Stray Hearts

by Jane Graves

  She went to her car, patting herself on the back with every step. She could make the call tomorrow, which meant it might only be a matter of days before she’d be dumping that Edsel of cat litters and using the Cadillac brand. And the best part about it was... Matt couldn’t possibly say no.

  Chapter 4

  At nine thirty that night, Matt lounged in front of the TV with Buddy sleeping against his leg. He’d watched the opening episode of When Zombies Attack, telling himself he was out of his mind, but here he was tuning in again. It made him feel better to think that as bad as his life was going, things could be worse—he could be living through a zombie apocalypse. Still, it was a chore to pay attention. He found his mind wandering to Kay.

  He’d lost it with her over that stupid cat litter—completely lost it. But if there was one subject he was extremely touchy about right now it was his woeful financial position, and Kay had spoken one word too many. With surgical accuracy, she’d managed to locate and push that one button guaranteed to make him crazy—the money button.

  He felt as if he were thirteen again, with his mother working two jobs just to put food on the table for a family his father had deserted. Even though Matt had delivered papers before school every morning and done odd jobs for neighbors on the weekends, they’d still barely been able to make ends meet And when he’d found that stray dog— that busy little dog who wagged his tail like a windshield wiper and knew how to catch a Frisbee—he’d found out they didn’t even have enough money for dog food.

  His mother took the dog to the pound. Later he’d found out what happened to animals there who didn’t have the good fortune to be adopted, and he swore that someday he’d have enough money to take care of stray animals whether he could find them homes or not. He’d realized his dream two years ago when he’d opened the Westwood Animal Shelter. Only now he wasn’t sure how long he was going to be able to keep the doors open. By sheer persistence he’d managed to get that air unit running again, but for how long? With the hundred-degree heat they’d been having, if that unit went out completely he’d have to shut the place down.

  He’d gone to the bank yesterday to apply for yet another loan, trying to buy some time. But before he’d even put pen to paper on the application, his bank officer reminded him he was nearly two months behind on his mortgage payment, and that had been the end of that.

  Then he thought about the Dorland Grant. All he had to do was keep the thing running long enough for Kay to finish her sentence. The grant money would be awarded, he could replace the air unit...

  No. He couldn’t depend on that money. Kay might never finish the hundred hours. She might get ticked off and decide that paying five grand beat cleaning cat boxes, and then where would he be?

  After the show ended, he clicked off the television and went to bed. Buddy jumped on to the end of the mattress, plopped down and dropped his chin against Matt’s foot.

  Matt turned out the lamp and lay back against the pillow. The darkness seemed to magnify the silence in the big, gloomy house. The sheet beside him felt cool and empty, echoing the loneliness that settled in his mind like a lead weight. As he moved through his busy life it was easy to shove those thoughts aside, but lying here in the darkness he couldn’t deny it.

  He imagined reaching beside him, slipping his arms around a woman and pulling her against him, her skin soft and silky beneath his hands, her warmth mingling with his. He could smell her hair, hear her gentle breathing, feel her heartbeat.

  Then, as if his subconscious mind was trying to fill in the parts of his fantasy his conscious mind left blank, suddenly the woman he imagined wasn’t just any woman anymore.

  She was Kay.

  His eyes sprang open, and for several moments he stared at the shadows of tree branches dancing against the dingy beige walls of his bedroom.

  Kay Ramsey? In his bed?

  Was he crazy?

  It was only her fourth day at the shelter, but already Kay felt as if she’d done a life sentence. Two more cats had arrived, a chunky gray tabby and a skittish, fragile- looking tortoiseshell, both of whom ate and pooped with the same irritating regularity as the rest of the bunch.

  As Kay popped the top off a cat-food can, she peeked out of the room, and saw Matt coming through the front door accompanied by a woman about her own age wearing a long denim dress and a pair of sandals. In her arms was a dog who was probably the ugliest creature Kay had ever seen. He had a dingy white coat and the broad, angular face of a prizefighter, with a squashed-up body and extra folds of skin in all the wrong places. She figured he was at least half bulldog, but the other half was a mystery.

  As they went into the Dog Room across the hall, Matt happened to glance toward the Cat Room and spy Kay. “Kay? Could you come here for a minute?”

  At first she pretended she didn’t hear him, but when he repeated her name she put the cat food down and walked reluctantly to the Dog Room.

  “Kay, this is Becky Green. She’s one of my foster moms. Becky, this is Kay Ramsey. She’s a new volunteer. She’s going to be helping out an hour or so every evening, and a few hours on the weekend, too.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Becky said, smiling at Kay. “It’s such a pleasure to meet another animal lover.”

  Matt gave Kay a sidelong glance, and all at once she felt like a spy infiltrating an enemy camp.

  Becky nodded down at the dog. “And this is Chester.” Kay looked down at the misbegotten animal, and for the first time she saw something about him that wasn’t right. His paw. His right front paw was...missing.

  “Good heavens,” Kay said. “What happened to him?”

  “His paw got caught in a trap,” Matt said. “I tried to save it, but by the time he was brought here the infection was too far gone. I had to amputate. Becky kept him while he recuperated. Now it’s time for us to find him a home.”

