Stray Hearts

by Jane Graves

  From the solid oak floors to the French doors that led to the kitchen, to the tiny waterfalls carved in stone on either side of the fireplace, this place oozed warmth and permanence. But the most attractive quality this apartment building had was the No Pets rule Mrs. Dalton enforced to the letter. Kay had been pleased about that when she moved in. She was positively jubilant about it now.

  She headed to the bathroom for that much-needed shower, then treated herself to doing pretty much nothing the rest of the day. When seven o’clock rolled around, Sheila breezed through her front door, a bottle of cheap wine in one hand and a package of microwave popcorn in the other. She tossed the popcorn to Kay, who stuck it in the microwave.

  “It starts in three minutes,” Kay said.

  “Will you please remember to record it next time?" Sheila said, hurriedly grabbing wineglasses. "I can barely get home in time to watch it.”

  “Record it on your TV just in case.”

  “Do we really want to watch it on that dinky TV of ours? Yours is way better. If you'll just set up a series recording, we'll have it automatically.”

  Kay made a mental note. Unfortunately, a lot of her mental notes got lost on her mental desk.

  “Isn’t Jim coming?” she asked.

  “No," Sheila said. "You know I married the only man on earth who doesn't like to watch television. And I hate to admit this, but…” She leaned in and whispered. “…he’s not all that fond of zombies.”

  Kay drew back with mock horror. “What? And you still married him?”

  “I know. Crazy, huh? But there you go.”

  Crazy was right. When Zombies Attack promised to be the best guilty pleasure series Kay had ever come across, and she intended to miss an episode only if the country fell under nuclear attack. Or zombie attack. Whichever came first.

  “But don’t you want to spend the evening together?” she asked Sheila. “You two are practically still on your honeymoon.”

  “And this is how you maintain marital harmony. If he doesn’t have to sit through this show now, we won’t have to fight about it later.”

  That made sense to Kay. She mentally moved Be more like Sheila to the top of her to-do list.

  A few minutes later the microwave dinged. Kay dumped the popcorn into a bowl and headed for the sofa with Sheila.

  “So tell me,” Sheila said, setting down the wineglasses. “How was your first day in hell?”

  “I wish it had been hell. Hell would have been a relief.”

  “What happened?”

  “Cat poop. That’s what happened.”

  “Cat poop? And you with the animal thing?” She eyed Kay sympathetically. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m going to finish the hundred hours, Sheila. No matter what they make me do. If I don’t, Robert gets the last laugh, and I’ll still owe him five thousand dollars.”

  “So why did you get the dirty work? I thought you were going to try to do something administrative.”

  “The veterinarian who runs the place had other ideas. He’s even more impossible to deal with than Robert.”

  “It’s a volunteer outfit. Just tell him you’re volunteering to do something else.”

  “I tried that. Believe me. But he wouldn’t budge.”

  “So is he a grumpy old guy, or what?”

  “No. He’s a grumpy young guy.”

  Sheila shrugged. “So what’s the big deal? You’re a woman, he’s a man—”

  “He’s a veterinarian, Sheila. An animal doctor. I’m not about to cozy up to a guy like that for any reason.”

  “So he’s ugly.”

  Kay rolled her eyes. “No. He’s not ugly.”

  Sheila smiled. “Then he’s cute.”

  Kay stared down at her wineglass. Cute wasn’t exactly the word for Matt. Looking at him, she knew where the phrase tall, dark and handsome had come from. And even while she’d glared at him as she left the shelter, she’d had to keep reminding herself she was supposed to be angry. The memory of those deep, dark eyes and that luminous smile stayed with her all the way home. Matt wasn’t the self-important, unapproachable kind of handsome Robert was, but a warm, comfortable kind of handsome that made her want to—

  Made her want to slap herself for having such thoughts. “It doesn’t matter what Matt Forester looks like,” Kay said, picking up the remote. “He’s crabby and stubborn and a veterinarian. Enough said.”

