Beauty & the Beasts (13 page)

Garth bent his head as he ran a finger along the bumpy curve of the scrawny kitten’s spine. “And then maybe I could take some more.”

“That’s the spirit!” On impulse she gave the boy a quick hug, retreating before he had a chance to react at all, much less protest. “I’m done here for the day. Shall we go beard your father? Or would you rather ask him alone?”

“You mean,
you’d
ask him?”

She laughed. “No, I mean
we’d
ask him.”

“Oh.” He thought it over. “If you were with me, he’d probably say yes. He wouldn’t want you to think he was a jerk.”

Garth might have a point. “Then maybe I shouldn’t be there,” she said slowly. “I don’t want him to agree for no better reason than that.”

“Does it matter why he agrees?” Garth asked with impeccable logic. “It’s not like Chev and Ron will care. They’ll still have the same chance.”

“Yeah, but
I
have to keep dealing with your dad when he treats our cats,” she reminded him. “I don’t want him to feel resentful. Ten Lives needs him.”

Garth carefully placed Chev back in the cage, petted Ron, then closed and latched the door. “Okay, then. I’ll do it.”

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Give me a call after you talk to him.”

Garth promised that he would. She dropped him at home, not going in, although it wouldn’t have mattered; Eric wasn’t here, anyway. She wished he was so that she could ride, maybe stay for dinner, have him walk her out to her car later for a moment of privacy….

“You,” she told her reflection in the rearview mirror, “are behaving like a lovesick teenager!” She pushed in the clutch, shifted into reverse and muttered through clenched teeth, “I can still get through a day without seeing him, thank you very much.”

E
RIC KNOCKED
on Garth’s bedroom door. “Dinner’s ready!” he called. Half the time, Garth called back, “I already ate.”
Tonight the door swung open immediately, as if he’d been standing by it. “What did you make?” He sniffed. “Eggs?”

“Yup. My world-famous omelets.”

Closing the door behind him, Garth started down the hall. “Cool.”

Cool?
Eric stared after his son. Had Madeline worked a magic spell? He
had
to hear about the visit to Ten Lives.

He made himself wait until he’d dished up the food, they’d sat side by side on stools at the breakfast bar, and Garth had already shoved the first bite of omelet in his mouth.

Then, very casually, Eric asked, “What did you think of the shelter today?”

“It was cool.” Garth swallowed, glugged half a glass of milk and wiped his mouth with one hand, then added, “We stayed a couple hours.”

“I got Hannah there, you know.” Eric smiled ruefully. “Or maybe I should say, she got me. No,” he said to the cat, whose upward gaze had become purposeful. “You know you’re not allowed on the counter.”

Her tail whipped, but she didn’t spring upward.

“There’re a lot of really scared cats there.” His son thrust another bite in his mouth and kept talking around it with an animation Eric hadn’t heard since he’d arrived. “I petted this black one named Smudge that Madeline says nobody’s touched since he came. I’ll bet I could tame him.”

“You planning to spend more time there, then?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Garth ate in silence for a moment, then shrugged. “Why not?”

“I admire what they’re doing,” Eric said neutrally. “Did you meet Joan?”

“Kind of. I mean, she buzzed through talking a mile a minute. Then she left for work.”

“Yeah, that’s one energetic lady.”

For the first time Garth looked him straight in the eye. “You don’t make them pay when you go there, do you?”

Eric explained the arrangement. “So far it’s working out well. They haven’t swamped us with sick animals, and I can easily afford the time I give. I neuter right there on the spot, and they bring the females for spaying into the hospital. We’ve had a couple cats that had viruses and weren’t eating that we kept on IVs for a few days. They do a good job there medicating for the minor stuff.”

“Oh.” Head bent, Garth tore the crust of his toast into shreds. “I was wondering—” He stopped. “I mean, Madeline asked me something…”

“Yeah?” Eric prodded.

“Well, there’s these two little kittens,” Garth said in a rush. “Chev and Ron. They’re black and white, and somebody found them under a Dumpster at a Chevron gas station. See, they’re not used to people, and they hiss every time someone tries to touch them, but they don’t bite or scratch or anything like that, and Madeline thinks if someone just spent lots of time with them for a few weeks, they’d get friendly and be adoptable.”

