Hearts in Motion

by Edie Ramer

  I’m important, Quigley said.

  We’re all important, Minnie said. Mom loves us, and she loves Cara, and she wants to mate with Holden. She’ll be so happy that we’re safe with him that she’ll kiss him and everything will be all right.

  And she’ll see his big house, Quigley said, and want to live with him.

  Minnie wasn’t sure about that. She liked their smaller house just fine. But Quigley liked bigger things, and she needed him to be on her side, so she purred an agreement. Lion got up, and all three trotted to the back of the house. They settled in a spot where the building was behind them, and the patio was on one side. Protected by the house on two sides, they only had to watch for predators on the other two sides.

  In the grass around them, the crickets sang, and the sun had started its downward journey. From inside the house, Minnie heard Cara’s high voice and Holden’s deeper rumble.

  A meow came at the back door that was open on the inside. “Epic,” Cara said, her voice floating out, “you can’t go outside. Bad kitty.”

  Epic still meowed. Minnie didn’t say anything, and neither did the others. Then the inside door closed.

  Epic heard us, Lion said.

  A phone rang, and they leaned closer to the house to hear better.

  After saying hello, Holden let the person on the invisible side do the talking. Minnie’s heart beat faster. The voice was small, but she heard enough to know it was Mom.

  Holden didn’t talk much. Mom was doing all the talking. Her voice wasn’t loud enough for Minnie to understand the words, but the words tumbled out too fast and the pitch was high and trembly.

  “Do you want me to look for them?” Holden asked.

  A sob came from the other end of the phone. Minnie’s head jerked up. Mom. She was crying!

  Quigley made a sad sound, and Minnie ignored him. They were doing this for Mom’s good. It had to work. The sadder Mom was now, the happier she would be when they were found.

  “You’re sure?” Holden said.

  Mom said something, and Holden said, “Call us if...when...they come back.”

  Mom said something else, and Holden said, “Remember, if you need me, let me know and I’ll be there.”

  Minnie concentrated hard but couldn’t hear Mom’s reply. Then Holden hung up, the call done.

  Quigley was already telling Lion what he’d heard. Minnie lay down again and closed her eyes.

  Sometimes humans needed to be scared.

  Humans thought too much. Even Mom. When she was scared, she would stop thinking with her mind and think with her heart.

  Minnie closed her eyes. No more talking. No more thinking. Her body wanted to sleep.

  What if it doesn’t work? Lion asked.

  She kept her eyes closed and her mouth shut because she didn’t have an answer.

  Tomorrow morning they would see.

  ***

  Abby walked along the streets, the sky a dark gray. Her feet were sore from covering blocks and blocks of the city sidewalks. And her throat was sore from calling the names of her pets.

  No, not pets. Family.

  It felt like it was happening to her again. Losing multiple members of her family at once.

  Grief and fear welled up inside her chest and throat, choking her, strangling her heart.

  A dog barked, and she turned her head. “Lion!” she called, her voice hoarse. “Lion.”

  The dog barked again, and this time she could tell the bark wasn’t as full as Lion’s. She put her hand over her mouth to hold back a sob then continued to trudge home.

  Earlier, she’d insisted that Grace go to her friend’s for another overnighter, telling Grace that she was sure the animals would come back soon. She’d even managed to dredge up a smile.

  That’s how she’d lived most of her life for the past nine years. Doing what she needed to do and keeping her smile on. Not letting anyone know how scared she was most of the time.

  Not even herself. Not until today.

  But before today, she’d had her cat, and then Lion, and then Quigley. She’d had their warm bodies, and she’d had their love.

  She’d thought she had their love. She’d been as sure of it as she was sure there was a sky above her head and the earth beneath the soles of her sneakers.

  Why had they left like that? Why had they run away from her? Minnie and Quigley only left the house to go to the vet, and she had to force them into the carriers.

  “Are you okay?” a woman called.

  She looked to the side and saw a man and a woman, probably not much older than her, sitting on the front porch, their light on. There was a tricycle on the sidewalk and a bicycle with training wheels.

  They were normal people. Not like her. People thought she was normal, but that was because she pretended so well.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and her voice broke like a bad cell phone connection. She speeded up her pace, not wanting them to be nice to her. Not wanting the couple to pity her. She might start crying again.

  She needed to go home. Maybe Minnie, Lion, and Quigley would be waiting for her.

  She walked faster, though from the pain on the bottom of her right foot, she was pretty sure she was getting a blister. She was only five and a half blocks away from her small home, time enough for her thoughts to dwell on all the things she’d done wrong. The ways she’d failed Grace and failed her parents’ memory. When they’d lived, she’d been one of those kids who thought her parents would always be there to pick her up if she fell. She’d taken advantage of it, and she’d run a little too wild for a while.

  Then they’d died, and the money wasn’t there, and she’d done the best she could, but her best was pretty crappy.

  And now she finally had a chance to start her own business in a bigger way, but it was being offered at a high price.

  Holden had made her another offer. Financially it might be better... But personally, the price could be her heart. And she didn’t think she could afford that.

  She couldn’t even afford the loss of her two cats and one dog.

