Cupid Cats

by Katie MacAlister

  “I guess.” Another gust blew in and barreled through the house.

  “Listen, you’d better head out before—” The back screen door banged once, twice. A second later Kate realized what that could mean. “Omigod. Darwin.” She raced back toward the kitchen.

  The top of the refrigerator was empty. “Darwin?” She spun around. “Darwin, where are you?”

  Running to the door, she saw a black and silver blur streaking across the yard. “He’s out!” As she bounded down the steps, lightning crackled overhead followed by a boom as it hit somewhere nearby. Rain pelted her with fat, heavy drops.

  “Where is he?” Jon joined her at the foot of the steps.

  Kate scanned the backyard. “I don’t know. But you can leave. I’ll handle this.”

  “No, we’ll handle this.”

  “But the paparazzi—”

  “Sure as hell aren’t coming out in weather like this. Come on. Let’s find that cat.”

  Chapter 8

  “Thanks, Jon.” Kate appreciated his presence more than he probably realized. Knowing he was there helped ease the dread that had settled in the pit of her stomach.

  She stood still and forced herself not to run frantically around the yard yelling Darwin’s name. That sort of tactic wouldn’t work for a cat. “Keep looking and calling softly,” she said. “I’m going to see if Maggie has a can of tuna.”

  “She does. Middle shelf of the pantry.”

  “Then maybe you should get it. You know that kitchen way better than I do.”

  “Okay. Be right back.” He sprinted up the steps.

  “Darwin,” Kate called. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” She walked slowly around the yard and tried to think like a cat. Thunder rolled through the clouds and lightning streaked across the horizon. She supposed this wasn’t the brightest idea in the world, to be out during a lightning storm, but she had no choice.

  She was the genius who’d decided to leave the back door open to invite a breeze into the kitchen. In her angst-ridden state over Jon, she’d forgotten that the screen didn’t latch unless given an extra tug. Now Darwin was out and hiding somewhere, probably terrified by the thunder, but she would by God find him if it took all night.

  The yard was unfenced because Maggie liked it that way. A fence wouldn’t have been a deterrent, anyway, with an athletic cat like Darwin.

  The boundary of the yard was marked by a series of reddish lava boulders. Beyond that, the scrub brush and junipers were interspersed with areas of prickly pear and yucca. It was wild out there, home to jack-rabbits, rattlesnakes, and coyotes. No place for a house cat.

  Kate prayed that Darwin hadn’t run beyond the boulders. The rain was falling more heavily, which might keep him in the yard. Most cats didn’t like to venture out in the rain. They sought shelter such as—such as in a tree! There was only one tree nearby, a large oak that grew close to the house, so close that one branch arched over the building’s roof.

  As Kate walked toward the tree, her flip-flops squished through the grass. Her T-shirt and shorts were soaked, and rain dripped from her hair and her eyelashes. It didn’t matter.

  Peering up into the branches of the tree, she thought she saw something. She scooped her wet hair back from her face and looked again. “Darwin?”

  He stared down at her from a branch at least fifteen feet from the ground. He looked more regal than scared, but she knew appearances could be deceiving.

  Jon arrived with an open can of tuna.

  “He’s up there.” Kate pointed to the branch where Darwin rested like a miniature white tiger. “I’ll take the tuna if you’ll go into Maggie’s storage shed and get her extension ladder.”

  Jon handed her the tuna without argument, which she found fairly remarkable. Most men she’d known would have attempted to take charge of the rescue.

  Holding the tuna, she tried to coax Darwin down from the tree. His nose twitched, which meant he could smell it. He crept back along the branch and peered down, but the descent seemed to intimidate him. He returned to his branch.

  “I have the ladder.” Jon propped it against the tree trunk with a clang of metal parts. He was soaked, too, and his T-shirt was almost transparent. But he didn’t utter a word of complaint. “I’ll go up.”

  “I can.”

  “I know you can, but I work out all the time back in LA. Muscles are required for my job. Let me do this.”

