. She’d been more than happy to hand over the money. And of course there was the Methodist Women’s Group’s bake sale and pepperoni rolls, the Lion’s Club’s potato candy and fudge, the local restaurants handing out samples and menus. The scents of barbecue and roasting meats overshadowed the fresh-cut wood.
“Can’t we at least try the venison? I’ve never eaten it.”
Matt stopped, shock opening his jaw. “You’ve never eaten venison?
“I’ve eaten alligator and rattlesnake, elk, buffalo and moose. I even had some dog in Asia once but no, I’ve never had venison.”
He leaned close and brushed her lips. “My place, tomorrow night, venison tenderloin. I’m cooking.”
“Bambi killer.”
“Yep, and Bambi eater, too. Here, join the tribe.” Matt laughed and headed back to the booths. He bought them both spicy meat on a stick, alternated with mushrooms and chunks of onion. The first bite burst onto her tongue with the peppery marinade mix but the meat beneath was succulent and lean.
She nodded her head in approval. “I thought it would be gamey, like bear.”
“Bear’s not too bad if you cook it with apples.” He winked. “Stick with me, city slicker, we’ll make a Mountaineer out of you yet.”
Kayla chewed slowly. She did want to stick with him, for more than wild game.
