More Than a Convenient Bride

by Michelle Celmer

  She leaned in and kissed him, and when he slid his hand behind her neck and under the root of her ponytail, cradling her head in his palm, she was toast. Luc knew just what to do to get her engine revving, and right now, her gas pedal was to the floor.

  “Maybe we should take this upstairs,” she said. “If you have time.”

  “I could be persuaded to take the rest of the day off. How about you?”

  “I don’t know, my boss is kind of a hard-ass.”

  Luc grinned. “I think he could make an exception just this— Ow!”

  He winced in pain, and she looked down to see her sweet little kitten climbing his leg, nails out.

  “Hey, you,” she said, carefully extracting him from Luc’s slacks, hoping that he hadn’t ruined them. “Climbing up pant legs, not cool.”

  “Beth warned me that he can be very mischievous,” Luc said. “She said that we have to keep a close eye on him until he’s familiar with the layout of the house.”

  Considering how big the house was, that could take a while, and she could hardly imagine anything so small and sweet being mischievous. How much damage could one tiny kitten do?

  It didn’t take long to find out.

  Thirteen

  They took the kitten along up to Luc’s bedroom, putting him on his blanket in his box on the floor by the bed. Luc had never been a cat person. As a kid he pretty much ignored the ones they had on the ranch. But he couldn’t deny that this little guy was kinda cute.

  When he first walked into the shelter he’d been overwhelmed by the volume of animals in need of homes, and picking one seemed a daunting task. He’d wandered the facility looking in cages. His mother had been no help at all. Had it been up to her they would have left the place with a couple dozen felines. It had been Megan who swayed him in the right direction.

  He had been looking at the older cats, the ones who had been in the shelter the longest, when Megan suggested a kitten.

  “I would think that kittens would be pretty easy to place,” he’d said. “Julie would choose a cat no one else wants.”

  “I have just the thing,” Megan had said, steering him to a cage in the kitten section. “Someone brought in a litter last week, and this little guy is the only one left.”

  The second he saw the little white fur ball he was sure Julie would love him, and when Megan told him the kitten was blind, he knew it was fate.

  Julie was so independent and capable, not to mention practical, it wasn’t often that she let him do anything really nice for her. So when she asked him about getting a cat he lunged at the opportunity. Nothing meant more to him than making her happy.

  And she seemed happy now. But they barely had a chance to get started in bed before the kitten climbed up the side to join them.

  “Down you go,” Luc said, scooping him up and setting him back in his box. “This is your bed.”

  They had just taken off their socks when he was up there with them again, so back in the box he went. And back up he climbed a few seconds later.

  “This is not working,” Luc said, dropping the kitten into his box again, this time not quite so gently. And back up he came like a spring, clawing his way up the comforter. “Do we have any packing tape?”

  Julie shot him a look. “If you’re thinking we’re going to tape his box closed, think again.”

  Okay, bad idea. “We could lock him in the bathroom.”

  He got another look.

  “Have you got a better idea?” Luc asked, putting the kitten on the floor this time. “Shoo. Go play.”

  When he didn’t immediately spring back up, they both sat there waiting, watching the edge of the bed for his reappearance.

  A minute or so passed and no kitty. “You think he got the hint?” Luc said.

  “Seems that way,” Julie said, then she looked behind them and started to laugh. “I take that back.”

  Luc turned to see that the kitten had come up the opposite side of the mattress this time and was sitting behind them. He yawned and licked his paws, content as could be.

  Luc sighed and shook his head. “Ideas?”

  “Let’s wait a minute and see what he does. He’s got to be tired from all the climbing.”

  They sat and watched while the kitten sniffed around the bed for several minutes, nearly toppling over the edge a few times. He made his way to the head of the bed, up onto Luc’s pillow, where he curled up in a ball and promptly fell asleep.

  “So now what?” Luc asked.

  “It’s a king-size mattress,” Julie said. “There’s room for everyone.”

  It was a little strange at first, making love with an audience, even if that audience was asleep, but eventually Luc forgot he was even there. They stayed on their side and the kitten stayed on his, while Julie “thanked” Luc.

  Afterward, as they lay there together, Julie cuddled up against him, the kitten woke up, toddled over and joined them. He flopped down on his back, right on Luc’s chest.

  “This is the best gift anyone has ever given me,” Julie said. She tickled the kitten’s belly and he attacked her hand.

  They played with the kitten for a while, and then Julie grabbed her phone from the bedside table to check the time.

  “Are you getting hungry?” she asked Luc.

  He eyed her warily. “When I said cats are delicious, I was kidding.”

  She laughed and gave him a playful nudge. “It’s almost dinnertime. And it’s Friday. We should do something.”

  “We still haven’t had that romantic dinner out that I promised you. We could get dressed up and go somewhere nice, just the two of us.”

  “Or we could see if your mom would like to join us. We could go to the diner. And if she’s feeling up to it afterward maybe we could take her to see a movie.”

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?” he asked her.

