“Breaking and entering, for one. And theft on top of that. We could get into serious trouble.”
“Well, it’s not grand theft auto,” Ben reminded her. “It’s a mutt kitten that’s scheduled to be euthanized.”
“True, but it’s still theft, plus breaking and entering.”
“If Jack left the back door of the clinic unlocked, we’ll at least know he’s supportive of what we’re doing.”
Sissy stretched her neck and shoulders, trying to make her muscles relax. “That’s true. If he paved our way, he’ll be in on it with us.”
“Well, I can’t say he’s in on it, exactly. He’s making it easier, but that’s all. He won’t go down with us if we get caught.”
Sissy stiffened again. “But if he left the door unlocked, we’re not really breaking and entering. Right?”
Ben drove around the town center and took North Huckleberry. The instant they cleared the city limits, he flipped the headlights on. “Whoa. Resume your mental prep for criminal activity. Just because a door is left unlocked doesn’t mean we have authorization to enter the building. And Jack will have to file a police report, just as if an actual crime has been committed. With the kitten missing, it would look strange if he didn’t. He’ll have to play it as if it’s for real, or he’ll be at risk of getting his license revoked. If we get caught, Jack won’t step forward. This was our idea. Well, yours, actually, but I’m in. So it’s our risk to take.” He sent Sissy a questioning look. “If you’re that nervous, you can stay in the truck and I’ll do it.”
The tension zinged straight back into Sissy’s body. “I said I would go, and I’m going. My kitten’s life is on the line. So what’s our plan?”
She saw him smile as he returned his attention to the road. “Well, I’m going to park well away from the clinic, so we’ll have to walk. It’s darker than hell out on Hurricane Road at night. No streetlights, only a few houses. I brought a little penlight, but I don’t want to use it unless it’s necessary. It’ll draw attention to us. We know which cage the kitten’s in. I want to sneak in, not turn on any lights, find his cage, grab him, and run like hell.”
Sissy nodded. “I can’t see very well in the dark.”
“Well, our eyes will be adjusted to it by the time we reach the clinic. And maybe inside there’ll be some sources of faint light, like digital screens on equipment.” He glanced at her again. “Can you see in here with the dash lights on?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, there you go.” She heard him chuckle. “I’ve never done anything like this, either. I’m not worried that we can’t pull it off. I’m more concerned about my brother Barney seeing the police report and then meeting the kitten later. Two missing front feet are identifying marks that are pretty uncommon.”
“True.” Sissy was starting to relax again. Ben didn’t seem worried, and there was something about him that always soothed her. “But it’s very unlikely that Barney will ever see the kitten. He does eat at the Cauldron sometimes, but he’ll never go upstairs.”
“It’s my motto never to say never,” Ben replied. “Barney’s a cop. I don’t know what he’d do if he found out we stole a kitten to save it from being killed. The cop in him would feel obligated to press charges against us, the regular guy in him would be glad we saved the kitten, and he’d feel conflicted. Especially since I’m his brother. I honestly don’t know which part of him would win.”
“Well, let’s just hope he’s never put to the test.”
It seemed to Sissy that Ben was pulling off to the side of Hurricane Road in only seconds. The instant he cut the engine and the headlamps blinked off, an impenetrable darkness blanketed the vehicle. Sissy leaned toward the windshield to peer out. In the distance, she saw a house with some lights still on, but it was otherwise as black as a cave out there.
“You can hold my arm,” Ben told her. “I’ll come around to your side and help you out. No tumbles into the drainage ditch allowed. You might scrape your face, and tomorrow everyone would wonder what had happened to you.”
She grabbed blindly for his arm before he got out of the truck. “Before we do this, I want you to know that there’s nobody on earth I’d rather do time with.”
Ben chuckled and gave her a quick hug. “Same for me.” His voice sounded thick. “But I don’t think any Oregon prisons have unisex cell blocks.”
“Oh.”
Ben got out and came around the truck to help Sissy out. In moments, she was holding his arm. For every sure-footed stride he took, she stumbled over something. She couldn’t walk with confidence until they stepped onto asphalt. She still wasn’t able to see where she was putting her feet, but at least she was traveling over a level surface.
