by Judy Duarte
Emily hunkered down on the floor and shook her finger at Scruffy. “That was a naughty thing for you to do. You need to say sorry to Fred.”
Brett caught Caitlin’s gaze, and something passed between them. A parenting sort of thing. Understanding that the house cat might not be safe outdoors and wanting to spare Emily any worry.
“Even if dogs could talk to cats, that would be tough,” Brett told Emily. “Fred ran off.”
Emily gasped. “He went outside all by himself?”
“I’m afraid so.” Brett raked a hand through his hair, then glanced at Caitlin. “I’d better go look for him.”
“Emily and I will help. Just let me take Scruffy back to his house.”
He glanced down at his bare feet. “I’d better get on a pair of shoes and a shirt.”
She nodded, then took Emily by the hand and walked the dog to Mary and Gerald’s, her steps as fast as Emily’s little legs could match.
A canyon bordered the complex, where coyotes sometimes howled in the evening. And recently several small pets had disappeared.
If they didn’t find the runaway cat by nightfall, Fred was in big trouble.
Two hours later, after a thorough search of the neighborhood, Fred was still missing in action.
Brett had hoped they’d find the pesky cat high in a tree. At least he’d be able to get it down. And if he couldn’t? He’d call the Bayside Fire Department for assistance. Firemen still did that sort of thing as a community service, didn’t they?
But no such luck. The damn cat had disappeared like a ghost in the night.
As they trudged back to the front yard, Emily was in tears. “What if Fred is lost forever?”
Brett shot a glance at Caitlin and saw the anguish in her eyes. He suspected she grieved more for her hurting child than for the cat. And, he had to admit, Emily’s tears were doing a real number on him, too. Poor kid.
He dropped to one knee, took Emily’s hands in his and gazed into her tear-filled eyes. “Listen, honey. I’ve got a great idea that’s sure to help us find Fred in no time at all.”
She sniffled, clearly not convinced of anything but Fred’s loss and possible demise. “What is it?”
“We can make some big posters to tell people in the neighborhood that Fred is missing. I’ll offer a hundred dollars as a reward. And we’ll give our phone numbers, so they can call us and tell us where he is.”
Emily nodded, then wiped at her tears.
Brett glanced at Caitlin. “Is a hundred dollars enough? Or should I offer more?”
“I think that’s plenty.” She shot him a smile that tugged at his heart, making him feel like some kind of teammate. “Thanks for understanding, Brett.”
He shrugged. “Greg’s a good friend, and he loves the cat. Besides, I promised to look after it…” He glanced at the little blond pixie in pigtails. “And I’d do just about anything to see her smile again.”
Caitlin placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he had the strangest urge to slip an arm around her, to accept whatever that touch meant, whatever it offered.
But he knew better than that. “Come on, let’s get those posters made.”
Twenty minutes later, they sat in Caitlin’s house, paper and colored markers spread over the dining room table.
“Here’s another picture of him.” Emily passed her mother a drawing of a black cat wearing a Cheshire smile. “Do you think someone will bring Fred home if we give them big money as a prize?”
“I sure hope so, Em.” Caitlin looked up at Brett, and blessed him with a smile that made him glad he’d joined her team—at least temporarily.
He cleared his throat, hoping to shed the sappy thoughts that rose whenever she looked at him like that. “What do you say we hang these posters up?”
Caitlin nibbled on her bottom lip, then asked Emily to wash her hands first. When the child left them alone, she whispered quietly. “In case the cat was hit by a car or something, maybe I’d better ask Mary and Gerald Blackstone to watch Emily for me.”
Hell, he hadn’t thought about that. Fred had been a house cat all of his life and didn’t have any street smarts. “You’re right. Emily doesn’t need to see anything like that.”
When the little girl returned, Caitlin picked up the posters. “Emily, you can help us put up the first one on the streetlight by our house. But Brett and I are going to place the others throughout the neighborhood.”