  With them gone, none of the other stuff seemed to matter. Some people would say she was silly, that they were just pets. But to her, they were much more than that. They were family. The children she had never had. Somehow, she must have failed them.

  She started to run, calling their names in a croaking voice until it cracked and the pain in her foot forced her to slow. Half-running with a limp, breathing harshly, she told herself that when she got home, they would be there, they would be there, they would be there...

  Tears ran down her cheeks, and she scrubbed them off.

  If she didn’t find them soon, she didn’t know what she would do.

  25

  A dog barking loudly snapped Holden out of a dream where he was running down the street searching for something and couldn’t remember what that something was.

  Then he heard a cat meow, but it sounded louder and fuller than Epic. And it seemed to come from his backyard, outside his bedroom.

  He opened his eyes. The sun crept into his bedroom through the spaces around the drapes his designer had put up. Another meow came, this one thinner, coming from inside the house. Epic, his waking brain said.

  Then two cats meowed outside the house.

  The synapses in his brain started firing. Abby’s phone call. The two runaway cats. The runaway dog.

  He rolled out of bed and grabbed his pants from the chair near the window. He’d just zipped them up when his door banged open. Cara poked her head in the room, her eyes wide, her smile brilliant.

  “Lion and Minnie and Quigley are outside! I can’t open the door. I didn’t see Abby. Is she here, too? Hurry, Daddy, hurry.”

  Before he could answer, she twirled and raced away, her bouncing blond hair, pink top, and blue shorts disappearing, her bare feet slapping on the wooden floor. He grabbed a shirt and pulled it on as he chased after her.

  She reached the French doors before him, and was struggling to unlock the
m when he came up behind her.

  “It’s them, Daddy, it’s them!” Cara danced away from the door handle. “Open the door! Open it!”

  “I’m opening it.” He pulled it open, and the cats darted into his house, the dog panting after them.

  “Where’s Abby? How come Abby’s not with them?” Cara ran outside, yelling, “Abby! Abby! Where are you?”

  “Cara, come back in.” He followed her onto the patio in his bare feet. “She’s not here. We have to call her.”

  Her forehead puckered, Cara turned back. “How do you know she’s not here?”

  He shoved his hand through his hair. “She called me last night and said the cats and dog were missing.”

  Her head tilted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  She looked at him for what seemed a long time but must have been only about ten seconds. “Next time tell me.”

  “I will,” he said, even as he thought he wouldn’t.

  Adults were supposed to shield children.

  She hurried past him. “Let’s call her now.”

  Inside again, he picked up the phone and clicked on her number. Cara held out her hands. “Let me tell her, Daddy! Let me tell her.”

  He handed it to her, and just as she grabbed it, he heard Abby’s voice say, “Holden? They still aren’t—”

  Cara whipped the phone to her ear. “It’s me! Guess what? They’re here!”

  ***

  Abby pulled up the driveway to the Frank Lloyd Wright-style house that looked expensive and beautiful. Holden had said he would bring the three furry members of their family to their place, but she’d yelled the news to Grace, who’d come home from her sleepover early, too worried to laugh with her friends as if nothing had happened. Then Abby had grabbed her purse and car keys and said, “We’re coming,” and hung up.

  Once in the SUV, she’d realized she didn’t know his address, and she made Grace call to get it. Here they were now. Stopping the car. Getting out. Running to the front door. Heart beating too fast. Emotions too exposed. Hurting and hoping.

  Her eyes were bleary from not getting enough sleep. She felt like a wreck, as if she’d been sucked inside a whirlpool and dumped back to the ground. No bruises on the outside...but her insides were black and blue and trembling.

  Holden opened the door, wearing a white T-shirt and shorts that showed he worked out and had great legs. Cara pushed in front of him, beaming at her and Grace, saying, “You’re here! You’re here in my house! You and Grace and Lion and Minnie and Quigley are all here!”

  Abby gazed at her, Holden, Minnie, Lion, Quigley, and Epic, and a flood of emotion welled up inside her, filling her, turning her into a puddle of feelings. Tears warmed her eyes, and she crouched to hug Cara. Cara’s arms clasped her neck tightly, and Abby smelled her little-girl freshness.

  “I wish you were my mom,” Cara whispered, again.

  Abby was losing count of the number of times Cara said that. Each time it broke her heart—because she hated it that Cara’s real mother didn’t treasure her the way she deserved. The way any child deserved. She wanted to answer, but if she said anything, she knew sobs of relief and this overload of emotion inside her would burst out. And she would cry and cry and cry the way she’d done every night for months after her parents’ deaths. Crying against her pillow, so Grace would never know.

  Until her tears had dried up, and she’d thrown out her mildewed pillow and sworn she would never cry like that again.

  Instead of words, she hugged Cara again and kissed her on her cheek.

  Minnie was meowing at her, scratching her bent knee, her way of saying, “Me, me, me. Pay attention to me.”

  Then Minnie climbed up her knee and was between her and Cara. For a second, Abby was hugging both of them, then just Minnie, who scrabbled her way up to Abby’s shoulders, her nails pricking through the cotton of Abby’s purple top until she got close enough for Abby to lower her chin and kiss the top of her head and say in a voice that kept cracking, “Thank God, you’re okay. Thank God, thank God.”

