Stray Hearts

by Jane Graves

  He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. All he seemed able to do was feel—and what a feeling. He closed his eyes as her lips moved along the angle of his jaw, his heart going wild as she traced a slow but definite path of kisses toward his mouth.

  He had to stop her. In about three seconds her lips were going to reach their destination, and if they did, he knew he’d be lost. It had been too damned long since he’d held a woman, and he knew if he didn’t push her away right now—

  Too late.

  Chapter 7

  As Kay’s lips fell against Matt’s in a warm, soft, amazingly seductive kiss, the last of his sanity slipped away. Gently at first, then more persuasively, she molded her lips against his with a proficiency that astonished him. Her hands fluttered like dandelion fuzz against the back of his neck, teasing him toward her, making him want to wrap his arms around her and—

  No!

  Something snapped inside Matt’s head and sanity came rushing back. He jerked away from her, took her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. Her eyelids fluttered with surprise.

  “No, Kay. We can’t do this. Not while you’re—” He paused, then let out a long breath. “We just can’t do this. That’s all.”

  She stared at him a long time, as if awakening from a dream. Then an expression of pained realization crept across her face. She put her hand against her mouth and her eyes dropped closed. Her voice became a whisper. “Oh, God. I’ve made a fool out of myself, haven’t I?”

  Matt came very close to grabbing her by the shoulders again and kissing her just to prove how wrong she was. He hated that she felt embarrassed about doing something he would have wanted as much as she did, if circumstances had been different. But how was he supposed to tell her that?

  “Kay, I promise this has nothing to do with you. I’ve just got some other...problems I need to work out, and I shouldn’t be complicating things.”

  At least that was somewhat true. Still, he could tell his words did nothing to ease her discomfort. Finally he said, “I think we both just got a little carried away.”

  Kay’s gaze inched up to meet his, her cheeks flushed red. “Not both of us,” she said quietly. “Just me. But you don’t have to worry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Kay, it’s all right.” He told himself to smile, but he wasn’t sure his lips got the message. “It was no big deal.”

  Kay still looked mortified, and Matt kicked himself for not having the good sense to turn and run the moment she touched him. “Look, why don’t I help you move your things in?”

  “Maybe you’d rather I didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe I should find another place to live.”

  He saw so much misery in her eyes that he almost told her the whole truth. Fortunately he managed to swallow the words while they were still on the tip of his tongue. “No. That’s not what I want. Please don’t leave.”

  She still looked embarrassed, and he hated himself for letting it happen. Finally she nodded. After they moved her things in, she thanked him for his help, then disappeared into her room and closed the door behind her.

  Matt went to the living room, telling himself he’d done the only thing he could have done. Kay living with him he might be able to explain away. But if their relationship became something more—no way.

  Up until five minutes ago, he’d been doing a pretty good job of thinking of Kay as just a roommate. But the moment her lips met his, he was doomed.

  He tried to look at things logically. Maybe getting this lust thing out of the way right up front was the best thing that could have happened. Any kind of relationship with her would jeopardize the most important thing in his life right now, and he couldn’t let that happen, no matter how wonderful her perfume smelled. No matter how warm and intriguing her touch had been. No matter how expertly she used those soft, sweet lips of hers....

  Oh boy.

  Matt collapsed on the sofa, chastising himself for letting his body rule over his brain. Even without Hollinger in the picture, the picture was all wrong. Since she didn’t like animals, she’d never understand his passion for the shelter and his dedication to keeping its doors open. Sooner or later, just like his ex-wife, she’d wonder why he chose to spend more money than he made trying to give a few helpless animals a chance at some kind of life.

  And then she’d be gone.

  At ten-thirty that night, Kay lay awake in the cozy brass bed in that perfect little room, staring at the freshly painted ceiling, her stomach still in knots from the stupid, impulsive thing she’d done.

  If only she hadn’t actually kissed Matt. If only she’d backed away before she’d lost her head, she wouldn’t be lying here feeling silly and hurt and embarrassed beyond belief. But she’d been overwhelmed by the sweet, wonderful thing he’d done for her by fixing up that room, and her gratitude had gotten all tangled up with the incredible fantasies she’d been having about him. All at once she’d desperately wanted to touch him in ways she’d only dreamed about, and, before she knew it, the compulsion to make it happen completely engulfed her. And then...

  And then she’d made a fool of herself.

  Claire was right. She never thought about a damned thing before she did it. She’d got engaged to Robert when she didn’t love him. She’d had his dogs shaved when she knew he’d go ballistic. She’d taken Rambo home with her when she knew he was a disaster waiting to happen. She’d agreed to move in with Matt, the last man on earth she should tempt herself with. Then, the whopper of them all, she’d made the wild assumption that maybe he was as attracted to her as she was to him.

  That had been stupid. Stupid.

  She turned over and pulled the covers up to her chin, wishing she could crawl under a rock somewhere and die. What had made her think Matt would ever be interested in her? She’d made his life miserable from the moment she’d shown up here with all her whining and complaining. She steered clear of animals at every opportunity, the very thing he’d dedicated his life to. And every chance she got she made it clear to him that she was counting the hours—the minutes—until she could kiss this place goodbye.

