by Susan Napier
‘And first thing tomorrow I’m going to sort out that damned rat of yours!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN Kate walked into the house the next afternoon her heart jumped to find Drake standing barefoot in the middle of her kitchen, looking rumpled and gorgeously surly in the same shirt and jeans he had worn the previous night.
‘I thought I locked up when I left; how did you get in?’ she said breathlessly, setting down the cardboard box and large plastic bag she was carrying by the leg of the table.
‘The rental agent gave me a spare key for emergencies,’ he admitted, eyeing her grumpily.
‘You mean you could have come in here any time you wanted?’ she said faintly, thinking of 1000 Tips For A Healthy Pregnancy, which she thought she might have left open in the bathroom.
‘I could but I haven’t—I respect people’s personal privacy,’ he said pointedly, as if reading her mind. ‘I haven’t been pawing through your secrets. But I told you I’d be over to help you with your pest problem, and when you didn’t answer your door I thought something might be wrong…’
‘What—like something out of Curse Of The Rat People? Did you think I might be lying chewed up on the floor?’ she said sceptically, hugging herself with the knowledge that he worried about her in her absence. So it wasn’t entirely a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’…
‘Besides, you said you’d be here first thing. It’s now after lunch.’ She toned down her sarcasm as she took in his slightly bloodshot eyes, and dissipated expression. ‘Are you all right? You don’t look so great.’ Which was a lie—Drake always looked terrific, whatever his physical state. And she had never known him to be ill. He either had the constitution of an ox or, more likely, he downplayed and concealed his illnesses the way he did the rest of his vulnerabilities.
He ran a hand through his hair and scratched his grainy chin. ‘I was up all night writing.’ He glared at her with a mixture of accusation and bewilderment. ‘I didn’t crash out until six a.m. I’ve only just woken up.’
Oh, so maybe she had been out of sight and mind for a while…
‘That’s not my fault,’ she defended herself from his look. ‘I didn’t order you to go home and write yourself into a coma.’
‘No, you just wound me up, pumped me full of adrenalin and kicked me loose. What else did you expect me to do?’
She looked quickly away, smoothing back her hair and composing her face into a cool expression. Not quickly enough, however, for he suddenly chuckled knowingly.
‘Why, Kate, is that what you did last night? Go to bed and dream a little wet dream of me?’ he taunted. ‘What a waste, when the real thing was right there for the asking.’
‘But then you wouldn’t have got all those pages written,’ she told him stoutly, fighting to keep the heat that suffused her body out of her face.
‘Maybe I wouldn’t have minded the sacrifice,’ he said silkily.
‘Well, I would—I don’t want you to sacrifice anything for me,’ she said with haughty pride. ‘People who feel forced to surrender something they value for the sake of someone else generally tend to get bitter and twisted if things don’t work out the way they planned. My mother says she sacrificed her valuable time and money to give me a good education, which I’ve wasted, and she never lets me forget it. So, no, thanks, don’t make any grand gestures on my behalf…’
‘Wow, I did hit a sore point, didn’t I?’ he murmured. ‘I was only kidding. Once I’m in the grip of writing fever I just have to keep going until it runs its course. It’s a very anti-social tendency so it’s actually quite useful when inspiration strikes in the middle of the night.’
‘I saw a light on up in your office when I got up for a glass of water some time around three,’ she confessed, revealing her own somewhat restless night. ‘I thought you had probably just forgotten to turn it off.’
He had shown her his office the night of their scallop dinner—a large, book-lined, high-ceilinged room upstairs in the back corner of the house, with folding doors that opened onto a balcony shared with his bedroom, facing directly out to the beach. There was also a window on the other external wall, which overlooked Kate’s holiday haven and the northeastern end of the beach, but it was fitted with reflector glass and motorised tilting shutters, which he usually kept closed. He didn’t like to feel claustrophobically shut in when he was working, he said, but he needed the security of walls and at least the illusion of total privacy.
‘It’s probably still on now. When I get in the zone I don’t even think about practicalities like light, heat, food, sleep. I work and drop. It can make me a bit of a bastard the next day, though.’