  Sheila’s smile widened. “Oooh. He must really be hot.”

  Kay tossed Sheila a look of supreme irritation, then flipped on the TV. Fortunately, the show was starting, so she didn’t have to hear another word about animals or Matt Forester.

  Still, for some reason, she couldn’t keep her brain focused on the show. All she managed to think about was Matt, a man who spent more time with animals than Noah himself. What was wrong with her?

  Then, at the first commercial break, Kay heard an unfamiliar jingle that caught her attention. Her eyes sprang open with an interest she never would have had before today. It was a commercial for something called Super Scoop Cat Litter.

  According to the TV mom with the blinding-white smile, Super Scoop made ordinary kitty litter as obsolete as eight-track tapes and leisure suits. Instead of forcing you to dig around in crumbly clumps of soggy litter, with Super Scoop you could pick up the nasty stuff with a single swipe. No smell, no mess.

  Kay sat up on the edge of the sofa, spellbound. “Sheila! Look at that cat litter! It’s unbelievable!”

  “You’re losing it, Kay.”

  “Hey, if you’d been through what I’d been through today, you wouldn’t say that.”

  “Don’t they use that stuff at the shelter?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” Kay said. “But you can bet I’m going to ask Dr. Forester.”

  At ten after five on Monday afternoon, Kay rushed out of the bathroom on the fourteenth floor of the Cauthron Building wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She carried her suit on a hanger over her shoulder and her pumps in a grocery sack. She hurried around the corner into the elevator lobby before she realized Albert Breckenridge, her temporary boss, was standing there. He eyed her up and down, his troll-like face crinkling with disapproval.

  “This is a place of business, Ms. Ramsey.”

  Kay let an expression of sudden horror spill over her face. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Breckenridge! I could have sworn it was after five o’clock!” She checked her watch for effect, then breathed a phony sigh of relief. “Oh, look! It is after five. Gee, for a minute there, I thought I’d messed up.”

  Her meaning couldn’t have been clearer: After five, my life’s my own, you jerk, but she’d said it so sweetly he couldn’t bite back. He merely raised a single eyebrow, and as if deeming her unworthy of further ocular engagement, he turned his nose up and pointedly dismissed her.

  Attorneys. Yuck.

  Sometimes Kay wondered why she’d ever let Claire talk her into going to school to be a legal assistant in the first place. Sitting at a desk all day was no fun whatsoever. And even though she'd known dressing professionally was part of the deal, to her that meant uncomfortably, and she'd underestimated just how irritating that would be eight hours a day, five days a week.

  Twenty minutes later Kay got out of the car at the shelter. She was amazed at how hot the evening sun still felt. Texas summers were always fierce, and this summer had been particularly brutal, with several days over a hundred degrees already. She stuffed her car keys into her pocket and tossed her purse into the trunk of her car. If she brought it in, sooner or later it would end up as a leather chew-toy.

  She came through the front door expecting to be met with cool air, but instead she was assaulted by even greater heat, along with an indescribably pungent animal smell that seemed to permeate every molecule of air she breathed. Hazel sat behind the counter, fanning herself with a crossword puzzle book.

  “Lord, it’s hot in here,” Kay said.

  “Air’s out.”<
br />
  “How do you expect me to work in conditions like these?”

  “I don’t expect you to. I told Doc the minute you hit the door you’d turn right around and hightail it out of here.”

  The challenge was as clear as if Hazel had drawn a line across the floor and dared Kay to step over it. Kay met the woman’s stony stare. “I have no intention of leaving.”

  Hazel shrugged as if she couldn’t have cared less, but Kay knew better. She was sure the old lady wanted her to leave just so she could run back to Matt and tell him what a whiner she was. And the world would pass away to dust before Kay would give her that kind of satisfaction.

  “Ouch! Damn it!”

  The sharp, angry voice came from down the hall, followed by the clatter of something metal against the hardwood floor.

  “Doc’s working on the air,” Hazel said.

