Stray Hearts

by Jane Graves

  Matt had to smile at that one. He only wished his love life was as active as she seemed to think. “You’re right. I did have a date. In fact, I was surrounded by women all night. I’m a pretty popular guy, you know.” With the over-sixty crowd.

  Kay stared at him for a moment as if she half believed him. Then she waved the thought away with a sweep of her hand. “Never mind. I’m not the least bit interested in your love life. All I wanted to do was watch—”

  She stopped suddenly, her anger momentarily suspended. Then she dropped her gaze and looked away. “Watch what, Kay?”

  She let out a breath of disgust, then turned back around with her chin raised defensively. “Something on television.”

  “Television? You mean you dragged this one-dog destruction team home with you so you wouldn’t miss a television show?”

  “It wasn’t just any television show! It was When Zombies Attack!”

  “Like that makes a difference?”

  “Yes! I wasn't about to miss an episode just because of that dog!”

  “If it was so important, why didn't you record it?”

  Her eyes narrowed and her mouth scrunched up with annoyance. “I forgot. So if I hadn't brought him home with me—”

  “You wouldn't have gotten kicked out of your apartment.”

  Kay’s lips tightened. She glared first at Rambo, then at Matt. Finally an expression of complete disgust flooded her face. “Oh, all right! It was a stupid thing to do. But that doesn’t lessen your liability in this situation.”

  “Excuse me? My liability?”

  “Yes! He’s your dog!”

  “He’s not my dog! He’s—” Matt stopped. She was right. Rambo lived at the shelter, for which he had total responsibility. “Okay, technically he’s my dog, but he didn’t get to your apartment building by himself, did he?”

  Kay took an angry step forward. “Look, I’m not going to foot the bill for something your dog did. My sister’s an attorney, and a pretty wicked one at that. If I have to—”

  “Oh, will you stop it? Is that the only way you people know how to solve problems? By dragging someone to court?”

  “Don’t you understand? I don’t have eight hundred dollars! I barely have eight dollars! When I move out, Mrs. Dalton will keep my deposit as a down payment on the eight hundred and the rent I still owe, but that means I won’t have any money for a deposit on another apartment. Before this is all over with, I’m going to be sleeping at the bus station!”

  Even though she had the approach of an attack dog, Matt was beginning to feel sorry for her. After all, she’d taken responsibility for Rambo instead of letting him run loose, which was a pretty big step for a woman who feels about dogs the way the average person feels about rattlesnakes.

  But what about the eight-hundred-dollar debt Rambo had incurred? He thought of the fifty‑dollar check in his pocket and almost laughed out loud. Maybe it would buy him a ticket to that mythical place where money grows on trees.

  “Kay, I’d really like to give you the money.”

  “Good. Then we don’t have a problem after all.”

  “But I don’t have eight hundred dollars.” He collapsed on the bench beside the front door and yanked his tie from around his neck. “Do you know where I was tonight?”

  “I told you before. I’m not interested in your love life.”

  “Oh, would you get off that? I didn’t have a date.”

  “But you said you were with women—”

  “Yes. The members of the McKinney Metropolitan Ladies’ Club. And not one of them was under age sixty. They invited me to speak about the shelter.” He tossed his muddy tie to the bench beside him, then reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a check and held it up. “The ladies were kind enough to make a donation. Fifty dollars.”

  “That’s very nice. But it’s seven hundred and fifty short.”

  “Right now, it’s just about all I’ve got.”

  “Oh, come on, Matt. Surely—”

  “I’m not joking, Kay. What my ex-wife didn’t take, the shelter has used up.”

  Then Kay remembered. He was divorced. Suddenly her anger gave way to a little curiosity. “How long were you married?”

  “Eight years.” Matt’s voice took on an unmistakably bitter tone.

  Kay shoved Matt’s muddy tie aside and sat down beside him. “So what happened? I mean, why did you...?”

