Stray Hearts (7 page)

Finally she closed her eyes in self-defense, not knowing which bothered her more—the cat stuck to her chest, or her inability to stop thinking about Matt’s hands as he extracted the cat from her chest.

It seemed like hours before he finally removed the last claw and pulled the kitten away. Kay took two reflexive steps backward, brushing her hands across her T-shirt. “Why wouldn’t he let go?”

Matt pulled the kitten against his chest and tickled him under the chin. “Maybe he likes you.”

“No. No way. Animals don’t like me, especially cats.” “Oh, please! You act like the entire cat population got together at their annual meeting and decided to hate you.”

Kay eyed the kitten warily. “I’m not so sure they didn’t”

“Oh, come on, Kay,” Matt said, flashing her one of his most devastating smiles. “Everyone knows it’s no longer cat policy to blackball humans. Now they pretty much leave it up to the discretion of the individual cat.”

That smile of his almost made her forget she was standing in a room full of felines. Then she got a whiff of cat poop and it all came back to her. “Look, Matt. As cats go, I’m sure he’s very nice. He’ll make somebody a wonderful pet someday. Now put him away, will you?”

Matt sighed with resignation and turned to put the kitten back in the cage. But as he pulled the kitten away from his chest, those tiny claws latched onto his shirt. To Kay’s delight the kitten clung to Matt as resolutely as he’d clung to her.

Kay crossed her arms, enjoying every moment of his predicament “Well, well. Looks like the cat’s on the other chest now, doesn’t it?”

To her surprise, though, Matt simply reached down, gave each paw a gentle squeeze, and miraculously the kitten was detached. He returned him to the cage, and as Kay stood there with her mouth hanging open, he smiled at her and winked. Then he turned and left the room, whistling nonchalantly as he went.

A few days later, Kay still hadn’t forgiven Matt for using that kitten to deliberately embarrass her. As she grabbed a broom from the supply closet in the Dog Room, she told herself it was a good thing he wasn’t around right now. A real good thing. If she had to be subjected to that amused grin of his one more time she’d probably end up slapping it right off his face.

She heard the back door open and close, and turned to see Ashley and Mandy dragging Rambo and another smaller dog back from a walk. After watching the two teenagers for several days now, Kay knew why they’d been assigned the brainless task of dog walking.

After putting the little dog away, Mandy looked out the door toward the front desk. All at once she let out a strangled gasp.

“Oh my God! Ashley! There he is!”

“Where?”

“There! He just came in the front door!”

Ashley stuffed Rambo into his cage and gave the gate a quick bump with her hip to close it. She hurried to stand next to Mandy, whose palm fluttered against her chest as if she were on the verge of cardiac arrest.

“Move over,” Ashley whispered. “I want to see.”

“Wait! I haven’t gotten to look yet!”

As the girls jockeyed for position, Kay’s curiosity overtook her. Who in the world were they ogling? She looked past the girls to the front desk, but remained confused. The only person of the opposite sex she saw there was Matt.

Matt?

“Look at that smile!” Ashley let out a little sigh. “Have you ever seen anything so totally awesome in your life?”

“Never. And he’s so
mature.”

“He’s thirty-two,” Ashley said. “I asked Hazel.”

Mandy spun around, horrified. “Ash! He’s old enough to be our father!”

“Only if he had us when he was really young.”

“Never mind.” Mandy lifted her chin. “I don’t care. I just decided I prefer older men.”

“Even if he’s divorced?”

“Divorced? No way.”

“It’s true.”

Matt? Divorced? Kay hadn’t even considered that. But then, it only made sense. An attractive man like that couldn’t possibly make it to age thirty-two without some woman—

Stop it, Kay. You sound like them.

“I’m going to talk to him,” Ashley said. “Are you coming?”

Mandy drew back. “Oh, no! I’d just die if he spoke to me!”

Just then Matt turned and saw them at the doorway. He flashed them a brilliant smile and waved. “Hi, girls.” Both girls waved weakly, then ducked around the doorway and clasped each other in an attack of wild teenage euphoria. Ashley repeated her plea that they actually speak to Matt, while Mandy continued to insist that it was absolutely out of the question.

