Stray Hearts

by Jane Graves

  “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.”

  Kay stood frozen for a moment, then slowly peeled herself off the wall, wiping dog spit from her face at the same time. “That’s it I’m outta here.”

  She brushed past Matt and headed to the front door, intending to clear out of this animal-ridden loony bin and never look back. She yanked the door open.

  “So,” Matt said, “I guess you’ve decided you’re going to pay Robert the five thousand after all.”

  Kay froze. She closed the door with a gentle click, then turned around slowly. “So he did tell you.”

  “Oh, yeah. Got a copy of the contract right here.” Matt reached over the counter and grabbed a red folder from a stacker. He opened it and traced his finger down a legal-size sheet of paper. “Yeah. Here it is. D-Day is the third Friday in September. At that point either you’ve finished working a hundred hours, or you owe Robert five thousand bucks.”

  Kay’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment “I suppose Robert told you why I owe him the five thousand dollars, too?”

  “Yeah, I think he did. As I remember, it has something to do with shaved dogs and a court judgment.” He looked back down at the contract “It says here that you’re going to volunteer an hour every day and at least four hours on the weekend. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Kay said, squeezing her eyes closed. “That’s correct.”

  His phone rang. Hazel appeared from nowhere to pick it up. She listened for a moment, then looked at Matt “A schnauzer just threw up in your waiting room.”

  Matt sighed, then turned back to Kay with a no-nonsense expression. “Look, Kay. I’d like to stay and chat but I have a waiting room full of patients I need to clear out sometime before midnight. So here’s the deal. Feel free to frown and whine and mope all you want to. But let me remind you that I have final say-so on whether you’ve fulfilled your end of the bargain with Robert.” He leaned toward her and dropped his voice. “And I hate bad attitudes.”

  He fixed his gaze on hers, issuing a cool assurance that he meant what he said. Then he turned and left the shelter, closing the door behind him with a solid thunk. Kay looked out the window and watched him jog back to the clinic, a hundred nasty retorts welling up inside her mind. But the second she voiced any of them she had no doubt he’d extend her sentence until she was picking up cat poop and Social Security checks at the same time.

  She couldn’t believe she’d assumed he’d be more reasonable than the old lady. What had she been thinking? He was a friend of Robert’s, and obviously an animal lover. That should have been all the advance warning she needed.

  It was his face that had thrown her—that insidiously warm, deceptively open face he’d shown her when he first walked in, with a pair of dark brown eyes you could lose yourself in and a smile that
could melt a polar ice cap. But Matt Forester and Robert Hollinger shared a single master plan where she was concerned—to make her suffer—and she intended never to forget that again.

  Like a condemned prisoner heading to the gallows, she turned around to face the reception desk. Hazel sat behind it, her arms folded across her chest, a deadpan expression on her weathered face. The pooper-scooper lay on the counter between them.

  Kay thought of the Cat Room again, and her heart thumped. She wished she had a choice, but Matt had systematically relieved her of that possibility. She caught the old lady’s eye and swallowed hard, barely able to get the words out.

  “Dr. Forester said something about...overalls?”

  Four hours later, Matt escorted his last patient out the door, glad the Saturday rush was over. He peered out the window toward the shelter next door. Kay’s car was still parked out front.

  When Hazel had called him over to the shelter this morning he’d expected a crisis—a plumbing leak, a rabid dog or maybe just a cat who’d delivered a record number of kittens. Or, God forbid, another Clyde. Instead, all he’d seen was a pretty little blonde standing in the reception area, dressed in a beige skirt and silk blouse, with soft, china-blue eyes and the sweetest, most inviting lips he’d ever seen. All at once he’d had this wild, fleeting thought that maybe his luck had changed, and he’d been sent a beautiful blond angel to help him wade through his mountain of problems.

  But it had occurred to him that her expression was hardly angelic. In fact, he’d seen sweeter expressions on junkyard dogs. Then Hazel had told him she was the woman sent here by Robert Hollinger, and from what Hollinger had said about her, Matt knew that the words angel and Kay Ramsey would never occur in the same thought again.

  Buddy trotted over and bumped his nose against Matt’s knee. Matt scratched him behind the ears and gave his ribs a solid pat.

  “What do you say, Buddy? Think we ought to go over there and see if she survived?”

  Together they left the clinic and trotted across the yard to the shelter. As they climbed the steps to the porch, the front door opened and Kay came out.

  As soon as she saw Matt she froze, then turned away with a flustered expression and pulled the door closed behind her. Her blond hair was mussed and her expression tired and ragged. Her clothes were rumpled in a way that told him she’d taken his advice and stuffed herself into his overalls.

  Matt stepped aside and allowed her to come down the steps. “So you stayed,” he said. “Good for you.”

  “Don’t go making something noble out of this. Contractually I have no choice, remember?”

  She tiptoed across the gravel drive in her heels. When she reached her car she slapped her purse on top of the hood and started digging for her keys. The way she was going at it, first pulling out a pack of tissues, then a paperback book, then a handful of pens and pencils, Matt could tell this was going to be a protracted search.

  “Need some help?” he asked, walking toward her car. “A bigger keychain? A smaller purse? A quick hotwire?”

  “I can manage, thank you.”

  She finally located her keys, yanked them out of her purse, then crammed the other stuff back in. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d just like to go home and detoxify myself.”

  “Kay. One more thing.” He looked left and right, as if checking for witnesses, then leaned toward her and lowered his voice.

  ‘‘Did you really have those dogs shaved?’’

  “You bet I did.” She raised an eyebrow. “Why are you asking? Are you wondering if you should go inside and lock up all the clippers?”