  “He’s a real good dog,” Becky said. “He just doesn’t look like much. I sure hope someone looks past the leg thing.”

  But when she and Matt stared down at Chester, their expressions said that neither of them believed that was going to happen. Kay stared at him, too, and for some reason she felt an uncomfortable twinge in her stomach.

  Becky leaned down and gave Chester a big hug. “Gotta go, sweetie. Be sure to smile pretty at the people and someone will take you home for sure.”

  Chester got all excited at the attention and licked Becky with that big, ugly bulldog tongue. Kay turned to Matt, her nose crinkled with distaste. Matt gave her a warning look, but she just couldn’t seem to put her expression back on straight.

  “Is something wrong, Kay?” Becky said as she came to her feet, mindlessly wiping away dog spit “You look a little sick.”

  “No. I’m not sick.”

  “Are you sure?” Matt’s voice held a warning tone. “I think maybe you are sick. In fact if you don’t get to looking better pretty fast I think I’m going to have to send you home.”

  Kay gave him a drippy-sweet smile. “And miss taking care of my precious kitties? Why, Matt, I’d have to be on my deathbed first.”

  Matt narrowed his eyes, as if to say, that can be arranged.

  Becky, though, missed Matt’s reaction completely and gave Kay a cheerful grin. “It looks like you feel the same way about cats as I feel about dogs. Matt was lucky to find you.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said, still glaring at Kay. “Lucky me.”

  After Becky left, Matt gazed at Kay admonishingly. “Kay, do you want everyone to know why you’re really here?”

  Kay twisted her mouth in frustration. She would have loved to have stuck her nose in the air and say she didn’t care, but the truth was that for some reason, she did. She gave him a halfhearted shrug. “Not particularly.”

  “Then can you at least try to fake it a little? It doesn’t have to be an Oscar-winning performance. Just try to keep your face from screaming ‘yuck’ all the time.”

  Kay sighed. “Sure, Matt. I guess I can fake anything for a hundred hours�
�no, wait. Ninety-four.”

  “What is it with you, anyway? Every time you get near an animal you act like you’ve been shoved into a leper colony.”

  The truth was on the tip of her tongue. She wanted to tell him that she didn’t actually hate animals, she just had this...well, aversion. But once again she decided it would be wiser to stick with dislike and forego any mention of fear.

  “I just don’t like animals,” she told Matt. “Is that so difficult to understand?”

  “I’m a veterinarian, Kay. Of course it’s difficult to understand.”

  His tone was joking, but Kay wasn’t buying the levity. Deep down, she knew he really meant what he said.

  The phone rang. Matt went to the front desk to answer it, Chester hobbling along behind him. Kay headed back to the Cat Room, wishing Matt would stay off the subject of how she felt about animals. She was punctual, she worked hard and she didn’t cheat one minute on her time. What more did he want?

  A few minutes later, as she was dishing up cat chow, a little tiger-striped kitten put both paws up on the side of his cage and mewed plaintively. Kay eyed him carefully, then peered around the door. Matt was still on the telephone.

  Looking back at the kitten, she had to admit he was kind of cute, like a fuzzy little plush toy. What if she just held him for a minute? She was a whole lot bigger than he was, so what was the worst that could happen?

  She watched him for a long time before finally going to the kitten’s cage. She opened it up and extracted him, holding him at arm’s length, amazed at how he weighed less than nothing. Then she eased him against her chest and stroked his head. The kitten arched against her finger in delight. Then she felt a tiny rumble in his throat and realized he was purring.

  “See? Now is that so awful?”

  Kay spun around to see Matt at the doorway. In a reflex action she pulled the kitten away from her chest but not before he hooked his claws into her shirt. Aghast she pulled on him first one way, then the other, but no matter how much she manipulated the furry little body the kitten refused to let go.

  Matt grinned. “Kind of like having a piece of bubble gum stuck to your shoe, isn’t it?”

  “The little monster’s clawing me, for heaven’s sake!”

  “Yeah, he’s a monster, all right. All eight ounces of him.”

  “Matt! Do something!”

  Matt ambled forward, wrapped his hand around the kitten and surveyed the points of attachment. He frowned, as if this was indeed an insurmountable problem. “Gosh, Kay. He’s really stuck, isn’t he? Would you consider wearing him until he falls asleep?”

  “Get this cat off me!”

  Matt finally bent to the task, unhooking the kitten’s claws from her chest, one by one, very slowly. Kay glared at him. “I guess you think this is pretty funny.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said, looking offended. “Kitten attachments are serious business. In fact, if I can’t get him loose, we’ll have to call 911. They’ll bring the jaws of life—”

  “Just get him off!”

  As Matt returned to his task, Kay shifted awkwardly and tried to look over his shoulder. Instead, though, her gaze wandered compulsively back to his hands—strong, capable, dexterous hands that were hovering way too close to her body for comfort. As he manipulated the kitten’s claws, the back of one of his hands brushed lightly across her breast, spurring fantasies about those hands touching her in far more intimate ways.

  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 repeat
ed 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.