  “She’s been stuck at home for almost two weeks now, and she’s definitely well enough to leave the house. I would feel guilty going out and leaving her home alone.”

  Luc grinned and shook his head.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked him.

  “You’re an extraordinary woman, Julie.”

  She blinked. “I am?”

  He nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I offer to take you out to an expensive, candlelit dinner, and you would rather spend the evening with my mother.”

  “She’s my friend. I want her to be happy. You know that it’s only a matter of time before she gets another infection.”

  “I know,” he said, his heart aching at the thought of losing her. “She’s getting more and more fragile.”

  “So let’s have fun with her while we still can.”

  “What are we going to do with him?” Luc nodded toward the kitten, who had curled up between them on the comforter and was sound asleep again.

  “He can stay in here,” she said. “As long as he has food and water and a litter pan he should be fine. And we keep the door closed. How much trouble could one tiny kitten get into?”

  * * *

  They had a nice dinner with Luc’s mother, then took her to the theater to see the latest chick flick. Julie knew for a fact that Luc would have picked an action film any day of the week. Frankly, so would Julie, but his mother wanted to see a romantic comedy. It was after eleven when they finally got home.

  “I’ll help the nurse get her into bed,” Luc told Julie. “You should probably go up and check on the fur ball.”

  She headed upstairs, opened the door to Luc’s bedroom and switched on the light. “Here kitty, kitty. Mummy’s home.”

  He wasn’t on the bed sleeping, where she would have expected him to be, but then what did she know about having a cat? The most she’d ever had p
etwise was a caterpillar in a glass jar, until her father saw it there and flushed it down the toilet.

  “Kitty, kitty,” she called, checking all around the bedroom and the bathroom. “Come to Mummy.”

  She waited, but when he didn’t come trotting out to greet her she frowned. “Where are you, you silly kitten?”

  There was no sign of him so she got on all fours to look under the bed. From behind her she heard, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I like the view.”

  She turned to see Luc standing behind her. “I can’t find the kitten.”

  “He’s got to be here somewhere,” he said. “Did you try the closet?”

  “Not yet.”

  Luc headed that way while Julie crawled over to check under the chest of drawers.

  “Um, Julie? I found him.”

  “Oh thank goodness.” She jumped up and darted to his closet door to join Luc. She looked inside and gasped. It was as if a hurricane had torn through. A dozen or so of Luc’s clean, pressed dress shirts lay in piles all over the floor like an Egyptian cotton rainbow, while several others hung half on and half off the hanger. From the cuff of one, dangling a good two feet from the floor, hung the kitten, his claw snagged.

  “Oh my gosh!” Julie dashed to his rescue, carefully unsnagging his nails and cuddling him to her chest. “You poor baby. How long were you hanging there?”

  Luc just looked around, shaking his head. “What was that you asked? ‘How much trouble could one tiny kitten get into?’” He spread his arms wide. “Here’s your answer.”

  “He has been busy, hasn’t he? On the bright side he’ll probably sleep well tonight.”

  “So I guess I should have listened to Megan when she said that he’s mischievous.”

  “I’m sorry. I hope he didn’t ruin them.”

  “You’ll make it up to me,” Luc said, and she didn’t have to ask what he meant. She helped him clean up the kitten’s mess, then spent the next hour or so making it up to him, and what a hardship that turned out to be.

  After making love again, he asked her to stay with him all night. She said no, he said please. She couldn’t recall him using the word please any of the previous times he’d asked her and hearing the word spoken so earnestly, seeing the earnest look in his eyes...well, she just couldn’t tell him no.

  “Just this once,” she said, settling back against the pillows. “But I’m used to sleeping alone, so I’ll probably toss and turn most of the night. I apologize in advance if I keep you awake.”

  “It’s a king-size bed, you won’t even know I’m over here,” he said, but nothing could be further from the truth. He never even made it onto his own side. He curled up behind her, his arm draped across her hip. And as if that wasn’t crowded enough, the kitten, who was clearly exhausted after his adventure, curled up on the pillow above her head. She was annoyed, and utterly content at the same time. She closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for a long restless night, and when she opened them again, it was morning. Not only had she not had a lousy night’s sleep, she felt well rested and full of energy.

  Luc was gone, but he’d left a note on the pillow. “Volunteering at the clinic until noon. How about lunch in the hospital cafeteria at 1:00?”

  She looked at the clock, stunned to find that it was almost 10:30 a.m. She grabbed her phone off the bedside table and typed up a quick text.

  Lunch sounds great, see you at 1:00.

  He responded a few seconds later with a happy face icon.

  She would have plenty of time to shower and make a trip to the pet supply store.

  Speaking of pets...

  She reached up over her head to pet the kitten only to realize that he was gone. Here we go again, she thought. She pushed herself up out of bed and threw on the T-shirt and panties she’d been wearing the night before. She looked in the obvious places first. Under the bed, in the closet by his food dish, in the bathroom by his litter. But she couldn’t find him anywhere. Had he snuck out when Luc left?