Crudely, but aptly put. ‘Is that an apology?’
‘No, an explanation. Which is more than you’ve given me.’ He left her to digest the wider implications of his comment as his eyes fell to the carry-box by her feet, which had begun to shudder and squeak.
‘What in the—?’ His eyes shot back to her face. ‘You caught the rat yourself!’ His surprise had a tiny suggestion of chagrin—St George deprived of his dragon.
She smiled wryly. ‘Sort of.’ She bent down to unfold the handles and reef open the top.
‘You’re not going to let it go after all that—?’ Drake lapsed into silence as he noticed the Vet Clinic’s stamp on the flap of the box in the same moment that a ball of furiously squeaking fur bounced out onto the faded floor and resolved itself into a small, glossy black kitten with a white breast and underbelly, and four white paws that immediately scampered into motion.
‘A kitten? You went and got that little thing from Ken to catch a rat?’ said Drake incredulously as he watched the creature skitter around a table leg. ‘I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but you’ve been suckered—it’ll be eaten alive.’ The kitten turned in response to the deep rumble of his voice, approaching his bare feet with the little black tail held high, wagging eagerly back and forth, and the squeaking redoubling in volume.
‘That is my rat,’ Kate told him with a rueful look at her night-time nemesis. ‘I didn’t get it from Ken; I took it to him.’
It had been a very uncomfortable trip, too, with the kitten squeaking in protest at being cooped up in the semi-dark again, poking a pathetic white paw through the tiny ventilating gap she had created in one of her suitcases by loosely tying the two zip fasteners together.
She watched the black tail start to wag even faster as Drake scooped up the kitten in one big hand, and cupped it level with his face, inspecting the small, triangular face with the yellow eyes and tiny white moustache angled crookedly under a black nose.
‘When I opened the door under the house to shine the torch in, she came rushing out, squeaking to beat the band. Ken said she’s not as young as she looks—several months at least—but she must have been hiding under the house and coming out at night scavenging for food, and then got trapped under there somehow in the last few days. He says she’s lost a little bit of body weight, so he’s given me some supplements to add to her food.’ She nudged the plastic bag with her sneakered foot.
The kitten suddenly lunged forward and began swiping her piquant little face back and forth against Drake’s nose, nuzzling his mouth in between squeaks.
‘I think she likes you.’ Kate laughed as Drake emerged from the flurry of friendliness spitting strands of black fur and hastily set the kitten back down on the floor to resume her exploration of the kitchen.
‘Why can’t she miaow like other cats?’ he mumbled critically, still picking fur off his tongue. ‘You’d have rescued her much sooner if she’d had the decency to behave like a proper feline.’
‘I don’t know, but I think it’s cute,’ she said defensively. ‘Ken says not all cats vocalise in the same way—he said it could be physiological, or because she hasn’t been around other cats who miaow. He said she must have been in good condition when she got trapped under the house or she wouldn’t still have fat stores left in her body, so she’s either a very good hunter
or someone’s pet, but no one had been asking about missing kittens.’ She smiled as the animal made a daring pounce on a patch of sunlight.
‘Ken seems to have said an awful lot,’ he remarked, eyes narrowing on her softened face as he crossed his arms across his chest. Her gaze jumped to his. ‘So how come you still have the cat and not him?’ he pressed. ‘Didn’t you take it to the clinic to hand it in?’
Kate’s gaze slid away from his and she busied herself unpacking the plastic bag. ‘Well, yes…but Ken gave Koshka a thorough check-over and all the tests, and there’s nothing actually wrong with her—the nurse gave her a good brushing and she doesn’t even have fleas!’ She darted him a triumphant look that was met with lowered brows.
‘Koshka? You’ve given her a name already?’
‘It’s Russian for cat. Ken was calling her Kitty—I had to give her something prettier than that!’ she insisted.
‘Oh, yes, he knows all the right triggers.’ His voice dripped with sarcasm as he shook his head. ‘Don’t tell me he persuaded you to adopt it?’ he growled. ‘What’s going to happen when you go home? You’re not allowed pets in your town house.’
