California Girl (15 page)

She didn’t want to be part of a couple. She wanted to be
herself.

“I’ll pay you back for these,” she insisted, for the
umpteenth time.

“Find Mame for me, and we’ll call it even.” He caught her
elbow and steered her onward.

“You can’t buy my loyalty,” she protested. “Just because you
look like a cowboy doesn’t mean you have to behave like one.” But she liked it
when he held her arm. It was kind of like being chosen by the most popular boy
in class. She’d had that feeling with Fred, too.

Dangerous
.

For these last few years she’d only thought of Fred in terms
of his illness and death. She’d nearly forgotten the love they’d shared. He’d
given her good times, years of laughter and love. She ought to remember them
more and let go of the pain.

Elliot was reawakening emotions that might better be left
alone, but he was giving her happy memories, too.

Unwilling to give up more happiness than she’d known in a
long time, she swung along at his side, delighting in watching heads turn to
follow Elliot’s long-legged stride as they walked by. Hers, for a day. That
could work.

Other than attracting attention, they accomplished nothing
at the stockyard. If Mame had been there that day, they had no way of finding
out. Wandering the old street of run-down buildings, looking for a suitable
restaurant, Alys tried to think like Mame.

“She’d choose a steak place,” she decided. “She’d figure
you’d eat vegetarian.”

“Every place in Oklahoma is a steak place, if you haven’t
noticed,” he said wryly. “That’s why we’re in a stockyard. It’s cow country.”

“Then let’s choose one with homemade pies.”

“Because Mame likes pies or because she figures I don’t eat
them?”

“Because I like pies.” Reading the menu outside what
appeared to be a popular restaurant, she checked the dessert offerings first.
“Black-bottom pie,” she said in satisfaction.

“I’m not even going to ask.” He escorted her into the
crowded, dim lobby where a miniskirted cowgirl led them to a booth. “You will
eat a real meal, first, won’t you?”

He sounded so pained, she had to laugh. “I’ll have to read
your diet books pretty soon if I don’t start eating right. You don’t understand
what a joy it is to eat real food instead of the frozen cardboard I’ve been
surviving on. Cooking for one is depressing.”

“That’s how I’ve always eaten,” he admitted. “I never
thought of it as depressing. Just necessary.”

“Isn’t this more fun? Did you have any idea there were so
many ways to fix a steak?” She scanned the menu, trying to decide how much real
food she could eat and still leave room for pie.

“Miss Seagraves?” A bow-tied waiter in a vest and carrying a
box stopped by the booth, disconcerting both of them with his knowledge of her
name.

“Mame.” Elliot was out of the booth before Alys could open
her mouth.

She watched him disappear toward the lobby while she smiled
at the startled waiter. “He’s the restless sort. I’m Alys Seagraves. How did
you know my name?”

“The red-haired lady said to give you this.” He handed over
the box with a card taped on top. The box moved.

Alys rummaged through her purse for a dollar, handed it to
the boy, and with skepticism, eyed the box he deposited on the table. Maybe she
ought to wait for Elliot to return before opening it. A box that moved
and—purred?—might need two hands. Mame wouldn’t give her a cougar or anything,
would she?

She slit the envelope attached and read Mame’s spidery
handwriting on the card inside
. I
promised a friend that a doctor would look at Purple’s paw. You and Elliot
looked real cute in your cowboy clothes. Have someone take a picture.

Elliot was about to go ballistic. Fanning herself with the
card and chuckling softly, Alys watched for his return. Mame had been somewhere
close by and just recently. She was fine.

Alys
wasn’t so certain about the creature inside the box. It whimpered and sniffed
along the box walls.
Purple?
Who called an animal Purple?

She couldn’t leave the poor thing in there forever. Elliot
must be out canvassing the street. Or maybe he’d even found Mame. She ought to
be out there refereeing the fight, if he had. She couldn’t leave the box here.

Cautiously, she slipped a string loose. The box lid jostled
and the occupant cried louder. If a baby mountain lion jumped out of this
thing, she wouldn’t be responsible for the consequences.

She worked at another string, sliding it over a corner until
it fell on the table. The cross-tie remained, but it was loose.

