Nine Lives

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Even as the thought crosses her mind, she acknowledges the utter ridiculousness of it.

  She starts toward him and slams her thigh squarely into the bedpost. Ouch.

  “Are you okay?” he asks mildly, watching her wince and rub the spot with her burnt fingers.

  “I’m fine.” Just clumsy. “Are you . . . ?”

  She can’t quite decide how to finish the sentence. Are you . . .

  A ghost?

  A crazy psycho killer?

  Or maybe, Are you . . . checking in?

  Or . . . checking me out?

  Judging by the appreciative look in his black eyes, the last part is entirely true.

  He completes the sentence for her: “Grant Everard.”

  “You’re Grant Everard?” Her gaze shifts immediately to his wrist, but she can’t see the fancy watch Odelia mentioned—the one that’s a dead giveaway just how wealthy he is.

  It’s his turn to offer a fragmented question: “And you’re . . . ?”

  He obviously has no idea who she is, but he doesn’t look as though he wonders whether she might be a ghost, a killer, or checking into the guesthouse. He may, however, believe she’s checking him out.

  Probably because you are.

  “I’m Isabella.”

  “Nice to meet you, Isabella . . .”

  “Jordan.” She crosses over to shake his extended hand with her sore one. “I’m taking care of things around here for a few days.”

  His gaze flicks from her face to the erotic novel on the nightstand, waiting to be slipped back under the pillow when she finished making the bed.

  He raises those decidedly masculine brows and flashes her a look that brings instant heat to her cheeks.

  “That’s not mine,” she tells him quickly.

  “That’s what they all say.” He flashes a lazy grin, and she resists the immediate urge to reach up and smooth her hair, wondering whether she remembered to brush it this morning—or her teeth, for that matter. Not that it matters, because she certainly isn’t going to be kissing anyone, but . . .

  Kissing? Since when is she thinking about kissing?

  It’s been a long time since she felt this kind of flustered.

  No, he’s not the first good-looking man to come along since Sam died. Not even the first one since she started her new life.

  She thinks of Doctor Bailey, Troy, and Luther, too. She isn’t blind; she’s not immune to the opposite sex.

  Grant, though, seems to have ignited a spark in the cool, dim place inside her where something warm and vibrant once glowed.

  Yes, but look what happens when you play with fire, she reminds herself.

  And for that matter, look at how you look.

  She may never have been beautiful, regardless of what Sam called her.

  My Bella Angelo.

  No, but she’d been pretty enough, in a sporty, casual kind of way. Now whenever she looks in the mirror, all she sees are dark circles and worry lines and sad blue eyes.

  My Bella Blue.

  “How did you get in?” she asks Grant abruptly, determined to focus on the throbbing ache in her fingers and not the one in her heart.

  “Sorry. I had a key.”

  Of course. Doesn’t everyone?

  “I probably shouldn’t have let myself in. Sorry,” he says again.

  “It’s okay. Odelia told me about you.” Warned her, really.

  “Oh yeah? What did she say? Wait, let me guess. She said I’m a ne’er-do-well?”

  “Actually, she mentioned you’re a . . . do well.” Despite her effort at restraint, the quip escapes her lips with a flirtatious little smile and is met by a devilish grin.

  “Well, I ne’er expected to hear that. I’ve always had the feeling Odelia doesn’t think very highly of me.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She may have mentioned it on the phone last week,” he says with a laugh. “She doesn’t mince words—and she doesn’t take kindly to being awakened in the middle of the night, either. But I couldn’t seem to keep my time zones straight.”

  “Where were you?”

  “On a camel trek in Mongolia.”

  Bella starts to laugh but then sees his expression. “Wait—seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” he returns with a shrug. “Anyway, I had to fly back to New York and get my car. I got here as soon as I could, and it wasn’t exactly easy to walk into this house just now without Leona waiting for me. She and Edgar were the closest thing I ever had to parents. They took me in when I was a kid in trouble with nowhere else to go.”