  Still, in spite of all that, when she’d needed help he’d offered her a rent-free room, then gone out of his way to make her comfortable in it. She didn’t deserve it.

  And she certainly didn’t deserve him.

  When Kay arrived at the shelter on Monday she ran into Matt. Literally. He came out the door as she was coming in, and he had to grab her by the shoulders and steady her to keep from knocking her flat.

  “I—I’m sorry,” she told him. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  “No. I was the one who barreled out the door without looking.”

  “No. It was my fault—”

  “Kay, I almost knocked you down. It was my fault.”

  All this excruciating politeness was about to make her sick. She wanted so badly to laugh with him about how they’d both nearly ended up on their fannies on the porch, but all they seemed to be able to do was shuffle around and apologize. Then Matt yanked his hands away from her shoulders as if he suddenly realized he was touching toxic waste. She slipped past him and went on into the shelter.

  As Kay went into the Cat Room, she saw Becky putting a little black dog into a cage across the hall.

  “Another one?” Kay asked.

  Becky came into the Cat Room. “Yeah. This one had a viral infection. He’s better now. I predict he’ll be adopted before the week’s out.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. He’s small, he’s cute and he’s friendly. He can’t miss.” Then Becky glanced back to the Dog Room and frowned. “How’s Chester getting along? Has anyone looked at him?”

  Kay felt that funny twinge in her stomach again. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to stretch the truth. “A few people, I think.”

  “Kay? Will you do me a favor?”

  “Uh...sure.”

  “Will you give Chester a little extra attention if you get the chance
? I think he’s going to be here for a while.”

  Kay felt a knot in her throat. The truth was that she had gone into the Dog Room to see Chester a couple of times, and once she’d even brought him a dog biscuit. Now she decided she’d make sure to do it every day. “Yeah. I will.”

  “Thanks. That’d make me feel a lot better.” Then she sighed. “Poor guy. If someone would just get to know him a little, I know they’d take him home.”

  Just then a big orange-and-white cat jumped up on the table beside them. Becky scratched him behind the ears. “Hi there, Harpo.” She tickled her fingernails down the cat’s back, and he fell on his side and blinked with delight. “Has he meowed yet?”

  “Not a sound. Matt says it's possible that he’s got some congenital abnormality or something.”

  “I think maybe he just doesn’t have anything to gripe about. This place has never looked better. You spoil these cats to death.”

  Spoil them? That was a joke. She was just doing her job. She had to admit it wasn’t as bad around here as she’d first thought, but taking care of a dozen cats still wasn’t her recreation of choice.

  In the past few days, though, she’d found it far more comfortable to be around the cats than around Matt. How could she get through the next couple of months if she couldn’t even be in the same room with him without feeling the same way Chester had to feel: completely and utterly rejected?

  The next afternoon after Matt closed the clinic, he made a quick run over to the shelter to drop off a dog he’d treated for worms. He could hear Kay in the Cat Room next door, but just talking to her had become a chore so he passed by without speaking.

  The past several evenings at home she’d come through the back door with takeout food and slipped upstairs to her room. If he hadn’t heard her shuffling around in the bathroom once in a while, he would have sworn she wasn’t even in the house.

  He told himself that was a good thing. The only way he was going to be able to get through the next few months was to keep his distance from Kay—far enough away that his brain would rule his body instead of the other way around. Somehow he had to pretend that she didn’t want him as much as he wanted her. Pretend she wasn’t blond and beautiful. Pretend he hadn’t seen something in those gorgeous blue eyes besides bad attitude. Pretend her bedroom wasn’t ten paces from his.

  As he started to leave the shelter, a big, burly man walked in, a clipboard in his hand.

  “Lookin’ for Dr. Forester.”

  “That’s me.”

  The man called over his shoulder, out the door. “Okay, Harry! This is the place!”

  A moment later another man wheeled a dolly through the door and deposited two big boxes on the floor. Matt circled the counter.

  “Wait a minute! What’s this?”

  “The cat litter you asked for.”

  “Cat litter?” Matt looked out the window and saw the truck they were unloading from. Across the side it read, Super Scoop Cat Litter.

  “Hold on!” he said. “I didn’t order any cat litter!”

  “Well, someone did,” the man said, checking his clipboard. “Someone named...Kay Ramsey.”

  Matt’s mouth fell open in disbelief. Kay couldn’t have ordered this cat litter. She couldn’t have.

  Wait a minute. What was he thinking? This was a woman who took revenge on her fiancé by having his dogs shaved.

  “Kay!” he shouted. “Kay, get in here!”

  Kay flew out of the Cat Room at the sound of Matt’s voice, then skidded to a halt when he met her with a furious expression.

  “What have you done here?” he demanded.

  When Kay saw the boxes her face lit up like a kid at Christmas. “Oh! It’s here! It’s finally here!”

  She grabbed a pen from the counter and slit open one of the boxes. She pulled out a container of Super Scoop and gave it a big, noisy kiss.

  “Kay!” Matt shouted. “Put that back!”

  The deliveryman brought in another dolly-load of litter and deposited it beside the other boxes.