It didn’t take ESP to figure out where this was
going. Eric said dryly, “She has a foster home lined up of course.”

“She says they’re hard to find,” his son told him, his expression earnest, “and she already has a litter of kittens in her extra bedroom. She can’t take any more right now, ‘cause she has to place these before her mother comes for a visit. Her mother doesn’t like cats very much,” Garth explained, “and she wouldn’t want any in the bedroom where she sleeps.”

“I see,” Eric said gravely. A kinder father would have ended the suspense and said,
Why don’t you do it?
He decided to make the kid carry through, however hard it was for him.

Garth took a deep breath. “The thing is, I thought maybe I could have them in my bedroom. Just for a few weeks.” He watched his father anxiously. “I’d change the litter every day, and Madeline said I could bring cat food home so you wouldn’t have to buy any, and—”

“Sounds good to me,” Eric agreed, taking pity at last.

“They wouldn’t be any trouble,” the twelve-year-old hurried on. “I won’t ask you to do anything. I promise. I—” He blinked. “Did you say yes?”

“You bet.” Eric smiled. “I’d foster cats for the shelter myself if I weren’t gone such long hours.”
Don’t push it,
some inner voice warned.
Don’t approve so much he starts thinking it was your idea, or it’s what you want him to do.
Eric took a sip of the wine he’d poured himself. “Madeline is good at persuading people to do something useful, isn’t she?
You’ll have to go to an adoption day with her. She charms the socks off people. They go out to shop, come home with a cat. They probably lug that carrier in their front door and wonder what in hell got into ’em.

“She’s pretty,” Garth said. A blush flagged his cheeks.

“Yeah, but I don’t think that’s it.” A bite halfway to his mouth, Eric paused to ruminate. “She’s… morally uncompromising,” he mused aloud. “You find yourself wanting to please her, impress her. Maybe rise to her level. Then she gives you that smile—” He put on the brakes. Good God, he’d just made himself sound like a hopeful puppy dog, wriggling and wagging for attention and a kind word from the nice lady. Where was his dignity?

Garth was regarding him with a disconcertingly adult expression. “You really like her, don’t you, Dad?”

Dad.
Another first for the summer. A stab of pleasure made Eric realize how much he’d missed such a trivial thing: hearing his son call him Dad.

“I guess I do,” he admitted. “But we haven’t known each other that long.” He shrugged. “We’ll see.” When Garth didn’t comment, Eric asked, “Do
you
like her?”

“She kinda reminds me of this teacher I had last year. For computers. She never had to yell or anything. Nobody wanted to bug her, you know?”

Eric pushed his empty plate away. “Yeah, I’ve known people like that. This teacher, was she young and pretty?”

“Nah.” Garth sounded bewildered that anyone could have that effect on a whole class and
not
be pretty. “Actually she was kind of old. Her hair was getting gray.”

The poor woman was probably forty-five. Eric didn’t ask whether he fell into the same category.

Garth finished his milk, this time using the hem of his T-shirt to wipe away the mustache. Eric wondered what Chuck Morrison, CEO, thought of such table manners.

The phone rang, startling them both. “I’ll get it,” Eric said, and slid off the bar stool, taking his dirty dishes to the sink at the same time. “Hello?”

“Hello, Eric.” The voice was Noreen’s. It sounded as faraway as he knew her to be; the line crackled. “I thought I’d check in and see how things are going.”

“Garth’s right here. Why don’t you talk to him?” Eric said, waving the boy over. Handing him the receiver, he said, “It’s your mother.”

Garth turned his back and hunched his shoulders. “Mom?” he said, voice low.

Eric interpreted his son’s body language as an instinctive plea for privacy. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, and left the room.

Not two minutes had passed when Garth called, “Dad, Mom wants to talk to you.”

Surprised, he put down the newspaper he’d barely picked up and went back into the kitchen. “You’re already done talking to her?”

Garth shoved the phone at him. Something in the boy had changed in those brief minutes. The sulkiness
was back, along with acute unhappiness. “Yeah, like I had so much news,” he said rudely, and abruptly left the kitchen.

Frowning after him, Eric said into the receiver, “Noreen?”

“I can tell how much he misses me.” Her attempt at lightness failed. “Is he mad at me or just in a generally charming mood?”

