How Cat Got a Life (2 page)

“And I did.” Cat threw her head back and laughed, the tension of the arrest finally flooding out of her. “God, that was brilliant. I can still feel the adrenaline pumping, the world narrowing to nothing but the next handhold and the next move up toward the top.”

She was still chuckling when the traffic light turned green. She’d never felt as alive as she did right now. The colors seemed brighter and the sultry southern air carried lush scents of ripe summer vegetation that made her think of idle afternoons in the sun. Cat shook her head in amazement. It was just a dare, a little reminder of the carefree days of college and rock climbing, but for whatever reason, it appeared as if she had just emerged from years of hibernation. Excitement tingled along her skin and life suddenly seemed full of promise.

****

Cat took the stairs carefully, making sure she didn’t scuff her heels. She’d bought a briefcase on Sunday at an outlet store, a traditional one in tan cowhide with a flap at the top. She didn’t quite know how a secretary in a county sheriff’s office in North Carolina should dress, so she dressed the way she always had, conservative New Hampshire.

The two deputies turned to look at her when she entered. Their gazes traveled up and down her clothing. Embarrassment made her hold her breath as she realized how formal she must appear in comparison to their slacks and short-sleeved shirts.

“I’m reporting for duty,” she said, dangling the briefcase in front of her, both hands clasped around the handle to keep them steady.

“I’m Karen.” The female deputy rose and gestured in the direction of the man with a lined face and a droopy moustache. “That’s Walter.”

“I’m Catherine Bridgewater. Friends call me Cat.”
Friends.
Cat flinched at the word. She had none to speak of. In recent years, all her time and energy had been consumed by taking care of the dying, or the money problems they’d left behind.

“Cat? Suits you,” Karen said and whirled about, sending her dark bobbed hair swaying. Despite the heavy hips and a full bust that strained the buttons on her uniform shirt, the young woman looked fit, with a healthy glow to her pale complexion.

Cat nodded to acknowledge the comment but couldn’t think of a reply.

Karen steered her toward the empty desk. “Can you use a scanner?”

“Depends on the make and model. I’ve used one before,” Cat said, leaning down to prop her briefcase on the floor.

“Easy. Line the sheets against the glass, then press the green button.” Karen shoved a stack of documents at her. “When you’re done with these, I have some typing for you. Then you can vacuum the floor and clean the bathroom.”

“Clean the bathroom?” Cat asked, puzzled.

“Yup.” Karen settled back behind her desk. “A week’s not long enough to get security clearance for you to handle confidential information. We’ll have to make any use of you that we can.”

Cat glanced across the room at the closed door.

“Brock’s out for the day.” Karen’s brows lifted with a hint of sarcasm. “He came in early and seemed in a hurry to leave.”

“I see.” Somehow, the sunshine dimmed outside. Cat held her breath, then released it in a long sigh and flipped the lid on the scanner. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Karen and Walter exchanging a smirk. Humiliation stained her cheeks as she guessed what their grins were all about. Married or not, Sheriff Brock Leonetti probably had women flocking like locusts after him, and the deputies assumed she had joined the crowd.

Her mouth tightened.

She was through worrying what people thought about her. For years, she’d done the right thing, had given up her life to nurture others. Cat lined a document on the glass and punched her finger on the button. Determination shot like a thunderbolt down her spine. From now on, she would only please herself and Dalton, and the rest of the world could go to hell.

****

Brock parked his Ford Explorer in the station lot and sauntered up the stairs. At four o’clock it should be safe to return. The society type would no doubt roll in late and sneak out early, and with any luck she’d slope off before the week was out, trusting that no one was counting to make sure she completed her forty hours.

A tan briefcase stood on the secretary’s desk, but no other sign remained of Mrs. Bridgewater. Walter had already gone. Brock waved a greeting to Karen and strode down the corridor toward the toilets.

“Later,” he called out when Karen jumped out of her seat and raced after him. It had been a slow morning, and his bladder could only take so much coffee. He pushed the door open with one hand, yanking his zipper down with the other.

“What the hell?”

He froze in the middle of the floor, his hand on his crotch. A rounded bottom covered in nothing but a flimsy pair of old running shorts stuck out from beneath the basin. The bottom wiggled as the rest of the crouched body backed out from the confined space. In front of him, Mrs. Bridgewater straightened to her knees.

His mouth went dry. His heart slammed into his ribs. His hand tightened in warning over his shaft that stirred in delight.

“What are you doing here?” Brock choked out the words.

“I’m cleaning the bathroom.”

The chestnut hair had collapsed into a messy tangle that spilled over one eye. Her skin gleamed with perspiration, and the T-shirt, one of his old ones judging by the size, clung to her breasts where the fabric had soaked through. She stared at him, her eyes level with his swelling groin.

“Out,” Brock roared. “Get out of here right now.”

He would have turned and fled, but coffee was a powerful diuretic, and he had no choice but to stay.

He could see her chest rise with a harshly indrawn breath. Scampering to her feet, she slapped the wet rag she’d been clutching in her hand across the tiles. She squared her shoulders and jutted up her chin, trying to look at him down her nose despite the fact that he towered over her.

“There’s no need to panic,” she told him. “I’ve seen exposed men before and I’m sure you look no different from the rest.” She whirled about and marched out, her bare feet making a soft tap over the damp floor.

Brock tore open the door to a cubicle. It took a moment for his semi-erect member to settle down enough to handle the business, and he swore again—at her, at his bad luck for returning early, and most of all, at his appalling judgment for allowing her to invade his world in the first place.

“Fuck,” he said, and savored the word. He tried to avoid bad language, and thanks to his discipline, the expressions retained their potency for when he needed to vent his fury.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He shook himself dry and wondered how long he could stay in the bathroom without appearing a coward.

