Grace Interrupted (5 page)

“But Kincade isn’t pressing charges, so they’re not really in trouble anymore, are they?”

He made a so-so motion with his head. “They could nail the blonde one for concealing her Taser but that’s just a misdemeanor charge.”

“So all’s well that ends well?”

He gave me a skeptical look. “Not as long as that Kincade’s walking around here. That guy’s a bundle of trouble.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ll be happy when he’s gone for good.”

FAT GRAY CLOUDS HUNG HEAVY AND LOW, warning of storms to come. As I drove home, I contemplated how the weather might affect our Civil War campers. For the most part, they’d picked a pretty good week for their drills. Except for the rain predicted tonight, the seven-day forecast called for warm temperatures and mostly clear skies. As long as they lived through tonight, they should be all set.

I often stopped at my roommates’ wine shop, Amethyst Cellars, on the way home, but my instincts kept me moving tonight. As I drove past, I tried to catch a glimpse inside but it was too dark to see. A crack of lightning, a burst of thunder, and suddenly raindrops fat as poodles began making giant
splats
against my windshield. I flicked on my headlights and twisted on the wipers. By the time I eased around the next corner, however, the drops had morphed into buckets of rain that pummeled my windshield, making it impossible to see even with the wipers on full speed.

When I made it to Granville, my headlights traced a watery path across the front-lawn fence of my Victorian mansion home. Well, mansion was a misnomer. Compared to Marshfield Manor, this house would barely qualify as servants’ quarters. What it lacked in stately elegance, however, it more than made up for in lived-in charm. It was all mine—an inheritance from my mom.

I wished, not for the first time, for an empty garage where I could actually park my car. My roommates and I had promised ourselves that this year we’d clear out all the junk in our two-car detached garage, but so far all we’d done was stand in front of the mess, stare, and say, “Next week, for sure.” Next week never came. The path to hell is paved with good intentions, they say. And the path to my back door would be paved with puddles tonight.

I noticed movement behind the fence, low to the ground. Probably a fox, or maybe a rabbit. It didn’t move like a rabbit, but heck, in this pounding rain the poor thing’s goal was to find shelter, not frolic in the grass. It wasn’t fit for man nor beast out here tonight, and I felt sorry for the little critter, whatever it was.

I pulled onto the driveway, up past the bump where the concrete had cracked and shifted like tectonic plates. The bump always reminded me that the driveway was due for repair. Way overdue. Just about everything in the house was ready for renovation. The structure was old and my mom had let things deteriorate. Simple maintenance was no longer an option. Full overhauls were needed in every corner and I had no money for any of it. The money part of our inheritance had gone to my sister, Liza, who had quickly blown through it all. Had we worked together and pooled our resources, who knows? But cooperating with me had never been Liza’s style. Wherever she was right now. My sister. I sighed.

Dark clouds. Dark moods. I needed something to lighten my spirits and I knew I wasn’t going to get it out here.

I turned off the car and took a moment to gather my purse and umbrella as I plotted the quickest path to the back door. An awning there provided some protection against the elements, but in a deluge like this, every second counted. I pulled out my keys and prepared to sprint.

Just as I was about to open the car door, movement caught my eye again. This time it appeared as a shadow racing past me on the driver’s side. Whatever it was had decided to take shelter from the storm beneath my car. Fine and dandy for the critter, but what if it was a hedgehog, or raccoon? I was wearing a skirt—which left my legs bare. The minute I stepped out of my car, the hungry beastie might spy my ankle and think: “Dinner!”

Taking my chances, I spoke to my undercarriage guest. “Hope you stay dry under there, buddy.” I grabbed my belongings and opened the door. Rain sliced in sideways, drenching me in the second it took to
whoosh
my umbrella open. With my left hand clamped around my purse, I raced for my back door only to have the wind whip the umbrella inside-out above my head. A noise like
“eeee”
burst out from somewhere deep inside me as the cold water soaked through my clothes. There were only about fifteen steps to the safety of my stoop and back-door awning, but they were the longest fifteen steps of my life. I hurried to stand beneath the shelter, relieved that no creature had jumped out to attack me.

Lightning zinged across the sky, backlighting massive rain clouds. A second later, thunder cracked so close and so loudly I dropped my keys. In the breathless quiet before the next reverberating boom, I stooped to pick them up.

That’s when I heard it.

A sad, elongated cry. Kind of like Chewbacca from
Star Wars
, except much higher pitched. Coming from underneath my car.

Not a hedgehog, not a fox.

Crouched as I was next to my wrought iron railing, I had a clear view of my car and the tiny head that poked out from beneath. A cat squinted against the rain, then pulled its head back under the car far enough that I could barely make out the white tip of its nose and white underside of its chin. It meowed again, asking for help.

The poor little thing. I wondered who it belonged to.

“Hang on a second,” I said, picking up my keys and unlocking the back door. I dropped my belongings inside, grabbed the closest handy item to serve as a makeshift umbrella—a plastic bowl from the countertop—and braved the elements. The cat backed up as I approached.

“Here, kitty,” I said, hoping those were the magic words to encourage feline cooperation. Of course, if
I
were huddled alone against the rain and some giant stranger with a bowl on her head called to me, I might not be so willing to oblige.

I crouched down at the passenger side, but the cat backed up farther to where I couldn’t see it anymore. Dropping to my knees on the driveway I tried again. “Kitty?”

Two eyes glowed back at me.

“Come out now. I’ll take you inside where it’s warm.”

Unconvinced, the cat didn’t budge.