  “Get a divorce? Because my ex-wife wanted an uptown address and her name in the society pages, and she finally figured out that wasn’t going to happen as long as she was married to me.”

  Matt put his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands in front of him. Kay sat in silence, listening to the rain pelt the bushes beside the porch steps. She’d come here ready to do battle with Matt, only to find herself hopelessly sympathetic with the enemy.

  “And then there’s the shelter,” Matt went on. “I bought the place next door so I could take in strays. It’s something I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a kid. We were pretty broke back then, so I never had pets, but I thought when I grew up....” His voice faded away, his face falling into a disillusioned frown. “Now I’m broke again, and I have thirty-some mouths to feed.”

  Kay remembered the way he’d sweated over that rattletrap air conditioner, with grease from head to toe, and now she knew why. So he wouldn’t have to call a repairman.

  “I’m sorry, Kay,” Matt said. “I have no idea why I told you all that. You’ve got enough problems of your own to think about.” He rubbed his eyes, then let out a weary breath. “I guess I just wanted you to know that I’m really not...” He glanced at her, then looked away again. “...a tightwad.”

  Kay remembered that insult she’d hurled his way and cringed at how petty it sounded now. He looked so forlorn sitting on the paint-chipped bench, wet and rumpled, holding that fifty‑dollar check, that she regretted every word she’d uttered about that stupid cat litter.

  “Do you have any friends who can put you up for a while?”

  Sheila came to mind, but Kay couldn’t possibly horn in on her and Jim. They’d only been married a few months. And she couldn’t move back into the apartment building she’d just been evicted from, anyway. Unfortunately, she had no other friends she’d feel comfortable staying with more than a day or two.

  “No,” she told Matt. “I don’t.”

  “Relatives?”

  “I have a sister, but I’d rather sleep at the bus station.”

  “Could she at least loan you—”

  “No. I can’t ask her for money. She already thinks I’m incompetent.” She sighed softly. “I’ll think of something.”

  After another long silence, Matt finally stood up. “Well. I guess I’d better get Rambo back to the shelter.” He removed Kay’s belt from the dog’s collar and handed it to her. Then he got a thoughtful look on his face. He glanced up at the second floor window, then back to Kay. “You know, this is a big house. I have a spare room. It’s a mess right now, but I can clean it up.”

  “What?”

  “You can put most of your stuff in storage and bring the necessities here. After a few months you’ll have enough money for another apartment.”

  “You mean, you want me to move in?”

  “Why not?”

  Kay stared at him dumbly, at a total loss for words. “Well, because I...I can’t just jump right into something like that. I mean, I barely know you.”

  “When do you need to move?” Matt asked.

  “Uh, Saturday if I can. But—”

  “Okay. I’ll have the room cleaned out by then.”

  “Now, wait a minute! Hold on! I never actually said yes!”

  “Oh, yeah. You’ve got all those other options to consider.”

  She had no other options to consider. But move in with Matt?

  All at once she realized how dangerous that could be. He seemed to be making the offer in the most platonic way possible, but sitting here with him on this bench with nothing else present b
ut the moonlight and a very large dog, Kay forgot for a moment that he was a veterinarian and saw him only as a man. A very attractive man. A very attractive man who would be just down the hall if she moved in with him, tempting her to think about him even more than she already did when she needed desperately to stop those thoughts. He was clearly the wrong man for her. A broke veterinarian—how mortified would her family be if she brought home one of those?

  She’d completed only eighteen hours at the shelter, and she'd have to save up a lot of money before she could look for another apartment. If she moved in with Matt, it might be a long stay. She decided right then: no matter how much her body said yes, it was time for her brain to say no.

  “You don’t know me either, Matt,” she told him, trying a different approach. “I’m a pain to live with. Really. I stay up late. I eat dinner in front of the television. I clean house only when the mood strikes. I leave my underwear soaking in the sink, and I sing in the shower. Show tunes. Loud. And I’m so nasty first thing in the morning even the nice people on Good Morning America won’t talk to me.”

