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“Jarvis!” she called, confident that she could prove he wasn’t inside.
A loud meow came from the bathroom.
Dal’s eyes widened. “You locked my cat in a bathroom?” he exclaimed.
“I don’t know how he got in there,” she wailed. “I didn’t even see him come in the house. I just had the door open for a minute or two while I took the trash out back,” she added. “I certainly didn’t see him in the bathroom!”
“He loves water,” he said. “He sits in the sink when I’m not using it, and he loves the bathtub.”
“Odd, isn’t it? For a cat, I mean.”
“Maine coon cats aren’t like other cats. They’re more like dogs,” he said when she opened the bathroom door and Jarvis came trotting out, as if he owned the place. “You can teach them to play fetch and obey commands.”
“Sure,” she murmured. “I can just see you herding cats.”
He gave her a brief appraisal, taking in the loose jeans and beige turtleneck sweater she was wearing. “You don’t wear dressy things anymore.”
“Waste of time,” she said, averting her eyes. “I don’t have time to train a man to live with me.”
He made an insulting sound in the back of his throat. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for any man to move in here,” he returned. “Miss America you’re not!”
“You are the most insulting man I’ve ever known,” she burst out. “What is your problem?”
“You,” he said. “You’re my problem. Do you have any idea how much your father sacrificed to keep this place going? He devoted his life to it. And here you sit watching YouTube videos to learn ranching!”
“Who told you that?” she demanded.
“Is it true?”
She bit her lower lip.
He didn’t move closer, but his stare penetrated. “Is it true?” he repeated coldly.
She threw up her hands. “They help! My father never taught me ranch management! And my degree is in languages, predominantly Spanish. That was my major.”
His eyebrows arched, asking a silent question.
“I wanted to help go after drug lords in south Texas,” she muttered.
“And look how that worked out for you,” he mused.
She stamped her foot. “Will you take your redheaded cat and go home?”
He picked up Jarvis, who purred and cuddled in his arms. “Will you tell your white rat over there to stay out of my house?” he countered, indicating Snow, who was sitting just inside the dog door, laughing with her blue eyes and lolling tongue.
She wondered what she was going to do to keep her pet at home. Then she remembered what this tall, offensive cattleman had just said. “Snow is not a rat! She’s a treasure!”
“I don’t want her in my house,” he said coldly.
“Then take out the dog door!”
He looked briefly vulnerable. “Not yet,” he said. “I’m not ready.”
She felt guilty. She knew what he was saying. He mourned his Lab. He didn’t want to change anything. He probably still had her toys in a box somewhere, and her bed. It was the only sensitive thing about this hard man, his love for animals. It was absolute. She’d heard about him sitting up at night with heifers who were calving for the first time, rousting out the entire bunkhouse to help find a missing calf. He loved his livestock. He’d loved his old dog, too.
Meadow understood. She’d had a cat at her father’s house who’d been in the family for twenty-three years when he died. He’d come into the house, a stray kitten, when Meadow was born. Mittens had been such a part of her life that when he died, when they were both twenty-three, she grieved for months.
She’d felt stupid about her grief until she read on a pet website that people’s companion pets were just like furry children. People raised them, trained them, provided for them, loved them, as if they were human. And when they died, people mourned them, sometimes excessively. It was natural. Pet owners knew this, even if those who’d never had pets didn’t.
