by Elle Rush
The manager, Lorraine Drummond, was an anti-hipster. In fact, she so strongly reminded Decker of a stereotypical librarian, it almost took her back around to hipster again. Her hair was pulled into a severe bun, she wore a navy suit with the blouse buttoned all the way to the collar, and glasses hung around her neck on a thick gold chain. She was still years from her thirtieth birthday. The dichotomy was jarring. “I’m not sure what you mean,” Lorraine stalled, badly.
“A cat. Specifically, a Bombay. Liam said you were getting some in soon.”
“Liam was speaking out of turn. First, I’m certain we wouldn’t have ordered a Funster doll, of all things. Their regular products are bad enough. We recommend our clients purchase quality toys for their fur babies. Secondly, we have no cats available for purchase.”
Decker knew he could walk away; they didn’t seem to have what he was looking for. With Pure Bred’s attitude, they’d have been happy to sell E.L.V.I.S. to him to get rid of the item before the bourgeois stink infected their store. But their rude, contemptuous attitude, the fact he’d struck out looking for the prototype, and the itch between his shoulder blades when it came to the non-existent cats they may or may not be selling kept him in place. Even if it did mean pretending to be interested in a “fur baby.” He laid a business card that only listed his name and number on Lorraine’s desk, and tapped it with his finger. “I expect a call when the cats come in. Liam said by the end of the week. I’ll see you soon.”
Fins and Things had been a wash. As had Kitten Caboodle. Pure Bred wasn’t looking good either.
For a piece-of-cake job, he’d gotten nowhere. Decker returned to his office and reviewed the file Nick Klassen had sent, thinking he’d missed something. He didn’t get any calls, from Joy or from Lorraine, which left him plenty of time to research Bombay cats.
Just in case.
Chapter Four
Joy
Joy needed a brick to weigh down the lid she’d slapped over the kittens’ temporary play box. The adorable little buggers had escaped three times. Pumpkin got out alone twice; the last time he’d led Spooky and Stinky in an attempted mass rebellion. As much as Joy loved them, she looked forward to the day they were fully capable of handling cat food and litter boxes on their own. She didn’t begrudge them her time, but she was spread so thin she was see-through.
She returned to her paperwork. She really disliked the managerial part of her job. Kitten Caboodle’s lease was coming up and the mall was stalling on the renewal. It wasn’t a matter of business; it was about competition. Specifically, it was about Pure Bred and Pure Brewed. The pet store and coffee shop on the second floor wanted to expand into consignment purebred pet sales. The management company they both dealt with was turning the situation into the O.K. Corral, declaring the mall wasn’t big enough for the two of them.
Joy hadn’t gone to veterinary college to negotiate rental contracts. She’d earned her degree to help animals. But she had to do the first to do the second. Spooky, Midnight, Stinky, and Pumpkin were straining the shelter’s capacity, but they had a good thing going on. Joy wasn’t going to let some soulless store selling dog sweaters drive them out.
The shelter wasn’t going down without a fight. Since she couldn’t take the Spice Boys herself, Joy intended to make sure they found the second-most perfect home she could find by proving Kitten Caboodle was the place to be. It certainly had been a few hours ago. Joy needed more people like Decker Harkness in the store. If she stood him in the window holding a kitten, the line to the cash register would be out the door.
Joy wished she had received the doll he was looking for. Maybe if they’d had more of a chance to talk, she’d have worked up the nerve to ask if he wanted to join her for a coffee.
A flurry of barking erupted behind her. “It’s me! Down, Mitzi. You’d think I was a stranger breaking in to rob the joint,” a masculine voice announced from the kennel room, which was attached to the play room. Rob Allan was a veterinarian and Kitten Caboodle’s owner. He’d hired Joy two years earlier. He said she could play manager while he played with the animals. He got the better part of the deal.
“Rob, I’m leaving you for four younger men,” Joy shouted back as she loaded her kittens into a carrier.
