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“Somethingcame inside. Jesus, it could have been a raccoon for all I know.”
“There’s a stray. Cat, not raccoon. I was feeding it and it got friendly enough to come up onto the porch. I had a dog door installed thinking it might come inside.”
“It?”
“I haven’t gotten close enough to find out if it’s a boy or a girl.”
I squatted down, used the towel to wipe the kitchen floor.
“I did, but I doubt it’s coming back. Am I supposed to feed it or something?”
“I pay the neighbor kid to put some food in a bowl on the front stoop.”
I hadn’t noticed the bowl or a kid.
“If it’s a stray, why give it a cat door? I mean, it lives outside.”
“If you haven’t noticed, it’s fucking freezing. I thought it might want to come in.”
I had no idea what had happened to my brother. Only a few months ago, he pretty much lived inside a hospital. No pets, no girlfriend, nothing but a surgical rotation and on-call status. Now he was worried about a stray cat staying warm.
“I’m all for saving a cat but give a guy some notice that a feral one may be my roommate. I almost burned my dick.”
“I don’t want to know what that means.” He hung up.
Flinging the dirty towel back onto the laundry room floor, I refilled my mug and carried it into the bathroom. Turned on the shower. I was on-site all day with Mav at the inn, working to resolve the issue of tying the reservation systems together on the back end with the main James Corp hotels. Mav was tackling the boutique inn silo he’d built, and I took care of every other silo of the company. If silos were like balls that I had to juggle, it was like I was in charge of a ball pit at a kid’s party center. With the possible purchase of the Hyport chain, my workload was crazier than usual. We were close to finishing the deal. I hoped only a few more weeks.
I sighed, stepping beneath the hot spray.
Theo was tucked into bed with Mal down the street. Mav with Bridget up in the foothills in that big monstrosity of a house. Dex and Lindy in his apartment in Denver. Me? I was in a different bed practically every day. My apartment in Denver, here in Hunter Valley, and hotels all over the world. This insanity, while self-induced, had to end soon. I was burnt out. I was lonely.
I envied how my brothers had all settled down. Mav had a dog. And Theo appeared to have a semi-feral cat. This deal had to go through. I had to redeem the James Hotel name with the Hyports after my father’s past fiascos with them.
It was my company now and I wanted everyone to know I wasn’t my father. The James Hotel was no longer under his control–since he was dead and buried–and I was taking the company in the right direction. Doubling the size was one way to do that.
But right now, I had too much work. Too much responsibility. Too much travel. A fling would be good. Or just a fuck. I gripped my dick and gave it a hard pull. My hand was definitelynota willing, wet woman, but it would take the edge off.
Tonight I was having dinner with Mav and Theo, kicking back with some good food and a few drinks before I flew eight time zones for more negotiations.
Again.
3
EVE
I sawthe name on my cell as it rang. Then again. “Hello, Father.”
At two-thirty, it was between busy times, so I answered instead of letting it go to voicemail. He’d call again, so it was better to get it over with. For a second I wondered if he chose this quiet time intentionally, but quickly remembered he didn’t do anything out of courtesy. It was just when he thought of me.
The Swing Band music I had playing wasn’t too loud to bother the call–or customers.
“How are things downtown?” he asked, his voice as stiff and proper as someone who had a stick up his ass could be.
Downtown. As if he wasn’t ten miles away up by the ski resort.
“Thingsare fine,” I replied.
While he was a local himself, born and bred, he didn’t do the quaint Main Street that made Hunter Valley unique.
