Chartreux Shock

by Katherine Hayton

  Chartreux Shock

  Marjorie’s Cozy Kitten Cafe Book Two

  Katherine Hayton

  Copyright © 2019 Katherine Hayton

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Also by Katherine Hayton

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Cecilia’s eyes narrowed and her nostrils pinched together as she entered the café. Marjorie Hardaway—the Cozy Kitten Café owner—pulled a carrot cake muffin piled high with cream cheese icing from the display case and prepared for the same battle she’d fought with the woman once already this week.

  “Can’t I have my regular seat?” Cecilia asked, nodding as Marjorie checked she wanted the usual. “I love the view all the way down into the valley.”

  “Not when there’s a customer already sitting there.” Fletcher Byrne glanced up and gave an eyeroll, forcing her to bite back a grin. “But the table by the other window is lovely, too.”

  “If you enjoy staring at trees,” Cecelia grumbled, taking her order and flicking a dirty look in Fletcher’s direction. “It would be great if we could reserve tables.”

  “First come, first served,” Marjorie said in a light voice. “And with the work they’re about to do next door, pretty soon every seat will have a clear view down the hill to the Hanmer Springs township.”

  The woman sniffed and took a spray bottle of hand sanitiser out of her purse. “I suppose as soon as they’ve cut down the trees and bushes, they’ll start on building out the view altogether.”

  “It’ll take a while before they get going,” Marjorie said, déjà vu sweeping over her in a cloud. Hadn’t she had the same conversation with this woman on Monday? What did Cecelia think would have changed? “At this rate, we’re edging towards the foundations being poured closer to Christmas.”

  Monkey Business—Marjorie’s Persian cat—wandered downstairs, stretching out his hind legs on every second step. His rich chocolate hairs were so fluffy, he looked enormous. Once her hands stroked the fur down, the kitten was actually on the skinnier side.

  He performed an elaborate double-take while passing by Cecelia’s chair, then circled around to rub himself against the table leg. She reached out a cautious finger, giving him a single stroke before returning to her coffee and cake.

  A second spray with hand sanitiser sent a tingle of sadness through Marjorie’s body. The poor woman couldn’t last more than a few minutes before starting another cleaning ritual. It was lucky the café existed as she couldn’t imagine Cecelia dealing with a full-time pet at home.

  “Can I grab a refill?” Fletcher called out with an impish grin. The student had been a regular at the café for just over a month and had quickly settled into a routine. All-day, every day.

  Setting the coffee machine onto his favourite latte treat, Marjorie opened the cupboard where she kept a small supply of chocolate buttons and marshmallows to adorn the saucers. A furry bundle leapt out, causing her to scream and clutch her chest.

  Upon deciding it wasn’t a heart attack, she scolded the small grey kitten. “Honestly, Houdini. My nerves can only take so much in one day.”

  The Chartreux cat shook his head and trotted over to join his friends in the play area. In the few weeks since he’d joined the kitten café, Houdini had shown a penchant for hiding in places that shouldn’t be accessible or escaping from places that should have kept him contained.

  “If you can’t find someone to adopt him,” Fletcher said, taking the latte piled high with foam out of her hands, “then you should take him on the road. Interest in human escape acts and displays of derring-do might’ve slowed over the years, but a kitten? Who could resist?”

  He clicked his tongue at Houdini, who wandered over with a squeaky mouse from the toy pile. As he dropped it at Fletcher’s feet, Marjorie thought the person most likely to adopt the rambunctious kitten was the man seated right in front of her.

  “You should slow down, young man,” she said, heading back to the counter. “At this rate, you’ll hit your fifteen-dollar limit by lunchtime and have nothing left for the afternoon.”

  Claiming he missed the company of regular university life, Fletcher had set up in the café. He liked to have human, and feline, interaction while completing projects via distance learning. But, like most students, his income was fixed and non-negotiable.

  Marjorie had promised to do her part to keep his tab on track with reminders, though she wouldn’t go as far as turning down his custom if he broke his budget. Five years after setting up her own business, she still had trouble managing her own income.

  The squeaky toy went flying across the room and Houdini gave chase, turning into a grey streak as he lunged for the mouse. Of all the kittens she’d looked after, he seemed the most dedicated hunter.

  Chaplin—a creamy rag doll with an unfortunate dot of black under his pink nose—might keep watch on the birds outside from the windowsill but that was as far as he went. Bounding across the room to launch himself at the glass had been a trick it only took a few head-first smashes to cure.

  “Do you have another of these carrot cake muffins?” Cecelia asked, having polished off the extravagant treat while Marjorie wasn’t looking. “I might take one with me for afternoon tea.”

  “Sure, thing.” Knowing her habits, she already had one set aside in a little cardboard box. “Do you want me to ring it up now or are you staying a little longer?”

  Cecelia headed for the counter. “I’d only stay if I had a better view,” she said, cueing another eyeroll from Fletcher.

  Marjorie finished the transaction, then threw a paper napkin at the young man. “One of these days, you’ll make me laugh and then I’ll be in trouble.”

