Orchard Hill Volume One

by Kara Lynn Russell

  “There will be a lot more of those about a month after Easter,” their guide commented, “when the thrill of an impulsively bought pet wears off.”

  “Why are we holding the adoption fair then?” wondered Lily.

  “It gives us a chance to educate prospective adopters before they make up their minds,” the guide replied.

  From the laundry room they entered a long hall filled with cages that opened out into separate kennels. Lily spent a lot of time meeting each dog. A number of committee members seemed inclined to linger here so it wasn’t a problem. The dogs and puppies were all so cute. With her living situation, she figured she should consider one of the smaller dogs.

  “Do you see any dogs you like?” asked Ian.

  She smiled. “All of them.”

  He pointed out a few that he thought would be good matches for her, but Lily couldn’t decide on one.

  “That’s okay,” Ian told her. “You should think about this first anyway. As we’ve been saying all along, adopting a pet shouldn’t be a snap decision.”

  The tour was over, and they headed back along the hall by the cat rooms. An older lady in a gray smock was giving food and fresh water to the cats, and as she came out of the room with the spayed and neutered cats, one of them slipped through the door with her.

  “Oh no,” she fussed. “There she goes again. That is the fastest, sneakiest cat I’ve ever known.”

  The cat started to run, then slid to a stop on the linoleum when she was confronted with a hallway full of strangers. Laying back her ears, she hissed, and then turned and ran the other way. But a couple of volunteers, coming from the laundry room with stacks of folded towels blocked her way.

  The cat tried to stop, lost her footing, turned in mid-slide and ran back straight toward the gawking committee members. The ones in front made grabs for her, but the cat weaved through their legs and the people collided with one another. Lily stood motionless, not sure what to do. Perhaps that was why the cat chose to come to her. The beast leaped from the floor to her shoulder, and Lily reflexively put her arms around her.

  “Don’t move,” Ian instructed her. “She’s frightened, and she may scratch or bite if you startle her. Everyone else, take a couple of slow steps back.” As they did, Ian grabbed a towel from one of the volunteers. Slowly he approached the cat. Her ears were still laid back, and her tail lashed about violently.

  Talking in a low, soothing voice, Ian approached cautiously. The cat remained tense and wary in her arms. With a quick, sure movement Ian wrapped the cat in the towel and pulled her away from Lily. The cat’s claws snagged in her sweater, leaving a small tear by the shoulder. Ian handed the cat to a waiting volunteer. Once she was safely returned the group gave a smattering of spontaneous applause. Ian, not one to claim the spotlight, waved their compliments away, saying, “All in a day’s work.”

  The committee members moved on to the meeting room, but Ian lingered to talk to Lily, who stood as if stuck to the floor, eyes still wide with shock.

  “I’m sorry about your sweater. I’ll pay for it.”

  Lily shook her head, bringing herself to the present moment. “The cat ripped the sweater, not you. Don’t worry about it.” She walked up to the window that looked into the cat room and found the would-be runaway. “What do you think happened to her?”

  One of the volunteers that was still on the scene answered. “She was brought in as a stray, so we can’t really say what her life was like before. From her behavior we suspect she was abused at one time.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  The volunteer nodded. “Yes, it is, but we see it all too often.”

  Suddenly Lily was truly glad she was on the planning committee for the adoption fair. If she could help prevent a pet from being mistreated, it was worth any amount of work they threw at her. “Come on Ian,” she called over her shoulder as she started down the hall. “They’ll start the meeting without us.”

  ****

  Ian’s phone rang early the next morning. He slid the coffee carafe back into the coffee maker and grabbed the phone.

  “Ian, this is Lily.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said last night, about adopting a pet.”

  “Yeah? What did you decide?”

  “I’m going to do it.”

  She sounded happy. An improvement already.

  “Great. Do you know which dog you want or are you going back to take another look?”

  A pause. “Um…I don’t think I’m going to get a dog.”

  “Then what?”

  “The…the cat that got out while we were there.”

  It was Ian’s turn to pause. “A cat won’t be much protection.”

  “Maybe not, but…but I really liked that cat…and who else will adopt her? I talked to Sadie, the lady who accidentally let her out. She says the cat is afraid of people. Will they euthanize her if she isn’t adopted?”

  “Probably not. The Orchard Hill Animal Shelter is aiming to be a no kill shelter. But they haven’t got the resources to keep animals indefinitely so occasionally they will have an unadoptable animal put down.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “It would only happen as a last resort.”

