Trouble In Tourmaline. Jane Toombs
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told me she wouldn’t. Fleas don’t like high desert—the elevation here is almost five thousand feet.”
Hobo leaped out of the box, pausing to smell the outside of the cardboard, then she brushed against David’s leg before going over to sniff at Amy’s shoe. Amy bent and stroked her behind the ears, murmuring, “I’ll be back to see you, pretty girl.”
Which meant she planned to return to his apartment in the near future. Before he started picturing her in his bed, he reminded himself the key word was friends, not lovers. If he kept his hands off her, and he definitely meant to, maybe the chemistry he could still feel between them would lose its potency.
As Amy straightened, Hobo let out what could only be described as a mournful yowl. He stared at the cat. Was something wrong with her?
“Uh-oh.” Amy plopped down beside Hobo again, this time gently feeling the cat’s stomach. “I think you got that box ready in the nick of time. She’s in labor. You’d better put her in it.”
“You mean now?” David said, his blue eyes widening.
“Yes, right now.”
He very gingerly lifted Hobo and carried her to the box. She sniffed it again and seemed to settle down to stay. He started to walk away, but the cat climbed out and followed him, yowling.
“She’s one of those,” Amy told him.
“Those what?”
“If you don’t sit by the box while she has at least the first kitten, she’ll keep following you and have the kittens wherever you are. Some cats are like that. Others demand total privacy.”
“You mean I have to play vet midwife? I studied law, not medicine.”
“She’ll do all the work, but she’s bonded with you and she needs the security of you being nearby.”
David sighed, put Hobo back in the box and eased down on the floor next to it. “You’re the cat expert,” he told Amy. “How about joining me here?”
He knew Amy had chosen the corner so the cat could feel partly hidden, not for space, and this made for a very cozy situation when Amy sat next to him—she was practically in his lap. Such near intimacy made it difficult for him to keep the word friend in mind. She smelled faintly of some light floral scent he couldn’t identify despite his recent acquaintance with nursery plants. Whatever it was, he liked it.
Keep your mind on the cat, Amy warned herself as her knee brushed against David’s thigh. This chemistry thing is merely a matter of endorphins, nothing you can’t ignore. But ignoring the feeling was darn hard when she was crowded against him.
Hobo began to growl, focusing her attention. The cat’s ears went back as she crouched in the box, and suddenly a kitten’s head pushed its way free of her. The rest of the kitten followed quickly and Hobo turned to the tiny thing and began licking it clean.
“Looks like a drowned mouse,” David commented.
The next kitten was tinier than the first and Hobo nudged it away from her without trying to clean it, returning her attention to the firstborn.
“You need to put that reject under her nose so she’ll have to take care of it,” Amy said.
“I need to?”
“She trusts you. I’m still a stranger.”
By the time David cautiously moved the rejected kitten closer, a third one was being born. Again Hobo pushed the second born aside to tend to the new one.
“Why won’t she take care of it?” he asked.
“The poor little thing is the runt of the litter. Cats seem to sense that the smallest one has the least chance of survival, so they tend to the others first. The trouble is, the runt can die during this time.”
“You mean the kitten may be defective?”
“It’s a possibility.”
David’s expression changed from puzzled to determined as, muttering about handicaps, he persisted in setting the tiniest kitten in front of Hobo until she finally gave up and started washing the runt. By the time the fourth and last was born, the runt had revived enough to crawl to a nipple and join the other two.
“No matter if she is a runt,” David said. “She deserves a chance.”
Because he’d identified the kitten as female without any evidence, Amy decided his words might well pertain to more than the kitten, but she hesitated to pry. To help David, as she intended to do, she needed to gain his confidence before asking any personal questions.
“You gave her one,” she told him.
“And she ran with it. A fighter. She’ll do okay.”
They both started to get up at the same time and collided in the narrow space. She grabbed him for balance and his arms went around her. Amy could feel the sizzle of heat as he held her close for a longer moment than either needed to regain their balance. As he released her, she gazed into his eyes and noticed how dilated his pupils were—a sure sign that touching her affected him. Hers probably were, too, since she could hardly deny she didn’t want him to let her go.
“Uh,” she said, backing away, “now you need to ease those messy towels out from under her and let her lie with the kittens on the clean blanket underneath. If you don’t, she may try to move the kittens to another spot. It’s an instinct to get rid of the birth odors so the kittens will be safe from predators.”
He grunted but did as she said. Once he’d disposed of the towels and washed his hands, he said, “Care to celebrate the birth of Hobo’s four kittens by having dinner with me?”
“I think you should stay with her for a while.”
“They deliver pizza.”
With the memory of him holding her still potent, she started to refuse. On second thought, though, eating pizza with him would actually be a casually friendly thing to do. “Pepperoni,” she said.
“With sausage.”
Lots of cholesterol, but she could afford that once in a while.
“Sounds good.”
While they waited for the delivery, Amy decided to pursue her plan of covert therapy under the cover of comradeship. “What’s there to do around here when you’re not working?” she asked.
David took a while to answer. “You ever been up in a sailplane?” he asked finally.
“I don’t even know what one is.”
“You’ve heard of gliders.” At her nod, he continued. “A sailplane is a sophisticated glider, designed aerodynamically to stay in the air as long as the pilot can find a thermal.”
“You lost me somewhere along the way.”
“You’ve seen hawks soaring up and up without moving their wings. That’s because they’re in a column of rising air—a thermal. Actually, it’d be easier to show you this weekend.”
“You mean you have a sailplane?”
“Some play golf, I sailplane. Been doing it ever since I got my pilot’s license ten years ago.”
Somewhat reassured by the fact he’d been at it for ten years and so must be experienced, Amy still had a problem. “I’m not all that crazy about flying,” she admitted.
“In commercial jets, you mean?”
Again she nodded.
“There’s no comparison.”
Maybe not, but was she prepared to do something she was sure would scare her just to further her acquaintance with David so she could help him with his denial problem?
He grinned at her. “Scared?”
She