“Okay.” She looked up at him. “I hope someone calls us right away.”
So did Brett.
He knew that having a pet die was part of life. But Emily was too young, too innocent to learn that Fred had become roadkill.
And he wasn’t looking forward to telling Greg that Fred had lost all nine of his lives while Brett was on duty.
Minutes later, after the first poster had been attached to the lamppost and Emily had been delivered to the Blackstones, Caitlin and Brett took off on their trek to advertise a reward for Fred’s safe return.
The sun warmed their backs, as they strode through the neighborhood.
“I can’t imagine where he went,” she said.
“Neither can I. But the reward ought to make someone step forward.”
“I hope so.”
Her shoulder brushed his arm, and he had the weirdest urge to take her hand. But a move like that would only get him in trouble.
He didn’t date women with kids. And this thing with Caitlin and Emily—whatever it was—had grown too cozy for comfort. But he couldn’t quit now. Not until he found Fred.
Or a convincing replacement.
Hey, that wasn’t a bad idea. All he had to do was find a big, fluffy black cat. Maybe no one would notice. He sure as hell couldn’t see anything about Fred that a million other black cats didn’t have. Except for that psycho personality.
They posted signs near the playground, the laundry room, the community mailboxes and the rec room. And when they’d finally placed them all, they headed home.
“That ought to do it.” Brett glanced at Caitlin and saw her lip tremble. Oh, for cripes sake. She wasn’t going to cry, was she? About the cat?
She looked up in a moment of weakness, but didn’t speak.
“Are you sad for Fred or for Emily?”
“Emily,” she said, voice whisper soft.
“I’ll find that cat. One way or another. Don’t worry.”
She flashed him a watery-eyed smile. “It’s not just the cat.”
“What is it?”
She slowly shook her head. “Nothing.”
He didn’t believe her. But for some reason, his arm lifted, slipped around her and drew her close. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
“Thanks,” she said. But the look in her eyes told him she didn’t believe him.
As her petite body, soft and perfect, molded to his side, as her tropical scent taunted him, tempted him, he slowly dropped his arm. Letting go. Backing off.
He was getting entirely too close to his pretty neighbor. And as soon as that damn cat returned—or its replacement was found—Brett was going to keep his door locked, his blinds pulled.
And his libido in check.
Caitlin and her daughter spelled trouble—with a crooked T and a backwards R.
Chapter Four
Two days later, on a Saturday afternoon, Fred still hadn’t returned. And no one had responded to the posters placed all over the complex.
Where the hell could that crazy animal be?
Brett didn’t think Fred would get close enough to a stranger to get catnapped.
Did dogcatchers pick up cats?
He wasn’t sure, but he called the Bayside Animal Shelter, just in case.
A man answered, and Brett asked if they’d found a black stray cat.
“We have forty-six adults and nine kittens, many of which are strays,” the guy told him. “You’ll have to come look for yourself.”
He thought about driving over by himself, then had second thoughts. If Fred couldn’t stand the
sight of Brett in the house, how would he react in a moving vehicle?
Maybe it would be easier if he had Caitlin and Emily with him.
When he knocked on the door of Caitlin’s condo, Emily answered. Her eyes shimmered with hope. “Did someone call and tell you they have Fred?”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “But I thought it might be a good idea if we went to the dog pound and looked for him.”
“Fred hates dogs,” the child said. “Why would he go there?”
Caitlin joined them at the door, wearing a pale green sundress and a warm smile. “Brett is talking about the animal shelter, honey. They take care of lost dogs and cats until the owners can be found.”
Or until a pet was mistakenly “put to sleep” before a kid arrived to take him home.
When Brett was a boy, his dog Scooter dug under the fence and ran off. But by the time his dad had gotten around to checking with the pound, Scooter had been killed.
A snafu of some kind, the animal control officer had explained. But that hadn’t made a grieving kid feel any better.