Before she could figure out how to open it without letting
the creature out, one side of the box lid pushed up, the string slid off, and a
furry gray-and-white ball leaped for freedom.

Diving from the table, the animal flew under the bench of
the next booth. Alys almost tumbled out of her seat trying to catch it.
Knocking her water glass off, she fell down on her hands and knees to search
for the creature.

Poking her head into the darkness and thanking the heavens
that no one was sitting on the bench, Alys cornered the hissing kitten. Kitten,
not cougar.

“This is another one of those things I don’t want to ask
about, isn’t it?” Somewhere behind her upturned rear, Elliot’s voice was dryer
than the dust-covered roads they’d driven in on.

Alys’s jeans fit her nicely rounded buttocks in a way that
had every man in the place staring. Elliot was tempted to grab her slender
waist and haul her out from under the table. He’d thoroughly enjoyed the last
time he’d lifted her, even if he’d had to leave an extra-large tip for the
clerk who’d had to scurry for boots and boxes in the resultant crash.

But he wasn’t a dumb
brute. He had to figure she was under the table for a reason and that reason
had something to do with the now empty box sitting on their table. If she
backed out carrying a rat, he was drawing the line.

She wriggled from
beneath the table carrying a bundle of protesting fur.

“Did you find Mame?” she
gasped as she stood up, attempting to calm the clawing animal.

She didn’t seem the
least fazed by sharp claws or shrieking howls. Did nothing freak her out? Every
person in the restaurant was staring at them as if they were an entertaining
circus, and she seemed intent only on Mame. And she thought
he
was focused?

“No,” he answered in
disgust. “I didn’t see the Rover either. I looked everywhere. How does she do
that?”

“Mame is a great
believer in walking.” With a wry lift of her eyebrow, she looked from the
screaming kitten, to the box on the table, to the waiter hurrying toward them,
and asked, “Do you think we ought to leave?”

“I don’t think we can
stay here with a pet unless it’s a seeing-eye kitten.” Pulling the waiter
aside, Elliot explained their dilemma while Alys tucked the protesting kitten back
in the box and held the lid tight.

“They’ll pack us some
salads to go. Let’s go outside before we attract any more attention.” He took
her elbow and led her past the staring patrons. “What did Mame’s note say?”

“That she promised
someone that a doctor would look at Purple’s paw. Honestly, do you think she
looks purple?” Stepping back into the heat, Alys peeked beneath the lid and the
kitten spit and roared again.

“Is she expecting me to look at a
cat’s
paw?” Leaning against the
restaurant wall, Elliot rolled his eyes. “Does she want me to become a vet?”

“Well, it would keep you home more often.” Now that they
were outside, she removed the kitten from the box and held it up for his
inspection.

In guilty silence, he
examined the kitten, finding the sore paw and probing until he discovered a
thorn. “Mame has my medical bag in the Rover. How am I supposed to pull this
out?”

“Tweezers. I have some
in my suitcase. I have a first-aid kit. Can we use human antiseptics on
kittens?”

“Like I know?” Seeing
their waiter appear in the entrance, Elliot walked over to sign away his life
on the credit card, including another large tip to cover the service of boxing
up the lunches. He could see where having Alys around could become an expensive
proposition, but he had to admit it was the best entertainment he’d had in
years.

He was actually hungry.

Handing over the
receipt, he accepted their doggie bags. Or maybe they were kitty bags. The
smell of food calmed the creature instantly.

“We can eat in the
parking lot. It’s almost empty.” Carrying the kitten in one hand and the box in
the other, Alys swung down the street in her high-heeled boots and sparkly hat.

All they needed was Mame
to complete the parade. Elliot glanced over his shoulder in hopes of catching
his aunt peering out at them from a doorway. No such luck.

Straddling a bench near
the car, Alys divided her attention between the cat box on the ground and the
lunch Elliot set out from the bags. He was gratified by her cry of delight when
she discovered the small container of tuna for the kitten and the black-bottom
pie he’d ordered for her.

Almost wishing for a
juicy steak instead of the salad he’d ordered, he watched Alys feed the kitten
in between bites of pie.