“Take off. I’ve got this.”
She left knowing the rest of the animals were in good hands. Rob took the evening shift, caring for and feeding the four rescue dogs and seven full-grown cats they had in the shelter, reviewing the store’s sales numbers, and keeping the animals company until about nine o’clock.
Then she’d return at eight to do it all over again.
The next morning, she took two steps into the store and knew it was going to be one of those days. Her boss was a decent guy, but he’d obviously been distracted the night before. Mitzi, or one of the store’s other four-legged occupants, had ransacked aisle three. Stuffed animals, chew toys, and balls were scattered from one end to the other. The furry miscreant had even managed to stack four boxes of cat treats into a pile that looked like a set of stairs leading to the second shelf, where more items were in disarray. “Really, Rob. You couldn’t have cleaned this up before you left?” she complained to herself. The parakeets, in their cages along the wall, squawked in agreement.
A knock rattled the accordion door leading to the mall. The same brown-uniformed delivery man as the day before stood outside with yet another box on a trolley. Joy signed for the package, and carefully carried the beat-up carton to the cash desk.
She didn’t remember ordering a second shipment from NPU. When she read the manifest, her confusion cleared. North Pole Unlimited had sent her a complimentary display pack from their upcoming Christmas product line. Then she was surprised again. For the first time ever, the company’s shipment was incomplete. The invoice listed twelve toys. The badly damaged package contained ten. Between the huge, missing piece in the side of the box and the tear at the bottom, Joy was surprised only two had fallen out during the trip.
She arranged the contents behind the desk. She needed to make a “Coming Soon” sign for them. Joy refused to put out any Christmas decorations before Halloween; it was an offense to decency. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t have another sign ready for November first.
An idea hit her as she straightened the rope-octopus’s legs on the glass shelf. An unexpected box from NPU? Missing items? It was an excuse to call Decker Harkness. She could tell him about the shipment and the invoice over a coffee. She pulled his card out of her wallet, picked up her phone, and dialed before she had a chance to chicken out.
Chapter Five
Decker
Decker had barely settled behind his desk when his day took a turn for the better. Joy called. He agreed to meet her and was out the door before they finished their conversation.
The food court coffee was black, hot, and mellow. In other words, it was perfect. Joy’s whipped-cream-topped, chocolate-drizzled cocoa made his teeth ache just looking at it. Decker was disappointed when she pulled a slip of paper from her purse. Apparently, she had a real reason to call him.
“North Pole Unlimited sent us a box of samples, but the shipment was incomplete. I thought your doll might be one of the missing ones. Do any of these product numbers match?” she asked.
He quickly scanned the list. The E.L.V.I.S. code Nick gave him didn’t pop. Decker set the paper down to peruse again later. He might have missed it the first time. His eyes needed a chance to rest before he looked at the small type again, so he concentrated on the vision in front of him instead.
Decker had researched Joy’s online history the night before, purely for professional reasons. No criminal history, upbeat, non-political public social media posts, and member in good standing of the Ottawa Humane Society. She might be one of the few people who were as honest as she looked. He still had trouble believing it.
The very sight of her made him smile. She looked like she had stepped off the page of Girl Next Door magazine with a bright blue sweater over a yellow T
-shirt and jeans. She had a couple creases at the corners of her eyes, pushing her past the thirty-year mark, which was a good thing. He was thirty-eight himself; he didn’t want to date out of his decade. Even if their coffee meeting was a bust in every other way, he was going to try to get a real date out of it.
“I’ll have to double-check against the file I have at the office. Thanks for calling me about it. I was hoping to see you again,” he said.
Joy blushed. “Did you have any luck at the other places you went?”
“No. Fins and Things was a dud. I also checked out Pure Bred, but my investigation there was inconclusive. I have to go back again.” Joy’s nose went up at the name of the second store. “You aren’t a fan?”
