Cat Deck the Halls (28 page)

Read Cat Deck the Halls Online

Authors: Shirley Rousseau Murphy

BOOK: Cat Deck the Halls
6.63Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Joe would hear, later, how Clyde had gone shopping before he picked Ryan up at the hospital, would hear all about Clyde's agonized thoughts that had accompanied this decisive move, how Clyde had wanted to ask Wilma to help pick out the ring, wanted a woman's opinion. Or maybe Charlie. Or Ryan's sister, Hanni—except that Hanni's taste ran to pizzazz and dazzle, and that wouldn't suit Ryan. Joe would hear about how Clyde thought, should he ask Joe first, to make sure it was okay? And
should
he buy a ring? Or should he just ask Ryan first, and pick out the ring together? Was he
sure
he wanted to do this? And how would this go down with Joe Grey? Clyde would tell Joe how, when he'd thought about not asking her, a terrible loneliness had gripped him, an emptiness that he had never before experienced.

Clyde did not usually share his dilemmas so freely. Joe would listen patiently to all the mental suffering involved in this commitment; he would hear how, after Clyde had bought the ring, he debated about whether to keep his secret from everyone, in the event that, after all, he would be obliged to return his purchase.

But now the deed was done, and apparently the ring had been accepted, the decision had been made by both parties, and this early Christmas morning, beside the Christmas tree, Joe Grey looked at Ryan, and she looked at him. And the two of them shared a secret that even Clyde didn't yet know. There they were, the three of them sitting beside the Christmas tree. Joe and Ryan looking at each other. Clyde looking from Ryan to Joe, puzzled—and it was then
that Rock bounded in through the dog door, from the back patio, skidded through the kitchen, and crashed into them, licking their faces, licking Joe Grey in the face as happily as if the big hound had a new toy for Christmas.

We'll see about that,
Joe thought, pushing away Rock's nose with a velvet paw.

But for a long time afterward, that moment would remain frozen in Joe Grey's memory like some treasured family photograph. He and Ryan and Clyde and Rock, on this early Christmas morning, all together before the Christmas tree, frozen in time as permanently as the preserved images from Pompeii—a Christmas memory to last, perhaps, for all his nine lives.

And then Clyde raised his coffee cup in a toast. “Merry Christmas, Joe. Merry Christmas, Ryan. And Rock. Merry Christmas to all of us, to a brand-new family.”

The word hound is used to denote dog, not to imply that the Weimaraner is a member of the hound group; this breed is a member of the sporting group.

About the Author

S
HIRLEY
R
OUSSEAU
M
URPHY
has received seven national Cat Writers' Association Awards for best novel of the year, two Cat Writers' President's Awards, the “World's Best Cat Litter-ary Award” in 2006 for the Joe Grey books, and five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards for previous books. She and her husband live in Carmel, California, where they serve as full-time household help for two demanding feline ladies.

WWW.JOEGREY.COM

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

A
LSO BY
S
HIRLEY
R
OUSSEAU
M
URPHY

Cat Pay the Devil

Cat Breaking Free

Cat Cross Their Graves

Cat Fear No Evil

Cat Seeing Double

Cat Laughing Last

Cat Spitting Mad

Cat to the Dogs

Cat in the Dark

Cat Raise the Dead

Cat Under Fire

Cat on the Edge

The Catsworld Portal

Jacket design by Barbara Levine

Jacket illustration by Beppe Giacobbe/Morgan Gaynin Inc.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CAT DECK THE HALLS
. Copyright © 2007 by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ePub edition September 2007 ISBN 9780061740145

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900

Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

New Zealand

HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

P.O. Box 1

Auckland, New Zealand

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

77-85 Fulham Palace Road

London, W6 8JB, UK

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

10 East 53rd Street

New York, NY 10022

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com

Other books

Devil's Workshop by Jáchym Topol
Love Condemned: Beginnings by Stephanie Brown
Prayers for the Stolen by Clement, Jennifer
The Time of Her Life by Jeanie London
Her Beguiling Bride by Paisley Smith
The Arcanum by Janet Gleeson
RESURRECTED by Morgan Rice
People of the Earth by W. Michael Gear