Built to Last (Harlequin Heartwarming) (6 page)

“Okay, how’s this? You’re hot.”

“I already knew that.” Now he was openly grinning. “Emma tells me I am. She likes it when I drive her places, because the other girls say I’m hot.”

“Well, they’re right. And I do believe someone is peeking out the front window.”

“So they are.” He sounded regretful. “So much for another kiss.”

“Another time?” Did she have to make it a question when she’d intended to be oh, so cool?

“Count on it.”

A moment later, she let herself into the house and watched his pickup pull away.

Companionship. Could she enjoy such tepid pleasures with Ryan, and not make the fatal mistake of falling in love?

O
NE WEEK AND
a couple of dates with Ryan later, Jo was contemplating the less than absorbing problem of whether a given title should be classified in the Dewey Decimal 500s, as a scientific work, or in the 200s, as a metaphysical piece of crackpot science, when the knock came on her bedroom door.

“Come in,” she said, turning in her chair, pleased with the interruption and hoping it would be lengthy.

Emma came in, Ginny behind her.

“We’re going for a walk,” the teenager said. “We thought you might like to come.”

Jo hesitated. A stroll down city sidewalks with a first-grader and a high school girl was not her idea of a thrill a minute. On the other hand, it was a beautiful fall day, and besides… Her gaze slipped back to her open textbook.

“Sure! Thanks for asking.” She rose, a little embarrassed at her alacrity. “Just let me grab a sweater.”

Neither girl’s mother was home from work yet. Jo knew the two often went for walks in the afternoon, sometimes to Cowen Park, or to the grocery store to buy a Popsicle for Ginny, or just to wander, she supposed.

Today they set out the eight blocks to Whole Foods, a treasure Kathleen and Helen had pointed her to shortly after her arrival. The huge grocery store on Roosevelt specialized in organic and earth-friendly foods and toiletries. Cosmetics weren’t tested on animals, and the produce department had the most incredible mountains of glorious fruits and vegetables she’d ever seen. The bars where shoppers could construct their own wraps and salads were to drool for.

Head tilted back to look up at the leafy canopy, touched with the pale yellow of autumn, Jo decided aloud, “Maybe I’ll buy a scone. Have you tried them?”

She immediately felt guilty. If Emma had ever eaten anything like that, she didn’t now. But it was really hard never to talk about food. Maybe if people did, she’d be tempted, Jo thought, trying to justify raising a subject that was seldom mentioned around their house.

Ginny walked just ahead beside Emma,
holding her hand. Her brown hair was French-braided, probably courtesy of Emma. She looked over her shoulder. “What’s a scone?”

“Um…sort of a sweet biscuit. Really dense.” A blank look told Jo she needed to elaborate. “Not fluffy and light like bread, but heavy like…”

“Mom’s bread when it doesn’t rise right,” Emma finished.

“Oh.” Ginny nodded, satisfied.

“And you can get them with blueberries or cranberries or bits of orange. They’re scrumptious.”

“Scrumptious,” Ginny repeated, in her solemn way.

Jo bent to pick up a whirlybird seed pod, fallen from a maple. Tossed in the air, it spun gently to the sidewalk.

“Oh!” Ginny said again, with more animation. Letting go of Emma, she picked one up, too, and threw it. She almost smiled, watching its spinning progression.

They stood there for five minutes, playing. Jo felt a little silly when she saw laughing faces in a passing car, but, after all, she’d started this. And Ginny looked absorbed and happy, in her quiet, withdrawn way.

In the next few blocks, Jo and the two
girls talked about hairdos, books and why an Indian woman who lived in the neighborhood had a dark spot on her forehead. Jo had to admit Ginny and Emma were easy to talk to—easier than she’d expected, but maybe that was because they weren’t normal children, either of them. Death shadowed both, in different ways, subduing them. Making them more thoughtful, Jo would have liked to think, but the truth was, Emma seemed to think and talk about little except food and how fat she was. Except, Jo amended, when Emma was with Ginny—then she seemed more child than teenager.

In the fourth block, Ginny stopped. “Oh!”

Her favorite word, Jo thought dryly, before she saw the sign, too, easily read even by a first grader. In block print painted on cardboard, it read, Free Kittens.

“Can we look at them?” Ginny whispered.

Sensing dangerous territory, Jo hesitated. “Uh…”

“Sure,” Emma said, hurrying forward with the smaller girl towed behind. “We can ask anyway.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea….” Jo called after them, lengthening her steps to catch up.