  “No!” Matt said. “Take it back! She had no authority to order this stuff!”

  The man looked at his clipboard. “But it says right here—”

  “I don’t care what it says! I’m not paying for it!”

  “It’s all right,” Kay said to the deliveryman. “Go ahead. Give Dr. Forester the bill.”

  The deliveryman looked confused. “Lady, there isn’t any bill. This is a gratis shipment.”

  Now Matt was completely lost. “Huh?”

  “A freebie. You’re a nonprofit animal welfare some-thing-or-other, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah...”

  “The company does this once in a while. It’s good for PR.”

  As Matt stood there speechless, Kay headed back to the Cat Room with a bounce in her step he’d never noticed before. And as she disappeared around the corner, she tossed him a sly smile that said it wouldn’t be wise to underestimate her again.

  Later that evening, when Kay came through the back door into the kitchen, Matt was standing at the stove stirring something in a big pot. It smelled wonderful, whatever it was. A whole lot better than the double cheeseburger she was getting ready to take up to her room. She murmured a hello and started toward the stairs.

  “Kay. Wait.”

  As she turned back, Matt set the spoon he held down on the counter. He paused for a moment, then let out a long breath. “Look, about the cat litter. I didn’t give you a chance to explain. I yelled at you when I should have been thanking you.”

  Surprised at the sudden, heartfelt appreciation, Kay felt a blush rise to her cheeks.

  “Every buck I save on supplies keeps the doors to the shelter open a little longer. How did you do it, anyway?”

  “It was nothing. Really. A couple of years ago I worked for Promos—uh, a public relations firm. I found out you can get a whole lot of stuff just by asking. They used to drum it into our heads—don’t ever pay for something if you can get it for nothing.”

  Matt smiled. “Well, since zero dollars is about the only price tag I can live with right now, I guess it’s lucky for me you came along.”

  Matt’s approval made Kay feel as if sunlight was warming her all the way down to her toes. When she’d initially concocted her plan, all she’d been interested in was finding a way to get rid of that awful, smelly old litter. But she wasn’t thinking of herself now. She was thinking of helping him. And it was the best she’d felt in a long time.

  “Oh, and another thing.” Matt stepped quickly over to her, grabbed the burger sack from her hand and flung it into the trash.

  “Matt! What the—”

  “You cook the spaghetti noodles while I finish the sauce. They’re in the cabinet.”

  Kay just stood there, staring at him.

  “I don’t like having a roommate I never see. I want you to have dinner with me. Do you have any objection to that?”

  Objection? To having dinner with Matt? “No. No objection.”

  “Fine. Now move it on the noodles. The sauce is about done.”

  Fifteen minutes later they sat down to a meal of spaghetti and garlic bread, and Kay decided it had been a long time since she’d had a dinner that tasted so good. Actually, the food was pretty average, but she felt so wonderful about what had happened with the cat litter that every bite she put into her mouth tasted like cuisine from a five-star restaurant.

  “From now on let’s just split groceries and take turns cooking,” Matt said. “How does that sound?”

  Kay winced. “Pretty good in theory. But I’m a lousy cook.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m a pretty rotten cook myself. But there isn’t much I won’t eat. And if either of us really goofs something up, we can always order a pizza.”

  After dinner, Matt washed the dishes and Kay dried them. She was just putting the last dinner plate away, when all at once something big and white leaped onto the kitchen counter next to the sink.

  Kay instinctively yelp
ed and leaped backward, her hand fluttering against her chest. Marilyn sat down nonchalantly, giving Kay a look that said one of the humans in her midst had just lost her mind.

  “Marilyn! Get down!” Matt scooped up the cat. He deposited her on the floor, then looked back at Kay. “Kay? Are you all right?”

  As Marilyn strolled out of the kitchen, Kay took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry, Matt. I didn’t see her coming...and then suddenly she was there...and...”

  “It’s all right. Marilyn is harmless. I promise.”

  “I know she is,” Kay said quickly. “Really. I’m sure she’s a very nice cat. I was just...you know. Surprised. That’s all.”

  She tried to sound like it was no big deal—and it really wasn’t—but she still felt as if she was babbling, and Matt’s confused stare confirmed that fact.

  He took the last plate from her hand and put it away. “Okay. Dinner’s over. Now it’s playtime.”

  “Playtime?”

  Matt grabbed a neon-green Frisbee from his office beside the kitchen. He led Kay out the front door and toward the park across the street, Buddy trotting at his heels. The park ran the length of the block, an idyllic, tree-clustered island in a sea of tum-of-the-century residential homes and small businesses.

  When they reached a wide-open space, Matt handed Kay the Frisbee. “Throw it.”

  “Huh?”

  “I said throw it.” He pointed toward the clearing. “Out there. Hard as you can.”

  “Excuse me, but isn’t someone supposed to be at the other end to catch it?”

  “Just throw it.”

  Something was up. “Is this a practical joke? You suggest something stupid just to see if I’ll do it and then you laugh your head off? Is that it? Because if it is—”

  “Will you just throw the damned thing?”

  She knew she was going to regret this, but she took a few steps forward and hurled the Frisbee as hard as she could. And she couldn’t believe what happened next.