  “That’s what family does.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. I never had any family—I mean other than Leona and Edgar, but they weren’t blood relatives. Just a nice couple who couldn’t have children of their own, and instead of pressing charges against the juvenile delinquent who broke into their house to rob them, they took him in and turned his life around.”

  Bella’s mouth falls open.

  “What’s the matter? You can’t believe I was a teenage thug? Come on, it’s not so hard to imagine, is it?”

  She doesn’t know what to say to that.

  He doesn’t wait for a response. “I used to blame my bad behavior on being abandoned by my mother. It was a long time ago, though. And lousy luck doesn’t give you license to live by your own set of rules. Leona and Edgar taught me that. I wish I’d met them sooner, but I owe them everything,” he adds, bowing his head.

  “I just . . . I thought you were Leona’s nephew,” Bella says lamely. “That’s what Odelia told me.”

  “I guess that’s what Leona told her. It probably made things easier. Although I have to say, I’m astounded that Odelia didn’t figure out the truth, considering she’s psychic.” Judging by his tone, he’s not astounded at all.

  She doesn’t respond to that comment either, feeling unexpectedly protective of Odelia—and of the others, and even of the wacky goings-on here in the Dale. Ironic, given her own newcomer status and blatant skepticism, not to mention the loss that ripped a gaping hole in her life.

  If the people who inhabit this serene little village are convinced that they have all the answers and that you never really lose anyone you love, well then, more power to them. It must be nice to dwell in this luminescent little bubble, protected from the harsh realities of uncertainty and bereavement.

  Bella gestures at the half-made bed. “I have to finish up in here,” she tells Grant. “I made sure your room is vacant, though.”

  “Which room?”

  “The one with the trains. Odelia said it’s yours.”

  He smiles. “It is. I loved trains when I was a kid. Probably because I used to hitch a ride on a freight train out of town whenever I didn’t like whichever foster home I happened to be in. Which was all of them, until I met Leona and Edgar.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s the past.” He shrugs. “Anyway, it’ll be nice to sleep in a familiar bed for a change.”

  “I take it you’ve been on the road a lot?”

  “On the road, the rails, the water, in the air . . . This has been one heck of a trip.”

  “You forgot the camels.”

  “Right—on camelback, too.” His grin gives way to a yawn. “I’m so beat, I think I’ll go to bed right now, if you don’t mind.”

  “Why would I mind?” she asks defensively, wondering if he somehow thinks she’ll miss the pleasure of his company this evening.

  As if she imagined the two of them sitting together on the porch swing in the twilight . . .

  “You know, the room. Is it ready?”

  “My son slept in there the first night, but I changed the sheets, so it’s all set for you.”

  “You have a son?”

  She nods.

  “How old?”

  “Five.”

  “And your husband . . . ?”

  “He died,” she says flatly. No wide-eyed del
usions here.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Yeah. Me too.

  She gives a little nod and turns away, staring at a print on the wall: lithe, carefree Parisian girls in frothy tutus lined up at the barre, not a care in the world.

  She can feel Grant watching her for a long moment, as if he wants to say something else. But he doesn’t.

  She waits until he’s back downstairs to exhale.

  * * *

  There’s no fiery orange sunset to light the sky tonight. The rain hasn’t let up all day, shrouding the lake in dense, gray mist.

  For dinner, Bella and Max sit down to macaroni and cheese from a box, a far cry from the healthy, delicious dinners she used to cook for three in the cozy kitchen back in Bedford. Max picks at the gummy, orange pasta with his fork and leaves most of it untouched, still worried about Chance. There’s been no sign of her all day.

  Earlier, when Bella went next door to collect Max from Odelia, she speculated that the cat is probably still holed up somewhere staying out of the rain.

  “I’m sure she’ll be back when the sun comes out,” Odelia assured Max as she packed several dozen surprisingly delicious cookies into a tin to take back next door.

