What a Woman

by Judi Fennell

  “What’d you do? Try to bathe them?”

  “Considering I’m as wet as they are, I think that’s self-explanatory.” He jostled them in his arms to keep the calico from making its way over his shoulder.

  “Don’t you know cats don’t like water?”

  “No. I don’t. I never had any as pets before.”

  The white one made it onto his other shoulder and the gray one had chosen now to decide to keep up with its brothers’ and sister’s bravery as it tried to jump back into the sink. Damn, their claws might be tiny, but those suckers could draw blood.

  His crutches went clattering to the floor as he tried to keep all the kittens in one place.

  That didn’t work and, of course, he lost his balance.

  If Mac hadn’t caught him, he would have broken his tailbone in addition to his other injuries when he landed.

  As it was, he slid down Mac’s body—something he was not going to think about—and those injuries got a reprieve before he hit the floor.

  Who knew five-foot-two could be such a long way down?

  “You want to get off me, please?” Mac sounded out of breath.

  Hmmm, he liked having her under him. Preferably under other circumstances, but right now, just for a second, he allowed himself to feel Mac against him.

  Liam’s little sister had definitely grown up.

  Okay, time to get off her. For both their sakes.

  He sucked in a big breath, set the kittens onto the floor, and managed to roll off of her and not onto them.

  He sucked in another big breath to mitigate sore-rib pain. “Sorry about that. And thanks for the catch.”

  Mac stood and brushed off her thighs. Thighs that were now eye level for him. “You’re welcome.” She held out a hand. “Need some help getting up?”

  No. He didn’t. Not one bit.

  Jesus.

  Jared plunked a cat onto his lap to hide the evidence. Nothing like kitten claws to get the guy to go into hibernation. Which is where “he” needed to stay around Mac, for God’s sake.

  “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but it’s probably a better idea if I get up on my own.”

  He slid the kitten to the floor as he turned onto his side, the little thing’s claws pretty much finishing the job of sending his dick back into hiding, and struggled to schlep himself onto a chair.

  Mac scooped the kittens off the floor, catching the calico before it crawled through the gap in the kickboard. “So, I guess you need some help with the bathing process.”

  It took him a second to realize she was referring to the kittens’ bathing process, but that one second was enough to get the full-on image of Mac in the shower. With him. And soap. And water. And steam—the water variety and other kinds.

  Hell. “Uh, yeah. Not sure how I can corral four kittens with two hands.” Though at least it’d keep his hands busy so they wouldn’t be tempted to stray toward her.

  Except . . . they already were tempted.

  Jesus. He’d never been this hyper-aware around Camille. Why was he around Mac of all people?

  “Okay, so you get the water lukewarm while I keep them busy over here. Probably best to put only a little water in the sink and let them get used to it.” She held the kittens as if they were a pack of stuffed toy animals—all sitting in her arms as if they hadn’t just knocked him off his feet. The little heathens.

  They did flinch when he turned the water on, but he quickly turned the stream down to almost a trickle. “This is going to take a while to fill.”

  Mac shrugged. “So we wait. I’m already three hours behind; what’s another?”

  “Got a hot date you have to get to?”

  She raised her eyebrow. “It’s Tuesday. Middle of the day. How many hot dates have you been on at that time? Wait.” She held up her hand. “I don’t want to know. You and Bryan don’t have normal lives like the rest of us, and I’ve heard his stories too many times to want to hear them from you, too. Let’s just go with, if I have a hot date, it’s usually on a Saturday night after I’ve recovered from the week.”

  “So do you have a hot date this Saturday?”

  “Why do you care?”

  Yeah, why did he? “I don’t. I mean, it was just conversation.”

  “So is ‘what did you have for breakfast today,’ but that wasn’t what you picked to go with.”

  “Geez, Mac, give it a rest, will ya? Don’t you ever get tired of carrying all that armor around all the time?” He plucked a kitten from her arms—the one in the crook because he wasn’t going for either of the two in the middle that were right over her breasts.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jared.” She handed him the gray kitten when the white one started to mew. “Here. They don’t like to be separated.”

  He jostled the little thing that was practically hopping out of his hand to get to his brother. Her brother. Sister. Whatever. At some point he should probably come up with names for these things so he’d know which one was what gender. There was one female in the bunch—and that was just fine with him. One female was all he could handle these days. And given that Mac was bristling at his question, one was more than enough.

  “Your armor. Or maybe you prefer the chip on your shoulder? Don’t you ever get tired of carrying it around? Why not let it go? Even for a little while?”

  She almost dropped the last kitten. Luckily, her sense of kitty-preservation kicked in and she was able to catch the little thing before it splattered on the floor. “Chip? I do not have a chip on my shoulder.”

  “Oh, right. It’s normal for everyone to go around snarling at an old family friend.”

  “An old family friend, huh?” She set the last kitten in the sink. Their mewling stopped the minute they were all together. “Funny you call yourself that, Jared, when you weren’t friends with the whole family.”

  He leaned a hip against the sink and braced a hand on the edge. “Mac, we were kids. At some point you have to move on.”