When they rounded a curve in the road, she saw the clinic. Yard lights illuminated the area all around the large building. “Oh, God. How can we stay hidden when we get there?”
“We can’t. It’ll be time to do the fastest one-hundred-yard dash on record. One thing’s in our favor, though. The no-kill shelter next door to the clinic is home to a lot of dogs that bark and howl all night, so only one home has been built near there. It belongs to Hutch and Sue Mulder. They own Hutch’s, a little fast-food joint by the high school at the end of the road. Kids go off campus to eat there. The Mulders getup early to offer breakfast, so they’re probably in bed.”
“Where does Jack live?”
“Just this side of the clinic.”
“Oh, no.”
Ben laughed. “Sissy, he doesn’t want to euthanize the kitten. If he left the back door unlocked, I doubt he’s going to peer out his windows, hoping to catch us.”
When they got close to the clinic, Sissy noticed that the house right next to it had no lights on. “Is that Jack’s place?”
“Yes. And over on the right, catty-corner from the clinic, is where the Mulders live. Only their porch light is on. Nobody is awake there, either.”
When they reached the huge circle of illumination created by the security lights, Sissy’s heart started to race. “I don’t think I can break any records doing a hundred-yard dash,” she whispered. “My legs are short.”
Ben gave her hand a squeeze and then didn’t release his hold. “Just in case you trip, I don’t want you to fall down.”
She took a deep breath and had barely expelled it when Ben broke into a run, pulling her along beside him. He stayed on the asphalt byway that went past the building to an equine-care facility.
Once they circled the clinic, the roofline cast shadows to hide them as they raced toward the back door. Sissy was about to chuff out a sigh of relief when her feet hit a patch of ice. One of her legs shot sideways. She felt herself start to go down. Ben, still holding her hand, caught her from falling.
As she got her balance, she whispered, “Studded boots?”
“And thank God I’m wearing them.”
They reached the porch. Ben let go of Sissy’s hand. He chafed his palms together and stared at the doorknob. “Well, this is it, the moment when we’ll find out what Jack’s made of.”
“If it’s locked, what then?”
“We break in. We haven’t come this far to let a stupid door stop us.”
Ben grasped the knob. When he turned it, the door swung inward. A breath that Sissy hadn’t realized she’d been holding whooshed from her lungs.
Ben drew her inside the dark bowels of the building. She heard the door close softly behind her. “Jack’s the man,” he whispered.
Sissy nodded, but she was too scared to speak. I’m committing a crime, she thought. For a moment, she felt paralyzed. Then she pictured the kitten they’d come to save, and an adrenaline rush, the likes of which she’d never experienced, sent thrills of excitement coursing through her body. “Let’s do this!”
Ben said, “You’ve got mettle.”
“What’s that?”
“Guts. Nerve. What it takes to go the whole nine yards.”
Sissy grinned as he drew her along a dark corridor. “Thanks. This is starting to be kind of fun.”
Ben chuckled as he pushed open another door. “This is it, the recovery room.”
Sissy heard a dog whine off to her right. Then the sounds of animals wanting comfort erupted from all around them. Cats meowed. Puppies began to bark. Large dogs started to not only bark but also howl. “Oh, shit, oh, shit,” Sissy cried. “We are so screwed.”
“Yep,” Ben agreed as he pulled her off to their left. “A built-in natural security alarm.” He drew to a sudden stop. “He’s here, at the end, second cage from the top. Right?”
“Right.” Sissy realized he was almost yelling so she could hear him. “Shh! Don’t talk so loud!” she yelled back, and then the absurdity of it hit her, and she started to giggle. “Get him. Quick. We have to get out of here.”
She heard a cage door clank open. The next moment, Ben said, “Got him. Now is when we run like our lives depend on it.”
He grabbed her hand with an unerring aim that told Sissy he could at least see something in the void of blackness. He broke into a run. At this point, his trusty studded boots put him at a disadvantage on tile floors. While Sissy’s athletic shoes grabbed for traction, his footwear slipped on the slick surface. But they made it to the back door and out onto the porch, and then huddled in the shadows to hide until the animals inside the clinic finally quieted down.