  “But she’s going to have her babies today.”

  “Is she? That’s nice.” Odelia seemed preoccupied, probably because Bella had just filled her in about Grant’s arrival.

  She wanted to see him, but Bella told her he’d gone straight to bed.

  “Well, tell him to come see me when he wakes up. I’m going to the message service, but I’ll be home after that.”

  “He said he might sleep straight through until tomorrow.”

  “Oh, really? Well, good for him.”

  Now, other than Grant, still behind closed doors in the Train Room, the guests are all out at the evening message service. With Max fed—more or less—bathed, and moping in front of the parlor TV, Bella sits at the kitchen table and dials her mother-in-law’s number again.

  Millicent answers on the third ring. One more, Bella knows, and it would have gone to voice mail. She also knows her mother-in-law always has the phone close at hand, always checks caller ID, and always answers on the first ring.

  This time, she waited to pick up on purpose.

  She’s making me sweat. Terrific.

  “Jordan residence, Millicent speaking.”

  “Hello, M—” She breaks off. If she calls her Millicent, she’ll be reprimanded. If she calls her Mother, she might gag. She settles on nothing, as usual. “It’s Isabella. How are you?”

  There’s a pause. “Quite well. And you?”

  “Quite well,” Bella replies, though it isn’t something she’d typically say, and it isn’t the truth.

  “And Max?”

  “He’s great.” Another lie, followed by another. “Listen, I’m sorry about what happened last night.”

  There’s a long pause on the other end of the line.

  Then Millicent sighs deeply. “Lashing out at me that way—I just don’t know what got into you, Isabella.”

  I do, she thinks, biting her lip. Common sense.

  Millicent made her feel completely reckless and incompetent, as if it was her own fault the car broke down.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Bella knows that if she’d had the car serviced, that might not have happened. She couldn’t have it serviced, though, because she could barely afford gasoline, and the only reason she was driving halfway across the country in it was because she had nowhere else to go . . .

  But now you do.

  The thought flits into her head, and she pushes it right back out again.

  No, she doesn’t. She has Millicent and Chicago. That’s all.

  “I don’t know what got into me either. I guess I was just frazzled and a little overwhelmed.”

  “All I was trying to explain to you is that a little foresight can go a long way.”

  Bella grits her teeth, staring at the gloomy dusk beyond the rain-spattered window.

  “People who learn to take care of themselves can take care of others.”

  Did Millicent really just say that?

  “I do take care of myself,” she says tightly. “And my son.”

  “Well of course you’re making an effort, and it isn’t that I mind helping, but I just want you to be aware that if you had just—”

  “Mom!” Max shouts from the parlor.

  “I have to go!” she blurts into the phone, hanging up and tossing it aside.

  “Max?” she calls, hurrying toward the front of the house. “Are you okay?”

  “I am, but . . . look.”

  Reaching the parlor, she sees him pointing at the open bay windows above the cushioned bench.

  Beyond the screen, flooded in porch light, Chance the Cat is looking in, a wee newborn kitten dangling from her mouth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Max hurries to open the door as Bella grabs a couple of towels from the laundry room. Spying a small wooden crate that holds a stack of tied newspapers waiting to be recycled, she hastily tosses the papers aside. Returning to the front hall, she sets the towel-lined crate on the floor just in time for Chance to drop in the kitten.

  It’s a fragile creature, no larger than Max’s hand. It has straggly gray-and-black-ticked fur like its mother, a stub of a tail, and a rosy nose and paw pads. Its eyes are sealed tightly, ears closed and flattened to its head, and still-useless limbs splayed. It shimmies awkwardly on its belly, emitting a faint, high-pitched mew.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Max asks.

  Bella has to swallow a hot surge of emotion before she can find her voice. “Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just a new baby. It can’t see or hear or walk yet. It can’t do anything without its mommy.”