  She acknowledged he was probably right, that he’d have a better chance of making it down with the cat than she would. “Take the tuna, then.” She handed him the can.

  As he climbed, tuna in his right hand, she thought about his relaxing vacation. She’d certainly done her part to make a hash of it. If she’d adopted Darwin at the end of the week as any sane person would have, they wouldn’t have had the incident with his fans. Instead of planning to leave, he would have been making love to her while rain fell on the tin roof.

  Her decision to adopt Darwin had resulted in Jon’s being exposed to the elements and getting drenched while he tried to entice the cat back into the house. He could rightly have refused to be part of this rescue.

  But that wasn’t Jon. She still had a vivid memory of the day on the playground when a group of kids had been making fun of her parents. Jon had stepped in and helped her face them down.

  In order to check out Jon’s progress, she had to keep wiping the rain out of her eyes. He made it to the branch, held out the can of tuna . . . and dropped it, dumping the contents all over the ground. That was when she learned the full extent of his vocabulary. It was more colorful than she would have imagined.

  “Don’t worry.” She sank to her knees on the muddy ground. “I’ll pick it up and bring it to you.” She wasn’t sure how much tuna she could retrieve or how muddy it would be, but even a little bit should do the trick.

  “Never mind. I think I can get a hold on him, and . . . Shit. Come back here, cat!”

  She looked up in time to watch Darwin scampering toward the end of the branch and leaping onto the roof. It was wet and he slipped a little, but then he crouched there, in the pelting rain, and glared at Jon.

  Jon climbed from the ladder into the tree and moved carefully along the branch Darwin had used. “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way, cat.”

  Kate gulped back hysterical laughter. So far the rescue hadn’t been what she’d call easy. “I really think tuna will help,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he called down.

  But she was worried, and she saw no choice but to climb the ladder and bring it to him. She didn’t feel secure climbing the slippery ladder one-handed with the tuna as he had, but her exercise shorts had no pockets. Finally she pulled up her shirt and wedged the can in her cleavage before pulling the shirt down over her bra again.

  “What was it Esmeralda said?” Jon paused on the branch and surveyed the situation. “That her cats are smart?”

  Kate kicked off her flip-flops and mounted the ladder. “She said something like that, yes.”

  “I beg to differ. This cat doesn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain.” With that, Jon dropped to the roof.

  Kate held her breath as he slipped around a bit before grabbing a ridged section and hanging on. She really didn’t want to add a fall from the roof and broken body parts to her sins against him.

  He inched toward Darwin as Kate climbed from the ladder to the tree. Following Jon’s lead, she edged out on the branch and inched along it toward the roof.

  “I’m here,” she said as she sat poised above the roof. “I have tuna.”

  Jon was still a good six feet away from Darwin, but at least Darwin hadn’t moved. Jon glanced at Kate in startled surprise. “I thought you were still on the ground. What the hell are you doing in the tree?”

  “Bringing you the tuna!”

  “Where is it?”

  “Stuck between my boobs. Where else?”

  His answering snort could have been laughter or disbelief. She wasn’t
sure which, and she’d rather not know. They were equally distasteful after she’d made the supreme effort to get up here.

  “Whatever you do,” he said, “don’t drop onto the roof. It’s extremely slippery.”

  “But how can I transfer the tuna?”

  “Forget the tuna!”

  Something about that comment hit her wrong, and she decided to deliver the tuna whether he thought it was a good idea or not. As she’d said earlier today, he wasn’t the boss of her. “I’m coming down.”

  “Damn it all, Kate! This day has been bad enough. Don’t top it off by breaking something vital.”

  She tested the branch and determined the best spot to land. “Hey, it hasn’t been all bad. You got your rain on the roof.”

  “This is not exactly the way I had planned to enjoy it.”

  “Yeah, I know. Me, either.” She wondered if she’d ever make love to the music of rain on galvanized tin—probably not because it would remind her of an aborted fantasy with Jon. She let go of the branch and slid onto the roof, which was still surprisingly warm, even after the rain. Unfortunately, she kept sliding.

