She jerked with a start when Ben pushed back inside. His arms were laden with two bags, one of dry kitten kibble and the other of litter, plus a cat box filled with items she couldn’t identify without standing up. She watched as he began unloading purchases onto her countertop. She saw ceramic dishes with paw prints. Two toys appeared, one a gray mouse and the other a clutch of feathers attached to what resembled a miniature fishing pole. Then Ben set out a box of rice pabulum and some small jars of pureed meat.
“What’s the baby food for?”
“My mom starts kittens with pabulum mixed with pureed meat, powdered milk, and warm water. They love it, and according to her, it’s healthful for them. I didn’t get powdered milk. I figured you probably have some.”
“I do.” Sissy pushed erect.
As they worked, mixing a small amount of starter food for Patches in one bowl and filling the other bowl with freshwater, Sissy felt tears welling in her eyes again. What’s wrong with me? Then she thought, What a dumb question. This man is one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known.
After Patches ate, Sissy made him a bed in the corner of her living room and put his filled litter box nearby so he wouldn’t have to walk far when he needed to relieve himself. She gently settled him on his blanket. He immediately tucked himself into a little ball and fell asleep. She gazed down at him for a long moment, unable to stop smiling.
“This is the best present anyone ever gave me,” she told Ben.
“Don’t thank me. You’re the one who decided to break into the clinic. I was just your backup.”
Sissy hugged her waist, unable to resist glancing at Snickers, who sat up in his cage watching her. He needed to go. If he had a disease, Patches might catch it.
“Well.” Ben shrugged and pushed at the brim of his hat. “It’s super late. I’d better head home. Someone may spot my truck in your yard, and Finn will be in a dither. I normally take him everywhere. I decided he might not be a very good partner in crime, though. Can you imagine how excited he would have gotten with all those dogs and cats sounding off?”
“Pretty excited.” Sissy followed him to the door. “I’ll walk you down so I can lock up.”
“Good plan.”
He descended the stairs two at a time. Sissy’s legs weren’t long enough to manage that unless she jumped. At the back door, she gazed up at him. A tender, shadowy look clouded his eyes. She knew he wanted to kiss her. Recalling her wonderful dream of being held in his strong arms, she was sorely tempted to encourage him. Only nervousness made her hesitate.
“I’ll never forget tonight.”
He chuckled. “Like I said, you’re bringing out my wild side.”
“I’ll never regret rescuing him. He’s so precious.” Her throat tightened. “You’re the best, Ben.”
“You’re not bad yourself.” As he stepped out onto the porch, he said, “Try to get to bed at a halfway decent hour.”
“I’ll do that.”
After the door closed behind him, Sissy listened to his receding footsteps, first the click of his studded bootheels on wood and then the softer thud of leather soles on packed dirt. She sighed and walked back into the café. After turning out all the lights, she went upstairs. When she entered her apartment, Snickers perched on his hindquarters to look at her with bright, beady eyes filled with interest and expectation.
As Sissy approached his cage, she said, “It’s time to set you free, little guy.” She opened the side door, cupped him in her hands, and held him to her cheek for what might be the last time. Then she lowered the rodent to the floor. “Good-bye, little guy. I’ll come visit you if Ben can find your nest.”
Snickers scampered to the edge of her kitchen linoleum, then stopped and sat up to look at her with what she could have sworn was a happy grin. Then he let loose with a chirp and raced away, stopping only to check her coffee table to see if the candy bowl had reappeared. When he found nothing, he ran into the bathroom and vanished.
Sissy released a taut breath and turned to scrub her hands and face with antibacterial soap. Then she walked through the flat, spraying all surfaces with disinfectant.
Sissy caught movement from the corner of her eye. Patches had awakened from his nap and was batting his toy mouse around on her carpet with his front stubs. Smiling, she sat cross-legged on the rug to watch him play. She wondered if the mouse was the kitten’s first toy. He seemed to take it all very seriously, acting as if the stuffed gray felt might run away or turn on him. Sissy couldn’t help but laugh at his antics.