Brett caught the pretty mother’s gaze. “I called this morning, and they’ve got a lot of strays. I think we’d better go look as soon as possible.” He didn’t explain why they shouldn’t drag their feet.
“All right. I’ll get my purse.”
Fifteen minutes later, Brett pulled the Ford Expedition he’d rented into the parking lot of the Bayside Animal Shelter.
“Do you mind if I wait here?” Caitlin asked. “My allergies will probably kick up if I go inside.”
“Sure.” Brett helped Emily from the back seat. “Come on. Let’s go see if we can find Fred.”
They bypassed the office and set out on their own search, finding cage after cage filled with dogs—big ones, little ones, old ones, young ones. Black. Brown. Some quiet, some barking and one tricolored mutt howling like a wolf with its paw in a trap.
Brett thought of Scooter, a kid’s best friend who’d spent his last days locked in a place like this. Even now, as an adult, he remembered a child’s pain at the loss of a pet.
Up ahead, he spotted a gray block structure. A sign on a door said Cattery.
“Come on, Emily.” He took the child’s hand. “Let’s look in here. I think this is where they keep the cats.”
And he was right.
Inside they found felines of all colors and sizes. Long hair, short hair. He scanned the place looking for Fred—or a look-alike that could serve as a replacement.
In cage number 46, a big black cat was curled up on a red towel. Even Brett, who didn’t particularly like animals other than dogs, knew it wasn’t Fred. But he pointed anyway. “Look, Emily. There he is.”
She eased toward the cage and peered through the bars. “That’s not him.”
“How do you know?”
“Fred has yellow eyes. And a little white dot on his chin.”
Brett, obviously, hadn’t noticed the psycho cat’s uniqueness.
Well, he’d tried. Tricking Emily with another cat wasn’t going to work.
“Oh, look.” She pointed her finger to a cage near the floor, where two kittens sniffed at the bars on the door. “See the gray one and the little orange one? Aren’t they cute?”
He didn’t know about that; he’d always been a dog person. But he noticed how the two kittens had piqued her interest and made her temporarily forget her loss.
She squatted on the floor, her face eye level with the cage door, and reached her fingers through the bars.
Brett continued to peruse the room, searching for Fred. But the darn critter was still M.I.A.
Emily giggled. “They’re so cute and funny.”
As he watched the child, an idea formed. Would a new kitten help her forget about the cat that ran away?
A dark-haired, middle-aged woman entered the cattery, wearing a Captain Kangaroo-style apron and a badge that announced she was a volunteer. “Let me know if you’d like me to take any of these kitties out of the cage so you can play with them.”
Emily’s eyes brightened, as she pointed to the two kittens wrestling in their cage. “Can we play with these?”
“Of course.” The woman opened the door and took both kittens from the pen and set them on the floor. “The orange tabby is a little girl, the gray is a boy.”
Brett watched as Emily laughed at the kittens’ antics, then cuddled each one. Her mood had certainly lifted.
And both the tabby and the gray had pleasant personalities, a lot nicer than that ornery cat she was missing.
Maybe he ought to adopt one of those as a replacement for Fred. Of course, he wasn’t sure how Greg would feel about having a different cat, but Brett would face his friend later, after Greg had returned from his vacation. Right now, his primary goal was getting Emily over her sadness.
Ah, what the hell.
“Which one should we get, Emily?”
Her eyes widened. “We get to take one home?”
“Sure.”
A smile flashed on her face, but she quickly reeled it in. “Mommy is ’lergic.”
Brett knew that. And he certainly didn’t want a kitten underfoot. But he didn’t want to see Emily all torn up over Fred, either. “Choose the one you think Greg will like best, since we’ll have to take it to his house to live.”
She glanced at the little balls of fluff, then looked at Brett with peepers that turned his backbone to mush. “But if I pick Princess, Fluffy will feel bad.”
She’d named them already?
“Greg wouldn’t want us to leave Fluffy behind to get lonely,” she added.
Or to be put to sleep.
