“Hmph. As long as he’s quiet and stays inside your apartment. No cats on balconies, and no late-night noise. And I’ll know if it makes noise since I live directly beneath you.” She slammed shut her mailbox door and stomped away.
“Wow, Merry Christmas to you, too,” I muttered. I collected my mail and then exited the mailroom. Our cat-hating co-op board president was waiting for the elevator, so I hovered in the doorway and waited until it arrived, and she disappeared into it. Then I crossed the lobby and pushed the up button.
I could have—in fact, given my line of work and the requirement for physical fitness, I should have—taken the stairs. But I’d just spent three long weeks out of the country, finishing one last mission abroad. I’d flown in late last night and had gotten up at zero dark thirty so I wouldn’t miss my once-a-month Sunday morning shift at the animal shelter. Then I’d learned my foster dog was really a grumpy foster cat, and instead of bringing home a good boy or girl on a leash, I’d schlepped him on my back for ten city blocks.
While we rode to the sixth floor, I slid the carrier off my tight shoulders. We exited the elevator, with me holding him in front of me by the pack straps. He pressed his face against the clear bubble front that made him look like the world’s hairiest astronaut and stared at me. I set him and the plastic bag full of his necessities gently on the floor in front of my apartment door so I could fish out my keys. He yowled like I’d drop-kicked him out the window.
“Shh,” I whispered as I unlocked the door. “We’re trying to blend in here, and we’ve already attracted the attention of the cranky woman who lives downstairs.” I picked up the backpack and his things and hustled inside. I took a few seconds to catch my breath, then turned the carrier around to give Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants his first view of my apartment, his temporary home.
“See, it’s nice, right?” To keep it that way I might have to increase my cleaning service to twice a week once my little friend started shedding his long, gray hair on the cream-colored furniture and area rugs that had come with the apartment. I pointed to the sliding glass doors leading to the forbidden balcony. “We have a fab view of the little park across the street. You can watch birds in the daytime and see the Christmas lights at night. Are there winter birds in the city?” I turned him back toward me. “I don’t know if there are. This is new to me, too. We’ll find out together. How about that?”
He fell silent and resumed glaring. Things would get better soon. Probably. If not, my vacation wouldn’t be as relaxing as I’d hoped it would be.
I set him gently on the sofa and unzipped the top of the pack. I braced myself for him to hiss, leap out, maybe even jump on me and take out his hostility. But he sank to the bottom of the bag, suddenly looking about half his size.
“Come on out, buddy. We’re home.”
When he didn’t move, I opened the plastic bag the volunteer had sent with me. Maybe he’d feel better once I set up his food and water. And litter.
Oh, shit. Cats didn’t need walks and poop bags. They needed kitty litter and a box to put it in, neither of which were in the care package.
So, I needed a plan.
“First things first,” I said. I pulled his dry food out of the bag and sprinkled some of it into the large dog bowl I’d ordered earlier in the week. I filled the matching bowl with water, then dug through my recycling can under the sink and pulled out a medium-sized Amazon box. I pointed to it. “For emergencies. I’ll pop out to the corner store to see if they have litter. We’ll figure out a better solution once we have the basics.”
I shoved my keys back into my pocket and checked to make sure I had a credit card on me, then pulled open the front door. Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants screamed like I’d thrown him off the roof. I jumped and let go of the door, which banged closed.
Apparently, my foster cat didn’t want to let me out of his sight. Despite my obvious inadequacy, I was all he had.
“Listen,” I whispered as if my quiet tone would compensate for his outburst. “Mrs. Welby can’t kick us out now that I’ve bought this apartment, but she can make our lives hell.” And if she complained enough to the board and the other residents, she’d be turning a spotlight right on us.
As if to confirm my worst fear, there was a knock at my door.
CHAPTER 2
KAT
That was fast, even for Mrs. Welby.
I glanced at the gray fur ball and pressed my finger to my lips as if he’d understand the gesture. I crept to the door and peered through the peephole. It wasn’t 5B after all. It was 6A, also known as Gage Halifax, six feet of wide-shouldered, lean-hipped male. With his sandy brown hair, golden brown eyes, and a spray of freckles across his nose—probably from all the time he spent outdoors playing sports and biking—he looked like a professional athlete. In actuality, he was a clean energy engineer, which I’d uncovered in my totally above-board use of online search engines. He was also a helpful neighbor and all-around do-gooder, according to building scuttlebutt and my own one-time encounter with him.
Unfortunately for both of us, I was not a fan of modern men behaving like white knights, no matter how much the grandmotherly types in the building fawned over him.
He knocked again.
“Remember, we’re blending in,” I whispered-shouted to Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants.
I cracked open the door and leaned through the opening, obscuring the view of my furry houseguest. “Six A,” I said flatly.
He smiled broadly with perfect white teeth, either oblivious to my cold reception or unaffected by it. “Six B. Is everything okay? We heard screams and thought—”
“We?” I wondered if he and the girlfriend who had stormed out of his apartment the Sunday after Thanksgiving had reconciled. Nowthatwas a woman who was not trying to blend in.
“Hi,” another man said as he walked out of 6A. He was a bit shorter than my neighbor and had darker hair, but there was enough of a resemblance that I would have pegged them as brothers even if I hadn’t done my due diligence and researched everyone in my building. “Will Halifax, Gage’s brother.”
“Kat Hartmann,” I said, not because I was feeling neighborly, but because the best way to keep a low profile is to not stand out, and being curmudgeonly to perfectly nice people tended to stand out. “Thank you both for your concern, but I’m fine.”
“You look fine.” Will lifted a longneck beer bottle in my direction. “Doesn’t she lookfine, Gage?” He nudged his brother with his shoulder. “And fun.”