  Matt was here? Kay craned her neck around to look down the hall. Sure enough, protruding from a closet that she guessed contained the air unit, she saw a pair of male legs.

  “Does he know what he’s doing?” Kay asked.

  “He’ll get it going again. He always does. Now, if you’re sure you want to stay—”

  “Quite sure.”

  “Then I have some cat boxes with your name on them.”

  “Cat boxes? But I just cleaned them out on Saturday!”

  “So you think maybe they stopped pooping since then?”

  Kay frowned. “I was hoping for a miracle.”

  Hazel gave Kay a look that could have melted steel. I don’t like you, that face said. Not even a little bit.

  Kay heard bells clink against glass, and looked over to see a woman coming into the shelter with a little boy. To Kay’s surprise, Hazel got up quickly and greeted them with an actual smile and a heartfelt apology about the heat

  Face it, Kay. It’s just you she hates.

  When Kay started in on the cat boxes, she had to admit that coming into contact with the cats today wasn’t as bad as it had been on Saturday, as long as she did it quickly and kept a watchful eye out for any animal who tried to break ranks and sidle up next to her. A few of them seemed to be a little light on instinct and acted as if she might actually want to pet them. For the most part, though, they seemed to be content doing what cats did best—ignore any human who wasn’t holding a can of cat food.

  Kay felt sweat trickle from her temples onto her cheeks and from her underarms down the length of her rib cage. The smell in the room was incredible, and soon she was certain she didn’t smell much better herself. But still she worked diligently, because the last thing she wanted was for that old lady to say she hadn’t done her job.

  After giving the room a thorough cleaning, she went to the supply closet off the Dog Room to get cat food. By six-thirty she’d finished her work, and as she headed out of the room she heard a low rumble, then a steady hum, and a faint breath of cool air wafted over her. The air conditioner. She turned her face up to the vent and closed her eyes, letting the cool air flow over her.

  “Better?”

  Kay spun around to find Matt leaning against the doorframe, holding a can of soda. Her heart leaped, then settled into a fluttery rhythm, and at the same time her gaze traveled down his body and back up again, a reflexive action she immediately tried to mask by tucking a sweat-soaked strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Yes,” she said. “Much better.”

  That was a lie. Even though the air conditioner was doing its job she felt even hotter than before, and she knew it had nothing to do with the temperature in the room.

  Sweat and dirt weren’t designed to look good on any human being, but Matt had suspended that particular law of nature. A smear of grease started at his cheekbone and swept downward, mingling with a five o’clock shadow, then disappeared along the sharp angle of his jaw. His thick, dark hair was damp and unruly, the length of it brushing his collar in the back while several errant strands fell across his forehead. His sweat-dampened T-shirt clung to every inch of his muscular torso, allowing her to form a pretty solid mental picture of his anatomy beneath it. He looked handsome and virile and incredibly sexy. She, on the other hand, felt like a gigantic, smelly, humidity-soaked dishrag.

  So what? She was here to work. Period. It didn’t matter what Matt Forester saw when he looked at her. But even as she told herself that, she wondered if she had black mascara raccoon rings underneath her eyes.

  Matt took a sip from the can of soda he held. “Hazel thought you might not want to work with the air being out.”

  “Well, Hazel was wrong. If I’m scheduled to work, I’ll work.” There, you old bat. So much or your opinion.

  Matt nodded toward the kitchen. “There are a few more sodas in the fridge if you’re thirsty.”

  “No thanks. I’m heading home.” She brushed past him.

  “Kay. Wait.”

  She turned back. Matt raised his hand and brushed his fingertips across her cheek. Her heart nearly stopped. She froze, meeting his eyes in one of those endless moments that are only seconds long but feel like hours.

  “Cat hair,” he said, rubbing his fingertips together.

  Kay put her hand to her cheek, the spell shattered. She turned back around and headed toward the front desk, her wildly beating heart compounding her frustration. How could she be so attracted to a man so completely wrong for her?

  Matt followed her, and when they reached the desk she pulled her folder out of the stacker. “I suppose I need your initials.”