“I would never speak badly of the competition, but if I did, I’d tell you that flea-infested pit of animal traumas is a disgrace of a pet store and a blight on the mall and world in general. I cannot recommend it for anything at all. And what they try to pass off as coffee cake is terrible,” Joy said in an explosion of disgust.
“Don’t hold back on my account.” He knew from the second he met her, criminal or not, that she had good taste.
“My Dutch cinnamon coffee cake can take down their sawdust pucks any day of the week. I swear the sole reason they’re still in business is because some people think they have to pay more to show how important they are and feel better about themselves. Did you know Pure Bred sells Funsters at thirty percent more than we do? There’s no reason for that kind of markup,” she continued.
“Unless you have customers stupid enough to pay it,” Decker added.
“Exactly! See, you get it. I’d never sell a pet to somebody who shopped there. They’d treat a shelter animal like a second-class pet. I’m not saying animals are people too, but they are living creatures, not purse accessories you should dress to match your outfit.”
“You know what? I’m going to keep mum about my next visit so I don’t set you off,” Decker said with a laugh. Her passionate responses were making him smile, but she was giving off clear signs she’d be equally as passionate if he were the one to annoy her.
Joy blushed again. “It might be safer,” she agreed.
“Can I ask you why you hate them on our next date?”
“Is this our first date?”
“I hope so.”
“And we’re having another one?” she asked.
“Absolutely. Tonight?”
“I’m free tonight.”
She hadn’t made him work for it at all. That was a good sign.
She checked her watch, and Decker reluctantly let her get back to the store. He took a picture of the invoice first, planning to verify the model numbers with Nick. But he spent most of the drive back to his office figuring out where to take Joy for dinner.
Chapter Six
Joy
Joy didn’t mean to act scatterbrained for the rest of her shift, but the prospect of dinner with Decker threw her into a tizzy. Joy hadn’t thought she was out of practice when it came to dating, but when she counted back the weeks since she’d had one with a promising guy, she was surprised to realize snow had still been on the ground.
But that was no reason for Spooky to nip at her after she gave the trio a scoop of doggy kibble in their food dish by mistake. Joy switched it to the proper food and was rewarded with a head-butt before she was completely ignored.
“Joy, did you place the order for more lint roller tape?” Rob called from the cash desk.
“You bet,” she shouted back. She hadn’t. They didn’t carry lint rollers, let alone the tape. It was a code they’d developed for shoplifters. The young man with the potential sticky fingers wasn’t hard to spot. Jeans so stiff they could stand up by themselves, a dark fleece hoodie with creases in the arms and across the chest, and a ball cap pulled low over his glasses. He looked like he was out to rob the place and had bought new clothes to do it.
He wasn’t there for anything of value. Kitten Caboodle had pricy items, but those were the twenty- or fifty-pound bags of food, not anything he could slip under his sweater. The smaller stuff wasn’t worth the effort, although that didn’t mean she and Rob let it slide.
Joy approached him from behind as he moved into the aisle with the various pet cages. Spooky, Midnight, Stinky, and Pumpkin were in their glass playpen. Half a dozen guinea pigs were scattered through three of the terrariums along the wall, and four parakeet cages hung from the ceiling, letting the birds keep watch over the entire store.
The guy darted furtively from side to side as he approached the cats’ box. Joy pounced while his hand was moving toward the latch. “Can I help you?”
He jumped. “I was just looking!”
Maybe it was a prank; he was too inept to be shoplifting for profit. “I can see that. Can I help you find anything?”
“I want to adopt a cat. These black ones are cute. Are they Bombays?”
“If they are, we’d never be able to prove it. Their mother may have been but we don’t have any papers for her. She was all black with golden eyes, but she didn’t have a chip and was dropped off anonymously. The father was unknown.”
“I want one,” he said.
