Before We Kiss

by Susan Mallery

  “What?” she demanded. “There’s something.”

  “I saw you talking to Simone.”

  It took a second for the name to sink in. Because she didn’t know any Simones. Only she’d met one today.

  “Your ex? Yes. She wanted to have coffee.” Dellina relaxed. “She’s, um, interesting. She wants to do an updated version of her book and wanted me to help.” She shook her head. “Can you believe it? As if I would give up any information. I told her that. I explained there was no way anyone in town would help her and that she was wasting her time.”

  Sam’s wary expression never changed. “She was laughing.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “I can be funny on occasion. Not that I’m ready for the stand-up circuit, but still.” A knot formed in her stomach. “Sam, I didn’t say anything about you. I wouldn’t do that. Not only do I understand and respect your need for privacy, but I agree with you for a lot of reasons. She’s out for what she can get for herself, the rest of the world be damned. I’m telling the truth about this. You have to know that.”

  She waited, hoping he would relax a little, but he didn’t.

  She searched for the right words, only there weren’t any. She’d told him the truth. Now it was up to him to figure out if he believed her or not.

  Love blended with fear and neither was especially comfortable. The logical side of her brain reminded her that without faith in each other, they were doomed. They could be doomed for a lot of other reasons, too, but this was a deal breaker.

  She loved him, and because of that love, he had the power to hurt her emotionally. She didn’t think he would be cruel on purpose, but he was determined and fairly rigid.

  “Okay, then,” she murmured, and began collecting her folders.

  “You don’t have to go,” he told her.

  “Yeah, I do. You don’t believe me. After everything we’ve been through, you still think I could be the kind of person who would betray you to your ex-wife.”

  She shoved the folders back into the tote and started for the door.

  “Dellina, wait.”

  She turned, trying not to hope.

  His expression hadn’t changed, she thought. He wasn’t moved by her words. Or, very possibly, by her.

  “I want to help you with your invoices.”

  Words that cut to the bone. Or in her case, the heart. “Thanks, but I’ll take my chances on getting them right myself.”

  She hesitated. She loved him. Despite this illustration of his biggest flaw, her feelings were unchanged. At some point she was going to have to suck it up and tell him, then accept the consequences. Just not today, she thought grimly. There had been enough emotional body blows already.

  * * *

  SAM TOOK OUT his temper on the exercise equipment in the office gym. He ran eight miles, then did an entire circuit on the weight equipment. He finished with alternating single-arm push-ups, going until his strength gave out and he was lying gasping on the mat.

  Sweat poured off him and burned his eyes, but the strange sense of everything being wrong hadn’t gone away.

  He got to his feet and staggered toward the showers. After washing up and dressing, he grabbed a bottle of water and downed it in a single gulp. He reached for a second and drank it more slowly.

  Damn Simone for showing up, he thought. She was like some marauding monster, wreaking havoc wherever she went. Worse, she’d gotten between him and Dellina. But even as he thought the words, a voice in his head pointed out he’d done that all on his own.

  He swore and sat on a bench in the locker room. His gut said Dellina was telling the truth. She would never talk about him to anyone. She’d been the one to stand up to his mother.

  But his head didn’t agree. His head was wary and mistrustful. His head didn’t believe. So he’d hurt her. She hadn’t said anything, but he’d seen it in her eyes. He’d hurt her because when it came to a contest between what she said and what he’d seen, he went for the empirical evidence. Mostly because Simone always got what she wanted.

  Kenny walked into the locker room. “There you are. Your car is still in the parking lot. I knew you had to be here somewhere. The bitch is back. Want me to throw her out?”

  Sam stood. “No. I’ll talk to her.”

  “She’s in your office.”

  Going through his computer, he thought, following his friend out of the locker room.

  Turned out he was wrong. Simone was pacing, not rifling through drawers or logging on to his accounts. When he stepped into the room, she spun to face him.

  “I get the girlfriend,” she said, her voice shrill with anger, her gaze narrowed. “I don’t like it, but sure. She’s loyal. She thinks you’re capable of a real relationship. She hasn’t learned yet what an emotional tight ass you are. But the town? The whole damn town?”

  He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t know what was going on, but if Simone wasn’t happy, something good must have happened.

  “You’ll have to tell me what you’re talking about,” he said. “Because you’re not making any sense.”

  She balled her hands into fists. “No one will talk to me. No one! Not those stupid old bitches watching you play basketball, not the woman at the coffee shop, not the weirdo at Jo’s Bar. No one will discuss you beyond saying you’re charming and a welcome addition to the community.”

  She stomped her foot. “Who do they think they’re kidding? You a part of a town? You would never give up that much control.” Her voice rose until she was practically screeching. “Damn you all to hell, Sam. How could you do this to me?”

  Dellina had told the truth, he thought, both relieved and ashamed. He should have believed her. He should have listened to his gut. Only it had been so long since he’d been in a position to trust a woman that he’d forgotten what it looked like. That wasn’t only Simone’s fault, he thought. There had been others who had fed that particular flame.

  “Are you even listening to me?” Simone demanded.

