Beauty & the Beasts (4 page)

Biting her lip, she showed him the kitchen. “Joan has her own kitchenette in her apartment. We use this one only for medicines and preparing food for the cats. People donate chicken or fish sometimes that we cook, and of course a few cats are on special diets.”

Eric made noncommittal noises and studied their
supply of medications, some in a cupboard and others refrigerated. Madeline chattered about individual cats as they progressed through the former family room and garage and out into the chain-link-fenced runs.

There the only comment she could think of was, “We can’t really mow out here.” As if he couldn’t tell. Bringing a mower through the house would have been difficult to start with; no exterior gate had been installed, so that vandals couldn’t let the cats loose with an easy snip of wire cutters. Inside the enclosure various wood climbers reached to the chain-link ceiling, with ramps and balance beams stretching like spider webs between. Thorny rosebushes and lilacs and rhododendrons grew around the perimeter. And everywhere cats of myriad colors and shapes sunned themselves on the rough grass.

“The cats probably prefer it this way.” Eric scooped up a small gray-and-cream tortoiseshell that had plopped herself in front him to stare up beseechingly. “Who’s this?”

“Hannah. She’s ten, which makes her a little harder to place. Her owner went into a nursing home. We haven’t found Hannah a new family yet, but we will sooner or later.”

The small tortoiseshell burrowed her head under his chin and purred softly. When he followed Madeline to the bedroom wing, Hannah remained curled in the crook of his arm.

They visited the kittens in the first bedroom. A litter of tiny newcomers, no more than five weeks old, huddled in a nest of flannel sheets in one corner
of a cage. Another cage was empty. A miscellaneous lot of leftovers from several litters ran loose, mewing and wrestling and poking tiny claws into Madeline’s tights and Eric’s corduroy pants.

“In the spring the kittens go fast at adoptions,” she told him, plucking one off his pant leg. “But nobody wants the adult cats. By fall, everyone interested in getting a kitten has one, and we have a heck of a time placing the ones born from August on. We do better with adult cats in the winter.”

He gently placed Hannah on the floor when they left the main house to visit the building where the feral cats lived. These unreclaimable animals had little contact with humans, other than the time it took to clean, change the litter boxes and supply food and water. They were all cats that had either been stray too long and reverted to wild behavior, or born to strays.

Madeline and Eric discussed the vaccination program, and he asked questions about the health of various cats, what medications had been tried and commented on what might be worth an experiment. Madeline was impressed by his knowledge and his kindness to the motley collection of animals. She’d approached several vets in the shelter’s hunt for a replacement for Dr. Heyer. Most she’d talked to didn’t seem to think these scroungy, shy or aggressive alley cats were worth the bother. Yet Eric Bergstrom’s voice held affection as he talked to even the least prepossessing.

Her continuing awareness of him physically, of him as a man, however, was most annoying. He had
wonderful hands, she noticed at one point: large, with long deft fingers. They were brown, callused in places, but also somehow elegant. He could have been a pianist. Or a surgeon, which of course he was.

Now, as he talked, she found herself thinking that the close-cropped cut of his hair suited the clean angular lines of his face, giving him a cool patrician look—until he smiled with the rakish confidence of a man who knew women would fall for him.

Don’t be one of them,
she told herself with a flash of panic.
He wants an ornament, a sexy woman in bed, not a friend or lover in an emotional sense.

When they emerged from the feral building, Joan was hurrying across the lawn toward them. A tiny energetic woman, she invariably wore her unruly gray hair bundled into a knot atop her head. She talked and moved faster than a normal human being, which was a good thing since she worked six days a week to help support the shelter, while also doing much of the physical labor and generally being the authority and mastermind.

“You must be Dr. Bergstrom.” She thrust out a rough hand, which he shook. “I don’t know how it is that we’ve never met. Madeline, have you shown him everything?” She focused intensely on his face. “I wanted to talk about the possibility of equipping a small surgery room so we could haul fewer cats into your clinic. Although at least the drive will be shorter now. Your predecessor was unwilling to give us special rates, you know. We had to go to Dr. Heyer. Bless him.”