  Muttering a pithy swear word, Jon grabbed the back of her T-shirt. It ripped at first, but then it held.

  With her downward slide halted and his grip tight, she managed to creep slowly up to where he lay panting, his eyes closed.

  “You could have killed yourself,” he said.

  “I doubt it. I’ve paddled a canoe down the—”

  “I know about the stupid canoe, God damn it, but I wasn’t there to see you and hyperventilate while you risked your life.” Opening his eyes, he turned his head to look at her. “Hearing about something over a glass of wine and actually witnessing someone’s reckless behavior are two different things.”

  “I’m not any more reckless than you are.” Rain pattered on her face. “You did it.”

  “Because I’m a trained professional! I do lots of my own stunts!”

  “Well, I’m a trained . . . primatologist.”

  “God help us.”

  “I really do have the tuna.”

  “In your cleavage.”

  “Yeah.”

  With a sigh of resignation, he carefully turned on his side. “As long as you brought it, we might as well see if it helps.”

  “Right.” She pulled up her shirt and extracted the tuna. “I’m going to need a shower after this.”

  “You know what? I must be deranged. Your lifting up that wet T-shirt and pulling a tuna can out of your bra is one of the sexiest moves I’ve ever seen, either on-screen or off.”

  She gazed at him through the drips coming off her hair and eyelashes. His hair was plastered to his head, which might not be her favorite style on him, but the rain had molded his clothes to his body so that every muscle was lovingly defined. “Now that you mention it, wet looks mighty fine on you, too.”

  “Look, you can’t kick me to the curb and then say stuff like that. It’s not nice.”

  “Sorry. And I didn’t kick you to the curb. I just—”

  “Forget it. Let’s finish this cat job.” He turned toward Darwin. “Hey, sport, want some tuna?”

  Darwin sniffed the air and eased forward, obviously tempted, but it was a tedious process—a very wet process. Darwin looked skinny and miserable with his coat plastered to his body by the rain.

  “How do you like our odds of being struck by lightning while lying on a tin roof in a thunderstorm?” Jon asked conversationally.

  “Oh, I think the odds are excellent.”

  “Yeah, me, too. Hey, Darwin, could you move a little faster over here, buddy?”

  Darwin eased closer, and closer yet. Kate sighed with relief when the cat finally put his dripping nose in the tuna can.

  Jon closed his hand over the scruff of Darwin’s neck. “Gotcha.”

  “Now you have to let go of me.”

  “Not until you can promise you won’t slide down the roof.”

  “I won’t. My shorts are all bunched up under me. They’ll slow me down, I think.”

  Jon glanced at her. “That’s good, because the shirt isn’t much use anymore. Every time you move, it rips again. It’s about to come off you.”

  She discovered he was right—the shirt no longer covered much.

  He chuckled. Gradually his chuckle turned to laughter until finally he was gasping from the effort to stop.

  “What’s so damned funny, Ramsey?”

  He gulped for air. “Do you realize this is a classic good news/bad news situation?”

  “No.”

  “The good news is we’re lying together listening to rain on a tin roof. The bad news is we’re lying on the tin roof instead of under it. It suddenly struck me as hysterically funny.”

  “You are just strange, Jon.” Strange and wonderful. And I am so in love with you, which bites. But she couldn’t spend time agonizing about that now. “I have an idea. I’ll climb down by using the tree limb, and then I’ll get the ladder and lean it against the side of the house.”

  “Brilliant. If only I’d thought of that when he made a run for it.”

  “If only I’d thought of that when you followed him. But I thought of it now. Stay here and I’ll be right back.”

  Moving carefully along the roof and using her soggy shorts as a brake against any sliding, she made it to the tree branch. Thanks to good conditioning and a dare-devil nature, she was able to swing up to the branch and then work her way back to the trunk and the ladder. Her shirt caught on the branches, and when necessary, she ripped it free. It was in tatters by the time she reached the ladder, and her palms were skinned, but she didn’t care about any of that.