Mandy finally won, dragging Ashley away and coaxing her to get another dog to walk. Kay ducked inside the supply closet until they left, then peered toward the front desk. Matt stood talking to Hazel who, as usual, had a crossword puzzle book in her lap.

Kay might have thought twice about what she was getting ready to do, but because of the kitten incident she didn’t even hesitate. She left the Dog Room and walked to the front desk.

“Well, hi there, Kay,” Matt said, that amused grin creeping over his face again. “How are things going today? Any more...sticky situations?”

Kay smiled sweetly. “Why, no. Not at all. Things are going well. Thank you very much for asking.”

Matt’s smile evaporated. Something was up, and he knew it.

“So, Matt,” she said, brushing some imaginary dust from the countertop. “Tell me. Whose heart is going to get broken?”

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t have them both, you know.”

Matt looked befuddled. “What are you talking about?”

“Mandy and Ashley. The hormone twins.”

His blank expression never wavered.

“Come on, Matt. Haven’t you noticed them staring at you?”

“Staring at me?” He looked down at himself, as if he expected to see catsup on his shirt, or his fly unzipped. “Why would they be staring at me?”

Kay assumed a breathless, besotted teenage voice. “Because they like older, more
mature
men, of course.”

It took a moment for light to dawn on Matt, and when it did, an expression of utter disbelief overtook his face. “Oh...you have
got
to be joking.”

“Nope. And you’d better be careful. If you smile at those girls again like you did a minute ago, one of them is going to faint dead away. Then you’ll end up giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and before you know it she’ll be spray-painting your name on water towers and asking you to the prom.”

Matt’s pained expression intensified. He was so clueless that for a moment Kay almost felt sorry for him. Then she thought of the kitten incident again and her sympathy vanished.

“I thought you needed to know,” she said, dropping her voice dramatically. “I mean, what if some irate father storms through the door with a shotgun and asks you what your intentions are?”

“Intentions? They’re sixteen years old!”

“Precisely! There are laws against that kind of thing!”

Matt had the glazed, wide-eyed look of a possum staring into the headlights of an oncoming truck. Kay couldn’t remember the last time she’d had more fun rubbing something in. At the same time, though, there was something endearing about the fact that he hadn’t had a clue those girls suffered from a major case of the hots for him.

“Okay, Dr. Ramsey,” Matt said, still flustered but trying not to show it, “since you’ve so brilliantly diagnosed this problem, tell me what I need to do to treat it.”

He was so dead serious that Kay almost laughed out loud. Instead she maintained a somber expression and leaned toward him.

“It’ll take care of itself.”

“Huh?”

“Look, Matt. Teenaged girls swap their affections the way they swap their clothes. Give it a few weeks. One morning they’ll wake up and see you for the crusty old man you are and fall in love with some varsity football star two lockers down.”

“She’s right, you know.”

That verification came from Hazel, who never looked up from her crossword.

Matt turned to Hazel with disbelief. “So you noticed it, too?”

“Of course I noticed it.”

“Why didn’t you
tell
me?”

“Figured you knew. Everyone else does.”

Kay hadn’t counted on Hazel adding insult to injury, and Matt’s expression of complete distress delighted her.

“But don’t worry,” Hazel added. “Like Kay said, in a couple of weeks they’ll forget all about you. You’ll be invisible.” Then, for the first time, the old woman peeked over the top of her crossword. “To everyone except Kay, that is. She’s logged more time staring at you than Ashley and Mandy put together.”

Chapter 5

A red hot flush started somewhere around Kay’s breastbone and filtered up to her face, and suddenly she wished the ground beneath her feet would open up and swallow her. Hazel’s words held so much truth that no matter how much she begged her brain to formulate a comeback, it flatly refused to comply.

Hazel lowered her head and put her pencil to her crossword again as though completely oblivious to the fact that she’d just lit a powder keg. Kay stood speechless, bracing herself to take whatever Matt was getting ready to throw at her, because after what she’d just put him through it was inconceivable that he’d let this one go.