“Dr. Heyer gave me plenty of advice when I
bought the practice in White Horse. Good thing, too, since I had a lot of questions. I hadn’t realized Dr. Stewart intended to head for warmer climes the minute the check cleared the bank.”

Joan curled her lip. “That doesn’t surprise me. He charged too much. And he was lazy. If your animal got sick at 5:02 p.m., you were out of luck. I have a friend who had to drive her retriever, who’d been hit by a car, half an hour into Everett on a Sunday just to find a vet to look at him.”

“It’s difficult to be on call night and day seven days a week,” Eric remarked diplomatically. “That’s why I got a partner.”

“He
wouldn’t have wanted to share the profits,” Joan said disdainfully. “You should have heard the lecture he gave me on how I ought to euthanize any cats who weren’t adoptable. ‘What’s the point of keeping them alive?’ he asked, as though they’re no more than toys that ought to be thrown away if they aren’t any good to some human.”

That had been Dr. Stewart’s real offense; as far as Madeline could tell from people’s comments, he’d been a competent veterinarian. And Eric was right: it was impossible for any one man to be available around the clock seven days a week no matter how dedicated he was. But Joan’s only criteria for judging people was: did they care about cats? All cats. Preferably enough to make sacrifices for their sake.

Joan and Eric settled on the best hours for him to visit each week; he laid out the charges he and his partner had agreed on, and Joan’s cheeks flushed with pleasure.

“Dr. Bergstrom, thank you.” She pumped his hand again. “Now I must be going. Madeline, you’ll lock up? A man offered a pile of wood shavings if I’d pick them up. We use them for kitty litter when we’re short,” she said as an aside to Eric.

“Dr. Bergstrom would like to meet Jackson,” Madeline said. “Do you mind if we stick our heads in your place?”

“Of course not.” With the speed of an uncaught feral cat, she whizzed away.

Several of the residents came to meet them in Joan’s private quarters. One was Jackson, weighing in at twenty-five pounds.

“Good God,” Eric said, with obvious awe. “He
is
a cat?”

With his huge head and magnificent plume of a tail, Jackson was probably Maine coon cat, perhaps even a purebred. Blueblooded cats passed through here just as the commoners did, none immune to the indifference or cruelty of humans.

Outside Madeline repeated Joan’s thanks. “This is good of you,” she said with more warmth than she’d let herself show him yet.

His brows drew together in what looked like impatience. “You’re giving a hell of a lot more time than I will be. I don’t deserve any more commendation than you do.”

“I’m not a professional donating services I’m normally paid for,” Madeline said.

“This is something useful I can do.” He literally shrugged off her praise. “I’m happy to do it.” He
opened his truck door, adding brusquely over his shoulder, “I’m sure I’ll see you.”

“I gave you my home phone—”

“I have Joan’s card, too.” No more talk about a contact person. He settled behind the wheel and reached for the door handle.

Madeline backed away, feeling childishly let down. And why? Because she’d expected that he’d try to change her mind about that dinner invitation. He didn’t strike her as a man who accepted defeat easily.

Unless he hadn’t been that interested to start with.

He pulled the door toward him, then stopped just before it slammed. “Oh, hell.” He looked at her with exasperated resignation.

Her heart began to drum.

“I’d like to adopt that cat. Hannah.”

“Adopt? Oh.” A flush spread across her face. God forbid he could read her thoughts. “Hannah. Are you sure? We…we do expect you’ll be making a lifetime commitment.”

“Of course I am. What do you require?”

“I have forms…They’ll only take a minute. Naturally we’ll waive the donation.” She managed a smile. “You’ll be working off the price of a cat.”

Eric followed her back inside, where she dug the forms out of a filing cabinet. “I don’t suppose you need the free exam at the vet,” she said foolishly.

“I guess not.” He reached for the pen she handed him and bent over the desk, filling in the blank spaces with vigorous dark script.

“I suppose you want to take her right now.” This
comment struck her as equally idiotic, especially since Hannah was sitting right on the other side of the glass, gazing hopefully at them.

Eric lifted his head, and she expected to read mockery or impatience on his face. Instead, the crease in one cheek had deepened and a couple of smaller lines had formed between his brows.

He cleared his throat. “Unless you’d like to reconsider about that dinner. We probably will be seeing a lot of each other. It wouldn’t hurt to get better acquainted. Besides…I don’t know about you, but, uh, I wouldn’t mind somebody to talk to while I eat.”