  Quigley was meowing at her, and she laughed shakily and crouched to hug him, too. Grace was crying over Lion, telling him how much she’d missed him, and Lion was licking her face.

  Then Epic was there, meowing to his friends, and Abby petted her then crawled on the rug to pet Lion. Looping her eyes over Lion’s neck, she felt Holden’s gaze on her. She knew she looked like a crazy woman, but she didn’t care.

  This was what an open wound looked like, she thought, all the nerve ends exposed. That’s what one night without her pets had done to her.

  Leaning her forehead against the side of Lion’s neck, she breathed in his dog scent and hung on. Movement came beside her. A new, citrusy scent added to the dog scent as a hand touched her back.

  She turned just enough to see Holden, a concerned frown on his forehead. For a mad second, she fought an impulse to release Lion and fling herself against his broad shoulders.

  “Here.” He thrust two tissues at her.

  She looked at him for a blank second before she realized tears were running down her cheeks. As if hypnotized, she took the tissues then wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She didn’t know what to do with the used tissues, so she shoved them in her shorts’ pocket.

  “Thank you for calling,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I don’t know why they left my home, or why they came here.”

  “Neither do I, but I thank them for it.”

  She scrambled to her feet, and he straightened. They stood so close to one another she could see the navy blue flecks in his eyes that stared at her as if she were a chocolate cake and he was a chocoholic who’d missed his last Chocoholics Anonymous meeting.

  “Remember what I said the first time you came to my house?” she asked.

  “I remember everything,” he said, his voice low and intimate.

  Her quivering emotions took another leap. She shot him a look that said, Don’t do this to me.

  “I said I wanted to kick you.”

  The corners of his lips slanted up. “I appreciated your restraint.”

  “You shouldn’t. I’ve thought of kicking you often since then. In fact, I’m thinking about kicking you right now.”

  “I like that about you.”

  “You want me to kick you?”

  He shook his head, one side of his mouth curved up. “I find it refreshing that you’re not like most women. You don’t look at me and see a pile of money.” He leaned forward, and when he spoke in a husky murmur, she could feel his warm breath on her face. “You see a man.”

  Heat poured through her. “A flawed man. You don’t laugh enough.”

  “I know. I need someone to help me work on the flaws. Someone to make me laugh.”

  She stared at him and started to shake. The last thing she wanted right now was to cry in front of him. She snapped around. “I need air,” she said, her voice wobbling.

  She couldn’t stay here. If she did, she would melt. She headed toward the French doors. The back of her neck prickled, and then the entire skin of her back joined in, and she glanced behind her, not surprised to see Holden. “Don’t follow me. If you do, I really will kick you.”

  Then she opened the door, stepped onto the patio, and closed it behind her.

  26

  Holden looked behind him and saw Cara and Grace staring at him, their eyes wide and their mouths open. The dog and cats stared at him, too, then Minnie said something to him, and Quigley joined in. He had the insane idea they were urging him on.

  “Stay,” he ordered all of them. As if they would listen to him.

  He opened the French door, stepped onto the patio. He was done with being fearful of the future. He was done with letting his past hold him back. He would fight for her love. He would fight for his chance at happiness.

  Abby stood at the railing, her shoulders stiffening as he approached her. He hoped she really wouldn’t kick him, but he wasn’t going to let
anything stop him from saying what he needed to say.

  He halted next to her. A small breeze gusted, the sun shone down on them, the smell of the morning sunlight and dew drops on grass melded with the smell of water. He gazed at the lake. There were two fishing boats on the lake, one sailboat, and a couple in a two-person kayak.

  “You like to kayak?” he asked. “Or sail or fish?”

  “I kayak sometimes.”

  “If you lived here, you could kayak anytime you want.”

  “There’s public access to the lake. I can already kayak anytime I want.”

  Laughter rumbled inside him. He loved it that she didn’t fawn over him. Loved her sharp tongue. Loved her mind as much as he loved her body.

  And he loved her body very much. He wished he could show her now, but they were on a patio with two young girls and four pets no doubt watching every move they made.

  “I didn’t kidnap your pets,” he said. If one road to her heart wasn’t working, then he’d try a different path. “We found them on the patio this morning.”

  “I know you would never kidnap them.”

  He gripped the patio railing to keep from putting his arm around her. He could tell by the tension radiating from her that she wasn’t ready for it and didn’t want it. Didn’t want him.

  Not yet. He needed to change that.

  “Cara wants us to get together. I think Grace would like it, too.” He looked at her, and she closed her eyes, her lips flattened into a line. He had the feeling she was on the verge of tears, teetering on a precipitous edge. He continued anyway. “Even our pets want us together.”

  She lowered her head and looked down at the grass. “I’ve never made any commitment to a man.”

  “Because of Grace?”

  Still looking down, she shook her head. “At first, I wanted what my mom and dad had, and I couldn’t settle for less. They...loved each other so deeply. I never felt that way about any boy or young man.” She raised her head and glanced sideways with a small smile. “That goes for your brother.”

  “That’s good. I would hate to be jealous of my younger brother.”