Stray Hearts (3 page)

Matt knew he should have called a halt to the conversation as soon as saw where it was heading, but Hollinger kept telling him how impressed he was with his grant application, and what a wonderful community resource the shelter was, and how it would be a shame for it to go under because of lack of financing. He kept repeating that twenty-five-thousand-dollar figure, with his glass-smooth tone and seamless persuasion making it seem as if they were just two old buddies doing each other a favor. By the time it was all over, Matt had agreed to oversee the hard-labor restitution of Hollinger’s wayward ex-fiancée, and Hollinger had agreed to use his influence with the committee to ensure Matt got the grant.

“Plenty of other organizations have applied for that grant,” Matt told Hazel. “And Hollinger’s swaying the outcome.”

Hazel made a scoffing noise. “You deserve it as much as anyone, so what’s the problem? How do you think most organizations get their funding? By knowing people in high places. One hand washes the other. It’s done every day.”

But Matt didn’t like being the one doing it. Still, it was beginning to look as if the Dorland Grant was his only hope to keep the shelter running when just about everything else in his life had fallen apart. Lately he’d found himself dwelling on the words his ex-wife had tossed at him as she walked out the door for the last time:
Good luck finding another woman who’ll put up with all this.

He lay awake nights sometimes thinking about that as he watched his situation go from bad to worse. As if the expenses of the shelter hadn’t been enough, his ex-wife had come out on the winning end of a divorce decree that had stripped him naked. So he’d moved into the second floor above his clinic to keep from paying rent, telling himself it was just temporary. That had been a year and a half ago.

“Think about it, Doc,” Hazel said. “We need you.” She nodded back over her shoulder. “They need you.”

No matter how bad things got, that’s what always brought him back around. He was the only thing standing between thirty-some animals and the mean streets, and he couldn’t quit now.

“Don’t worry, Hazel. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure the doors stay open.”

And in spite of the bills he couldn’t pay, the supplies he couldn’t buy and the undomesticated tomcats who kept showing up on his doorstep, he meant every word of it. Even if it meant dealing with Kay Ramsey.

The first Saturday morning after she made the deal with Robert, Kay stood in the doorway of the Cat Room of the Westwood Animal Shelter, wishing she’d followed her instincts. She should have run screaming from the premises the moment the old lady who ran the place said “cat,” but here she was, face-to-face with her worst nightmare: a room full of scary, creepy, menacing felines who, unfortunately, didn’t seem to be nearly as afraid of her as she was of them. One or two she might have been able to take. But a dozen?

And planted right in the middle of the cat convention was Hazel Willoughby, the geriatric, polyester-clad manager of the Westwood Animal Shelter, holding out the most vile utensil Kay had ever seen—a pink plastic pooper-scooper.

“As I told you before,” Kay said, trying to sound levelheaded and reasonable, “I have administrative experience. It seems a shame to waste my expertise—”

“Nope. You’ll do what needs doing. And the cat boxes need doing.”

No! This can’t be happening!

She’d followed Claire’s advice to the letter. From her faux gold earrings to her mock leather pumps, Kay was a budget-controlled picture of polished professionalism. Her skirt and blouse screamed
desk job,
but to her dismay, Hazel seemed to have other ideas. Not only did she expect Kay to
enter
the Cat Room, she actually expected her to
clean up
after its occupants. And while she was wearing panty hose, no less.

Hazel continued to hold out the pink utensil, and Kay continued to pretend it didn’t exist “I actually went to school to become a legal assistant. I do whatever needs doing. You know. From the front desk."

“Can’t do much poop-scooping when you're sitting there.”

“But you don’t understand—”

“The longer you piddle around,” the woman warned, “the more there’ll be to clean up.”

Kay didn’t doubt that for a moment. As her gaze circled the highly populated Cat Room, a shiver of apprehension trickled down her spine. Most of the animals were roaming free, hunched on carpet-covered perches like vultures, sprawled on the floor or lying on top of one another like piles of dirty laundry. She didn’t sweat the sleeping ones. It was the slinking, scurrying, meowing ones that filled her with dread.