  “I can’t risk that. I want to adopt the cat.”

  Ian sighed. He could tell her mind was already made up. “Okay. I’ll go with you after work today, and we’ll look at the cat again.”

  “You mean it? You’ll come with me?”

  “Sure. What time are you done today?”

  “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I can do it myself.” This sounded more like the Lily he knew.

  “I know you can, but I thought you might like to have a friend with you. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  Lily said nothing for a long time, and then spoke. “I guess that would be all right.”

  They set up a time to meet at the shelter, and then said goodbye. Ian dialed Riley’s number and cancelled their plans for eating take out and shooting baskets.

  “I hardly see Grace anymore now that she’s busy with all this wedding stuff and now you’re bailing on me, too,” Riley complained.

  Ian laughed at the pitiful tone in his brother’s voice. “You could come with us.”

  “And be a third wheel. Forget it.”

  “This is hardly a date.”

  “Maybe not now,” Riley replied, “but you never know how it will turn out.”

  TITLE

  Orchard Hill: Volume One

  Chapter Five

  “You’d like to see that cat?” asked Sadie, the same volunteer they’d talked to the night of the meeting.

  “Yes, please,” said Lily.

  She looked to Ian, and when he nodded, Sadie shrugged and led them back to the cat room. Lily’s cat was hiding in one of the cubby holes of a large cat tree. Lily would have picked her up, but Ian stopped her. “If you startle her, she might bite or scratch.”

  He stepped forward and began talking softly to the cat, then after a moment he placed his hand on the edge of the cubby where she could see it. Eventually Ian was able to lift the cat from her hiding place.

  “Does she have a name?” asked Lily as he handed the clearly unhappy animal to her. He checked her collar.

  “It says her name is Maria.”

  “As in ‘how do you solve a problem like?’”

  “One can only assume.”

  Maria was a brown tabby with a white bib and socks. She never relaxed in Lily’s arms but remained rigid until Lily reluctantly put her down. The instant her feet hit the floor, Maria raced for the safety of another cubby.

  “Well, now that you and Maria have officially met, what do you think?” asked Ian.

  “I want to adopt her.”

  “Lily, this will be your first pet, and she won’t be an easy one.”

  “I don’t care. I want to adopt her.”

  Ian took one look at the stubborn set of her face and dec
ided there was no use arguing. “Let’s get started on the paper work.”

  The shelter was careful about who they allowed to adopt their animals. Lily would have to wait until they’d checked her references before she could take Maria home.

  “That’s all right,” Ian assured her as they walked out into the parking lot. “It will give you time to buy all the things Maria will need.”

  “What do I need to buy?”

  “Dishes, a litter box, food and litter, a brush.”

  “Stop, Ian. Let me write this down.”

  “Why don’t we just go get it all now? I’ll go with you.”

  “You must think I’m hopeless.”

  He laughed. “If I thought that Lily, I wouldn’t have suggested you adopt a pet in the first place. But I’ll make you a list if you’d rather get everything yourself.”

  Lily dropped her gaze and twisted her gloves in her hands. “I…I’d like it if you came with me. If you don’t mind. If you’re not busy.”

  “I wouldn’t have offered if I was busy. Why don’t we drop your car off at the salon, and I’ll drive.” He saw the hesitation in her eyes when she looked up, and so he quickly added, “or you can drive if you’d like.”

  “It’s okay. You can drive.”

  Once they had dropped off Lily’s car, it was a forty minute drive to the nearest farm supply store—it would have been farther to an actual pet store. Choosing Maria’s things was fun, because Lily was excited about it. Ian realized that he’d never seen her so animated before. He’d thought she was pretty before, her Asian features making her seem exotic among the Scandinavian and German descended people of Orchard Hill, but the glow in her eyes made her beautiful, more alive. Now he had an idea of what Grace meant when she’d tried to explain to him what Lily was like before her marriage.

  As good as it was to see Lily happy and excited, it brought home to him just how much she’d lost.

  Once they’d paid for everything and loaded it into his SUV, Ian suggested they stop for something to eat.

  “Only if you let me pay,” Lily insisted. “You’ve helped me so much, I have to repay you somehow.”

  “You don’t have to pay me back. That’s what friends do for each other,” Ian protested.

  “Do you mean that?”

  “What?”

  “That you’re my friend?”

  “Of course, why wouldn’t I?”

  “I’m not the easiest person to get along with,” Lily admitted.

  “You aren’t that bad.”