  “Believe me, Kay, you running amok with a pair of clippers is the least of my worries. There’s not an animal in that place that wouldn't look better if you shaved him.”

  Kay slid into the car seat, shut the door, then looked back at him through the open window. “Well, then, I may end up liking it here after all. This seems to be the only place I could give a dog a haircut and not get slapped with a lawsuit.”

  As she backed out of the driveway and disappeared down the street, Matt couldn’t help smiling. Exactly who was she mad at—him, or Hollinger? He decided maybe it was a little of both.

  He went into the shelter and found Hazel sitting behind the desk filling out paperwork. Beside her sat a little brown-haired girl, maybe six years old. A calico kitten lounged in her lap, and she petted her with slow, reverent strokes. A man he assumed was her father leaned across the counter, writing a check.

  Hazel handed the form to the man for his signature, then turned to the little girl. “Gonna take care of her?”

  She nodded and cuddled the kitten. “Uh-huh.”

  Hazel pointed to Matt. “If she ever gets sick, you need to bring her to Doc here so he can make her better.”

  The little girl looked up at Matt and smiled. The phone rang, and, as Hazel picked it up, Matt introduced himself to the father. Then he grabbed one of his business cards and gave it to the little girl.

  “You keep this,” he told her. “If you have any questions about taking care of your kitty, you can call me. Okay?”

  The little girl nodded. Her dad beamed.

  “Doc,” Hazel said. “Phone’s for you.”

  Matt picked up the extension in the kitchen. “This is Matt.”

  “So how did it go? Did she show?”

  Robert Hollinger. He’d know that smug voice anywhere. And he was the last person on earth Matt wanted to speak to.

  “Yeah,” Matt said. “She showed.”

  “Good. And what duties was she assigned?”

  “I don’t know. I think maybe Hazel had her helping out with the cats or something.”

  “Excellent. I think she hates cats even worse than dogs. I assume her duties were...hygienically related?”

  “I think she may have cleaned a few cat boxes.”

  “Perfect. That’s perfect I know what an imposition it is for you to deal with my charming ex‑fiancée. But as I told you before, if you do this favor for me, I can absolutely assure you the Dorland Grant is yours.”

  “Look, Robert. If your organization offers me that grant of course I would appreciate it. But that’s entirely up to them.”

  “Come on, Forester. No need to be coy about it. You need money for that shelter, and you need it badly. And it seems like such a small favor for such a large amount of money, doesn’t it?”

  Matt knew he should call a halt to this whole thing right now, say thanks but no thanks, and keep his self-respect. Instead he said nothing.

  “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough when we made this deal,” Robert said sharply. “I want Kay to do one hundred hours of filthy, hands-on work with the most abominable animals you’ve got. If she suffers, you get the money. Now, do we understand each other?”

  Matt looked out into the reception area. The little girl and her father were leaving. The child cradled the kitten in her arms, then kissed her on top of the head.

  “Yes,” Matt said. “Perfectly.”

  “Excellent. I’ll be in touch.”

  The line clicked, and a dial tone droned in Matt’s ear. He hung up the phone and went back to the reception desk.

  “That was Hollinger, wasn’t it?” Hazel asked. “Checking up?”

  “Yeah.” Matt shook his head. “I just don’t feel right about all this.”

  “Kay Ramsey is an animal hater. Hell of a character flaw, if you ask me. She deserves what she’s getting.”

  But Matt didn’t like being the one giving it to her. Like it or not, though, he was stuck with her until the third Friday in September. And shortly after that, the grant would be given to the lucky recipient. If he carried out Hollinger’s revenge, he’d be the one pocketing that money. Fortunately, it didn’t look as if he was going to have to work very hard to make Kay miserable. She was doing a bang-up job all by herself.

  He tried to tell himself he was actually doing a good thing. What was so wrong with having Kay clean up after a few cats if it meant
he could keep the shelter on its feet? It was a good thing he was doing.

  So why did it feel as if he’d made a deal with the devil?

  Chapter 3

  Kay eased through the door of her apartment building and closed it behind her, sure that her landlady and the other tenants could smell her coming.

  Eloisa Dalton, the English lady who owned the red-brick 1930s building, had graciously decorated the common areas with her own possessions, including an antique painting of horses and hounds, a grandfather clock that chimed the hour, and a blue-on-white Royal Wyndham vase that sat on its own little mahogany table at the foot of the stairs. Kay felt as if she was living with the doting grandmother she’d never had. And then she’d met Sheila, and this place had really begun to feel like home.

  She carefully skirted the vase and stepped gingerly across Mrs. Dalton’s Oriental rug, hoping there wasn’t something noxious still stuck to her shoes. As she climbed the wide oak staircase, she repeated the three-part directive she’d issued herself as she left the shelter. Go home. Take a shower. Burn your clothes.

  As Kay reached the top of the stairs, she saw a note taped to her door. She pulled it off as she went inside, then tossed it down on the dining-room table. She didn’t have to read it to know what it contained: a sweet but pointed suggestion from Mrs. Dalton that perhaps she should pay her rent.

  Even though her search for a permanent job had turned up nothing, she’d found a temporary service that had plenty of jobs available and didn’t seem inclined to check her references. They were sending her on her first assignment Monday, a six-week-long stint at Breckenridge, Davis, Hill, Scott & Wooster to fill in for a woman on maternity leave. It would be a few more weeks, though, before she’d have enough money to pay Mrs. Dalton. And she had to pay her rent, even if she didn’t eat. The last thing she wanted to do was lose this apartment.

  For years she’d lived in an ordinary apartment complex where each unit had the individuality of a prison cell. Then she’d started working for Robert, and the resultant leap in salary had allowed her to escape modern mediocrity and step into sixty-year-old elegance.