by Edie Ramer
“Despite my faults.”
“Everyone has faults.”
“Except you.”
“Especially me. I’m selfish. I enjoy my little luxuries.” She swept her hand out to encompass her jewelry-box-like condo. “And I’m fond of getting my own way. The reason I never married.”
His cell phone buzzed. He took it from his belt and saw a text from his secretary. “I have an appointment in a half hour. It’s important.”
“Cara’s important, too.”
“That’s why I want to leave her with you. Someone I trust.” He took her right hand in both of his, leaning close to look into her eyes. “What I’m doing isn’t as important to me as it is to all the employees at Eagleton Furniture. Every year it gets harder to compete against the cheaper furniture coming from Asia. I could retire tomorrow, and everyone in the family would live a life of ease. Not them.” He released her hand and stepped back. “Some would be okay. They might even make better lives for themselves. But others...”
Frown lines on her forehead deepened. “Life is always so serious for you.”
“Life is serious when you have so much power over people’s lives. If I don’t do my job well, they’ll lose theirs. And it’s not just jobs, it’s insurance, too. Many of the employees have been with us for a long time. You can’t deny there’s age discrimination. The older workers would have a hard time finding a new job. They or their dependents might have health problems. To some, it might make a difference between a quality life and barely getting by. To others, it might mean life or death.”
She sighed. “I wish you were exaggerating.”
“I wish I were, too.”
“You said you trusted me. Do you mean it?”
“Absolutely.” But a twinge of worry twisted inside him....
“Then I’ll do what’s best for Cara.” She made a shooing motion. “You run off to your business. Save the world in your own little way.”
“Like a superhero,” he said.
“You keep telling yourself that.” Her eyes gleamed with humor. “While you’re saving the world, I’ll take Cara to Abby’s and make her an offer she can’t resist.”
“What kind of offer?”
Her eyebrows rose. “You said you trusted me. Just go. You won’t be sorry.”
Every time someone said he wouldn’t be sorry, he usually was. But he nodded and turned to Cara to tell her he was leaving her with someone she’d just met. As if she were a package that was being handed from one person to another.
She looked up at him, her eyes blank, and he did something he hadn’t planned on doing. He went to her, crouched, and hugged her. She stood stiff, as if unused to hugs or any shows of affection.
“I’ll be back,” he said. And then he left, his strides fast.
He would be glad when these two weeks were over.
3
Abby watched Holden Ramsay stride up her front sidewalk, purpose in every firm step. Daisy had told her he was coming to pick up Cara and, in the future, would be dropping her off in the mornings. If not for the girl’s sad little face, she might have smiled at Daisy and made her apologies.
That and the fact that she desperately needed the money. Daisy’s proposal was an answer to the prayer she hadn’t made. Enough to pay a few bills and get them over this hump.
Only two weeks...
By then she would think of something to keep them going. Something to save them all.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorjamb.
He hadn’t changed. A face like that could be on a movie poster. A chin that looked stubborn. A line permanently etched into his forehead. Brows slashed above silvery-blue eyes that made her feel as if he were peering into her soul.
“Well, if it isn’t the Big Bad Wolf at my door,” she said.
His face that had been set in hard lines made a lightning change to surprise. The lower half of his face opened into a grin, and she thought it was like watching a large rock crack in half.
Still looking at him, she amended that to a very handsome rock.
“Do you really want me to say the Big Bad Wolf’s reply, Little Red?”
She groaned, though she’d asked for it. When would she learn to keep her mouth shut? So what if keeping her mouth shut was boring? She could be boring.
But not today.
She pushed away from the doorjamb. “Only if you want to get your shin kicked.”
“Hard to resist that line. I could take my chances.”
“And I could kick higher.”
He laughed again and shook his head. “You have an odd effect on me.”
“Join the crowd.” She gestured behind him, as if hundreds of confused, invisible people were milling there, afraid to get too close to her. “So you are human. That’s not what I’ve been hearing.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing Ryan ever said about me.”
“It was a long time ago that I dated your brother for a glorious ten days.” She rolled her eyes, though there was a small ache in her chest. Not for Ryan. For her parents, who’d laughed at her when she’d fumed at them about Ryan and his brother, until she’d laughed, too.
She tamped the ache down. She preferred to think they were still alive somewhere, in another dimension, another place. Maybe just a breath away, sending her and Grace love. Telling her they believed in her. Telling her not to let one of the city’s wealthiest bachelors overwhelm her.
As if.
“My brother's an asshole,” he said.
“No arguments.” She grinned. “You said the same thing nine years ago when I went to your house and asked for my physics book back.”
“Demanded it back. Said you were going to call the police on Ryan if I didn’t get it for you.” He lowered his head to peer down at her, reminding her that her feet were bare, and she was about ten inches shorter than his six-foot-or-more height.
She straightened her spine. “And you told me to go ahead and call the police.”
He chuckled.
“You got the book for me anyway.”
“I was afraid you would combust in my grandmother's foyer if I didn’t. How did you do in physics, anyway?”
She opened the screen door. “Like I said, a long time ago. Come on in.”
