The Bobcat's Tate (19 page)

“I can’t
talk about this, Tate,” she said. “I wish I could explain, but I just can’t. Please tell your brothers and sisters I got called away on an emergency, and I’ll always be thinking of them.”

The
diner had fallen silent now, and customers were openly staring at them. Word would be all over town. Her mother was quite clever. Every word that she’d said was a lie, but it was the one lie Lainey couldn’t fight.

Her mother reached out to pat
Lainey’s arm. Lainey angrily shook her off.

“You’ll see this is all for the best, dear,” her mother said in a soothing voice. “You’ll come
back home and marry Miles, and live in a beautiful house right down the street from your father and me. These aren’t your kind of people. You don’t fit in here.”

But that was just it
. For the first time, ever, Lainey had started to feel like she fit in, and now her mother had made sure that she’d be about as welcome as a leper at a hot tub party.

Tears burned in her eyes, and she rushed from the r
estaurant, with her mother following behind her, calling her name.

Crying so hard she could barely see straight,
Lainey scrambled into her rental car and slammed the door shut. Her hands shook, but she managed to drive back to the boarding house, where she rushed up the stairs without saying a word to anybody and locked herself in her room.

Tate hadn’t
tried to call out to her as she’d run from the restaurant. She didn’t expect him to. He couldn’t let a criminal be part of his life. He’d made it clear from the beginning that his duty to his brothers and sisters came before all else, and she would expect no less of him.

Misery coiled inside her, and she crawled int
o her bed and pulled her blanket over her head. She felt as if the brightness of the day had vanished, and a black cloud clung to her.

She couldn’t sleep, and she didn’t want to wake up.
Finally, tired of lying there with the covers pulled over her head, she got up and took a shower. She pulled all of her clothing out of the wooden chest of drawers and put them back in her suitcase. She stared at the suitcase.

Then she
heaved a great sigh and stood up.

The past week she’d spent here in Blue Moon Junction had changed her
. She’d been treated like a friend, a lover, a person who didn’t need to be hidden away in some back office like an embarrassment. She’d been included, made to feel worthwhile and desirable and worthy of being loved.

Even if she couldn’
t stay here, she’d take a bit of Blue Moon Junction with her, wherever she went.

H
er parents had knocked her down, but she would get back up again. This was not the end. She’d find a way to start over again, somewhere, anywhere but Philly. She would never go back there.

She was startled by a
pounding on the door. A tiny bloom of hope flared inside her. Could it possibly be Tate?

“Open up
,” Marigold called out. “I brought lunch.”

Lainey
tried not to feel let down. Tate had let her walk away, and he’d been right to do so.

“I’
m not hungry,” she called back. It wasn’t true, but she didn’t feel up to facing anybody.

“Now, see, when you say you’re not hungry I
start to worry. Open up, or I’ll think you’re about to jump out the window.”

Exasperated,
Lainey walked over to the door and opened it.

Marigold walked in, carrying a
tray with two plates on it.

“There are hedges underneath my window, and if I jumped I’d automatically shift into bobcat form and land on my feet,”
Lainey said.

“So you’ve thought this through?
And I shouldn’t worry about that?” Marigold set the tray down on the nightstand and grabbed one of the plates.

“Don’t steal my food,
thief,” she added. “Oh, too soon?”

“
Oh, shut up.” Lainey couldn’t help herself; she was smiling. She forced the smile off her face and frowned at Marigold. “You’re not even funny.”

“No, I’m downright hilarious. My fiancé says so all the time.”

“Of course he does. You make the final decision on whether he’s getting any nookie. And you do yoga and let him play with your back porch.”

The pot roast on the plate smelled delicious, and as she sat there trying to ignore it, her stomach rumbled.

“You’re the devil,” Lainey protested half-heartedly, but she grabbed the plate and took a big bite. “And don’t worry, I’m leaving in the morning.”

“Why?” Marigold looked shocked.

“Well, now that the whole town thinks I’m a thief…”

“You know, give people here some credit, will you
? Most of the people here are pretty decent judges of character. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you’re a good person and your mother’s a manipulative, self-serving bitch.”

“
But what else could they think?” Lainey protested. “When she accused me, in front of Tate and the whole diner, I didn’t say a word to defend myself.”

“So I heard
. You eat fast for a person who’s not hungry. Chew your food.”

Lainey
ate a few more bites. “Aren’t you going to ask me about it? Not that I can answer.”

“Nope
. I assume when you’re ready to tell me, you’ll tell me.”

Lainey
chewed in silence for a moment, then asked the question she’d been dreading. “What did Tate do after I left?”

“Left town.”

That news hit Lainey like a thunderbolt. “I’m sorry, what? He went back home?”

“Nope, he told Kyle he’d be gone a couple days, and he couldn’t say where he was going
. Anyway, don’t worry about it. It’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to.”

“Why are you always so optimistic?”

“Because I’m psychic. So you should listen to me. Now quit hiding and come downstairs. We’re playing poker, and I need to win some money. Unfortunately, Imogen only lets us play for quarters, but that’ll do.”

“Is it fair for a psychic to play poker?”

“I’m only a love psychic.”

Lainey
followed Marigold down the steps, carrying her plate.

Her mind was reeling
. Tate was too upset to even stay in town. He’d probably just gone back to his home in Anhinga County, so he wouldn’t have to see her. Would he still come to the wedding?