  “Just blame it on a kitten,” Fletcher said with good-natured ease. “They’re always doing something worthy of a smile.”

  Esme Todd burst through the double doors, her partner Jerry Menalow trailing along behind at a more languid pace. “Here’re the keys,” she said with a giggle. “Don’t get up to anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Considering you pour oil on naked strangers then rub them all over, I won’t get up to what you would do, let alone what you wouldn’t.” Marjorie hung the set on a hook beneath the counter, a temporary location. Only a metre off the ground made them a temptation for the kittens, like anything else in the café. “Now, give me a hug.”

  “We’ll only be gone for a couple of weeks,” Esme said with a laugh, the embrace carrying on for longer than normal. “And we’re only down the road if you need us.”

  “I won’t interrupt your first holiday in donkey’s years,” Marjorie protested, giving her friend a last squeeze before turning to Jerry. “And when I get around to doing the same—”

  “Yeah, right.” Esme gave her a light slap on the shoulder. “As if you’d ever leave this lot alone for more than a few hours at a time.”

  ‘This lot’ stared at the couple with interest for a moment, before returning to their games and dozing.

  “And never you mind about interrupting us.” Esme slung her arm around Jerry’s waist, pulling him close. “I’m sure aft
er a few days of doing nothing, we’ll both be desperate for something to fill in the time.”

  From the looks of them, Marjorie surmised the two of them had a perfectly good idea of how to fill it. “Now, off you get,” she said, shooing them out the door. “Fletcher, can you watch the shop for a minute?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “I hope that wasn’t an open invitation for him to help himself to coffee,” Esme said with another giggle. “At least if I leave someone alone in my place for a few minutes, the worst they can do is slide off the massage table onto the floor.”

  “Sounds like a health and safety violation waiting to happen.” Marjorie pulled a cardboard box out of her apron pocket and handed it across. “I made something to keep you going on your long journey.”

  “I told you, it’s just up the road,” Jerry protested, though he took the gift of chocolate-chip biscuits willingly enough.

  “Perhaps she remembers stories of your inability to ask for directions,” Esme teased, her cheeks flushed with merriment. “I distinctly recall a certain someone who took four hours to get to Christchurch, even though it’s a straight road from here to there.”

  As the two bickered, Marjorie felt a pang of regret she wasn’t heading away somewhere herself. Esme was right. She wouldn’t feel good leaving the kittens in anyone else’s care—no matter how capable—but her heart twisted as she remembered the beautiful scenery on the drive further south.

  The large rolling mountains would be topped with green or yellow-brown grass, depending on the season. Passing motorists would get baaed at by fat lambs growing out of their spring coats to don the thicker garb of winter. Clusters of cabbage trees—a giant lily, despite their odd name—encircled knobbly outcroppings of sandstone, worn into a thousand different shapes by the prevailing wind.

  “Take lots of pictures,” she ordered Esme, backing up a step. “I want to see everything you get up to.” Then, as she caught the amused glint in Jerry’s eye, she amended, “Almost everything.”

  As their car sped down the hill, Marjorie waved goodbye, watching them until they were out of sight, then keeping tab for a few minutes more, just in case. With a sigh, she turned back to the café, just in time to see a streak of fluffy grey disappearing around the corner.

  “Houdini! You get back right here, this instant.” As Marjorie gave chase, she saw Fletcher’s startled face press up against the window. With a wave to show his help was welcome, she sprinted down the side of the café, turning the corner to find no trace of the kitten.

  “What happened?” Fletcher called out as he reached the opposite side a moment later. “I swear I never touched the door.”

  “He probably picked the lock on the back door,” Marjorie said, only half-joking. “Now, if I were a little troublemaker where would I be?”

  “There,” Fletcher called, pointing behind Esme’s rooms a second before he took off, laughing. “Naughty kitty.”

  “I don’t think you can shame him into coming out of his hiding place,” Marjorie said as she caught up to the student, their prey disappearing once again. “More’s the pity.”

  For the next half hour, the café sat neglected as the pair alternated between cries of victory as they spotted the escapee and groans of despair as he eluded their clutches. Finally, just as she thought it might be time to call out the big guns of a bowl full of salmon, Houdini skated too close to Fletcher as he made a run for the corner of Esme’s studio.

  The young man grabbed hold of the Chartreux’s middle and lifted the kitten above his head. “Gotcha!”

  “Well done.” Marjorie held the first door open for the pair to enter, then made sure the catch snicked back into place before opening the second. A repeat performance would throw her entire schedule off-kilter.

  “Look at him,” Fletcher said, hands on hips after releasing Houdini. The kitten wandered off to a corner and tossed a feather toy into the air for the pleasure of stalking it until it landed. “He acts like nothing happened.”

  The poor man sounded out of breath but declined another coffee when Marjorie offered one on the house. Instead, he stared down the hillside at the middle of Hanmer Springs, aghast.

  “Why the long face?” she asked, feeling uneasy. “Is something wrong?”