  “Sure. No problem.” Matt reached for a pen and clicked it open, then turned his gaze back up to stare at her skeptically. “Tell me the truth, Kay. You spent most of this time playing with the kittens, didn’t you?”

  “I did not play with the kittens! If I told you I worked an hour, I worked an hour. I would never—”

  She saw too late the devilish sparkle in his eye. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered. “Just sign it, okay?”

  He complied, but an amused grin still flickered around his mouth. “You know, you’ve been doing such a great job I’m considering you for a promotion. From cats...” Kay looked at him with hope.

  “...to dogs.”

  She yanked the form from his hand. “No, thank you. Whoever has that job can keep it.” She stuffed the form back into the folder. “Who does have that job, anyway?”

  “You’re looking at him.”

  “You don’t have any other volunteers?”

  “They come and go. After a day of dog poop, they usually go.” He tossed a wrench into the toolbox that sat on the counter.

  “Speaking of poop,” Kay said, “I need to talk to you about the cat litter. It’s hardly state-of-the-art”

  “Not much around here is.”

  “Well, it seems to me that it would be much more efficient to use that new scoopable stuff, Super Scoop. I saw it on TV Saturday night. It’s clean, it’s quick—”

  “—and it costs a whole lot more.”

  Kay was ready for that one. “Yes, I assumed it would be more expensive. But that’s because it’s a far better product.”

  “Of course it is. At twice the price.”

  “But that old stuff is such a mess! It takes me forever to clean those boxes. If I had Super Scoop, I could get the job done in half the time. Then I could assume some other duties around here. If I’m more productive, it could end up costing you less.”

  In spite of the convoluted thought process that directed her to that conclusion, she lifted her chin resolutely to stand by her logic. Matt, on the other hand, rubbed the back of his neck as if he was feeling the onset of a major headache.

  “Well, that’s an interesting theory, but I’m afraid there’s only one branch of economics I understand. Price tags.”

  “But Matt—”

  “Forget it. It’s more money out of my pocket. On the other hand, your generous volunteer effort costs me nothing. ”

  Kay glared at him. “You really are out to make me miserable, aren’t you?”

/>   Matt sighed heavily. “I just need the job done, Kay. That’s all. And I need to get it done as cheaply as possible.”

  “It’s only a few dollars.”

  “A few dollars I don’t intend to spend.”

  Kay didn’t get it. What was the big deal about a few bucks worth of cat litter? She glowered at him. “Tightwad.”

  Matt’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Okay. That does it! Come here!”

  He started back down the hall. When she didn’t follow, he backtracked, grabbed her by the arm and hauled her along. He threw open the door to the utility closet to reveal a metal monstrosity held together with duct tape.

  “Now you listen to me. I just spent the past two hours in this god-awful heat playing kissy-kissy with that air unit, begging it to stay running until fall, at which time I’ll turn the other cheek and start sucking up to the furnace. So right now I’m hot, I’m dead-dog tired, and the last thing I want to do is stand here and justify to you or anyone else how I spend my money.” He leaned forward with a look in his eyes that said she’d better be paying attention. “So if I hear one more word about Super Scoop, I’m going to put a diaper on every cat in the place, which you’ll be required to change the moment you hear a meow. Got it?”

  Too shocked to speak, Kay just nodded.

  “Good. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.”

  Matt disappeared down the hall and into the kitchen. A few seconds later the back screen door squeaked open, then slammed shut, leaving Kay staring after him in stunned silence.

  “Well, all right,” she muttered, now that he was safely out of earshot. “You don’t have to get snippy about it.”

  She headed toward the front door, disgusted that she’d be stuck with that yucky litter for ninety-five more hours. Then, as her hand fell against the doorknob, she had a thought. She stopped and turned back, surveying the shelter, as she played an idea over in her mind. Judging from the way Matt had just come unglued, things around here operated on a very short shoestring with no room in the budget for luxuries. What a perfect setup.