From the way his smile dropped, she guessed he remembered her parents had died in the accident less than two weeks after her visit to his grandparents’ house. Don’t pity me.
If he did, she might kick him in the shins, after all.
Laughter came from the back, two voices mingling. Grace’s, soft and low, joined with Cara’s higher, younger laugh that pitched up and down. As if she didn’t laugh often and was unsure how to do it.
Abby’s sense of goodwill dissipated, and she glared at him. This was his daughter. How could he have allowed her life to be so joyless?
“Your daughter is a sweetheart. We fed her dinner already. Daisy didn’t know if she had allergies, but Cara said she didn’t, so I fed her a spinach salad with strawberries and nuts for lunch. For dinner, we had chicken stir-fry.”
He stepped inside her living room, his expression shuttering, and now he finally looked like the stern businessman he was known to be. The Big Bad Wolf indeed. “Sounds fine,” he said, no inflection in his voice.
She rushed ahead of him, leading the way to Grace’s bedroom, where the two girls were playing. This had been a perfect June day, and Abby had managed to enjoy it despite all the thoughts whirling in her head. The worries, the plans, the dream so close to fruition, if only she could get someone to back her.
Not this man, though. He couldn’t even take care of the daughter he’d only seen twice in his life.
Not his fault, Daisy had said.
He was Cara’s father. If not his fault, whose?
But she hadn’t asked then and wasn’t asking now. She would just try to make Cara happy for the short time she was with them, the same as she did for the rescue cats.
“You can’t change the world,” her father
used to say. “You can just do your part to make it better.”
She’d feel happier about it if she didn’t have to do her part two or three times—sometimes more—before she got it right.
She led Holden down the hall of the small, one-story house, with the two bedrooms and the tiny third one she used for her office. The front of the house with the open kitchen and living room felt bigger because of the way the rooms flowed, but she’d learned that more than two foster cats were too many.
Cara didn’t take up much more space than a kitten.
Not like the man behind her. His presence seemed to fill the house.
They reached the bedroom, and she saw the three cats, one dog, and the two girls sitting on the carpet. The white cat reacted first, leaping out of Cara’s arms and dashing beneath the bed.
On the blue bedspread that matched her Siamese eyes, Minnie sat in the middle of the bed and watched them, waiting to see what would happen next. Quigley, her beautiful black with the shining fur, leaped down from the dresser to race ahead of Lion, her gorgeous golden retriever, and weave around her ankles.
With their high range of hearing, the cats and the dog had heard them heading to the bedroom. Abby thought it was a testament to the foster cat’s trust in her and Grace that she’d waited for Holden’s entry into the room before she ran and hid.
Cara stared at her father, her giggle stopped. She looked as if she’d like to crawl under the bed after Epic.
Sadness filled Abby to see that the girl felt safer with the cats and dog than her father. Abby petted Quigley and Lion then stepped inside the room and knelt in front of Cara. “I had fun with you today, but your dad is here now. You have to go home for the night.”
Cara nodded, her eyes down. It had taken two hours for Abby to get more than a few words out of the small girl. Her first full sentence had been to Lion and then Minnie, who’d regally allowed the girl to pet her. And when Cara had lifted the white kitten to her chest, Abby could’ve sworn she’d heard both girl and kitten purr.
Sometimes love happened that way.
And then Grace had returned from summer school and had taken over entertaining while Abby crafted carpet-covered pads for the cat furniture. When she wasn’t using the staple gun, she could hear Grace talking, and after a while, Cara’s small voice replying. Cara had been unable to resist Grace’s quiet charm any more than the teen boys who kept showing up at their house at inconvenient times.
“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Abby said. “Lion and the kittens and me. We’ll have a good time.”
Cara nodded, giving her a shy smile. Abby beamed at her, hugged her, then stood and held out her hand. Cara put her little hand in hers, and Abby pulled her to her feet.
“Now you can go back home with your daddy,” Abby said. And she finally glanced up at his stunned face.
She held Cara’s hand to him to take. He moved in slow motion, and when Abby let go of Cara, for a second his hand hovered above Cara’s until his fingers clasped hers. He and she stared at each other for another moment, and the air was silent except for everyone’s breathing.
Grace got to her feet, and the odd hush shattered. Abby introduced her to Holden then pointed out the cats and Lion by name. He told her he’d always admired Siamese. As he talked, he kept glancing down at his hand holding Cara’s.
Finally he said they had to leave and told Cara to say goodbye.
But she didn’t. Locked into silence already, she gave Abby and Grace a scared glance.
Abby wanted to snatch her back. She speared Holden with a look that should have razed him to the ground like the cretin he was. But he was staring at Cara, and on his too handsome face, she saw worry and helplessness.
The next second, it was gone, and he and Cara headed to the hallway. Abby and Grace followed them to the front door, Lion padding behind them, the two cats darting ahead. In the living room, Abby wished Holden and Cara a good night. She and Grace stayed at the front door and watched him put Cara into a child’s car seat in the back of a Ford hybrid.
Some of the tension seeped out of her tight muscles.