Then she glanced at the corner of the room and nearly gasped. A cat that looked like the feline version of a championship wrestler glared at her from—thank God—the confines of his cage. He had orange stripes, a tom ear, muscles like a tiger and an expression of disgust that could peel the paint off walls. An honest-to-goodness nightmare come to life.

Before Kay could fully recover from being stared down by the Godzilla of cats, something furry brushed against her leg. She looked down to see a shifty black feline winding itself around her ankle. She gasped and yanked her foot away, shaking it wildly to dislodge any lingering remnants of cat, then spun around and fled back to the front desk with the old lady in close pursuit.

“Get Dr. Forester over here,” Kay said.

Hazel glanced out the window. Kay could see three or four cars still sitting on the street in front of the Westwood Veterinary Clinic, which was housed in a huge Victorian next door.

“Doc’s still busy with patients,” the old lady said.

“I don’t care. I—” Kay stopped, then took a deep, calming breath. “Please. I have to see him
right now.”

If the old lady said no again, it would leave her with only one option: to fall on her knees and beg for mercy. If that’s what it took to stay out of that seething sea of felines, she’d do it

Fortunately, though, the old lady gave up the fight and picked up the phone. After a quick, muffled conversation, she hung up, sneered a little in Kay’s general direction, then sat down in a chair behind the counter and stuck her nose into a crossword puzzle book. A wicked-looking Siamese cat jumped into her lap, and she stroked him absentmindedly.

Kay breathed a momentary sigh of relief. She glanced around as she waited, taking in every nuance of the rather unappealing decor. The shelter consisted of a partially renovated, oddly rearranged 1920s prairie-style house in a neighborhood she generally took pains to avoid. She had a passion for older homes, but this place was nothing short of decrepit

Cheap orange plastic chairs lined the wall of the reception area, which had once been a living room, and beyond that she’d seen a kitchen performing double-duty as a storeroom. The Cat Room had once been a big bedroom, as had the Dog Room. She didn’t even want to think about what the other rooms might contain.

Surely the veterinarian in charge of this place would be easier to deal with than the old lady. He was probably some grandfatherly type—she could bat her eyelashes at him and make him feel sorry for her. That kind of ruse really wasn’t her style, but it would certainly do in a pinch.

Finally Kay heard footsteps on the porch. She composed herself by squaring her shoulders and smoothing her skirt with her palms. But when the door opened, she took one look at the man who came inside and just about fell off her high heels.

This
was Dr. Matt Forester?

 
Chapter 2

Kay had assumed all veterinarians must be wizened old men with hair growing out of their ears and warts on their noses. But the man who’d just come through the door wasn’t in danger of becoming wizened for at least another forty years, and everything on him was growing precisely where and how it was supposed to.

He strode toward the desk. “Hazel? I’m up to my eyeballs over there. What’s the crisis?”

The old lady nodded toward Kay. “Meet your new volunteer, Doc.”

He turned around, and when he saw Kay he grinned broadly, awakening a whole legion of laugh lines that were proof positive he smiled often. With a quick up-and-down shift of her eyes she took in all six highly attractive feet of him, from his long, jeans-clad legs to his narrow waist, then upward to a faded T-shirt stretched across a broad chest and a powerful pair of shoulders. His dark brown eyes were warm and compelling, drawing her in, and she felt her conviction slipping away. Then she mentally slapped herself back to reality.
Hey, you. He’s an animal doctor. A-ni-mal. Remember?

He stepped toward her, extending his hand. “Hi. I’m Matt Forester. And you’re...?”

“Kay Ramsey,” Hazel said.

His grin evaporated like a drop of rain on a parched desert floor. Not only did he stop short, he actually took a step backward, his hand falling to his side. He stared at her as if she were a bug under a magnifying glass, and a particularly dangerous species at that.

“Robert Hollinger sent you,” he said.

Kay cringed at the mere mention of Robert’s name. “Yes.”

He looked back at Hazel, who shrugged and turned away, as if washing her hands of the whole issue. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the counter. “I’m going out to the back porch for a minute, Doc. Let me know when the coast is clear.”