****

“Oh my God,” Cat muttered under her breath as she hurtled down the corridor. She’d kill Karen. They had started the day skirting around each other, like two wary animals. When she performed without complaint every task Karen handed her, from loading the photocopier to emptying the shredder, gradually the young woman’s stiff manner had eased. By lunchtime, they were on good enough terms to sit down together over a sandwich. Cat had discovered that Karen had recently had her first baby. Her husband, a PhD student, brought the baby to the station four times a day for breastfeeding.

Cat rushed through the open doorway and found Karen waiting in the office, both hands clamped over her mouth. The expression of shocked horror on Karen’s face assured Cat that the deputy hadn’t set her up on purpose.

“I tried to tell him.” Karen lowered her hands and gasped out the words. “He must have been bursting. He just brushed me to one side and took off down the hall. Did he…?” Her eyes snapped wider.

Slowly, Cat nodded.

“Was he…?”

Her head kept nodding. She sucked in a breath and almost choked.

“Dear Lord,” Karen said. “He’ll kill us both.”

They stared at each other. The suffocating sensation in Cat’s chest expanded, and then she could no longer hold it inside. Laughter exploded from her throat, rocking her shoulders. Karen spluttered for a second, and then her deep hoots mingled with Cat’s lighter tones.

Tears streamed down their faces as they laughed. Cat fought for air and managed to give an account of the details. “He just stood there, his fly open, one hand blocking my view, his face in the fiercest scowl I’ve ever seen.”

“This is priceless,” Karen said. “Priceless. He’s such a starched shirt. I hope this unbends him a bit. Makes him more human.”

“I wouldn’t count on that.” Brock’s deep voice came from the entrance.

Cat snapped around. They’d been so loud in their mirth, he’d sneaked up on them. She glanced down at her clothing. Damn. She’d behaved like a giggling teenager, instead of taking the opportunity to change out of the outfit Karen had dredged up for her to wear while she cleaned the nooks and crannies of the two-cubicle men’s restroom.

Brock hovered on the edge of the open office, his face a stony mask of restraint. “In case you’re planning to sue me for sexual harassment, the cleaners are supposed to hang a notice on the door while they’re inside.”

Cat looked at Karen, who rolled her eyes. They started again, howling with laughter, doubled over, struggling not to collapse on the floor. Cat was only vaguely aware of the savage curse that echoed around the room, and then the slam of the door as Brock opted for a retreat.

Chapter Two

“Do I look all right in these?” Cat twisted around to stare at her backside in the small mirror propped on a chair in Dalton’s dorm room.

“You look more than all right.” Her stepson lounged on the bed. “Guys keep asking me who you are. It’s okay with me if you want to do a Mrs. Robinson thing and seduce some of my friends.”

“Dalton!”

He shrugged his shoulders while lying down in an insolent pose only a teenager could achieve. “What’s the big deal?”

“You’re my stepson. You’re not supposed to talk about my sex life, or the lack of it.”

“How am I going to learn about sex if we don’t talk?”

Cat’s hands stilled on the side pockets of the chinos she’d borrowed from Dalton. As she studied him in the idle sprawl, she saw the power rippling along his arms and took in the changes in his face that were tiny, but lent an unmistakable stamp of masculinity to his features.

Dear God. Right before her eyes, he’d been turning from a boy into a man, and she’d failed to notice. It overwhelmed her at times, the responsibility of caring for an adolescent, and the need to navigate between discipline and trust. Cat walked up to the bed and gestured at Dalton to scoot over and make space. Anxiety fluttered in her stomach, but she’d do her best to act in place of the mother and father her stepson lacked.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

Dalton huddled up on the bed, dangling his arms over his knees and lowering his head to hide his expression. “What do girls want? What attracts them to a guy?”

Cat chose her words carefully. “I don’t know if you can generalize. Maybe different girls want different things. I can only speak for the type of person I am.”

“So?” Dalton peered at her from beneath floppy hair.

“I like a man who is confident, but not arrogant or overbearing. Gentle, but not a pushover or a doormat. He doesn’t have to be handsome, but I’d like him to take care of his appearance. It is more important to have a curious mind than to be highly educated. More than anything, I need a man to be honest and reliable.”

“I’m sorry.” The words came in a whisper.

“Sorry for what?” Cat wanted to mollycoddle him, but she’d always avoided using endearments on Dalton. At thirty-three she was almost old enough to be his mother, but they’d only known each other for two years. She didn’t want to force an adult-child relationship on the boy who was growing up fast.

“I know that Dad conned you into marrying him, and then he died and lumbered you with me. Now that I’ve left home, you don’t have to look after me any more. You’re free to get a life.”

Cat froze. Her hands clutched the bedspread so tight it hurt. Dalton had never spoken about her relationship with Tim, but she’d always suspected the boy knew his father had pretended to love her in order to find someone to nurse him through the final stages of cancer and take care of his son after he was gone.

She turned to Dalton. “Let’s get this thing clear. Whatever happened between your father and me, you’re the most precious thing in my life. I’d marry him again a million times over to have you as my son.”

“It’s just that…”

“Yes, darling?” Cat said the word hesitantly.

He sent her a small smile that made her exhale with relief. Then he returned to examining the frayed knees of his jeans. “I don’t want to be the single egg in your basket. You spent a year nursing Dad, and then you spent another year sorting out his debts and fretting about how to be a mother to me. What are you going to do now? When you go home next weekend, I won’t be there. What’s going to fill your days?”

A cold trickle of fear slid down her spine. “Are you…are you worried that I’ll crowd you? Cling to you when you need to go off and find your own way?”