It was going to be okay, she thought, and realized that, though he might be the richest man in Eagleton, for a moment, she’d felt sorry for him.
When she turned, Grace hugged her. “I’m glad I have you,” Grace said. “You’re the best.”
Abby hugged her tightly. She wasn’t the best and had screwed up a couple hundred times—maybe a couple thousand—but at least she’d always loved Grace. That was one thing Grace had never doubted.
“No, you’re the best.” She pulled back. “You know what we should do tonight?”
“Homework?” Grace pulled a face.
Abby laughed. “Let’s watch DVDs of Mom and Dad.”
***
Mom and Grace had been watching the pictures on TV for a long time when Lion got to his feet. They’re crying. We need to go to them.
It’s a happy cry, Minnie said patiently. No matter how often she told Lion this, he didn’t understand the difference. It was true that dogs weren’t as smart as cats, though on the whole, she found Lion sensible. He did defer to her knowledge and years. Something Quigley didn’t do as often as she liked. They’re watching movies of their mom and dad.
I’d like to see their mom and dad, Epic said.
You can’t, Quigley said, they’re in heaven.
What’s heaven? Epic asked.
Minnie leveled her now-you’ve-done-it glare on Quigley before turning to the little one. That’s where cats go to play after they leave earth. Cats and their people.
And dogs, Lion said.
Special dogs, Minnie said.
I don’t want to go there unless Mom and Grace can go, too. Quigley leaped to the floor.
So they can feed you, Minnie said.
Yes. Quigley twisted his head all the way around to give her an approving look. Sarcasm was a special cat talent that usually zipped right over his shiny black head.
Will Mom be able to feed us now? Epic asked.
Quigley made a huffing sound. Of course. That’s why we’re taking care of the girl. So you better be nice to her.
I like her, Epic said. Maybe I can live with her.
Minnie was shooting Quigley a look to stop him from saying anything mean when an extra loud sob came to her ear. Grace. Lion was the first to his feet, hurrying to her, but Quigley dashed past him.
Though Minnie was older, she was still in her prime. She leaped off the table, landing close to the girl and woman stretched out on the floor.
Lion and Quigley snuggled on either side of Grace. Minnie rubbed her mouth against Grace’s chin, nose, and jaw to make her feel better.
Because making Mom and Grace feel better was their job.
Protecting their house from vermin was their job.
And most of all, giving humans love was their job.
A hand curved over Minnie’s head, and fingers found the just-right spot to massage behind her ear. Mom. Minnie purred, her throat and chest vibrating. She closed her eyes and felt the urge to knead with her paws while Mom did her job: giving love back.
Sometimes Minnie thought cat heaven couldn’t be better than life with Mom and Grace. Minnie had heard Mom say on the phone that with Cara in their house during the sunlight hours, they’d been given a reprieve from being thrown out in the street.
Mom had laughed, but it was a laugh that wasn’t funny.
Being thrown out in the street wasn’t in any way funny for Minnie, either. Bad things were in the street. Bad people who liked to hurt small animals.
There had to be some way to stay here. Not for a short time. Forever.
4
“It was a hard day for me, too.” Portia sipped her favorite chardonnay. As usual, her complexion was flawless, her face a perfect oval, her shiny, dark hair short, in a boy’s cut, but she pulled it off. They sat in the built-in dining set of his stark gray and cream kitchen that overlooked Angel Lake.
She looked like she
belonged in this place, Holden thought. Elegant and sleek. Whereas Abby would be an incongruity. The only brightly colored decoration on a silver and pale-blue-decorated Christmas tree.
Not that there was any reason for Abby to be in his house, though he could easily imagine her in his bed. Naked. That laughing smile on her face, her red-gold hair spread over his pillow. Her arms out to—
He shut off his thoughts. Too inappropriate.
A glance at Portia cooled his inappropriate libido.
“I had to give a family distressing news about their child’s health,” Portia continued, her calm expression unchanging, talking about her job as a genetic counselor at Eagleton Community Hospital. “And I passed on bad news about the paternity of a child. The woman’s husband was devastated.”
Not answering, Holden took a sip of his brandy, thinking about Cara, his gut twisting.
If his ex had been faithful, Cara could have been his. Instead, she was a quiet little ghost who was making a big stir in his nerves and his life.
A child was a responsibility, one he wasn’t ready for. He had to stop himself from getting up and looking in on her to make sure she was okay. She’d been sleeping when he’d checked on her an hour ago. He’d left the hall light on, the door open a crack. If she woke up, she could easily find him.
“The baby looked so much like the husband, too.” Portia leaned forward. “The wife’s parents belong to the country club, and they knew I was testing the DNA. The mother tried to bribe me to tell him the baby was his. For the child’s sake, she said. Not because they were afraid for the marriage.”
Her dry tone suggested she didn’t believe the mother, and Holden made a sound of sympathy and agreement. This wasn’t a topic he wanted to continue.
“She thought it would be like a poison in him.”
His hand tightened on the cool glass, and he set it on the table before he shattered it with his grip.
“Of course, I said no,” she continued. “The truth is always better.”
“For the parent. Not necessarily the child.”