“Unfortunately, these kittens aren’t fully weaned, so they aren’t on our adoption register yet. They should be available in early November.” She hated to tell him even that much. Giving away the Spice Boys was going to break her heart. Joy wanted to hold on to them until the very last possible second. Technically, the kittens would be old enough for new homes the next week, but the shelter had a policy: no black cat adoptions in October. Neither she nor Rob had ever had a problem with people doing anything to black cats for Halloween, but they set the rule to ensure their streak continued.
“But I really want one now. Today,” the college-aged customer insisted.
Joy studied the shoplifter-slash-wannabe-cat-adopter, looking further than his clothing. “Do I know you?” she asked. She was certain she did, although she couldn’t put her finger on it. He was barely twenty, past the acne stage but not yet able to fill a full beard, so he’d settled for a wispy goatee. His entire presence gave her a biting-on-tinfoil feeling.
“No. But you could if you sold me a cat.”
Was he flirting with her? The toothy smile he shot her confirmed her first impression. Yes, he was. He didn’t stand a chance. Especially after she’d spent half an hour with a man who could express his interest without playing games.
“They aren’t available until November. If you’d like to leave your name at the desk, we can start your paperwork, and you’ll be able to pick up your new kitten early next month.” Joy kept talking even though he was halfway down the aisle by the time she finished her first sentence.
“I’ll come back,” he said.
“Don’t bother,” Joy retorted, but he was gone.
Chapter Seven
Decker
Nick Klassen was very interested in his briefing. Decker had never seen anybody perform a line-by-line analysis or be so insightful about an interim report. He was glad he’d made dinner reservations first, because at this rate, their video call was going to take the entire afternoon.
“In summary, you like Kitten Caboodle as a store, but you think Pure Bred is more likely to have received it?” Nick asked.
“Yes. Joy, the Kitten Caboodle manager, has been very up-front with me about shipments. She even called me to do a follow-up. I get a good vibe from her. I’ve removed them from my list of potential locations. If she knew about the doll, she’d have told me,” Decker said.
“What about Pure Bred?”
Hinky was not a professional term. But that’s what it was. The whole store was one big question mark. “I’m still looking into them. I have a second visit scheduled for tomorrow.” Decker wanted to know more about the secret cats he’d been offered. He also wanted a chance to search the premises himself. He didn’t trust Liam or Lorraine to let him know if E.L.V.I.S. came in.
Klassen conferred with somebody off-sc
reen. “Okay. Keep me informed. It seems like Pure Bred was already on our radar for shipment problems. If we get any information on this end, we’ll forward it immediately. Good luck.”
Decker headed home for a shower before returning to the mall to pick Joy up from work. He’d made reservations at Casa Roma.
Despite her text saying she’d be ready and waiting, she was neither. He found her petting the crying orange kitten who’d attacked him the day before. The three others in the cage were crying as well. He could swear he saw tears in their eyes. “What happened?” The kittens were the most pathetic things he’d ever seen.
“Rob decided it was time for them to be chipped. Nobody is happy about it.”
The orange one abandoned Joy and her gentle strokes and toddled over to Decker’s hand, which was dangling at the ledge. “Yeow!”
“Is that cat for ‘pet me’? Or is it a warning he’s about to leap on me again?” Decker asked.
“Pumpkin wants cuddles. Just avoid between his shoulders. Patting him on the head should work. Did you want to stay here with these guys while I grab my purse?”
“No problem.” They weren’t dogs, but the kittens were affectionate. The littlest black one tried to push Pumpkin away to get his own head-scratches. Decker ended up with two handfuls of kittens.
“They’re never going to let you leave now,” Joy said upon her return.
He pulled his hands from the case and ignored the mournful mews. He barely heard them at all over the ringing in his ears. Joy may not have had time to go home, but she’d definitely taken the time to freshen up. She’d swapped her practical, short-sleeved golf shirt for a clingy, dark-red sweater and a long chain with a bauble at the end.
“Is this okay? You never texted me where we were going.”
He knew he’d forgotten something. “Casa Roma. I hope you like Italian.”
“I love Italian.”