  “Move on—” She tossed the dishtowel she’d just taken from the drawer in his face. “Don’t flatter yourself, Jared. I’ve moved on from that stupid crush I had on you. A long time ago.”

  Which she proved by storming through the doorway and leaving him with a cache of now-crying kittens.

  Now crying wet kittens.

  Who were trying to claw their way out of the sink via his forearm.

  He took a deep breath and redirected his anger. It wasn’t the kittens’ fault that she’d left them at his mercy. And it wasn’t their fault he didn’t know what to do with them. It was whoever’d been driving the car that’d killed their mother, that’s whose fault it was.

  And, like with Camille and Burke, assigning blame didn’t make him feel any better or make the situation any different. So he sucked it up and put the discussion with Mac on the back burner for after the kittens were washed.

  And dried.

  And fed.

  And litter-boxed.

  God, he hoped they’d sleep through the night.

  Because with Mac’s anger still lingering in the air—and the sight of her backside in those figure-hugging pants as she walked out—he wasn’t sure he was going to.

  Chapter Eight

  MAC ran the dust mop over the molding one more time for good measure, sneezing half a dozen times more. Now she knew why Mildred hadn’t done this for years; the delicate filigree molding held on to dust like powdered sugar on cake frosting. This was the fifth duster she’d gone through since she’d left the kitchen.

  And Jared.

  Damn him. At some point you have to move on. Really? Was he really that conceited to think that she’d been holding a torch for him all these years? Idiot. If she had been, wouldn’t she have been all into that stupid kiss and begged him for more?

  But she’d stopped
it. She’d walked away.

  Um . . . haven’t really walked away, sweetie. You’re still here.

  Oh no. She wasn’t going to have this argument with herself. She was here because she had a job to do. Nothing else. So what if he kissed her? He was still the same old arrogant Jared who thought all he had to do was crook his little finger and she’d do his bidding.

  Yeah, but you did drive him to the vet and chauffeur him around.

  That’s because he couldn’t drive himself. Seriously, if she had to have this dialogue with herself after every Jared encounter, someone was going to have to sign her up for the Funny Farm when this job was all said and done.

  “Ah, dammit! No! Come here!” Jared’s voice bellowed up the stairs, followed by a crash and a thud that sounded like him taking a header to the floor.

  Great. That’s all she needed; spending the next ten hours in the ER and explaining it to both their grandmothers.

  Mac tossed the dust-laden duster into the big green trash bag on the floor and hightailed it off the ladder and down the front stairs in record time to find three out of four kittens huddled together between Jared’s sprawled legs, while the other one—

  Oh no. The other one was at the top of the basement stairs, looking back over its shoulder at its siblings, teetering over an abyss.

  Those stairs were open, no risers between them. One wrong bounce and Whitey there would be a goner.

  She took a step toward it and the little guy looked up at her, with his big soulful blue eyes, and let out a high-pitched “Mew.”

  It teetered some more.

  “Don’t go after it, Mac. You’ll just scare it.”

  “It’s already scared. Are you okay, by the way?” She glanced back and—uh, yeah, he was okay. More than okay, actually, since he was still shirtless. Which wasn’t helping her argument about not being into him anymore.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Ribs are sore, but then, they were to begin with. No harm no foul, but we have to save that kitten.”

  “No kidding.” Mac looked around for something to scoop the little thing up with before it realized what she was up to, but of course Mildred didn’t have fishing nets hanging from her pot holder rack. She thought about tossing a dishtowel over it, but that might send it over the edge. As would lunging toward it.

  She grabbed the calico kitten and set it down within arm’s reach. She didn’t want to have to chase two of them down the basement steps, but hopefully the white one would come toward its sibling.

  “Mew.” The calico played its part perfectly.

  “Mew.” Thankfully, the white one was on the same team. It took its first step toward them.

  “Thank God.” Jared rested his forehead on the floor and sighed.

  “I prefer goddess actually if you’re going to go with divinity.” Mac took a step toward the calico.

  “Goddess beats out princess?”

  “Hands down.” She wasn’t going to rise to the bait, choosing instead to keep her eyes on the white kitten, ready to pounce should it change its mind.

  A couple more “mews” and Whitey was close enough to scoop.

  “Grab Larry!” Jared did some strange scramble across the hardwood, catching the calico’s—Larry’s?—tail between his fingers before it took off.

  “MMMwwwrrrroooowww!”

  “Stow it, you.” Jared dragged the kitten backward toward him.

  Mac winced as she plunked her butt on the floor and took the kitten from Jared. She could see the little guy’s point, but a pinched tail was better than a crushed skull. “Larry?”

  “Three Stooges.”

  “There are four kittens.”

  Jared got up onto his elbows. “And there was Shemp and Joe, so we’re actually a kitten short.”

  She snorted and tucked the two mewling kittens under her chin. “You want another one?” She pulled the rubber band from her ponytail, letting her hair fall around them like a curtain to give them a place to curl up and feel safe.

  The mewling quieted down and the kneading into her neck stopped. Thank God. The claws might not be big, but they were there and they were sharp.

