by Paige Sleuth
“So, what did you mean by that?”
“I meant we’re not married.” He gave her a sly smile. “Yet.”
Before she could press him for details, a boom blasted through the night air. Tom lifted his head, and Matty’s ears pricked in alarm.
Kat groaned. “Not again.”
Andrew chuckled. “Looks like your neighbors didn’t run out of fireworks, they were just waiting for the weekend to start before setting them off again.”
She punched his shoulder. “I’m glad someone’s amused by my suffering.”
“Suffering? I’ll show you suffering.”
Before she could stop him, he reached over and tickled her stomach. Kat squealed, an outburst that sent Tom catapulting off of Andrew’s lap and racing for cover. Matty didn’t flee, but she did stare at Kat as if she’d lost her mind.
Kat giggled. She couldn’t help herself. In that moment her happiness was too expansive to contain.
She sat up as that thought sank in. She was happy—with Andrew, with this home she had made here in Cherry Hills, with her freedom to mold her life into what she wanted it to be. Why would she want to jeopardize all that by getting married? If the past week had taught her anything it was that marriage didn’t guarantee happiness. Look at how things had turned out for Clarissa, Eunice, and Ani.
Okay, so maybe a divorce lawyer’s circle of influence wasn’t the best sample size from which to develop an opinion about marriage. But the fact remained that right at that moment she was happy. And that was a wonderful place to be.
Outside, another firework went off. But this time the noise didn’t bother Kat.
This time, she just smiled and counted her blessings.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for visiting Cherry Hills, home of Kat, Matty, and Tom! If you enjoyed their story, please consider leaving a book review on your favorite online retailer and/or review site. Also join my readers’ group so you’ll be one of the first to know when their next adventure is published.
Please keep reading for an excerpt from Book 25 of the Cozy Cat Caper Mystery series, Checked Out in Cherry Hills. Thank you!
CHECKED OUT IN CHERRY HILLS
Katherine Harper had barely gotten home from her programmer analyst job at DataRightly when an unexpected knock on her apartment door sent her leaping off the couch, startling both of her cats. Matty and Tom watched Kat with huge, green eyes as she swung the door open. They looked as if they expected the boogieman to come waltzing inside.
But it wasn’t the boogieman standing in the corridor outside of her third-floor unit. It was her boyfriend, Andrew Milhone. He held his hands behind his back, twin dimples bracketing the huge grin spread across his face.
“Andrew! What are you doing here? I thought our date wasn’t until tomorrow.” Kat frowned. “Today is Thursday, isn’t it?”
His smile expanded. “It sure is.”
“Then why are you here?” In spite of her confusion, Kat couldn’t resist a smile of her own. The sight of Andrew always cheered her. “And what are you so happy about?”
He pulled his hands in front of him, revealing a huge bouquet of flowers. “Happy anniversary!”
A delighted string of meows followed Andrew’s announcement. Tom had joined them by the door, and the black-and-brown cat now had his front paws braced on Andrew’s knee to get a better look at the floral arrangement. He must have liked what he saw because he released another long series of meows without even pausing for air. The way he was going on, anyone would think Andrew had brought the flowers for him.
“Why, hello there, Tommy.” Andrew handed the flowers to Kat before reaching down to pet Tom. “I missed you too.”
Tom rubbed his cheek against Andrew’s fingers, a purr starting up from deep in his chest. Once Tom was satisfied he’d marked Andrew with his scent, the big cat dropped his feet back onto the floor and began twining between Andrew’s legs. He seemed too excited by the unscheduled arrival of one of his favorite people to sit still.
Kat smirked. “The way you two carry on every time you see each other, you’d think you’d been separated for months.”
“Hey, Tommy and I are best buds. A couple days is a long time to go without the company of your best bud. Right, Tommy boy?”
Tom chirped his concurrence before head-bumping Andrew’s knuckles in what Kat presumed was an act of feline-to-human male solidarity.
Unlike Tom, Matty didn’t seem nearly as affected by Andrew’s arrival. The yellow-and-brown tortoiseshell took her time sauntering toward them, making sure to stop and stretch along the way in case anyone was under the mistaken impression she was in a hurry. Matty tended not to care much about visitors—or if she did she certainly wouldn’t stoop so low as to show it. In fact, she wasn’t even looking at Andrew as she drew closer. Her eyes were trained on the flowers in Kat’s hands.
Matty sat down by Kat’s feet, her penetrating gaze still locked onto the bouquet. Kat wasn’t sure if she was more attracted to the colorful flowers or the cellophane wrapped around them. Every time the cellophane crinkled, Matty’s pupils dilated as if she thought someone might be ripping open a bag of her favorite cat treats.
“These are anniversary flowers,” Kat told Matty. “Except apparently my boyfriend has forgotten our one-year anniversary isn’t until next month.”
Andrew gave Tom one last pat before straightening back up. “Believe it or not, I know that.”
Tom yowled at Kat as though to stick up for his best bud. His outburst prompted Matty to turn around and swat his face.
“If you know we didn’t start dating until August, why did you bring me anniversary flowers in July?” Kat rotated the bouquet around. “Were these on sale or something?”
Andrew rolled his eyes. “CHPD may not pay me much, but I’m not that cheap. And I’m crushed you don’t remember.”