Patches tired quickly. When Sissy noted a decrease in his enthusiasm, she picked him up and cuddled him close. “Hey, little guy. I’m your new mom. Do you know that yet?”
She sat on the sofa, got comfortable, and lightly stroked the kitten’s fur until he began to purr, his body vibrating against her breast. Sissy felt as if her bones were melting. She settled back, closed her eyes, and listened to the sounds he made, which were fairly loud. Earlier Sissy had tried to thank Ben for the kitten, and he’d waved aside her gratitude. She doubted that he fully understood how much she’d needed this kitten to love.
Finally, Patches fell so deeply asleep that his purring stopped. Ben. Sissy drew her cell phone from her pocket and dialed his number. It’s time, she thought. She had to tell him how she felt or risk losing him, and she couldn’t imagine not having Ben in her life.
“Hey, you,” he answered. “How are you handling your first night of motherhood?”
Sissy laughed, which startled Patches awake. He immediately started to purr again. “It’s gone well.” She fell quiet. “I just wanted to call and thank you again. You’ll never know how much having the kitten means to me. I set Snickers free right after you left.”
“Uh-oh. I know that must have been a bitch.”
Sissy saw no point in sugarcoating the truth. “It was. But then Patches woke up and started playing with his mouse. He was so cute. Watching him play helped me stop feeling sad about Snickers. And it isn’t as if I’ll never see him again.”
“Nope,” Ben agreed. He hesitated. “Is that the kitten purring? Dear God, he sounds like a John Deere tractor.”
Sissy grinned. “Pretty impressive. Tiny kitten, huge motor.” She cupped her hand over the feline’s soft warmth. “I’m so thankful to have him. I can give him a good life, and he’ll fill mine with joy for years to come. If it weren’t for you, I might have chickened out. I’d be here all alone. I’m tired of being alone.”
“I know what you mean. I traveled so much that I never realized how completely alone I was until I gave it up and came home. Boy howdy, did it ever hit me then. My house is big. It was only me, wandering from room to room. Sometimes I’d actually talk to myself, and I swear my voice bounced off the walls. Now I talk to my dog.”
It was so like Ben not to try to capitalize on how mushy she was feeling. Instead he was sharing his experiences with loneliness. That meant the world to her. “Is that what convinced you to get a puppy? The loneliness?”
“Yes. I was so lonely at night I was tempted to move back in with my parents!”
Sissy burst out laughing. “Honestly?”
“Well, feeling tempted and actually doing it are two different things. I love my parents, but my mom is a nurturer, and though I enjoy being fussed over when I visit, I don’t think I could handle it full-time. And my dad—well, he’s the salt of the earth, but he doesn’t always approve of my lifestyle.”
Sissy’s smile deepened. Though she didn’t have a social life, she understood that other young people did. A man as handsome as Ben didn’t take a beautiful woman out on a date and then kiss her good night on the doorstep.
Her smile vanished, and an awful, clenching sensation attacked her stomach. The thought of Ben in some other woman’s arms made her feel nauseated. Her only consolation was that he’d been at her place so much lately that he probably hadn’
t dated anyone for a while.
“So rather than do something totally crazy, like live with my parents, I got a dog. I’m still a little lonely sometimes, but mostly not. Finn is great company. I don’t know how you’ve lived alone without a pet for as long as you have.”
Sissy stroked Patches’s fur. “Me, neither.” And then, before she could reason her way through it, she blurted, “You probably date a lot of women.”
Silence. It lasted so long she was going to ask if he was still there when he finally said, “I did.”
Past tense. Sissy couldn’t help but focus on that. “What made you stop?”
“I found you.”
Sissy felt her larynx bob up and down. Her throat knotted as tight as a beggar’s fist around a quarter. “Me?” she whispered.