Two days later

The Golden Years Nursing Home was a sunny, cheery place that reeked of citrus air freshener and
Pine-Sol.

Myrtle
sat at a small table in the visitor’s room by the front door. It was a pleasant room, with chess tables and wooden shelves holding puzzles and games and boxes of playing cards, decorated in overstuffed floral furniture in tones of pink and mauve which were echoed in the mauve curtains on the big picture windows. The curtains were open wide and the sunbeams were reflected in giant rectangles on the scuffed but gleaming wooden floor.

“It must be time for tea.”

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Lainey sighed.

Myrtle
was wearing a security bracelet now, one that was supposed to go off if she left the Golden Years Nursing Home. Lainey suspected that if Myrtle were visited by the spirit of the Cypress Woods Witch again, the security bracelet wouldn’t help.

This morning, however,
Myrtle was just Myrtle. Her white hair was brushed and pulled back in a bun, and she wore a flowery dress and pink slippers. She had a pleasantly bemused expression on her face, and apparently had no desire to bust out any omens today.

“Here’s your tea.”
Lainey set the cup of tea in front of her. She’d picked it up at a coffee shop on the way over.

“Milk and sugar,”
Myrtle said. Lainey put little plastic cups of creamer and a pile of sugar next to the tea, and watched while Myrtle poured it all into the tea and stirred.

“It’s just that Tate is supposed to be my fated mate, and I don’t even understand how this whole
fated mate thing works. He must be the one, because I’ve never felt the way I did before I met him. But what if you meet your fated mate and then you have to break up? Does that happen?”

Myrtle sipped her tea
.

“
You see visions. Do you see any visions with me in them? Is there any way I could patch things up with Tate without, you know, telling what I can’t tell? There isn’t, is there?”

Myrtle took another big sip.

Lainey let out a deep sigh. “I don’t know why I came here. I should go. Thanks for listening, Myrtle. Enjoy your tea.” She stood up to leave.

Myrtle looked up at her. “Double stack of flapjacks.”

Lainey was startled. “You want me to get you a double stack of flapjacks?”

Myrtle’s eyes briefly turned milky white, and she repeated firmly “Double stack of flapjacks.”

“Uhhh…okay. I’ll be right back with that. Do you want syrup and butter?” Lainey asked, but Myrtle’s eyes looked normal again, and she was staring off at something far, far away.

Lainey
turned to leave. A double stack of flapjacks? That was a menu item at the Henhouse.
What the heck, why not?

She signed out at the visitor’s desk,
and carefully shut the front door, making sure that the lock caught. The last thing she needed was to be responsible for dozens of wandering nursing home residents drifting through the streets.

Sighing, she
got in her car and headed towards the diner. As she parked and walked into the Henhouse, she felt like she’d tumbled down the rabbit hole in
Alice in Wonderland
, batted about this way and that by the bizarre denizens of this strange little world unto itself. She hadn’t really minded, up until the day her mother and Miles had shown up.

And, speak of the
devils, there they were, sitting at a booth, looking at menus. Ergh. Would she never be free of them?

She stopped in her tracks, and
quickly turned to go, praying they wouldn’t see her.

Too late.

Why, Mildred, why? Why did you send me here
?
Come on, I brought you tea!

Her mother
leaped up and strode towards her, with Miles in tow. “We’re here to take you home, darling,” her mother said loudly, her big, bright smile pasted on her face. “We’ll get you the help you so desperately need. We’ll never abandon you.”

The entire diner had fallen silent
. Lainey felt as if a white-hot spotlight were glaring down on her. It was like being on stage and having your pants fall down in front of the audience.

Lainey
turned to face her mother, prepared to yell, to curse, to stomp out of the restaurant. She was horrified to see that Miles had sunk to one knee.

“
Lainey Robinson, I love you, despite everything,” he said loudly enough for the entire diner to hear. “I promise I will take care of you for the rest of your life. I forgive you. You agreed to marry me, Lainey. Are you an honorable woman? Will you honor that agreement and be my wife?”

“The word ‘honor’ is one that should never pass your lips,”
Lainey snapped. “And no, I will never marry you.”

“Don’t you understand? Your father and I will not allow you to stay here, and we certainly will not allow you to mate with a
dog,
” her mother said loudly. There was a gasp of outrage from the customers in the room, canine shifters, feline shifters, and humans alike.

“Yes, you will, mother,” a voice said from behind a
family of panther shifters who had been standing in line to pay for their bill. It was Donavan—and next to him was Tate.

Lainey’s
jaw dropped. “What is happening here?”

Ta
te and Donovan walked up to her, and Tate threw his arms around her and kissed her. Lainey was so shocked that she didn’t even respond.

“What
—the—how—what are you doing here?” she asked.

“We were about to go to the boarding house
to find you, but I saw your car parked here,” he said.

“Donny, darling!” their mother cried out, her face lighting up at the sight of her big, handsome son.

Donny scowled at her. “Don’t darling me. I heard what you did to my sister, and I’m here to tell you it’s over. I’ve contacted the district attorney’s office, and I’m turning myself in.”

“Donny, don’t
. You’ll go to jail.” Lainey was horrified. “What about your wife and baby?”

“I
’ve talked to her about it, and she agrees with me. I did the crime, so I’m the one who should do the time. I may be looking at some time in jail, yes. My lawyer thinks it won’t be more than a few months. That’s not what matters. What matters is that you’re being punished for something that I did.”