She ate her dessert
first.

“Didn’t you say you were
plump as a child?” He had a hard time reconciling it with her current
slenderness. “If you always eat like this, how did you ever lose an ounce?”

“Lifestyle change. I was
sedentary at home. After marrying Fred, I wanted to do everything. Went to real
estate school, worked, studied, tried to be the perfect wife and produce
balanced meals. We only had one car, and I walked between work and classes.
When he was first starting out in practice, money was tight, so I couldn’t buy
snack foods.” She sent him a mischievous glance. “Didn’t read your books
either.”

“Balanced meals?” He was
always open to new methods of eating properly. Different metabolisms required
different diets, although Alys had to be the only person in the universe who
could survive on a diet of pies.

“We need a leash. How
will I let her out in the grass?” Ignoring his question, she climbed off the
bench and sat on the ground with the box, lifting the kitten out to sniff
around in the area outlined by Alys’s legs.

The kitten lifted its
hurt paw and meowed and Elliot winced. With a sigh, he picked up the remains of
his salad to sit on the ground with Alys, touching his boots to hers to give
the kitten more wandering room between their legs. He felt like a little kid
again.

Alys smiled in approval
and answered his question. “Fred liked steak and potatoes, and waffles with
cream. He was skinny and ate like a horse. So a balanced meal was meat, lots of
starch, maybe a veggie, and dessert.” Her smile disappeared. “He didn’t live
long enough to develop colon cancer from his bad diet. He had a malignant
melanoma that went to his lymph glands before it was detected.”

He was a doctor, but he
didn’t know what to say. Sadness lingered behind the crystal clarity of her
eyes, but she sounded matter-of-fact, as if she’d come to terms with what had
happened. “So now you eat your dessert first because the world could end before
the meal is done?” he asked.

She beamed at him.
“Exactly. Want some?” She handed over her unfinished pie and licked a piece of
chocolate from the corner of her lips.

He wanted some all
right. Pie wasn’t what he had in mind. He took her offering anyway, licking the
Styrofoam plate clean of chocolate. The stuff was sinful. So was Alys. His gaze
drifted to the shadow between her breasts as she leaned over to play with the
cat, and he wanted the right to touch.

Maybe he needed a little
sin in his life right now. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do while
he waited for Mame to turn herself in.

* * *

The kitten meowed
ear-scraping protests while Elliot dabbed its thorn-free paw with antiseptic.

Purple’s sandpaper
tongue licked Alys’s hand the instant Elliot released her. Liquid warmth
flooded through her at the affectionate caress. She held the creature up so she
could meet its green eyes, then kissed its perfect little nose. “You’re
adorable, baby. Now how do we find your mama?”

“I suspect Mame means
for you to be its mama.” Elliot closed up the first-aid kit and returned it to
the suitcase in Beulah’s trunk.

Alys froze. She had no
intention of being anyone’s mama. She didn’t ever want to be put in the
position of losing someone—or something—she loved again. Footloose and fancy
free, that was her.

The kitten wriggled to
be put down, and she was half tempted to set it loose in the parking lot. She
couldn’t, of course. That would be the same as putting it to death.

“I can’t keep a kitten.
What in the world would I do with it?”

“What does anyone do
with cats? Feed them, give them a bed to sleep in, that sort of thing. They’re
not demanding.” He slammed the trunk closed.

“Here, then, you take
care of it. You have a place to take it.” She handed the kitten to Elliot.

He crossed his arms in
refusal, looking like a stone statue of Hercules dressed in cowboy gear. “I
travel too much. Hang on to her, and we can give her to Mame, if you like, but
it looks to me like Purple wants to be friends.”

The cat purred and
bumped Alys’s jaw with its little head. She cuddled the kitten over her
shoulder and glared at Elliot. “I don’t want to get attached. Let me drive. You
hold Purple.”

He raised skeptical
eyebrows. “Are you planning on going through the rest of your life without any
attachments? Is that why you want to be a travel writer?”

She hadn’t thought about it. She preferred
doing
to thinking. Grumpily, she headed for
the passenger seat. “We’ll need kitty litter and a box if we’re keeping her.”