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Jillian moved toward the cat and knelt down to pet him. She started at the top of his head and worked her way down to scratch behind his ear. Romeo’s purr grew louder.
“You really are a cutie.” Jillian kept petting him. “But I honestly think you could have stayed home alone. I don’t think you’re as needy as you lead my mother to believe.”
Jillian straightened and slipped on her coat. She wanted to take out the garbage before the snow got any worse. She grabbed the bag from the kitchen garbage can and opened the door of her apartment.
She turned around to pull the door shut when she caught a streak of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned and stared into the night. As she squinted, she made out Romeo’s silhouette. Oh no!
A pampered indoor cat wouldn’t know how to take care of himself outside. He would end up lost. And to make matters worse, the temperature was below freezing. Talk about a recipe for disaster.
“Romeo! Here, kitty, kitty!”
The little scamp didn’t stop. He headed straight for the road. Where was he going?
Jillian dropped the garbage and yanked the door shut before setting off, running after the cat. She’d never thought about it before, but tracking a black cat at night was definitely going to be a challenge. And she didn’t even have a flashlight.
“Romeo.” She strained her eyes, trying to see into the dark shadows of the evening. “Romeo, please come here.” She stuffed her bare hands in her coat pockets. “Come on, kitty. It’s cold out. If you come here, I have a can of tuna with your name on it.”
And then she spotted the white on the tip of his tail. Romeo paused between two houses on the next street. She slowed down, not wanting to scare him. If she lost this cat, her mother would be so upset. Was it possible to be a failure at cat-sitting? It’d be just her luck to be the first. She just couldn’t tell her mother that her beloved cat had run away from home. Her mother would never trust her again.
Jillian moved cautiously. She was now within two feet of Romeo. Success was within her grasp. She could feel it. She bent over to pick him up, but all she grasped was air as Romeo darted forward out of her reach.
Jillian groaned in frustration. She straightened and snuggled deeper into her winter coat. How could this cat prefer the cold to the warmth of her apartment? Cats made no sense to her.
Romeo ran out from between the two houses and headed straight for the street. He certainly seemed to know where he was going. But how was that possible when he was new to Marietta? And he was a house cat?
He paused next to a tree to sniff something. This was her chance. She moved with cautious and calculated steps. Soon she’d have that ornery cat in her arms and they’d be headed home. She rubbed her bare hands together, trying to keep them warm. Home—the thought of her cozy, warm apartment called to her.
And…
She was…
So close.
Jillian lunged for the cat, but Romeo sprang into action and dodged out into the street. Jillian glanced up just in time to see the headlights of a vehicle headed straight for Romeo.
Oh no! Her heart jumped into her throat. Romeo was so sweet. This couldn’t be happening. Her mother would be devastated. Jillian would be devastated. And she would never be able to face her mother again.
Intent on preventing a tragedy, Jillian stepped into the road.
Chapter Two
Almost home.
At last.
With one hand on the steering wheel, Avery Wainwright yawned and stretched, trying to ease his protesting muscles. It’d been a very long drive from the rodeo event in Colorado, but he hadn’t wanted to waste money on a motel room. Now that his horse, Lucky, had been stabled at the Crooked S Ranch, this long day was almost over.
As expected on this January evening, snow blanketed most of Montana. The highways hadn’t been too bad, but the side roads leading into the small town of Marietta had been coated with a layer of ice with packed snow on top of it. It was nothing he hadn’t driven in hundreds of times, but tonight he was anxious to get home.
Avery had been mulling over the direction of his life. Now that he was no longer the guardian of his twin siblings, he could pick up the pieces of his dreams—of owning a ranch with plenty of land.
But to do that he needed money—something he was in short supply of these days. After his parents had tragically died, he’d unfortunately learned that their life insurance had been minimal. Guilt and love had driven Avery to use his income combined with his savings so his siblings didn’t have to go without.
Now, he was participating in every rodeo event possible in order to replenish his savings—only it was taking much longer than he’d imagined. And with his injury at the rodeo in Denver, it was going to take him that much longer to come up with the full down payment for a place of his own. His dream was to own a ranch outside of town with plenty of elbow space. And he wasn’t going to let this injury keep him down for long.
His leg throbbed. The doctor had ordered him to rest it and keep it elevated. So far, Avery had done neither. Unless sitting in a pickup for hours on end counted as keeping off of it.
Other than a warm bed, there wasn’t anything waiting for him in Marietta. Correction, there was Marshmallow, his sister’s cat. At his request, the neighbor lady had taken in the cat and had agreed to watch over his house while he was out on the road.
