“Ain’t that the truth,” he said, glancing at her. He’d made her smile again. Maybe the bust-up with the boyfriend wasn’t as serious as it looked out the window.
Still, she’d been sitting out in the rain all that time.
“Maybe you can work it out,” he said.
“Work what out?”
“The thing with the boyfriend.”
“Don’t think so,” she said, catching the back of his shirt when he began to list.
They finally reached the patio. She managed to open her back door and hold it with one foot while she closed the umbrella. He shuffled dutifully inside. The house obviously had central air, because the room was cool and quiet. There was a television, an easy chair, a whole row of plants under a big window, and a couch with a startled white cat on it. He didn’t like cats, or so he assumed. He’d never been around any, except the wild “barn” cats that used to live on his grandfather’s farm when he was a little boy. That relationship had been very one-sided. Every day, he’d toss them the table scraps his grandmother allotted them, and every day they hissed and spat and ran like hell.
The cat jumped down from the couch and disappeared.
“Sit down,” Meehan said unnecessarily. He couldn’t have made it any farther if he’d wanted to. He plopped down heavily on the couch where the cat had been.
The pain was less now that he was off his feet, but not much. He leaned back and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Meehan had gone someplace, and the cat was sitting on the couch arm.
“Take a hike,” he said to it.
It continued to sit there, giving him its rapt attention. It was kind of unnerving. He’d never had an animal stare at him like that—or at least not one that was up to any good.
Meehan came back with a towel around her neck and one of those small electric blankets for couch potatoes in her hands. He sat there awkwardly, because he wasn’t sure what she planned to do with it and because he was in her house more or less against his will.
“I didn’t know you had a cat,” he said in an inane attempt at making conversation. She bent down, plugged the blanket into a nearby outlet. She was wearing shorts, and he appreciated it.
The cat gave an inquisitive, rolling chirp and looked at Meehan expectantly.
“No, he doesn’t,” Meehan said to the cat. “But he would, if he had to.”
She was smiling slightly. He got it right off the bat. She was giving him the business here, and enjoying it. The big tough soldier wasn’t sure what to do about the cat, much less her talking to it.
But she had no idea she was dealing with Doyle, the Supercool. Two could play this game.
“Doesn’t what?” he asked to put her on the spot.
She dropped the blanket over his bare legs.
“Barbecue cats,” she said without missing a beat. “She’s the only survivor of a coyote attack on her and her litter mates. She’s very concerned about whether or not she’s in someone’s food chain.”
“Don’t blame her. Where did she run into a coyote?”
“A friend’s place in the mountains. She was just a kitten, and she took up residence in my shirt pocket while I was there—so I brought her home. She doesn’t get out much, either. Of course, in her case, it’s by choice—I couldn’t get her out the door with a crowbar. I don’t know about you and Mrs. Bee.”
“Well, it’s not by choice with me,” he said. But the real truth was that the two guys he had called friends had been killed in the same helicopter crash. He missed the sorry sons-of-bitches more than he cared to admit, and thus far he hadn’t gone looking for replacements.
Meehan was busy drying her hair with the towel.
“So tell me,” she said out from under it. “Why do they call you ‘Bugs’?”
He glanced at the cat. “I went outside my food chain,” he said. “The survival-training thing.”
“You weren’t the only one to do that, were you?”
“I was the only one to throw up,” he said, and she laughed again. Easily. Pleasantly. He hadn’t been trying to be cute. He’d been telling the truth again—but he was beginning to feel pretty damned witty here.
He stretched his legs out in front of him. He wouldn’t have thought the blanket would help, especially in July, but the pain was already beginning to lessen. “I’m going to have to get me one of these,” he said.
“You can have that one,” she said.
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. I have another. Actually, I have two others. My sisters seem to think I have no other way to keep warm. Take it.”
He looked at her. She meant it.
“Well, okay. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
She disappeared again, and when she came back she had an apple in her hand. “Eat that,” she said, throwing it to him. “Put your feet up.”
She left him sitting there—with the cat. After a moment he maneuvered both legs onto a nearby ottoman. Then, he occupied himself eating the apple and looking around the room. Nice place. Neat. Clean. He could see several framed photographs on a table—little kids mostly. Or maybe the same two kids—a boy and a girl—at different ages.
Hers?
He didn’t think so. At least, he’d never heard anyone mention that she had kids.
The cat finally made her move, stepping carefully onto the blanket on his lap and then standing a moment before cautiously lying down. He sat there stiffly, trying to decide how badly he minded. The cat wasn’t hurting anything, he supposed, not even his bare legs under the blanket. After a moment he tentatively let his hand rest on its fur. It began to purr immediately. He couldn’t hear it, though. He could feel it with his fingertips.
“Just as long as nobody sees me,” he told the little beast before it got too comfortable.
He took a quiet breath. He was so tired. After a while, the cat stretched out across his knees. The added warmth was not…unpleasant.
He closed his eyes. He heard a telephone ringing somewhere and Meehan answer it. The conversation was brief, and, as far as he could tell, nonhostile.
Must not be the boyfriend.
He heard the rain, and a strong gust of wind against the house. And then he heard nothing.
Chapter Two
S omething’s wrong with my hand.
The realization penetrated