‘I know that. I’m not keeping her—just fostering for a few weeks, until I leave, or Ken can find her a home…’
Drake rolled his eyes. ‘Where have I heard that one before?’
‘He said she’d be kept alone in a cage if she stayed at the clinic, whereas here she can prowl and play, and we’ll be good company for each other,’ she hastened to add.
‘You already have company—me. Not to mention my faithful hound.’ His mouth took on a malicious curl. ‘I guess the problem will be solved soon enough. Koshka won’t be more than a single gulp for Prince.’
Kate gasped, and even though she knew he was joking she protectively snatched up her little charge, cuddling the warm, squirming body into the curve of her neck, laughing softly when a raspy tongue began to lap at the side of her jaw. She didn’t notice the bloodshot brown eyes darken with a moody bleakness as Drake watched the tender byplay.
‘We won’t let that big goof get you, will we, Koshka?’ she crooned, tickling a white chin and letting small, sharp teeth gnaw at her scratching finger, the wagging tail beating a light tattoo against her breast. ‘Mummy will look after you.’
‘Foster-mummy,’ corrected Drake. ‘You’ll get attached—how are you going to feel when you have to give her back?’
‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,’ said Kate, letting the cat scamper free to investigate the hall, jogged by his abrupt tone into remembering that he, too, had been fostered. She hoped that after the horror of his mother’s suicide, he had passed into loving hands, but the indications were unfortunately otherwise. He obviously had no trust in maternal figures.
‘What do you know about caring for a cat?’
‘Not much, but I bought a book at the clinic, and I’m sure it’s largely a matter of practical common sense. I have plenty of that,’ she reminded him.
‘She’ll shed all over your clothes. You’ll hate that. You’re very fastidious.’
‘I’m not compulsive about it, and cats are fastidious creatures, too—they’re always cleaning themselves. Anyway, who cares about a bit of stray fluff when they’re on holiday?’
‘It’ll get on the furniture, too. The landlord might object.’
‘She’s a short-hair so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but I did buy one of those sticky rollers from Ken’s receptionist just in case,’ she admitted.
‘Boy, they really saw you coming, didn’t they? How many cat toys did you buy?’ he said, moving over to peer into the top of the bag.
‘A few,’ she said, batting away his hands and scrunching it closed to hide the embarrassing profusion of balls, catnip treats and clockwork mice. She gave him a very cool look. ‘They’re educational.’
‘She’s a cat; you’re not going to turn her into Einstein in a few weeks. She might wag her tail like a dog, but the similarity ends there. You can’t train cats the way you can train dogs.’
‘You mean some dogs. Your dog doesn’t seem to be very well trained.’
‘Oh, so we’re reduced to insulting each other’s pets now, are we? Prince is a supreme individualist—he knows what he’s supposed to do, he just doesn’t want to do it.’
‘Like master, like pet,’ she told him cattily.
‘So, I guess that makes you cute and soft and cuddly, then,’ he said, with an insinuating smile. She tossed her head at him and he laughed, banishing the last of the brooding shadows that had hung around him. ‘You bristle just like a cat, too. I always thought of you as a cool, sinuous, haughty Siamese and now I’m finding out that you’re a cosy little bundle of mixed-breed mischief. You even squeak when you’re excited. You know, that little sound you make when you—’
‘Oh, go write a novel, why don’t you?’ Kate said, shoving him towards the door. She had never blushed so much in her life as she had this last week. It had to be the over-excited hormones running riot in her bloodstream, upsetting her normal levels of biological self-containment.
‘Thanks, I think I will.’ He grinned, his eyes briefly shifting to focus on something in the middle distance, in a familiar sign of mental abstraction.
But just as she was resigned to having been eclipsed by his soaring imagination his gaze focused back on Kate’s flustered face, and he hooked her around the waist, arching her lissom body back over his arm for a long, lush, lascivious kiss. He hadn’t shaved or showered—he must have staggered straight out of the house from his bed—but Kate loved the sexy scrape of his jaw and the earthy male ripeness exuded by his hard body beneath the rumpled clothes. It made her think of long, sweaty nights of passionate exuberance and torrid delights.