Down the hall Garth turned into his bedroom and slammed his door. So much for rapprochement.

“There’s a hell of a lot you didn’t tell me,” Eric said bluntly. “Either that, or he pulled a Cinderella act in reverse in the john of the airplane.”

“Oh.” She laughed nervously. “You mean the earring and the shaved head? They do look awful, don’t they? But they’re just the style right now. Kids have to rebel somehow.”

Eric’s fingers tightened on the phone, and through his teeth he said, “All our son does is shut himself in his bedroom and listen to rap music. He acts like he hates me. Apparently he hates you, too. Not to mention ‘Chuckie.’” He mimicked the way Garth said the name. “Is that the style right now, too?”

Her long silence left him feeling like a brute. She never had liked “unpleasantness”—her word for anything that upset her. He heard a ragged breath that might have been a sob. Dammit, why didn’t she storm back at him? Remind him that she’d been left to raise their son alone nine months of the year, that she was doing the best she could. Tell him to go to hell. But, no.

“I should have warned you,” she said unhappily. “It’s just…”

“You thought I wouldn’t take him if I knew what a pain he’d be?” Eric didn’t like the hardness in his voice any more than she would.

To her credit Noreen sounded surprised and indignant. “Of course not! You have your flaws, Eric, but you wouldn’t abandon Garth just because he’s going through a rough, patch.”

Thank you very much.

“That’s not what I was going to say at all,” she continued. “I thought his problems were with me. Especially with my remarrying. He’s always been so close to you. He really looks forward to your calls. I thought everything he said about my dumping him on you was to make me feel bad. Guilty.” She sniffed, sighed. “It worked. The thing is, I didn’t think he meant it! He loves summers with you!”

“Not this one,” Eric said ruefully. He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, Noreen. Who the hell am I to criticize the way you raise our son? You’re pretty much stuck holding the bag, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Surprising him again, she sounded bracing. “You’ve been a good father. I really think this
is
just a rough patch. At heart he’s a good kid. I know he loves you, and your opinion means everything.”

Eric’s mouth twisted. “That’s news to me. Although he was warming up to me tonight, until—” Tact stopped him in time; he wasn’t about to complete the thought.

But she did. “Until I called.” She paused, then admitted, “He’s pretty angry at me. I thought by now…”

“That he’d have gotten over it?” Eric turned his back to the counter and leaned against it. “He always was stubborn.”

“How true.” Her tone was wry now. “Well, I suppose you know why he’s mad. He didn’t want me to marry. I don’t think it’s really Chuck—he liked him fine until the subject of marriage came up. I don’t know, maybe I’ve been too wrapped up in the romance. But when you fall in love…”

Whatever she had to say about falling in love was lost on him. He was thinking about the last time he’d seen Madeline. Oh, yeah, he thought, it’d be easy to get so wrapped up in her that he discounted Garth’s needs. His instant understanding was a little disconcerting.

He tuned back in to hear his ex-wife saying unhappily, “Probably I haven’t handled it very well. But he’s been such a brat! The week before the wedding he did a vanishing act one night. It turned out he’d just spent the night at a friend’s. The boy’s mother thought he had permission. But he did it on purpose to scare me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life! I know he wants reassurance, but after that I was so mad I wasn’t about to give it!”

“By September he’ll be missing you.”

“I’m not so sure.” She was crying now. “I wish we hadn’t parted so bitterly. What if he decides he’d rather live with you? I couldn’t say no.”

Eric would give anything to have Garth year-round.
But under these circumstances…Eric shook his head. “Then I’d say it for you. He shouldn’t make that kind of decision when his main motive is punishing you. He needs to go home and work it out with you. And Chuck. Then, down the line, if he and Chuck aren’t hitting it off, maybe. You know I’d love to have him. But not like this.”

Noreen gave a choked laugh. “Remind me why I divorced you.”

“I thought
I
divorced
you,”
he countered in the same spirit, a grin pulling at his mouth. “And I think it was because we didn’t have a single damned thing in common. We just didn’t notice that when we were twenty-three.”

“When you’re twenty-three, sex is enough,” she said.

Did she have more going for her new marriage than good sex? he wondered.

Her thoughts must have paralleled his, because she asked, “Are you seeing anyone seriously?”