  She descended the ladder as fast as she dared, hoisted it with both hands, and positioned it at the point of the eaves below Jon and Darwin. “Your ladder awaits, m’lord!”

  “I see it! Just hold it steady. We’re coming down.”

  Tinny, scraping sounds followed, and then the soles of his shoes appeared at the top of the ladder. Kate kept waiting for Darwin’s yowl of protest, but Jon’s grip on his neck must have put the cat into kitten mode. Darwin hung like a wet rag from Jon’s outstretched fist as the two of them came slowly down.

  “Here.” Jon handed Darwin to her.

  Instead of cradling him, she took the same hold on the scruff of his neck.

  “Got him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go ahead and take him in. I’ll put away the ladder.”

  She didn’t argue. Darwin was shivering, probably from fear as well as from being wet and cold. She hurried into the house and went straight to her bathroom, where she grabbed a fluffy bath towel and wrapped the wet cat in it. Then she sat on the closed toilet lid and began drying him off.

  “You are almost more trouble than you’re worth, cat,” she murmured.

  Darwin began to purr.

  As she listened to his contented sounds, she was filled with gratitude toward Jon for helping keep her cat safe. “We owe Jon a lot, Darwin. We have to find some way to thank him.”

  Chapter 9

  Jon made it to Kate’s bathroom doorway in time to hear her last comment. “I can imagine several ways you could thank me.”

  She glanced up, and the warmth in her eyes was promising. “Is that right?”

  “Uh-huh.” He really did like the way she was gazing at him. Her expression was extremely friendly. He might be down, but he sure as hell wasn’t out. And she’d said he looked good wet. Well, he had all sorts of wet going on now. He was dripping like a sprinkler system. “How is Darwin?”

  “He’s purring. I’d say that’s a good sign.”

  “A very good sign. By the way, the ladder’s in the shed and the back door is closed and locked.”

  She took a deep breath. “You’ve been wonderful.”

  He’d take that. “Just so you know, it’s still raining.”

  She picked right up on that. “I know, and those winding roads can be slippery. You might want to wait until it stops
before you leave.”

  “I was thinking that, myself. Also if it’s a bad time to drive out, it’s a bad time to drive in. I’m not expecting any media types until after the storm lets up.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “So . . .”

  He surveyed her tattered shirt and her wet bra, which was completely transparent. “So . . .”

  “I guess we need a plan.” Apparently she’d been rubbing Darwin too vigorously, because he growled in protest and scrambled out of her lap. Once on the bathroom floor, he began grooming himself.

  “Actually, I have a plan.” Jon’s groin stirred in anticipation. “Stay right there. I’ll be back.” As he hurried out to the hallway and unzipped his suitcase, he wondered if she’d resent his telling her to stay there. She didn’t like being ordered around, and he’d be wise to remember that. She needed to be wooed.

  Condoms tucked in his shorts pocket, he went back to the bathroom and discovered the door was closed. Damn.

  “Kate?” He rapped softly. “You in there?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you coming out?”

  “Yep.” When she opened the door, she was wearing a white terry robe and a smile.

  If there was a God, the robe and the smile would be the only two things she was wearing. Jon’s body reacted instantly to that possibility.

  She lifted her gaze to his. “Now, if you’d care to tell me how best to thank you for helping me save Darwin . . .” She let the sentence dangle suggestively.

  Hallelujah. He hadn’t ruined everything by giving her a direct order. “I’d much rather show you.” He’d always been grateful for the abilities he’d gained through acting, but never more so than now.

  Not every guy was capable of scooping a woman into his arms and carrying her up a flight of stairs, but he was. She screeched when he first picked her up, though.

  “Jon!” She wiggled as if to get away. “You don’t have to carry me!”

  “Sure I do. Stop struggling.”

  “Is this some sort of macho thing?”

  “Absolutely.” He carried her through the kitchen and down the hall. “In monkey terms, it’s the equivalent of beating my chest and roaring.”