She heard Ben cough. “I told you how I feel this morning. I know you’ve given me no signals to hope for anything in return. And, trust me, I’ve even lectured myself about acting like a fool. But for the first time in my life, my brain has gone on vacation and I’m leading with my heart.”
“Oh, Ben.”
“I know, I know. You’re not ready. Maybe you’ll never be. If that’s how it turns out—”
Sissy cut him off. “Ben? I’m in love with you.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“With me? You’re in love with me?”
She smiled at the incredulity in his voice. “Why do you find that so hard to believe? You’re a wonderful person. Honest, trustworthy, caring. How could I not fall in love with you?”
He cleared his throat. “Hold on. Shit. I’m not all that honest, Sissy. I’ve lied to you a few times.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “About what?”
“For starters, about the coop and run. I got a few supplies at ReStore, but most of it, I bought new because ReStore was low on inventory. I could afford it and I knew you couldn’t.”
“You played me.” Her mouth curved in another smile. “Shame on you.” Then, “Uh-oh. Exactly how many free meals do I owe you now?”
He chuckled. “I don’t know. I threw away the receipts. You’re not mad?”
Sissy took a bracing breath. “You’re not the only one who’s lied, Ben. Everything about me is pretty much a lie.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to tell you about it, need to tell you everything, but it’s a long story, and it won’t be easy for me to get it out. Tonight probably isn’t the best time if we hope to get any sleep.”
“Probably not,” he conceded. “And nothing you tell me is going to change how I feel about you, anyway. So it doesn’t really matter.”
“Yes,” Sissy pushed out. “It does matter. I can’t move forward with you until you know everything about me.” She sighed. “I’ll warn you now that I’m going to have to gather my courage before I can talk about it. For me, it’ll be like standing naked on the courthouse steps.”
“No rush,” he assured her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. It’s enough for me right now just to know you have feelings for me.”
“I like knowing that you have feelings for me, too,” she said.
“So, how about if we end this conversation with those three words? I need to hear you say them again.”
“I love you, Ben.”
“I love you, too.”
She waited for him to hang up because she didn’t want to do it first. He finally started to laugh. Oh, how she loved the sound of his laughter. “Okay, this isn’t going well,” he said. “How about if we hang up on the count of three?”
“Or we could talk a bit longer.”
“Better idea,” he agreed.
She got up and carefully put Patches back on his bed. “I, um, had a dream about you kissing me.”
“Aw, shit. Was I awful?”
She giggled. In her wildest imaginings, she couldn’t picture Ben being bad at kissing a woman.
“No, wait. Let me guess. We bumped noses. Our teeth got stuck. I stepped on your foot while I was kissing you?”
“No! It was a lovely dream. I’m just—well, nervous about me being the one who’s awful at it.”
“Well, that isn’t going to happen. You have the most kissable mouth I’ve ever seen.”
“I do?” Sissy heard the thin edge in her voice and wanted to punch herself in the shoulder.
“Oh, yeah, and please don’t tell me a dozen other guys haven’t told you that.”
Sissy bit back a grin and then wondered why she bothered. He couldn’t see her. “Okay, I won’t.”
“Good. I hate false humility.”
Sissy figured he’d hate hearing the truth even more.
“So, here’s how we’ll handle tomorrow,” he went on. “I’ll show up. We’ll see how things roll. And just so you won’t get all nervous, I won’t kiss you unless you ask me to. Deal?”
Sissy wasn’t sure she’d ever find the courage to ask him to kiss her, but she said, “Uh . . . okay. Deal.”
* * *
Sissy crawled into bed, exhausted from a long day of work and an exhilarating evening of crime, with Patches tucked under her chin and part of her pillow providing him with a bed nearly as soft as a cloud. As she fell asleep what remained of her conscious thought centered on how utterly at peace she felt. Finally, she had someone who was really hers, a kitten who needed her as much as she needed him, and a wonderful man who said he loved her.