  “Not really.” He motioned to the open door. “You’d probably like to get going on the drive back to L.A. It can be long.”

  She grabbed her purse and stalked past him. “You’re a mean, selfish bastard, Sam Ridge. I hope you rot in hell.”

  He didn’t bother to watch her go. Instead he crossed to his desk and picked up the phone. He tried Dellina’s cell number, only she didn’t pick up. That usually meant she was with a client. He would have to try her again in a half hour. Which seemed too long to wait.

  * * *

  DELLINA ACCEPTED THAT one day she was going to have to enter the current century and put her calendar onto her computer. From there she could link it to her cell phone. But for now, she was still old-fashioned and wrote down her appointments on paper.

  She sipped her morning coffee and studied the schedule. There was a big Hendrix family party, a baby shower and the possibility of Taryn and Angel getting married. Or rather the question of what kind of wedding they were going to have. She was pretty sure Angel would get a ring on Taryn’s finger one way or the other. But until they made up their minds about the kind of wedding they were going to have, not to mention when, she couldn’t get them on her calendar.

  “Clients,” she murmured. “Can’t live with them, can’t tell them to jump in a lake.”

  Her house phone rang—something that rarely happened. She picked it up. “Hello?”

  “You are so hard to track down. Do you have your cell phone off? It’s Larissa, by the way.”

  “Oh, hi. My cell shouldn’t be off.” She checked it and, sure enough, it was on Mute. Her last meeting had been the previous day, so it had been off since then. “Sorry, I must have forgotten to turn it back on.” She saw she had several messages, including one from Sam.

  Seeing his
name made her both happy and sad. If he was calling to say he’d been the biggest jerk this side of the Mississippi, then she was all for it. Otherwise, she had nothing to say to him. At least not for now.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I need help,” Larissa told her. “This is bigger than my usual crisis. Jack is going to help because he always does, but it’s bigger than Jack. Taryn said you’d be the one to know how to fix everything.”

  “That’s a lot to expect of anyone,” Dellina said, not sure if she would be pleased or give Taryn a stern talking-to. “What is the problem?”

  “A cat rescue group in Sacramento needs help. There’s a hoarding situation. An old lady has about fifty or sixty cats in a small house. The local shelters don’t have capacity right now. So I need to find that many carriers and volunteers to caravan to Sacramento and pick them up. Then they have to be accessed, seen by a vet and fostered until they can be adopted.”

  Dellina blinked. “Okay, so this is big. Let me think. We can probably put, what, three carriers in each car. Maybe four. So we need about fifteen vehicles. Sixty carriers.” She was already making notes.

  “Give me ten minutes and I’ll call you back.”

  “Thanks.”

  Dellina immediately called the local vet’s office. Two minutes later Cameron McKenzie was on the phone. She explained what was happening.

  “Sixty cats?” he said, sounding surprised. “That’s a lot. I have a half dozen high school kids who get their volunteer credits working with the animals here. They can help with assessments and treatment. Hopefully not all the animals will be sick. I also know several families who will be willing to foster cats. You’ll need carriers. I have ten you can borrow. Check with Max out at K9Rx. Some of the therapy dogs are small. You can probably borrow those carriers. I don’t know where you’ll get the rest.”

  “I’m calling the mayor’s new assistant,” Dellina told him. “And activating the phone tree. That will get us carriers and volunteers. I’ll keep in touch, Cameron, and let you know when we’re on our way back.”

  Dellina’s next call was to Bailey, who took down the relevant information and promised to activate the phone tree. Dellina set up the rendezvous for two hours from now, in the convention center parking lot, then hung up and called Larissa back.

  “Here’s where we are,” she said. “We’ll be ready to go by eleven.”

  * * *

  BY TEN-THIRTY, Dellina was forced to call in reinforcements. Not only were people bringing pet carriers, they were arriving with cat beds, food, toys and offers to foster. Larissa was collecting names and numbers of those willing to take in a cat or two until a permanent home could be found. Fayrene and Ryan arrived with his large truck. He loaded the food and other paraphernalia into the bed. Larissa said to take it all to Jack’s house. She would sort it there, later. Dellina briefly wondered how Jack felt about that sort of thing, but decided that wasn’t anything she could worry about now. Not when she had to distribute the growing number of carriers to the volunteers willing to go back and forth to Sacramento.

  Taryn and Angel pulled up in his SUV. Taryn had exchanged her designer suit for designer jeans and a silk shirt. She walked over.

  “Angel says we can take six crates by using the third-row seats,” she said. “Kenny’s coming, too. He drives a big Mercedes, so put him down for four. Larissa and Jack will take three, but she’s probably already told you that.”

  “She has,” Dellina said, noting the information, then waiting breathlessly for a report on how Sam would be helping.

  What Taryn said instead was, “We can’t believe how you’re all jumping in to help her with one of her crazy projects. We’re all used to it, but this is new for the town.”

  Dellina drew her eyebrows together. “Why wouldn’t we help? We have pets in need. Of course we’ll be there.”