The plastic bowl was doing a nice job of keeping the top of my head dry, but the rest of me would need to be wrung out pretty soon. Temperatures were dropping, the rain was pelting, and I shivered as water sluiced down my back. “Come on. Please? Otherwise I’ll leave you out here and you won’t like that.”

The cat knew I was bluffing. I could tell by the way she blinked.

“Okay, fine. I’m serious.”

I got up and headed to my back door, thinking maybe my leaving would inspire it to emerge. I’d never had a cat before—my mom was allergic—so I wasn’t quite sure what psychology might work. In the meantime, back in my kitchen where it was warm and dry, I hurried to the refrigerator to grab a bowl of milk. That’s what cats liked, wasn’t it?

No milk.

I checked my supply of half-and-half. Only enough for about two more cups of coffee and I didn’t want to part with it. What else, what else? I pulled open the small condiment drawer and found a gold mine. Cheese. I grabbed a chunk of Muenster and headed back outside, trusty bowl back atop my head.

A car sloshed by, its headlights tracing across my lawn, across me. The neighbors already talked—single girl living with two men in a house that desperately needed repair. What would they think of me kneeling next to my car in the rain, wearing a bowl for a hat? But there I was.

“Kitty,” I said coaxingly, “this is for you.”

I broke off a small piece of the cheese and reached in. The cat backed up again.

“We’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t trust me. I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to find out who you belong to.”

Maybe it was a feral cat and maybe I had no business feeding it. But something told me to keep trying. Lightning zinged again, and I felt the rumble of thunder through the ground. The cat felt it too, because it picked up one paw, and inched backward.

I dropped the cheese crumble as far in as I could reach. Then I waited.

The cat stared at me, then looked at the cheese. Even in the low light under the car, I could see its whiskers twitch as it caught the scent. The cat inched forward, watching me constantly. Finally, it snatched the cheese and started to chew, never taking its eyes off me.

Little by little, feeling like Elliott in the movie
E.T
., I dropped tiny bits of cheese in a path that brought the cat closer. I knew I had just a single shot at grabbing it. If I didn’t get a good hold, we’d be back to square one in a hurry.

My legs were soaked, my back was heavy with rain, and I realized that the bowl I held tight made for one less hand I could use to nab the cat. So what if the last few square inches of my body were to get wet? I put the bowl down, gently, and tried not to wince as water saturated my head.

I placed another cheese crumble about five inches beyond the shelter of the car. The cat would have to come out in the rain to get it. I had my doubts. And even if it did emerge, I knew the moment it felt the first raindrop, it would hightail it back to relative dryness. My one shot was a slim one.

The cat eyed the last crumble.

“No risk, no reward,” I said softly.

Still under the car, but at the very edge, the cat looked up at me. I sat very still. “It’s okay,” I said. “Cheese. Right there. Just for you.”

The cat eyed the cheese, looked up at me again. This close I could see that it was a black-and-white kitten, mostly black with a white belly and chin, and its front paws were white at the very tips. “Come on, honey,” I said, blinking through the water pouring down my face. “I’m getting really wet here and this isn’t a whole lot of fun.”

The cat inched forward again, then jumped back as though startled. “No,” I said, “don’t, don’t, don’t.”

I swear the cat heard me that time, because it moved forward in a belly crawl, its eyes on the prize. “That’s it,” I said, “that’s a good boy . . . or girl.”

At that moment the wind shifted. That was all the cat—and I—needed.

It pounced.

I grabbed.

In a long moment of terror where it squawked and screamed and clawed, I managed to get to my feet without dropping it. I held the cat as far from my body as possible. I had on a new sweater today and although it would probably shrink three sizes from being soaked, I would prefer if it didn’t get snagged, too. My bare forearms bore the brunt of the kitten’s desperate wrath. “Just a half second more,” I said as I ran up the back steps and through the open door. Triumphant, I kicked it shut behind me.

Inside, the cat leaped from my grasp, racing out of the kitchen and into the dining room before I could call for it to stop. Not that it would have listened. The little thing was spooked, to be sure.

The puddle at my feet was growing bigger by the second. I peeled my skirt from my legs, grimacing at the sucking sound it made. I’d left the bowl outside but I wasn’t about to rescue
that
now, too. I’d find it later. Maybe. Right now I needed to get out of my wet clothes. “Hey, cat,” I called. “I’m going upstairs to get changed.”

No answer. Not that I expected one. I followed its path into the dining room and made a slow circuit of the area. Not here, but a soft thump from the next room gave me a clue. I peered around the corner into the living room just in time to see it disappear under my sofa.

“Give me a minute, okay?” I said. “I’ll be right down.”

I threw my wet clothing over the side of my bathtub and donned a pair of pajama pants and oversized T-shirt. Still chilled, I finger-combed my hair, pulled on a pair of fuzzy socks, and made my way down the stairs, quiet as a mouse. “Kitty,” I called in my most coaxing voice. “Kitty?”

I got down on all fours and peered under the sofa again to find that the cat had backed up all the way to the wall. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The cat’s pupils were wide. They glowed, reflecting the adjacent room’s lights. “Come on out, honey. I need to find who lost you.”

We both heard the back door open. The cat’s head jerked upward and it seemed momentarily confused as to what posed the greater threat: the big person on the floor, or whatever was now banging and calling from the kitchen. Two voices, animated, loud.

I straightened and said, “I’m in here.”

Bruce led the way into the living room, Scott close behind. Both surfer handsome, Scott was blond, tall, and probably one of the most trusting individuals I’d ever met. Bruce was shorter and had a more muscular build. By nature a nurturing individual, he also had a slightly more cynical view of the world.

“What are you two doing home so early?” I asked. “And make sure you close the back door. We’ve got a cat in here.”