  Matt smiled broadly. “Me too. See you Saturday.”

  He turned and dragged Rambo through the rain toward the shelter, leaving Kay standing dumbfounded on the porch.

  So there it was. She was moving in with Matt.

  Good lord, Forester, what were you thinking?

  Matt gave Rambo a quick towel dry and put him back in his cage, all the while lambasting himself for the incredibly stupid thing he’d just done. With painful clarity, he imagined the leap in logic Robert Hollinger would make if he found out he and Kay were living together. He’d assume there was more involved than a roommate/landlord relationship. Hollinger’s plans for revenge clearly didn’t include such a thing, because that might imply that Kay wasn’t being punished enough. It didn’t matter if they were actually involved or not. If Hollinger even thought they were, the Dorland Grant was history.

  If only he’d had the good sense to keep his mouth shut and let Kay fend for herself, he wouldn’t be in this mess right now. But she’d looked so helpless standing there on his front porch, telling him she was broke and had no place to go. The invitation had been out of his mouth before he even realized it. She was the one woman on earth he needed desperately to avoid, and he’d just invited her to move in with him. How incredibly stupid was that?

  He’d just have to make sure Hollinger never found out.

  Unfortunately, Robert Hollinger wasn’t his only worry right now. What about the room he’d promised Kay?

  Returning to the house, he headed for the spare bedroom and squeaked the door open, hoping it wasn’t as bad as he remembered.

  It was worse.

  By Kay’s description of her apartment he knew she was used to something considerably more elegant than the cracked windows and dingy walls he now saw before him, not to mention the decade-by-decade collection of old furniture and other garage-sale items left by the house’s previous owners.

  He scanned the room, looking for something to give him hope. Maybe the old brass bed would be salvageable. And the dresser, too, if he could find the missing drawer. And there were a few items up in the attic he might be able to resurrect....

  Then he slumped against the door with a heavy sigh. Who was he kidding? There was no way he was ever going to make this room habitable by Saturday.

  No way.

  Kay called in a few favors from friends she’d helped move over the years and managed to get the majority of her possessions from her apartment into sixty-two-dollar-a-month storage space at Stor-Ur-Self. Then she filled her car with the bare necessities—clothes, toiletries, television. It had nearly torn her heart out to leave her beautiful apartment, and when she closed the door for the last time and handed Mrs. Dalton the key, she truly thought she was going to cry.

  She swallowed her tears and headed for Matt’s house. It was just before noon when she got there. Somehow she thought the clinic would be a little more plush than the shelter, but that hope evaporated the moment she opened the door.

  In the waiting room were the same electric-orange plastic chairs she’d seen at the shelter. A bulletin board hung on one wall with ads for local pet-related businesses, a cartoon or two, and a collage of cat and dog photos— evidently Matt’s patients. Pale gray walls and a white tile floor rounded out the utilitarian decor.

  She heard voices and saw Matt coming down the hall alongside an older woman carrying a tiny white poodle with red ribbons on his ears. “But he threw up twice,” the woman said, her voice quivering. “Twice in an hour!”

  “He’s all right, Mrs. Feinstein,” Matt told her. “It’s just a little stomach upset.” Then he saw Kay. He pointed up the stairs. “Last door on the left. I’ll be up there as soon as I can.” He nodded surreptitiously toward the old woman and gave Kay a tiny shrug that said it could be two minutes or two hours.

  As Matt gently admonished the old lady about letting her dog snack on Twinkies and fish sticks, Kay went up the creaky oak stairs. When she reached the second floor and looked through the first doorway she came to, she realized that even Matt’s living quarters left a lot to be desired.

  At one time the room had been a large bedroom complete with fireplace. Now a few chairs, a coffee table and a ratty old sofa qualified it, barely, as a living area. The beige paint on the woodwork had peeled, displaying a moss-green layer below it, and the faded wallpaper looked to be original tum-of-the-century. She had a passion for vintage homes, but lack of tender loving care made this place look just plain old.