Best of all, she’d found the courage to tell Ben she had feelings for him, feelings that went deeper than friendship. And he’d understood her hesitation, if not the reasons behind it. She felt like one of the luckiest women in the world.
Her alarm clock clamored at five in the morning, jerking her from the soundest sleep she’d enjoyed for a long while. Patches awakened more slowly, blinking and yawning as he sat up. Sissy grinned and picked him up as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“You are so stinkin’ cute!” she told him. “But not so cute that I want you to pee in my bed.”
Barefoot and wearing only a T-shirt that nearly reached her knees, Sissy carried the kitten to his unused litter box. She wondered if he already knew how it went, a question that was soon answered when Patches pushed aside litter with his pink stubs and squatted over the spot to pee and do number two. Afterward he used his back feet to cover the mess.
“And smart, too!” Sissy cried. The not-so-sweet smell of cat manure drifted to her nose. “Ugh. That’s going to be a new daily chore for me, cleaning your box and giving it squirts of odor eliminator.”
She allowed the kitten to make his way to the kitchen. Babying him too much would not help the ends of his healing legs to toughen up. He needed to walk a little. Not too much at first, because he’d been confined to a tiny cage after his surgery. She hoped to avoid raw spots or blisters. But some walking would be therapeutic.
In what felt like only minutes but was actually over an hour, Sissy had a café filled with customers. For reasons beyond her, the Cauldron seemed to be drawing more people. That made her feel fabulous. As Sissy raced back and forth to cook and serve, she faced the inevitable. She had no choice but to hire some help. One person couldn’t deal with so many customers alone. Her patrons expected three things: quick service, tasty food, and friendly conversation. Sissy was still managing to provide the first two things, but she had little time to chat, even with her favorite diners. She felt a stab of regret that she couldn’t sit for a moment with Christopher while he ate breakfast. And Blackie was clearly feeling glum because she hadn’t stopped to hear him describe the new Oregon Ducks football helmets.
When Sissy arrived at the VeArds’ table, Lynda glanced up and smiled. “You look absolutely radiant this morning.”
“I had a fabulous evening and got a great night’s sleep.”
/> Sissy wanted to chat with them, but she heard someone clanking a spoon against a coffee mug, a sure sign of impatience. “I’m so sorry. Duty calls. Maybe you can come in for lunch and it’ll be slower.”
Lynda waved her away. “You have a business to run. We understand.”
Sissy was exhausted when her last breakfast diner left. But she couldn’t afford to take time for even a short break. Mountains of dirty dishes awaited her. She also needed to spend at least a few minutes upstairs with Patches. It would be unkind to leave him alone for hours on end.
As she put plates into the dishwasher, Sissy heard strange noises coming from outside the back of her building. Ben, she decided. She’d become familiar with the sounds of construction. What on earth was he doing now?
When Sissy had her cooking facility tidy, she busted out her lunch prep, wiped the counters, and then dashed upstairs to fetch her kitten before going outside to see what Ben was up to.
“Hey, you!” he said when she stepped out onto the porch. “And you brought my step-kitten, too! That’s dangerous. A customer might drop in and see him.”
“If I hear the buzzer, I’ll hide him under a light jacket to take him upstairs.”
Ben crouched on the steps over countless boards and a gigantic roll of wire that he’d propped against the deck. “What on earth are you going to build now?” Sissy asked.
“An outside kitty playground. Wire tunnels. My step-kitten needs some outdoor time, especially during our good-weather months.”
Outside kitty playground? Sissy sighed. “What if someone sees him?”
Ben smiled. “The heat will die down. Something else will soon have everyone’s tongue wagging. We’ll wait a few months before we let him outside.”
He planned to install a cat door in the wall of her building, through which Patches could enter a wire tunnel that would lead to a kitty platform where he could sunbathe or crouch under a small roofed area that would protect him from the snow and rain. “My biggest concern is how to design climbing ramps for him. He has no front claws to pull himself up. It’ll take some pondering.”