Brett wasn’t sure how his buddy would feel about a new kitten, let alone two. But right now, the important thing was making the child happy.
And putting some distance between himself and her pretty mother. At least they wouldn’t be bumping elbows while they made posters and brushing arms as they walked through the neighborhood looking for a runaway cat that was probably part of the canyon ecosystem by now.
“Okay,” he told the volunteer. “We’ll take them both.”
The woman grinned. “Good choice, sir. I’ll show you to the front desk so you can pay for them.”
Emily handed Brett the orange tabby. “This one is Princess.”
He really didn’t like cats, but he took the little thing in his arms. It was kind of cute. And a hell of a lot sweeter than crotchety old Fred.
“This one is Fluffy,” Emily told him, as she cuddled the shorthaired gray male.
“Come along with me,” the volunteer said, as she led them back to the office.
A man dressed in a blue shirt with a Bayside Animal Shelter logo handed Brett paperwork to complete. And there was a ton of it, too.
They wanted to know the size of the home and yard, whether the animal would live outdoors or in. There were even questions about how people ought to discipline pets.
He’d taken psychological evals in the Navy, but he never expected to get the third-degree at a dog pound. He supposed they were just trying to make sure the animals would find good owners.
Do you own your home or rent?
Brett didn’t do either. Greg had offered to let him buy into his place, but he hadn’t wanted to be tied down.
“Why do you want to know whether I own a home or not?” he asked the clerk.
“If you rent, we’ll need an authorization from the landlord before allowing the adoption.”
Oh, for cripes sake. He glanced at Emily, saw the light in her eyes.
He placed an X next to Own. Hey, that really wasn’t a lie. Not if Brett was adopting a pet for Greg by proxy.
After the slightly balding desk clerk went over Brett’s answers, he uttered a few “uh-huhs” and “hmmms” before approving the adoption.
Brett hadn’t mentioned his deployments or the fact that he wouldn’t be able to care for a pet 24/7. He knew better than to offer that information. But he intended to give the cats to Greg. And if his buddy didn
’t want them? Then he’d figure out a way to convince him he did. Bribery being the first idea that came to mind.
“That will be two hundred and twenty dollars,” the man behind the desk said.
Brett just about dropped the orange tabby he held in his left arm. “How much?”
“Two hundred and twenty dollars.”
“For two stray kittens? You gotta be shittin…” He glanced at Emily, at the bright-eyed smile on her face. “You’ve got to be kidding. What are they, purebreds?”
“Well, the charge to adopt is seventy-five dollars apiece. That includes a medical exam, a flea dip and worming. Then there’s a thirty-five dollar spaying deposit. When you show proof that you’ve had the kittens neutered, we’ll return the money.”
Brett grimaced as he reached for his wallet and peeled out the bills.
The clerk accepted his payment, then gave him a ten-dollar-off coupon for the Bayside Pet Supply Center and a list of area vets that would spay the kittens.
Brett didn’t jump into anything without giving it a good deal of thought and planning. So he wasn’t exactly sure how he’d gotten caught up in this whole pet-owner thing. And he had a sneaking suspicion he’d taken on more than he could handle.
Or more than he wanted to handle.
What the hell would he do if Greg didn’t want two kittens?
But when he looked at the happy child, he shrugged. “Okay, let’s take Fluffy and Princess home.”
“Just a moment,” the clerk said. “You’ll need a carrier to take them in the car.”
“What?”
“It’s our policy. We can’t let them go home without a carrier.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Well, we have special transport boxes for ten dollars each.” He lifted a carton with holes in it.
“It’s just a cardboard box,” Brett said.
“It’s a recyclable carrier we offer as a service to new pet owners.” The man behind the counter handed one to Brett. “Safety first.”
Feeling like a sucker who’d just rubbed elbows with P.T. Barnum, Brett forked over another ten bucks. “Come on, Emily. Let’s get out of here before they tax us for loitering.”