  With great trepidation, Kay continued down the hall toward the room Matt had designated as hers, expecting more of the same tired old decor as in the living room. But when she peeked around the doorway, she was astonished at what she saw.

  Centered on the back wall between two windows sat a brass bed, a little dinged-up but brightly polished, draped with a well-worn double wedding ring quilt. A Tiffany-style lamp rested on a bedside table, its shade intact except for one tiny pane missing at its crown. An old oak dresser was missing a drawer but was polished to a warm glow and topped with a lace runner. An eclectic assortment of framed items hung on the walls, from old photographs to seafaring maps. White lace-trimmed curtains graced every window, and while their edges were tattered, when Kay drew one toward her face and inhaled, she smelled fabric softener.

  But most surprising was that the walls had been painted a clean, fresh antique white, the faint odor of latex paint still lingering in the air. The only drawback seemed to be an enormous white cat lounging in the middle of the bed, but right now she didn’t even care about that. The rest of the house might look old and tired, but this room was pretty and charming and so much more than she expected that she stared at it with wonder. It feels like my apartment, she thought, as an overwhelming wave of contentment swept over her. It feels like home.

  And her next thought was: He did this for me.

  Matt maneuvered Mrs. Feinstein out the door, hoping she would take his advice and give Andre’s shaky gastrointestinal system a rest. He shut the door and put the Closed sign in the window, then looked up the stairs, wondering if he should go up there at all.

  He’d half expected Kay to come marching back down the moment she got up there, her face screwed up with distaste at the sight of that room. But he hadn’t heard a sound from the second floor. Maybe she was waiting for him to come up before she told him how really awful it was.

  He climbed the stairs and walked down the hall toward the spare bedroom. The door stood open. He peered inside and saw Kay sitting on the bed with her back to him, staring around the room, absentmindedly running her hand across that tattered old quilt he’d found to put on the bed. He knocked softly on the door. She spun around and stood up.

  “I see you’ve met Marilyn,” Matt said.

  “Marilyn?”

  He nodded to the cat stretched out on the bed.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “The cat.”

  “I guess I should hav
e shut the door.”

  Kay just shrugged.

  “Is everything...okay?” he asked her.

  “Okay?” She said the word with disbelief, and as she glanced around the room again his heart sank.

  “Kay, about the room. I know you’re used to something a lot better than this. These odds and ends were all I had. This whole house needs a complete overhaul. One of these days—”

  “No!” she said suddenly, taking several quick steps toward him. “It’s perfect! Just...perfect.”

  He stared at her with disbelief. Perfect? This old stuff?

  “I was so upset about moving out of my apartment. But then I saw this...how you’d fixed everything up...”

  She took another step toward him, closing the gap between them, then rested her palm against his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for doing this for me.”

  Her feather-soft whisper against his ear sent warm shivers down his spine. This was totally unexpected. He’d learned to deal with the belligerent side of Kay. That was familiar ground. But this sweet, vulnerable side of her was uncharted territory. Without even thinking, he rested his hand against the small of her back. She froze, her cheek hovering a scant inch from his.

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  The moment the words were out of his mouth he knew he’d made a mistake. Not because of the words themselves, but because of the way they came out—low, sultry... suggestive. Her hand tightened against his shoulder, and he knew he’d started something he shouldn’t even consider finishing. So why didn’t he back away?

  Why didn’t she?

  Suddenly everything about Kay filled his senses, from the cool texture of her white cotton shirt beneath his hand to the last subtle notes of the floral fragrance that lingered at the pulse point behind her ear. Then her hand glided over his shoulder, and he took in a quick, silent breath as she shifted her body and leaned into him.

  Oh, boy.

  His brain screamed at his body to do something, but the moment Kay touched him his muscles had gone so weak he was surprised he could still stand up. She exhaled softly just beneath his right ear, circled her hand around his collar, and dropped her lips against his neck in a gentle kiss.