“Remember what?”
“One year ago today is the day we first ran into each other again after you moved back to Cherry Hills.”
Kat sucked in a breath. How could she have forgotten? She had come slinking back to her small Central Washington hometown a little over a year ago, feeling rather foolish for going against her word fifteen years prior when she’d fled Cherry Hills and swore never to return. And then she had run into Andrew, her old childhood friend, for the first time since their high school graduation. She had been stunned when he had shown up in the corridor outside her apartment.
She shuddered, the circumstances of their first meeting flooding back to her. Today was not only the one-year anniversary of their reunion, it was also the one-year anniversary of her former neighbor’s murder. That was the real reason for Andrew’s appearance on her doorstep last summer. She hadn’t known he was a detective with the Cherry Hills Police Department when she’d phoned 9-1-1 after discovering Hilda Tinsdale’s body next door.
That was also the day Matty had come to live with Kat. It always gave Kat chills to think about what Matty might have seen that day. Had she actually witnessed Mrs. Tinsdale gasping her dying breath? Had Matty had a chance to hear her previous owner tell her she loved her one last time?
Kat reached out and stroked Matty. Were the tortoiseshell’s memories of last July as vivid as hers were?
If so, Matty didn’t appear to be dwelling on them at the moment. Right now she was busy sniffing the bouquet in Kat’s hands.
Something centered in the arrangement caught Kat’s eye. “There are lilies in here.”
“Yeah,” Andrew said. “So?”
“So, lilies are toxic to cats. The pollen can kill them.”
Kat glanced at Matty and Tom, her stomach squeezing in fear. A quick scan didn’t reveal any pollen on their fur, but she wasn’t confident she would be able to detect one of the microscopic particles with her naked eye.
She lunged toward the door as a sudden urgency seized her. “I need to get these out of here.”
She rushed out of the apartment and into the corridor. She was tempted simp
ly to hurl the flowers as far as she could—the mere thought of touching them now making her skin crawl as though she were the one in danger of perishing from the lilies—but she stopped herself. Matty and Tom sometimes wandered into the common hallway, and her next-door neighbor also had a cat. She needed to dispose of these flowers someplace where there was no danger of a curious feline finding them.
Andrew shoved his sandy hair off his forehead as he shuffled into the hallway after Kat. She took one look at his slumped shoulders and dejected expression, and her heart pinched. Here he was trying to do something nice on the anniversary of their reunion, and she was making him feel like a villain.
She touched his arm. “Thank you for the flowers. I really do appreciate the gesture.”
He mustered up a smile, his dimples conspicuously absent. “I’m just glad you noticed the lilies before anything happened. I never would have forgiven myself if Matty or Tom had died because of me.”
“You didn’t know.” She eyed the flowers, an idea forming. “You know, just because I can’t enjoy these doesn’t mean somebody else can’t.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“That we give these to some people who might appreciate a spontaneous floral delivery. What do you say we make a stop by that assisted living facility near the Italian place we like? I’m sure they’d love these. And then we can grab a bite to eat on the way home. It’s almost six o’clock now. I’ll be starving by the time we reach the restaurant.”
This time, Andrew’s smile was genuine. “That’s a wonderful idea. And lilies aren’t bound to kill anybody at an assisted living facility.”
The word kill brought Mrs. Tinsdale’s murder back to the forefront of Kat’s mind. She pushed it away. She should be associating this day with Andrew, not murder. After all, Mrs. Tinsdale’s death was a one-time thing—never mind all the other bodies she’d found since then. Regardless, it was ridiculous to think another murder might happen today just because Mrs. Tinsdale had died exactly one year ago.
Still, she couldn’t completely banish the niggling sense of foreboding that tickled the back of her brain as she started locking up the apartment.
* * *
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Books in the Cozy Cat Caper Mystery series:
Book 1: Murder in Cherry Hills
Book 2: Framed in Cherry Hills
Book 3: Poisoned in Cherry Hills
Book 4: Vanished in Cherry Hills
Book 5: Shot in Cherry Hills
Book 6: Strangled in Cherry Hills
Book 7: Halloween in Cherry Hills
Book 8: Stabbed in Cherry Hills
Book 9: Thanksgiving in Cherry Hills
Book 10: Frozen in Cherry Hills
Book 11: Hit & Run in Cherry Hills
Book 12: Christmas in Cherry Hills
Book 13: Choked in Cherry Hills
Book 14: Dropped Dead in Cherry Hills
Book 15: Valentine’s in Cherry Hills
Book 16: Drowned in Cherry Hills
Book 17: Orphaned in Cherry Hills
Book 18: Fatal Fête in Cherry Hills
Book 19: Arson in Cherry Hills
Book 20: Overdosed in Cherry Hills
Book 21: Trapped in Cherry Hills
Book 22: Missing in Cherry Hills
Book 23: Crash in Cherry Hills
Book 24: Independence Day in Cherry Hills
Book 25: Checked Out in Cherry Hills
Books in the Psychic Poker Pro Mystery series:
Book 1: Murder in the Cards
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paige Sleuth is a pseudonym for mystery author Marla Bradeen. She plots murder during the day and fights for mattress space with her two rescue cats at night. When not attending to her cats’ demands, she writes. She loves to hear from readers, and welcomes emails at [email protected].