“We did it,” Ben said with a note of pride in his voice. “You are one hell of a partner in crime. We should do this more often.” She felt him press the backs of his knuckles against her chest. “Here you go, Mama. Your new baby. He’s a cutie.”
Sissy felt with her hands. In the dim glow of the yard lights, she could barely make out the kitten, but by touch, she could tell he was just as beautiful as she remembered, with dark, fluffy fur and a warm little body. Her heart felt as if it were melting as she cupped his weight in one hand and trailed the fingertips of her other hand over him.
“Ben?” she whispered, unable to keep the urgency out of her voice.
“What?”
Sissy had a hysterical urge to giggle. “It’s got front feet.”
“What?”
“Front feet. We grabbed the wrong kitten.” A horrible thought hit Sissy. She searched by touch and felt a stitched incision on the kitten’s belly. “I think this one’s a girl. And, oh, God, fresh out of surgery. She’s just been neutered.”
“Jesus.” Ben, a dark, looming hulk, turned toward her. “Spayed, you mean?” He muttered under his breath. “Be gentle. Shit! Shit, shit! I know I got the right cage! What the hell?”
Beyond the glow of the yard lights, a male voice boomed, frightening Sissy half out of her wits. “Why the hell didn’t you turn on the lights, Sterling? My techs shift the patients, putting the recent surgery patients at that end. The kitten with the amputated legs graduated to light care today.”
“Well, now is a fine time to tell me,” Ben boomed back. “You could have texted me!”
Sissy recovered her senses and struggled not to laugh hysterically.
“Electronic evidence,” Palmer shouted. “I never saw you. I never talked to you. I know nothing about this. Got it? Same side, six rows down, third cage from the top. And for God’s sake, turn on the lights so you put that kitten back in the right place. She’s still loopy from the anesthetic. Handle her with care.”
Sissy heard receding footsteps and knew Jack Palmer, apparently disgusted with their ineptitude at kitten stealing, was walking back home.
Ben slumped against the side of the building. “Am I dreaming this?”
“No,” Sissy replied. “Because I’m having the same nightmare.” She gently cupped both hands over the kitten and held her protectively against her chest. “Poor little girl. We’ll put you back in your bed. You’re going to be just fine.”
Ben led the way back into the building. This time, as they passed from room to room, he flipped on lights with the back of his hand. “Shit, I forgot. We should be wearing gloves. We’ve left our fingerprints all over the damned place.”
“I guess I’m not such a good criminal. I should have thought of that.”
“My fingerprints aren’t on record. Are yours?”
“No. I wasn’t even born in a hospital. I doubt that my parents took me in after my birth to get my footprint, either. Mama went right back out the next morning to pick apples.” Sissy wanted to call back those words the moment they shot from her mouth. “They, um, had an apple orchard to care for then.”
Sissy assured herself that she hadn’t lied—not really. But she hadn’t told the exact truth, either, and she felt horrible.
“Damn. I just remembered. I got fingerprinted in school. I can’t remember when, exactly, and I have no idea what they did with the prints. It may have been only a teaching process. But if they’re filed electronically anywhere, and they dust this clinic, I’m screwed.” They entered the recovery room. The moment the lights came on, pandemonium broke out again, with each of the animals letting loose with a noise common for its species. “Did you?” Ben asked loudly. “Get fingerprinted in school, I mean?”
“No. Maybe I was sick that day.” Sissy thought it more likely that she’d been out of school on fingerprinting day because her parents had been moving again, but she didn’t wish to tell Ben that. He had grown up in a different world, a normal world where he’d gotten to attend school in the same town all his life.
Ben took the kitten from her arms and returned it with great care to its cage. Then he turned to Sissy. “We’ve got to wipe down everything we touched. Maybe your prints aren’t on file anywhere, but mine may be.”