  She checked everywhere, every corner and nook. She even checked under the covers, in case he’d been sleeping beside her when she flipped the blanket off.

  Nothing. It was as if he’d vanished.

  Where the hell could he have gone? she wondered, a feeling of panic building in her chest. How in the world would she find him? In a house this huge it could take days.

  She was checking behind the curtains one last time, and was about to initiate a whole house search, when she heard a loud and very unhappy-sounding meow. But it seemed to be coming from above her head. She looked up to find the kitten clinging to the curtain valance on top of the rod, and now that she took a better look at the curtain panel, she could see teeny tiny holes where his claws had sunk in. The little imp had climbed all the way up, and apparently couldn’t find his way back down. “You are mischievous,” she said, getting up on her tiptoes to scoop him up. “Let’s not go up here again.”

  She put the kitten in his box, grabbed the rest of her things and walked across the hall to her own room.

  She set the box on the bed. “You stay here while I take a shower.”

  She didn’t really expect him to obey, so it was no surprise when he escaped the box, tumbled down from the mattress onto the floor, got back on his feet and followed her into the bathroom where he started digging around in his litter. He may have been blind, but he had no trouble getting around.

  Figuring he would be safe in there with her, she shut the bathroom door, locking him in. She undressed, turned on the water and stepped into the shower, leaving the door open an inch, so she could hear him if he got into trouble again. Though she wasn’t sure what kind of trouble he could get into. There was really nothing for him to climb. The room was all tile and porcelain, which he couldn’t get his claws into.

  She was lathering her hair when she saw the shower door move, and looked down to see the kitten poking his head in. “You don’t want to come in here,” she said, but that was exactly what he wanted. He took a tentative step inside, and when the outer edge of the spray hit his fur, he stopped, looking confused. She thought for sure that he would turn tail and run; instead, he walked right under the spray, rubbing against her ankle with his soaked white fur, crossed to the opposite side, then sat down and started to clean himself.

  What the heck? A cat who liked water?

  She picked him up and set him on the bath mat, but before she could get the door closed, he was back in the shower. After one more failed attempt she managed to get him out of the shower and the door closed.

  She finished, toweled them both off—which he didn’t seem to appreciate much—then blow-dried her hair and got dressed. By the time she was finished, the cat had pulled another vanishing act. It took another few minutes of searching and this time she found him playing inside a canvas bag on her closet floor.

  She carried him down to the kitchen where Elizabeth was sitting having her morning coffee and reading the newspaper. “Oh, there’s the little guy!” she said, and Julie set the still-damp ball of fur in her lap.

  “What happened to him?” Elizabeth asked, frowning up at Julie. “He’s all wet.”

  “He took a shower with me.”

  Elizabeth’s brows rose in disbelief. “Cat’s don’t like water.”

  “Someone forgot to tell him that.”

  Looking perplexed, she said, “That’s odd.”

  Julie shrugged. “Maybe it has something to do with him being blind. Or maybe he’s just weird.”

  “How was his first night home?”

  Julie grappled for the right word. “It was...eventful.”

  She told Elizabeth about Luc’s shirts, the curtain incident and finding him in her closet.

  “He was probably bored,” Elizabeth said. “Kittens need lots of stimulation.”

  �
�I’m going this morning to buy him some toys.”

  Looking excited, Elizabeth asked, “Would you like me to watch him for you while you’re gone?”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Of course not. Take all the time you need.”

  “I do have several errands I’d like to run.” He looked pretty harmless sitting there in Elizabeth’s lap licking the water from his fur, but Julie knew what a little terror he could be. “But are you sure? He’s a handful.”

  “I’ve had lots of cats. I’m sure I can handle it.”

  Julie hoped so. Shy of locking him in her room alone for the day, which seemed cruel, she really had no other choice. At least until he was bigger.

  “Can we talk for a minute?” she asked Elizabeth, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

  “Of course, honey. You can talk to me about anything, you know that.”

  She did, but this was different. “I need a favor. And it’s a big one.”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve me getting up and dancing,” she joked. “Name it.”

  “Luc mentioned that you’ll be at the hospital Monday for an iron infusion.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Would you come to Amelia’s son’s room while you’re there. Just for a few minutes.”

  She sighed. “Julie, I know you and she have become friends, and against my better judgment I’ve kept my opinions to myself, but—”

  “I know you two didn’t get along, and I know how Luc feels about her, but she really has changed. She knows she treated you badly and she’d only like the chance to apologize. She’s been carrying around a lot of guilt—”

  “Which was her own doing,” Elizabeth said sharply.

  “She doesn’t deny that.”

  “Luc may be a grown man, but he’ll always be my baby, and she hurt him deeply.”

  “She wants to make amends.”

  “Did she ask you to ask me?”

  “No. But she’s my friend and I want to help her. She asked Luc if she could visit you but he wouldn’t allow it.”

  Up went Elizabeth’s hackles, and in a cutting tone she said, “Who I do and don’t see is not his choice.”