But they had already turned up the narrow driveway, where they’d spotted a boy shooting baskets into a hoop that hung crookedly above the garage door.

Bang! The garage door rattled when he missed, and Ginny jerked and tried to stop. Determined Emma hauled her onward.

“Hi!” she said.

The lanky boy, who had to be close to her age, turned at the sound of her voice. Dribbling the ball, he said, “Hi.” His gaze went to Jo, behind the girls. Warily, he asked, “Um…you looking for somebody?”

“You have a sign for free kittens. Can we see them?”

His face cleared. “We only have one left, but you can look at him, if you want. We really need to find him a home. Dad said any of the kittens that didn’t get homes by this weekend have to go to Animal Control.”

“We’re not really looking for one,” Jo felt compelled to say.

“Maybe Mom would let us,” Emma said, making Ginny’s tipped-up face hopeful.

Jo couldn’t imagine. Kathleen didn’t strike her as a woman who’d like having a kitten clawing the furniture and hanging from the blinds and shedding on her pillow.

“Does your mother
like
cats?” she asked doubtfully.

“Sure. We used to have a Persian. He died of cancer. The vet said they do a lot.”

A Persian. Well, they did shed, she supposed, but she wondered if they ever dangled from window blinds. In every photo she’d ever seen, the Persian was neatly composed on a velvet pillow, apparently content to gaze vacuously at the world.

The boy let the basketball fall. “He’s under a bush in the backyard, I think. Come on.” He started around the corner of the house, beneath a huge bush with shiny green leaves that seemed to be blocking one of the windows in the house.

“Are you spaying the mother cat?” Jo asked. She had never been an animal person, but in her opinion, you shouldn’t have a pet you couldn’t adequately care for. And keeping a female cat from having endless, unwanted litters of kittens seemed like basic care.

“Dad said we could keep her if I can earn the money to pay for her spaying. I mow lawns. Hey!” He looked eagerly over his shoulder. “Do you need yours mowed?”

The gate hung crookedly on bent hinges.
He had to scrape it across the concrete walk to open it. Jo winced.

“No, but we’re remodeling the house. We might be able to pay you to haul debris out to the Dumpster, that kind of thing.” She’d pay him out of her own pocket until that cat was spayed.

The backyard could have used mowing, but Dad apparently didn’t care. Dandelions were displacing the original sod. The handle of a mower stuck out of a rusting metal shed that seemed to be otherwise full of junk. Jo was beginning to think the boy had way more initiative than his father.

“Kitty, kitty, kitty!” the boy called.

At a tiny meow, Jo turned. A creamsicle orange-and-white ball of fluff walked out from under an overgrown rhododendron.

“Oh,” Ginny breathed happily.

The kitten picked its way through grass that reached over its back, the tail a flag, waving high. Even Jo felt a dangerous melting sensation.

But when it was about ten feet away, they all saw that one of his eyes was… Oh, my, Jo thought. It was actually dangling out of the socket.

Even as they gaped in horror, they heard the happy whir of a kitten purr.

Ginny shrank back against Jo, and even Emma recoiled. On gathering anger, Jo asked, “Did you know?”

The boy turned a shocked face to her. “He wasn’t like that.” His voice shook. “Something happened. I bet the neighbor’s dog got him.”

“Will your parents take him to the vet?” The hard tone was unlike her.

His mouth worked, and finally he shook his head. “I think Dad’ll take him to Animal Control.”

Jo bent and gently scooped up the kitten, whose purr intensified. He weighed hardly anything. “We’ll take him to the vet,” she said. “Maybe his eye can be saved.”

She was hurrying out of the yard before she grasped what she’d done. The girls behind her were starting to babble.

“
Can
it be fixed?”

“Will we keep him?”

“I don’t know,” Jo said to both questions. In the driveway she stopped and turned to the boy. “Can you remember our address?” She made him repeat it twice. “I’ll pay for the
mother cat to be spayed, if you’ll promise to work to pay me back.”

He nodded jerkily, his eyes full of tears.

“I’ll see you Saturday morning, then. At nine o’clock.”

“I promise.” He swiped the tears on his shirtsleeve.

The kitten was trembling in Jo’s arms. As she hurried toward home, she kept stealing glances at his eyeball and the caked blood around it. This hadn’t just happened, maybe not even today. He felt hot. Hotter than a cat should, she thought.

“Is he okay?” Emma asked for the third time, as they turned the corner onto their block.

“He needs to go to the vet,” Jo told her. “Now. Will you two come?”

They both nodded, eyes wide and scared.