Sissy wished they could just get her kitten and leave. But Ben could go to jail for this if they left any prints behind. They found a stack of white cloths on a counter in one corner of the room. Ben dampened two at the sink located in the same area.
Shoving aside all her thoughts about the kitten, Sissy wiped down the first kitten’s cage to make sure Ben hadn’t left so much as a partial print on the door. While she did that, Ben rubbed both sides of the recovery room door, making certain he cleaned every inch he might have touched. Then he walked down to the sixth stack of cages, and, using the same rag to prevent himself from leaving his fingerprints behind, opened a cage, and drew out the darling, fluffy gray kitten that Sissy had already come to love.
“Oh, Ben.” She barely heard the clamor of the other animals now. Her entire attention became focused on the kitten. “He is so precious! And he’s much smaller than the other one, still just a baby.”
“He’ll be your baby if we can get out of here without any trouble,” he said as he took her rag and tossed it in a laundry hamper. Walking ahead of Sissy, he led the way to the door, then used his cloth to turn the doorknob and switch off the light. “Keep both hands on the kitten. I’ll rub down surfaces we may have touched earlier as we walk out.”
Hugging the kitten to her chest, Sissy led the way, falling even more in love with her new baby as she walked, yet acutely aware of Ben behind her making swishing sounds as he cleaned away any possible fingerprints.
Once they were outside, Sissy opened her black hoodie, tucked the kitten inside, and drew the zipper tab back up. “You’re safe now.” To Ben, she said, “He’ll stay warm this way.”
“Yep. His last home sucked, but now he’ll have a good one.”
Sissy held the kitten between her breasts as she and Ben made the long trek back to the truck. Ben gripped her arm to steady her in case they encountered more ice. When they reached his vehicle, he helped her to the passenger side, opened the door, and grabbed her at the waist to lift her onto the seat. When he leaned across her to fasten her seat belt, she didn’t know of whom she was more acutely aware: the helpless kitten curled against her breasts, which Ben so cau
tiously avoided smashing with the strap, or the man. His body heat wafted over her, tantalizing her with the scent of his cologne. His hands brushed against certain parts of her anatomy that she’d never given another man permission to touch. Ben might be the one person for whom she would break that pattern.
Chapter Thirteen
Once they were in the apartment above the café, Sissy felt all the earlier tension of the evening fall away, and her muscles relaxed. They had committed a crime, but they’d made a clean getaway, and even better, the kitten could now look forward to a long and happy life. Sissy couldn’t help but smile as she crouched to set the little guy gently on her kitchen floor.
Admiring the gray ball of fur, Sissy noticed two white patches on the kitten’s left hip. “Oh, Ben, look. He’s not solid gray. He has two spots of white.”
Ben stepped around to look. “His whiskers are white, too.”
Sissy’s grin broadened. “He makes me think of a kid whose mom sewed patches on his jeans. Wouldn’t that be a darling name? Patches, I mean.”
Ben crouched beside her, his mouth also tipped in a smile. “It’s cute, for sure, and it suits him.”
The kitten decided to check out his new home and hobbled over to sniff a cupboard door. “Just look at him walk!” Sissy cried. “He’s a tiny miracle.”
“He sure is,” Ben agreed.
When the kitten sniffed a second cupboard, an awful thought occurred to Sissy. “Oh, my God. I’ll have to roust Marilyn out of bed. I have no cat food, no litter box, and no litter to go in one! Flagg’s Market is closed by now.”
“After I agreed to help you break him out of jail, I went shopping,” Ben said. “I knew you wouldn’t have time. I’ve got everything he’ll need in the back of my truck. I’ll run out and get everything.”
While Ben was gone, Sissy remained hunkered down to watch Patches explore the kitchen. The thought that he would have been dead in the morning if not for her and Ben brought tears to her eyes. Ben. He was such a rare gem. How many guys would risk going to jail in order to save a kitten’s life? Not many, she decided. And that decision was quickly followed by another one. It was time for her to stop holding Ben at arm’s length, and take another huge risk. He was a wonderful man, truly one of a kind, and she was going to lose him if she didn’t let him know that she’d come to care about him.
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