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“Oh no, what’s wrong, sweetheart?” I shot out from my lame hiding place and crouched to lift her into my arms. She didn’t fight me and tears of relief sprang into my eyes. “Were you just knocked off balance? You’ll be okay. We’ll make sure of it. Yes, we will, you pretty little thing.”
Belatedly, I realized the place had gone deathly silent. I struggled to my feet, trying to keep the kitten steady in my hold, and Clint steadied me by placing his big hands on my arms. Then he gripped my elbows, tugged me up to my tiptoes and kissed me thoroughly enough to have me seeing stars—and this time, panic had nothing to do with it.
He eased back, slung an arm around my shoulders, and turned us toward his father as a united, if dazed, front. “Dad, I want you to meet Katherine Armitage. I call her Kitty. She wraps my sandwiches in Christmas paper and makes one hell of a roast, even though I haven’t gotten to eat it yet. But her cookies are spectacular.”
“Jeez, keep it clean,” Magnus said in an undertone from the other room, but I only had eyes for Clint.
“She makes me happier than any woman ever has. I want her to be the mother of my,” his gaze dipped to Charise, “cats.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I hear, well, not church bells—but bells. Oh, her collar has one.” I fingered the pink bell around Charise’s tiny neck.
“Me too, baby.”
“Wait, don’t start kissing again,” Clint’s father instructed, holding up a hand as Clint swept toward me to do just that. “I need to know more about this woman.” He pointed at me. “Who, exactly, is she? Is she why you’re refusing to spend time with your family?” His mouth tightened. “You have so many responsibilities that you can’t neglect.”
I felt Clint brace and shifted more tightly into his side. I was so focused on being the support he needed that I forgot to be cowed by this towering man before me with his glacial blue eyes and unflagging strength.
Clint’s strength was pretty unflagging too. Right now, I would siphon some of it so I could give it right back to him.
“All you need to know is she means everything to me.” Clint’s hold on my shoulders tightened, which was handy because I swayed and might’ve pitched over if he hadn’t.
Hearing those words out loud—in front of his father and sister and Magnus—was staggering.
“Hope that clears this up.” Clint’s voice softened as he spoke to his father but never looked anywhere else but into my eyes. “Any other questions?”
TWENTY
“Aww,my big brother is in love!” Felicia ran forward to grab both of us from behind. She kissed both of us heartily though she planted one hell of one on an obviously shell-shocked Kitty. “You picked well. She’ll make pretty babies.”
“Huh? What? Babies? No way. Cats. Not humans.”
I echoed Kitty’s sentiments exactly, although now that my sister had put that idea into my very exhausted brain, she was right. Kittywouldmake pretty babies. And in my addled state, now I kept imagining baby-cat hybrids with big kind dark eyes and wild hair.
I needed sleep. Desperately.
“Felicia.” My father’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that mark on your neck?”
She slapped a hand over the obvious hickey. “Never mind that. Please tell me mom isn’t in the car. Or any of the rest of them. I intended to come back.” She cleared her throat. “Eventually.”
“Why are you here?” I wasn’t sure if I was asking my father or my sister—or Kitty, for that matter, though I vaguely remembered her saying she’d wanted to check on me after I didn’t call.
Which I should have. But I wanted to wear her down about Charise and I didn’t trust my capabilities of speech right now. What I needed was rest, not deep, emotional conversations about very real concerns and grief and anxiety and all that came with those things.
I got she had issues. I did too. But I needed to have my wits about myself to be able to discuss them in the proper way. And in the meantime, Charise had come from that awful hoarding situation and she was special needs. She needed help.
She needed me.Us.Because already it felt like in a very real way, there was no me without Kitty. Not one worthy to mention.
And maybe that was crazy. It was too soon. We were both jagged cookies and two halves didn’t make a whole.
But what if it did? And what if I still thought the same damn way after eight hours of sleep? Then what?
Then you’ll hopefully be lucky enough to build a life with her. And Princess Goldenrod and Lucky and Charise.
Lord, we were already building a pack of felines, and we hadn’t even said the three big words yet.
Maybe she wouldn’t even say them. Maybe I was just her hot vet she liked to fuck. Maybe I really needed to sleep. Possibly right here in the foyer.
Felicia sighed heavily, reminding me I’d asked a question. I was so tired my thoughts were in a loop. “I’m here because I needed some quiet time without all the family in my face. Dad is here because Em tried to tell him she wasn’t coming to Thanksgiving and neither were you and Mom had a meltdown that the family was falling apart.”