“Emma, I need my car keys and license. My purse is on my bedside table. Will you run up and get it?”

The teenager nodded and raced into the house.

“Ginny, will you go get a towel out of the linen closet? An old one, preferably?”

The six-year-old obeyed without a word. Waiting, Jo wondered anxiously if she was
doing the right thing. Both girls had such problems. Was she traumatizing them further by letting them think they might save this poor creature? But what else could she have done? If she’d hustled them away, they’d have all had nightmares. At least this way they could tell themselves they’d done their best.

She murmured softly to the kitten, who began again to purr. He hadn’t struggled once. He was such a soft, sweet thing, his one good eye trusting.

“We’ll fix you,” she whispered, scratching his back gently with one finger. “You shouldn’t have been out where that scary dog could find you.”

Behind her, Jo heard the deep rumble of a truck. Startled when it turned into the driveway, she turned.

“Ryan!”

In his work garb of heavy boots, faded denim jeans and torn flannel shirt, he climbed out of his pickup, his smile a caress. “Jo, I came by to see…”

Ginny tugged at Jo’s sleeve. Wordless, she held up a towel.

At almost the same moment, Emma tore down the stairs. “Here’s your purse!”

“What’s the emergency?” Ryan asked.

As Jo shifted the small, furry bundle in her arms so she could wrap it in the towel, his gaze shifted. “What the…?”

“Long story,” she told him. “We’re on our way to the vet. Um…do you know of a vet?”

“There’s a clinic just off Roosevelt. I pass it all the time.” He nodded to his truck. “Hop in.”

The moment he opened the door, they all saw the huge tool chest on the back seat. “But you said we could go!” Emma protested. “Uncle Ryan doesn’t have room.”

Taking a deep breath, Jo faced the girls. “Are you sure you
want
to come? You know, there’s a chance that, um…”

Emma lifted her chin. “He’ll die?”

Jo nodded.

“We still want to come. Don’t we?”

They all looked at Ginny, who knew too much about death snatching a loved one. Small and pale, she tucked her hand in Emma’s. “Yes,” she said softly but very clearly. “We want to come.”

“Well, then,” Jo turned back to Ryan, “we have to take my car. But thank you.”

“I’ll drive.” He held out his hand.

Masterful man, once again. Also once again, Jo was chagrined to realize she didn’t mind. After all, he knew where he was going, she told herself. Besides, she didn’t want to jar the kitten by handing him over to someone else.

“Emma, can you dig out the keys?”

The teenager found them and passed them to Ryan, who waited only until everyone was buckled in before rocketing away from the curb.

Righting herself, Jo said, “I don’t think another minute or two is going to matter.”

He glanced at the kitten. “Why is it purring?”

Tiny paws kneaded Jo’s arm. “I think he’s happy. Or maybe he’s purring to comfort himself. I’m not sure.”

Ryan made an inarticulate sound and tore around a corner. Jo clutched at the armrest and saved her breath.

Within minutes they screeched to a stop in the small parking lot beside a veterinary clinic. Everyone trailed Jo in.

“May I help you?” asked the heavyset woman behind the counter.

“We…found this kitten.” Jo held it up for her to see. “He really needs help.”

The pleasant smile vanished. “Oh, my! Just a moment.” She disappeared through a doorway, returning almost immediately. “Let me take you back to a room.”

She carried a clipboard with them into the small examining room, where all four crowded with her. “Dr. Mills will be right with us. Let me get some information first.”

With a twinge of what did I get myself into, Jo gave her name as the owner, along with her address and phone number.

“Does the kitten have a name yet?”

Had the boy called him by anything? She couldn’t remember hearing anything but “kitty, kitty.”

“I don’t think so,” she admitted. “This has all happened so fast.”

Ginny piped up unexpectedly. “He should be Pirate. In case he has to have an eye patch.”

Jo looked down at the orange-and-white face, made grotesque by the damaged eye. “Pirate,” she whispered.

Silent since she’d carried him in, he started to purr again.

Jo smiled at Ginny. “Pirate it is.”

After the receptionist had left, Emma said, “Mom’s going to wonder where we are, if she
gets home first. Maybe I should leave a message.”

Jo nodded. “Good idea. We don’t want to scare her.”

Emma disappeared to use Jo’s cell phone, left in the car. A moment later, the door opened and a young woman in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck came in.

After introducing herself and shaking hands, she said, “Let’s take a look.”

Emma slipped back in to join the anxious circle watching while the vet took the kitten’s temperature, listened to his heart and studied the inside of his mouth for reasons mysterious to Jo.