style="font-size:15px;"> She placed a hand on her small hip. “I never had a kitty.”
“It’s my birthday today and all I wanted was a kitten.”
Button was unimpressed as she continued to stroke the kitten’s long pale hair.
“How old are you?”
Button worked with her small wiggly hands, eventually holding up three fingers straight, working to bend a fourth at the knuckle.
“Ah, three.”
“And half.”
“A nice big girl.”
Button thawed a little and began to wander around the kitchen, her eyes dropping covetously to a new litter box and white cushioned basket tucked away near the dishwasher. “Your mommy home?”
Grace straightened up. “My mommy doesn’t live here.”
“Why?”
“Because she has a nice big house of her own.”
“My mommy’s in heaven,” Button confided in a reverent whisper.
Grace was stopped cold. Kyle said Libby was gone, but she hadn’t considered…death. Just selfish things like desertion or abandonment. Things for which Grace could criticize her.
“It was a car accident,” Kyle explained in a low tone.
Grace gasped softly. “Oh, no, just like her parents years ago.”
“Not exactly. They mercifully died instantly. Libby lingered in a coma for several weeks. There was never much hope. Too much internal damage.”
Generally quick with words, Grace was at a loss. To think she woke up far too jaded to expect any birthday surprise.
Chapter Two
“Here’s one to ya, birthday girl.”
Michael sidled up close to Grace with a pair of fluted glasses brimming with champagne. He handed one off to her with a flourish and a wink.
“Thanks.”
They sipped the quality vintage and scanned the formally dressed guests mingling in their parents’ opulent living room that evening.
“I see you slipped a few of your artsy uptown buddies onto the guest list,” he teased.
There were a few of Grace’s most current friends scattered round. But the majority of the guests were the more established ones: a Minneapolis bank vice president, a prominent St. Paul surgeon, corporate executives from both sides of the Mississippi River, all contemporaries of the elder Norths, included at all North functions. Not wishing to upset her conservative parents, she’d chosen only those likely to blend in, at least to some degree, with the elegant ambiance of the buffet dinner.
Grace and Michael long ago accepted that their parents, Victor and Ingrid, were serious social climbers who would eagerly use any family occasions to enhance social connections. They’d shared their most personal milestones with acquaintances they might not see again for months.
“So, you like my gifts, Gracie?” Michael asked.
“I adore the kitten.”
“As for the magic chef?”
“I wasn’t going to bring it up now,” Grace murmured firmly behind her practiced party smile. “But springing a widowed Kyle on me that way was a dumb stunt.”
Michael rolled back on his heels. “I thought it would be fun for the both of you, honestly.”
Grace didn’t allow his genuine surprise to salve her annoyance. “Not only did you set up that—that situation in my own private space, but you then went on your merry way.”
“Merry? I had a lunch date with dad and a very important client we’re wooing. Nothing merry about that.”
“I was at a complete loss after you walked out, stranded there with—them,” she blurted out.
“You, mistress of your own universe, need backup?” Michael regarded her with a keener interest that made her squirm in her tight red beaded dress.
An administrative assistant from their father’s accounting firm interrupted them then, anxious to make points with Michael, presently a vice president of North Enterprises.
Michael, a company man at the drop of a coin, turned to address the associate. A chip off the old block, father’s ideal offspring, Grace thought wryly. Sometimes his position as favored son entrenched in the family business bothered her, but not at the moment. She welcomed the chance to consider Michael’s assured interrogation. It was her own fault, of course. She couldn’t resist scolding him for his stunt and now he was curious about her burst of emotion.
She gulped champagne from her fluted glass, trying to once again put her position into perspective by reviewing the events of the morning. Kyle hustling around to get his prized chili into microwavable containers and clean up after himself. Button wheeling around the cluttered and compact town house with Grace’s precious gift locked in her small arms: the prized pure-bred Himalayan, which Button insisted upon christening just plain Kitty.
How much should she confide to Michael about the unsettling feelings she was experiencing? Could she even define them to her own satisfaction?
There were solid obstacles to Kyle’s invasion. Grace didn’t want anyone tampering with her messy life. She’d deliberately set up her fashion design business in her home because she liked the aura of creative chaos and enjoyed mixing business and pleasure in one big jumble of clutter. It was plain to see that Kyle had a frightening sense of orderliness. During his brief visit he’d actually started to rearrange her pathetic kitchen inventory more to his liking, touching everything, silently judging everything with grumbles and mumbles. Surely his tongue hurt from all that tsking.
Who’d have ever guessed at such a turn of events: her first intense crush barging into her creative nest to—to put things away!
Furthermore, Grace was unaccustomed to having children in her home, save for the young actors who came for costume fittings. They were older of course and proud of behaving professionally. Button had proven what was best described as a blissful tornado. Smudging her elegant hardwood flooring, dumping a knapsack full of toys into the center of her living room. She even brought her own music in the form of a battery-operated boom box. Kyle claimed she couldn’t nap without the tinny singsongs, but she never did take a nap.
It had taken all of Grace’s resolve to endure. After two full hours, she’d finally feigned an appointment and dashed out. Some birthday gift. They’d actually chased her out of her own home! The helpless feeling left her frustrated and uneasy.
“Sorry, Gracie,” Michael said. “Pick up where you left off.”
Not wanting to appear completely bulldozed by the McRaneys, she went on to relate a condensed version of the afternoon’s events, mainly chiding him for not getting her approval for such a setup in advance.
“I