  “Yes, I am. And I know it because…because I try to be unpleasant.”

  “What?”

  Lily wouldn’t look at him. “I haven’t let anyone be my friend in a long time. I’ve especially gotten into the habit of being rude to men.”

  “Because of Ted?”

  “Yes, but probably not why you think. He used to constantly accuse me of having affairs. I thought if I stayed away from men entirely he would stop, but he didn’t.”

  “Didn’t you tell me he was having affairs?”

  “Yes, I suppose he was projecting his own behavior onto me.” Suddenly she groaned and turned away. “I can’t believe I just told you all this—in the middle of the parking lot no less.”

  Ian reached out and took her hand, turning her back around to him. “Why did you decide to tell me this?”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “Because no matter how rude I am to you, you’re still nice to me. I…I thought maybe you deserved an explanation.”

  “Does this mean you want to be friends?”

  “I don’t know if I can yet…but I want to try.”

  Ian’s heart filled with admiration for her courage. He recognized that this was a big step for her. A million questions flooded his mind but he didn’t voice them. It would be a mistake to push her.

  “I’m glad you told me, Lily. It would mean a lot to me to have your friendship.”

  She looked so uncomfortable with the personal nature the conversation had developed, that he took pity on her and changed the subject, asking where she wanted to eat.

  Shortly after they had arrived at the restaurant, Lily excused herself to the ladies’ room. Glad to see that it was empty, she slumped against the sink and took a deep breath. Her heart was racing like a rabbit’s. Why had she told him those things? She’d never told Grace about Ted’s obsessive accusations of her infidelity. Why would she just blurt it out to, of all people, Ian O’Neil?

  But she meant it when she said she wanted to be his friend. She’d told him, so where did they go from here?

  When Lily returned to the table, he asked her a question about Maria. She began to relax as the conversation drifted back to a more normal level of intimacy.

  After supper, he drove her home and helped her carry Maria’s new possessions upstairs.

  “This cat is well on her way to being spoiled.”

  “I only bought what you told me…And maybe a few extras.

  Ian snorted. “A few? I have nieces and nephews with fewer toys than this cat.”

  They set the packages on the couch, and Lily began to rummage through them. “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Not by much.” Ian dropped onto the couch next to the packages.

  “Come on now, you’re the one who picked out the electronic mouse.”

  “But those are fun. Cats love those.”

  The shrill ring of the phone broke into their lighthearted banter.

  They both froze, and Lily’s muscles knotted. She glanced at Ian and walked over to the phone as it rang again.

  “Hello.”

  Tension drained from Lily’s body like water flowing down a pipe when she heard Grace’s voice.

  “No, Riley wasn’t mistaken. I am adopting a pet—a cat.”

  “You should have called me. I would have gone with you to the shelter,” Grace said.

  “That’s all right. Ian went with me.”

  “You and Ian?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Um…nothing. Do you need help picking out all that new pet stuff?”

  “Ian and I did that, too.”

  “Really? You two spent the whole evening together?”

  “Yes.” Lily was starting to become annoyed with the incredulity in Grace’s voice. She wasn’t so unlikable that it was unbelievable that a guy would want to spend a few hours with her.

  “When did he leave.”

  “He hasn’t.”

  “But it’s so late. When are you going to eat supper? No, don’t tell me. You already ate—with Ian.”

  “Is there anything wrong with that?”

  Lily thought she heard a quickly-stifled giggle on the other end of the line.

  “No Lily,” said Grace. “I’m glad you and Ian are getting along. It will make everything much easier.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The wedding. You and Ian will be spending a bit of time together for that.”

  Of course the wedding. That subject was never far from Grace’s mind these days.

  “Right. I have to go, Grace.”

  “Of course. I don’t want to keep you from your guest.”

  Lily said good-bye and hung up the phone. “That was Grace.”

  He looked as relieved as she felt. “It’s getting late for a week night. I should probably get going.”

  He was right, but Lily felt a little disappointment that the evening was over.

  “Call me when you get word that the adoption’s been approved. I’ll help you get Maria settled.”

  “Thank you, Ian. I appreciate all your help.”

  “Don’t worry. Your buying dinner tonight more than covered it.”

  “No, really. I took up your whole evening.”

  “I offered. It’s what friends do.”

  His mention of their blossoming relationship buoyed her spirits. At the door, Ian leaned over and gave her a quick one-armed hug, and her spirits rose even more. “Remember, call me when you hear about the ado
ption.”