‘You said you haven’t been with anyone but me since we met,’ he murmured, his warm breath feeding into her mouth as he reminded her of the words she had blurted out last night. ‘Was that true?’
‘Of course it’s true,’ she sighed, knowing that to deny it now would be a gross self-betrayal. If the truth of her fidelity made him gloat it would at least show him capable at some level of enjoying normal human possessiveness without confusing it with pathological obsession. And if it made him feel nervous or trapped by the implied commitment on her part, then he would just have to deal with it!
‘Quite a pair, aren’t we?’ She felt his smile shape her lips. ‘Free to do what we please—and what we do is please each other so well that celibacy becomes an active pleasure when we’re apart.’ He broke away from her mouth and saluted her stunned brow with a departing kiss. ‘I didn’t stop looking at other women the night we met, but I certainly stopped wanting them—it’s surprising how sexy a stretch of celibacy can be when you know what’s waiting for you at the other end, or should I say who…?’
Having made his stupendous admission with breath-taking nonchalance, he cruised out the door, careful to close it against escaping felines.
Kate felt winded—and perversely betrayed. Her proud portrayal of serene indifference to all the gossip and rumours about other women had been a wasted effort. Drake had been faithful to their relationship despite the no-strings caveat he himself had insisted upon. For months…years…she had forced herself to accept his tacit policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ when there had been nothing for Drake to tell!
It was typical of Drake to slip her a life-altering revelation about himself under the guise of flippancy, and even more typical of him to disappear afterwards. The characters in his books might be dissected to within an inch of their lives, but in reality Drake preferred his own character armour to remain firmly in place and to dole out psychological insights with miserly reluctance. He knew that knowledge was power and he was very careful not to put the balance of power in any hands but his own. He had just handed a little more over to Kate. He would now pull up the drawbridge until he felt comfortable with what he had done.
She wasn’t in the least surprised when she didn’t
see him for another day, and when he did reappear he made no reference to their previous conversation, dropping back into the safe realm of daily walks, teasing arguments and sexy banter and the occasional shared meal. There was a new physical awareness between them, however, unrelated to sexual tension that was always there in the background, and Kate knew that the next step was hers to take. She was in no hurry to make it, knowing that it could destroy the painstaking trust that they had been slowly building up, and take him away from her for ever. From attempting to seduce her at every turn, Drake was now playing a waiting game and she was slightly chagrined to recognise that she had half wanted him to take the decision out of her hands and use his sexual dominance to force her to tell him what he needed to know.
Drake continued to also hold himself aloof from Koshka’s eager pursuit of his affections and after a few days of keeping the cat indoors, on Ken’s advice, Kate was amused to see Prince as disdainful as his master of this pretender to the throne of her attention.
Koshka, however, wasn’t in the least oppressed by her failure to charm, the disparity in their sizes, or the supposed natural enmity between cats and dogs. Tail wagging, she would greet Prince with friendly squeaks whenever he appeared, trotting curiously in his shadow and ignoring his gummy show of yellow teeth when she tried to steal the scraps that fell from his food bowl. When he snored in his favourite shady spot beneath the hedge she would prowl over, batting at a floppy ear or sleepy twitch of the tail, and when he grandly ignored her teasing she would curl up beside him in a sunny spot of grass for a quick catnap before wandering off to find some fresh, feline challenge.
It was Koshka’s habit of making sudden, thundering sprints up and down the house for no apparent reason that was the reason for Kate’s literal, and figurative, downfall a few days later.
She was carrying her sun-lounger, book and water bottle down the verandah steps when a glossy black ball of lightning shot out of the house behind her and streaked between her feet, tripping her up and pitching her head first down the stairs. Her flailing hand made a frantic grab for the wooden hand-rail, but only her fingernails made painful contact with the splintered paint, throwing her at an angle over the side of the steps. Seeing the rocky garden edge looming up she desperately tried to twist and protectively curl up her body, missing the rocks but landing heavily on top of the metal bar of the sun-lounger, which had hit the ground sideways, unfolding as it fell.