But instead of pouncing on the opportunity, the smirk she expected to see was nowhere in sight. They stared at each other a long time, their gazes glued together. Matt’s mouth hung open, as if words were forming in his mind he couldn’t quite verbalize, and Kay knew she had to be wearing the same dumb expression. Seconds ticked away as something unspoken passed between them she couldn’t identify and certainly hadn’t counted on.

Finally Matt cleared his throat and said something to Hazel about having to get some paper for the printer. He came around the counter and brushed past Kay, then went into the back room and closed the door behind him.

Kay glanced back at Hazel, who never looked up from her crossword. Good God, had she been that obvious? She made a mental note that when Hazel was around, she shouldn’t even sneeze in Matt’s direction.

Kay slunk out of the reception area and returned to the Cat Room. She picked up the pooper-scooper and dug into her job with a vengeance, repeating to herself all the reasons why any kind of relationship with Matt Forester would be a match made in hell. Number one, he was a veterinarian. Number two, like Robert, he was intent on making her life miserable.

And number three, he was a veterinarian.

Later, on his on his way out of the shelter, Matt stopped at the counter where Hazel sat. “I think you embarrassed Kay earlier,” he said offhandedly.

“Like she didn’t embarrass you?” Hazel gave a little snort of disgust. “I just thought it was about time she got a taste of her own medicine, that’s all.”

“So,” he said, with as much nonchalance as he could muster. “She’s been staring at me, too?”

“Don’t act so oblivious. You’ve been doing plenty of looking of your own. Though why you would, I’ll never know.”

Because she’s gorgeous, that’s why!

But that was the man in him talking. Logically he knew Hazel was right. Kay was
so
not the woman for him. But still he wondered why she hadn’t denied Hazel’s accusation. So far she hadn’t hesitated to let it be known if she thought she’d been wronged. Instead she’d looked up at him wordlessly, those blue eyes wide, a pink flush rising on her cheeks. If only she’d denied it he might have been able to tease her about it, and then eventually they’d have tossed a few snide remarks at each other and let it go at that.

But she hadn’t denied it. Instead she’d just stood there, staring at him, until the moment grew so uncomfortable that he’d done them both a favor and extricated himself.
She’s been thinking about you, too.

That thought brought on instant fantasies involving Kay in ways he’d prohibited himself from thinking about up to now. Then he took a deep breath and forced himself to look at the situation logically. She was one of the few young, attractive, unattached women who’d crossed his path since he’d become legally and morally free to look, so of course he was going to sit up and take notice. But he reminded himself that this particular woman was off- limits. Period. If he got involved with her and Hollinger found out, Matt was pretty sure he could kiss the grant goodbye. He issued himself a set of marching orders:
Run the shelter as if its survival depends on you, and treat Kay as if its survival depends on Hollinger.

“You don’t like Kay much, do you, Hazel?”

“Something’s wrong with people who don’t like animals.”

“I caught her petting a kitten a few days ago. I think maybe there’s a heart in there somewhere.”

“Doc, you perform surgery, and I’m pretty sure even you couldn’t find her heart.”

That might be true. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe he’d like to give it a try, anyway.

Kay dragged a bag of trash through the Dog Room toward the back door, eager to dispose of the final remnants of tonight’s Cat Room cleaning. She realized half an hour ago that she'd forgotten to record
When Zombies Attack.
Again. And because that
series recording
thing had never made it to the top of her mental to-do list, she barely had enough time to get home, shower, and plop in front of the TV with Sheila before the show started.

Just as she put her hand on the doorknob to go outside, she looked down and saw Chester lying in his cage. He glanced up at her with that ugly bulldog face, then rested his chin on his good paw and let out a little doggy sigh.

Kay felt that uncomfortable twist in her stomach again. How did Matt expect to find this mutt a home? A lot of decent-looking animals had been here for weeks, some for months. At least most of them had
something
going for them. Chester had nothing.

Well, okay. He didn’t bark a lot. That was a plus. Or maybe he realized the futility of it since he’d never be heard over Rambo, who at this moment was yapping away for absolutely no reason at all. And from what she’d seen, Chester’s personality seemed fairly sedate and agreeable, as dogs went. But who was ever going to look past the paw thing?