Kay watched the woman leave, and a few seconds later the back screen door slapped shut. Turning, she said, “Look, I don’t know what Robert told you, but—”

“He told me you’re a true animal lover who can’t wait to devote some spare time to a very worthwhile cause.” She detected a hint of challenge in his words, as if daring her to disagree. Kay eyed him warily. Robert couldn’t possibly have been discreet enough to tell this man she was an actual volunteer. Maybe it was best to leave that issue untouched.

“Yes. Well.” She cleared her throat and tried to look businesslike. “Dr. Forester. I know you must be a reasonable man.”

“I’d like to think so.”

“Good. Then maybe we won’t have a problem after all.” She took a few casual steps toward him. He leaned a strong, tanned forearm against the counter and appeared to give her his undivided attention. At the same time, though, he raised a single eyebrow, as if warning her he was long on deduction and short on patience.

“You see, I have administrative experience. So when it comes to job assignments, do you really think I should be relegated to the back room doing God knows what, when I could—” Kay stopped short, warning herself not to get carried away. No emotion. Just facts. “I’m sure you can see that the front desk would be a far more logical place for me to work.”

“Hazel handles the front desk.”

“Yes. I can see that. But I know I could be useful in some sort of administrative function.”

“Have you ever answered phones?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Greeted people?”

“Certainly.”

“Filled out a form with a cat sitting on top of it?”

Kay recoiled a little and crinkled her nose. “Well, not exactly—”

“Given a puppy a bottle?”

“God, no. What has that got to do with—”

“Extracted a kitten from a three-year-old kid who’s squeezing the stuffing out of it?”

“Of course not!”

“Well, Hazel can do all those things. Simultaneously. That’s why I put her at the front desk and let her run the place. And if she tells you to scrub the floor with a toothbrush and floss between the tiles, that’s what I expect you to do.”

This was getting her nowhere.

She contemplated telling Matt the truth—that she had this irrational yet very real aversion to animals—but she figured he’d do the same thing everyone else always did. He’d tell her how silly her fear was and shove the animals on her, anyway. She couldn’t imagine anyone insisting that a person who was afraid of heights climb a mountain, but nobody seemed to think twice about letting Fluffy jump onto her lap whether she wanted her there or not. Fluffy wasn’t like other cats, you see. Surely Kay wouldn’t be afraid of
her.
And considering the number of Fluffys in the vicinity right now, she decided maybe she should keep the truth to herself.

In desperation, Kay held out her arms and nodded down at her skirt and blouse. “I’m afraid cleaning up after the cats is really out of the question. As you can see, I’m hardly dressed for that kind of work.”

“I have a pair of overalls in the back. You’re welcome to them.”

Kay slapped her arms back against her sides. “You have
got
to be joking.”

“I never joke about cat-box maintenance.”

All at once Kay heard a commotion on the front porch. The door burst open and two teenaged girls rushed in, giggling wildly, dragging behind them two dogs on leashes. Kay watched in horror as one of the dogs, a thousand-pound black monster, took a flying leap onto one of the orange plastic chairs. It teetered for a moment, then crashed to the floor. The dog leaped away, yanking the leash out of the girl’s hand, then galloped across the room and sides wiped a coatrack. Matt managed to catch it before it hit the floor, at the same time lunging for the dog’s collar. He missed.

Then the beast headed for Kay.

She saw him coming, but getting out of his way was like getting out of the path of a tornado. He planted his paws against her shoulders, pinned her against the wall and lashed his sloppy dog tongue across her face. In those few seconds, Kay thought surely she’d died and gone to hell.

“Rambo!”

Matt hurried over, grabbed the dog by the collar and hauled him away from Kay. She flattened herself against the wall, gaping in terror as the hound from hell lunged left and right, trying to free himself from Matt’s grip.

“Girls?” Matt said. “Use the back door, remember?”

“Oops,” one of the girls said. “Sorry, Dr. Forester.” She picked up the leash and dragged the dog toward the Dog Room, the other girl following close behind. Once the girls disappeared from sight, Kay heard their giggles explode all over again.

“And latch the cage doors this time!” Then he turned to Kay. “My volunteer dog-walkers.” He smiled. “Your new co-workers.”