  “But she’s leaving!”

  Sure enough, the cat is already marching straight back to the door, where she meows urgently until Bella opens it, then disappears into the night.

  “Why did she go?” Max asks in dismay.

  “Shh, it’s okay. Just watch.”

  Moments later, Chance reappears with another wriggling kitten hanging by its scruff and deposits it into the crate beside its sibling.

  This time, Bella and Max follow her outside to watch as she makes a beeline back to the shadows beneath the porch.

  “That’s where the babies are,” Max realizes. “There are five more. Maybe six.”

  “Maybe. She was probably waiting for the rain to stop before she brought them inside.”

  The daylong deluge has finally ebbed. Bordered by dripping boughs and eaves, the narrow, muddy lane beyond the porch lamp is deserted, most of the houses dark. The wind chimes tinkle forlornly, stirred by a wet breeze. Dense fog still hangs over the Dale, drifting in a yellowish cast beneath widely scattered streetlamps.

  The scene reminds Bella of a Jack the Ripper movie she’d seen years ago. This may not be nineteenth-century London, but it doesn’t particularly look like twenty-first-century New York, and it isn’t hard to imagine a cloaked man stepping out of the mist.

  She hugs Max close to her as they watch Chance emerge from a hole in the porch lattice with another newborn clutched in her mouth. One by one, she transports her litter inside.

  There are seven altogether—or so it seems at first.

  Seven helpless, hungry, crying kittens, whom Max promptly names in order of appearance: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

  “I told you the kittens were coming today!” he crows. “And I told you there would be seven!”

  “You sure did.”

  But how on earth did you know?

  “Or maybe eight,” he adds, as Chance makes one last trip outside, almost as an afterthought. But when she reappears a minute later, she’s alone. She paces around the room, stopping below the window that faces the porch, then looks up at them and meows, almost as if she’s asking a question.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” Bella says, leaning down to rub her head. �
��You did great. You can rest now.”

  As the cat settles into her makeshift nest to nurse her fuzzy little family, Max and Bella watch from a respectful distance, perched on the bottom stair.

  “She keeps looking at the door, Mom. Do you think there’s another baby out there?”

  “No, she wouldn’t leave any behind.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The same way I knew she needed a box for them.”

  “Is it called psychic?”

  “No. It’s called maternal instinct.”

  “So that means moms just know stuff?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Isn’t that the same as psychic?”

  “No, not at all,” she says firmly. Psychics—so-called psychics—claim to rely on a sixth sense, while moms rely on . . .

  Instinct.

  Which is completely different. Of course it is.

  One is supposedly supernatural, the other is . . . well, natural.

  Don’t all mothers, human and animal, possess the acute need to find a cozy place in which to protect their offspring from the big, bad world?

  For now, this is ours, she thinks, looking around at the tawny wallpaper and rich woodwork swaddled in the golden glow of the etched glass ceiling pendant. The room is hushed, other than the ticking clock and the occasional peep of a wayward kitten momentarily losing its latch.

  In this moment, the house belongs only to her, Max, Chance, and her babies. Unless you count Leona’s nephew-who’s-not-really-a-nephew, still presumably asleep upstairs.

  Thinking of poor Grant, abandoned as a newborn, Bella acknowledges that not all females are natural mothers. She finds herself wondering about the story behind his tragic past—and then, for some reason, wondering if it’s even true.

  She’s met men like him before. Smooth, self-assured, and, yes, seductive. Men who aren’t above embellishing or even fabricating details to suit their needs.

  To be fair, she doesn’t know Grant well enough to assume that he fits that bill. But there’s no denying that he’s smooth and self-assured. Besides, Odelia has no use for him, and she—

  Okay, she doesn’t like everybody.

  She has no use for Pandora Feeney. Nor for her ex-husband Orville.

  But considering that she’s psychic—or so she claims—she may have a sound basis for her . . . dislike? Mistrust?