  “There are police cars all over the place,” Fletcher said, his voice hoarse. All trace of his playful attitude had gone. “It looks like a raid.”

  Marjorie agreed with his assessment but didn’t understand his resulting horror. “It’s not your house, is it?”

  Fletcher shook his head, but soon made his excuses and departed a good hour earlier than usual.

  As she cleared away the table, greeting a new arrival with a cheerful smile and keeping a beady eye out for escaping kittens, Marjorie saw the student had left behind a partially completed clipboard. The required fields were printed in neat handwriting for half the page, then cut off in the middle of a word.

  “You scamp,” she said to Houdini as she fetched the new customer’s order. “If you’d just stayed put for the afternoon, you might’ve had a new owner.”

  Monkey Business appeared twice as shocked as Houdini, raising a smile on Marjorie’s face.

  “I’ll just put it safely away here,” she said to the kittens, storing the form in the ‘odds and sods’ drawer under the counter. “Then tomorrow, we’ll see if Fletcher picks up again where he left off.”

  Chapter Two

  The next morning, news of a major drug bust kept Marjorie regaled as she baked up the day’s offerings. The police cars Fletcher had seen in the centre of town were just the beginning. Reinforcements had been called in from Christchurch to deal with the numerous arrests and lawyers all over the region fielded calls from suspects.

  Given the high quantities of cocaine cited on the radio, Marjorie was surprised their quiet hamlet didn’t sport a more overachieving vibe.

  “Are you trying to help?” Marjorie asked as Monkey Business jumped in the air near her feet. “Because if so, you could try measuring out the cinnamon for the pinwheel scones instead of trying to trip me.”

  At the word cinnamon, his ears perked up, and he padded behind her until she pulled his favourite spice from the rack. With one eye on the clock, she tapped a small cloud of the deliciously scented ingredient into her palm and leant down to let Monkey sniff it. One long inhalation resulted in a furious bout of sneezing. Despite the effect, he always came back for more.

  “That’s enough,” she said, three sneezing fits later. “I need to put these scones in the oven in the next five minutes, otherwise they won’t be done in time.”

  While she washed her hands in the sink, the Persian kitten appeared distinctly unimpressed. With a final sneeze, he trotted over to the sofa and jumped up to survey her from his favourite seat.

  “Oh, now you’ve brought the whole gang out,” she said as Chaplin stalked into the kitchen, pouncing on a dropped spoon as though it was prey. Hard on his heels were the Chartreux and a cute black kitten named Midnight. “Everybody out of the kitchen,” Marjorie said, clapping her hands. “I’ve got work to do.”

  The kittens paid the same amount of attention as always, taking her commands as an invitation to commence mayhem. Luckily, a few toys left on the kitchen windowsill allowed her to entice them into the lounge. Between their squeals and purrs, soon the rest of the posse were waking, ready for a nice hunt.

  In different circumstances, that might have involved a dawn stroll giving the early birds a nasty surprise. For Marjorie’s kittens, it just meant stumbling their way out of the night playpen and mewing by their empty bowls.

  “In a minute,” she called out in a sing-song voice. “I just need to pop these into the oven.”

  With the scones tucked away, Marjorie set the timer for twelve minutes then organised the kitten’s breakfast bowls. She’d only just washed her hands again when the oven dinged, announcing the cinnamon treats were ready.

  “It’s almost a pity to cover this gorgeously cracked br
own sugar with icing,” she told a curious Chaplin before happily swirling the entire vanilla-flavoured bowl over the top. With the heat of the oven still warming the scone’s surface, it melted down to a thin topping, which in time would harden into a shiny glaze.

  As she lifted them with practised fingertips onto a wire cooling rack, Marjorie heard the crunch of gravel outside the house. She opened a window, peering down into the carpark below. Nothing.

  She’d pulled the window closed when the sound came again. This time, when she poked her head out, Marjorie called, “Is there anybody out there?”

  After her experience a few months before, which involved a burglar turned attempted-murderer breaking into the house, Marjorie’s nerves weren’t up to the task of doing nothing. A horror movie full of ideas floated through her head. Chief amongst them, what would happen to a leading lady if she ventured outside alone.

  “Any of you natural born killers want to take a peek outside?” she asked the assembly but received no offers of assistance. “If I call the police and they come down here to investigate nothing, my reputation will be shot.”

  But better her reputation than her chest.

  Marjorie checked her mobile phone was in her pocket before venturing downstairs, flicking on the outside lights for a better view. From the safety of the locked back door, she stared through the rippled glass, squinting to make sense of the view.

  A chunky possum ambled into sight, sniffing at everything, whiskers twitching. The thick pelt of winter was shedding now, leaving the animal with large tufts of thick fur moulting to reveal the lighter coat needed for spring and summer.

  With a sigh of relief, Marjorie turned the light back off. She made a mental note to leave a comment on the Department of Conservation site, later. Although the possums appeared cute and cuddly, the introduced species wreaked havoc on local flora and fauna, and would displace the natural ecosystem if left unchecked.