Was this sudden suggestion of vulnerability just a ploy? He might simply be changing his tactics, confident charm having failed. Madeline studied him warily.

If he was acting, he was darned good at it. Right now she saw only a man who was tired, probably in pain—she’d noticed him rubbing his thigh several times—and a little lonely. If, she thought with a mental sniff, a man with his kind of appeal to women was ever lonely.

She froze, hearing herself as though she’d shouted the last thought aloud. She’d fought that kind of stereotype all her life! If you were beautiful, your life must be perfect.
You
didn’t have the problems other people had. Sheer beauty moved you into another plane of existence where teeth were always pearly white and everyone was blessed.

And now it turned out that she, too, was guilty of
harboring, somewhere deep in her subconscious, the same idiotic delusion.

Of all people, she ought to know that physical beauty didn’t guarantee that you were never lonely.

“I…” Madeline blinked, gave her head a shake, saw immediately that he’d interpreted it as a refusal. “No! I mean, yes. I’d like that. I mean, dinner. Eating by myself tonight doesn’t sound very appealing to me, either.”

His eyebrow had gone up as she babbled. But instead of saying something sardonic, he smiled with a warmth that took her breath away.

“If you really manage to eat by yourself, you’ve done a better job teaching your cats manners than I have.”

His smile tugged one from her. “‘By myself was an, um, intraspecies reference. I do tend to have a feline audience. Barely restrained from joining me.”

His grin widened. “Do you ever wonder if they’re speculating on what you’d taste like, assuming you deny them that last bit of chicken or pizza?”

“They’re smart enough to know they can’t turn a doorknob or operate a can opener. My two main functions in life.”

Eric laughed, and her heart did a crazy flip. Turning, he crouched and opened the sliding door enough to stick his hand through. Hannah scooted under the curve of his fingers. Stroking her, he crooned, “I’ll be back, little one. I promise.”

When he withdrew his hand, the little gray cat opened her mouth in a silent meow of protest.

Madeline didn’t know what effect this appeal had
on Eric, but it worked on her. “Why don’t we take my car or your pickup?” she suggested. “Then come back here so you can take Hannah home right after dinner.”

“Good idea.” He shook his head. “All I need is another animal. This place could be dangerous.”

And so are you,
she thought. What she said was, “There’s a reason I have seven cats. Hannah might have become number eight if you hadn’t just bailed me out.”

“You can’t have her.”

Another smile, crooked and sexy, sent panic spurting through her. Meeting him at the restaurant would have been safer. Less like a date.

But it was too late, because he gave Hannah one last pat, closed the sliding door and rose to his feet. “Shall we?”

“Sure,” she said, “but it’ll take me a moment to lock up.”

“No problem.” His eyes met hers, held them with something close to a challenge. “I don’t mind waiting for you.”

And if
that
didn’t have a double meaning, she was a foot tall and had four paws.

She should have been mad that he’d suckered her into accepting this invitation. Instead, excitement quivered in her stomach and tiptoed up her spine. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that he’d repeated his invitation meant he was interested in
her,
not just her face and body.

What did it hurt to give him a chance?

CHAPTER THREE

“S
ORRY.
“ E
RIC HURRIEDLY
lifted a box of used ampules from the front seat of the pickup. “Let me just stick this in the back.”

“We could take my car.”

Madeline Howard stood there looking like the Ice Queen, poised, cool, perhaps a tiny bit impatient. Petty of him maybe, but he wanted to be the one behind the wheel, to have some sense of control.

“Petty” wasn’t the word. “Adolescent” came closer, he realized with a flash of amusement. Nonetheless, he unlocked the canopy of his truck and slid the box in. After locking the canopy again, he gestured toward the open passenger door.

“Madam, your chariot.”

He was looking forward to seeing her hitching that tight skirt up enough to clamber into the truck. He had been so distracted by her deliciously long legs and the tantalizing curves just above them that he’d missed half of what she’d told him on their tour. To his disappointment, she ascended now with a ladylike grace and modesty that avoided exposing even another inch of those legs, clad in hose he’d have bet his last dollar was silk.