  Taryn stunned her by pulling her into a hug. “I love this town so much,” she said as she hung on. “It’s magical.”

  Dellina hugged her back. “We have our issues, but usually it’s not being afraid to do the right thing. And I wouldn’t get too excited about it. Once we rescue these sixty cats, we have to find homes for them.”

  Taryn shuddered slightly. “You mean like take a cat? Don’t they shed?”

  Angel came up and put his arm around her. “That’s my girl. Thinking with her closet.”

  “I wear a lot of suede. Do you know what cat hair would do to that?”

  Larissa came up and grinned. “There are hairless cats. Maybe we’ll find one of those.”

  Taryn looked doubtful. “Maybe. If it was really hairless.”

  Dellina left them discussing the issue. She checked in more volunteers, and took temporary possession of additional carriers. By eleven, they had everything they needed.

  There were fifteen vehicles in the caravan. Larissa had printed instructions on where they were going, along with various phone numbers. Everyone agreed to stop for lunch on the outskirts of Sacramento so, once they got the cats, they could drive straight back. Several people agreed to meet them back at the convention center parking lot for feline assessments and distribution.

  * * *

  DRIVING FOR NEARLY two hours with four cats meowing was not the most restful experience, Dellina thought as she pulled back into the convention center parking lot. While she understood the cats were scared, couldn’t they express that a bit more quietly?

  Larissa had phoned ahead to let people know they were on their way back. As Dellina parked, she saw several dozen people waiting to help with the cats, including Cameron and his nursing staff. She turned off the engine and unlocked her door, only to have it opened from the outside.

  “You’re a hard lady to track down.”

  Dellina stared up into Sam’s dark eyes and braced herself for the inevitable thumpty-thump of her heart. Sure enough, the organ sighed while the rest of her body went on sexy-man alert.

  He held out his hand. She put hers in his and let him draw her out of the car.

  “I was helping Larissa,” she told him. “With a cat rescue.”

  “That’s Jack’s job.”

  “This was bigger than Jack.” She motioned to the cars pulling in beside hers. “There were fifty-seven cats in total. Some of them are okay, but several are obviously sick and a few act like they’ve never seen a human before.”

  She had more, but Sam didn’t seem all that interested in the story. Instead he was drawing her away from the growing crowd. When they were by the front door of the convention center, he lightly kissed her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “About assuming the worst when it came to Simone. That was more about her powers of persuasion than you, but I was wrong to doubt you.”

  A weight she hadn’t been aware of lifted. “I’m glad,” she told him. “I would never have told her anything.”

  “I know that now and I promise to never doubt you again.”

  She smiled. “While I like the sound of that, don’t get too cocky with your promises.”

  “Are you going to let me down?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t see a problem.”

  He kissed her again, lingering this time. She kissed him back and wished they could be transported to her place or his place and practice whatever new technique his mother had emailed him.

  He drew back. “You have cats,” he said. “How can I help?”

  “Foster a couple of them.”

  She expected him to recoil or explain why that wasn’t possible. Instead he shrugged. “Sure. I don’t know much about cats, so I’m going to need some instructions.”

  “Seriously? You’ll take in cats?”

  “Yes. Like I said, Larissa’s causes are usually Jack’s problem, but I don’t mind being sucked in now and then.”

&
nbsp; “They shed,” she told him.

  “They have fur. I expect shedding.”

  She was still having trouble taking it all in. “Just like that?”

  “I’m fostering them. This isn’t a lifetime commitment. Yes, I’ll take two cats.”

  First he’d apologized and now this. She’d loved Sam for a while now, but she hadn’t expected him to be one of the good guys.

  Emotion blossomed inside of her until speaking the words was inevitable. “I love you.”

  He froze. “What?”

  She sighed happily. “I love you. You’re a great guy and now you want to foster cats. How could I not?” She touched his hand. “I remember everything you told Fayrene, about being honest with Ryan. So I want to be honest with you. I love you.”

  Sam took a step back, then another. Before she could figure out what was happening, he’d turned his back on her and walked away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  OVER THE NEXT couple of days Dellina learned that cats made pretty good roommates. The two she’d taken in to foster were quiet and clean. Best of all, they didn’t seem to mind when she cried herself to sleep. The smaller of the two, a little short-haired marmalade, had even jumped onto the bed when her tears had turned into sobs. He’d cuddled close and tried to soothe her with his purr. Unfortunately cat support wasn’t the same as being with the man she loved, but she was going to have to learn to make do.

  After fixing her morning coffee, she carried a mug into her office. The cats were already fed and were now sitting in her east-facing kitchen window. Apparently daily grooming was best accomplished in sunlight.

  She sat at her desk and turned on her computer. There were several emails from Larissa. The sick cats were still with Cameron while the rest had been sent to their foster homes. She was taking applications for permanent adoptions and would be setting up a booth at the upcoming Book Festival.

  There were other emails from clients and a note from Fayrene, who wanted to set up a time to talk about her wedding. Dellina scrolled through the list again, but there was nothing from Sam. She’d already checked her phone and he hadn’t left a message or sent her a text.