  “Wow.”

  “What?” She looked at Jared.

  “Your hair.”

  She puffed some off her face. “Yeah, so? I get that it’ll never earn me a spot on a shampoo commercial, but I’m a little more worried about calming the kittens down than what my hair looks like.”

  “That’s just it, Mac.” Jared swung his legs around, sat up, and tucked the two well-behaved kittens onto his lap. “I’ve never seen your hair down.”

  For a second—just one—she thought he was impressed. Maybe even flirting with her. But then that moment passed. This was Jared. A leopard didn’t change his spots. Not even with kittens involved. And it wasn’t as if he’d ever looked long enough to notice in the first place.

  She climbed to her feet and held out her hands for the kittens he was holding, trying desperately to ignore that sculpted chest with just a dusting of hair that would feel so good against her cheek. Or other parts. “At the risk of repeating myself, do you need some help to get up?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  She really wished he’d stop saying that.

  She plucked the other kittens off his thighs, trying to focus on something other than where they were. “So where’s the crate thingie?”

  “The what?”

  “The crate thing. The play yard. The thing I bought so they don’t run all over the place?”

  “I didn’t see a crate.”

  “So what did you do with them? I see the hatbox lid is missing.”

  He struggled to his knees and she had to remember he didn’t want any help from her.

  “Did you look in the hatbox, Mac? It’s a mess. I wasn’t about to put them there.”

  “So where did you put them?”

  He glanced at a group of pillows on the floor. “I, uh—”

  “You tried to pen them in with pillows? Jared, they can climb.”

  “I gathered that.” He yanked his crutches off the floor and used them to get upright. “I just wanted to drop them some place quick so I could sit down, then put them on my lap.”

  “And you thought they were going to, what? Hang out and watch the game with you? They’re not dogs.”

  “Look, Mac, I’m soaked, my ribs and leg hurt like a sonofabitch, and I’m learning on the fly here, so if you have some infinite wisdom you’d like to impart, could you do it quickly so I can get off my feet? I am still recuperating, you know.”

  As if she couldn’t tell, he rattled the crutches. It was on the tip of her tongue to make some sarcastic remark, but then she saw the pastiness beneath his tan. The grim lines at the corners of his mouth. The tired look in his green eyes. The slump in his shoulders. The guy was in pain. And she was human enough not to want to cause him more.

  “That.” She pointed to the box she’d bought earlier, then gathered the four kittens into the crook of one arm, cuddling them close to her neck. “It unfolds into a play yard so they can’t run all over the place and get into trouble.”

  “How am I supposed to know that?”

  She maneuvered the box from the wall she’d leaned it against to the wingback chair by the sofa, reminding herself that he was in pain. That she should have compassion for a fellow human being.

  Who’d kissed her . . .

  “It says so right here on the front cover. See this sticker? Complete instructions and a picture. They couldn’t make it any easier.”

  “Except someone would have to see it to know that that’s what it’s for.” He hobbled over to the sofa and sat down.

  She had to work to hold her temper. Remind herself that he was mad at his circumstances, not at her.

  Right?

  The old self-doubt came back for just a mom
ent, but that moment was enough. Jared had always been able to reduce her to a babbling shell of her former self—her former confident self. Only around him had she ever been unsure of herself.

  Well, not anymore. She was a grown woman running a successful business she’d started herself. Whether Jared liked her or not no longer defined her.

  “Hey, it’s not my job to know what you see and don’t see. Don’t you have a personal assistant for that?”

  “No.” He spat the word at her enough that she had a feeling athletes didn’t need personal assistants after they went on the disabled list.

  Well, hey, no one had to tell her twice to back off from a touchy subject where Jared was concerned. So she set the kittens on the chair, then hiked the box up in front of them, penning them in, before opening one end to let the play yard slide out. A couple of screws pinged onto the floor beneath the sofa.

  This time it was the black kitten who decided to go exploring and tumbled off the chair after them.

  “Hey, kitten! Come back here!”

  “I got this, Mac.” Jared braced himself on the seat cushion and got down on his good knee to scoop up the kitten. He plopped her onto the sofa, then reached back under for the screws. “You can go back to what you were doing.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We can put this up together and then I’ll get back to work. It’ll take you twice as long—”

  “I said I have this. Go do what you need to do.”

  “Are you telling me what to do?”

  He looked up at her, one eyebrow cocked in that devil-may-care attitude that she dreamed about as a teenager. “Has anyone ever been able to tell you what to do?”

  It took a lot of fortitude, but she didn’t fire back a nasty response since he was in pain, but that was the only reason he was getting a pass.

  She corralled her anger and channeled it to jerking the play yard off the table, opening it into the hexagonal shape shown on the sticker. “So where do you want me to put this?”

  He was quiet just a heartbeat too long.

  “Don’t answer that.” She hiked it over her head—thing was more awkward in its current shape—and plunked it in the middle of the room, then held out her hand for the screws and put the sizzle she felt when his fingertips brushed her skin down to that anger she was trying to keep a tight rein on.