Trouble In Tourmaline

He paused. “Why? She’s a cat.”

“She’s your cat. And a very pretty tortoiseshell. Your introduction will let her know I’m okay.”

He rolled his eyes but walked back and knelt down beside Amy, who was holding out her fingers for Hobo to sniff.

“Hobo,” he said, “meet Amy. She’s a friend.” He rose and bolted for the bedroom before Amy could come up with another wacky idea.

He was back in ten minutes, showered and wearing clean jeans and T-shirt.

Amy was sitting on the floor petting the cat. “Where’s her box?” she asked.

“Litter box?”

“No, I mean her birthing box. For her to have the kittens in.”

“Gert didn’t tell me she needed that.”

“Hobo has to get used to the box ahead of time so she won’t go off and have the kittens in the corner of a closet or a dresser drawer left open. Or even on your bed. I don’t think you’d care for that since birthing is rather messy. You need to be prepared.”

“I wasn’t planning on becoming the father of kittens, you know.”

“Obviously. Do you happen to have a fair-size cardboard box somewhere?”

He found one, as well as an old blanket for Amy to put in the bottom of the box and several old towels to cover it. She placed the box in an out-of-the-way corner of the living room. “Now, put Hobo in the box,” she said. “She’ll sniff all around in it and probably jump out, but she’ll know it’s there. You can keep putting her in it when you’re home so she gets the idea it’s hers.”

“See what I got myself into for taking you in,” he told the cat as he lifted her gently and set her down inside the box. “Special cat food bowls that won’t tip over, water bowls that fill when you need a drink, kitty litter for the sandbox and now this.”

“She doesn’t seem to have any fleas,” Amy said.

“Gert told me she wouldn’t. Fleas don’t like high desert—the elevation here is almost five thousand feet.”

Hobo leaped out of the box, pausing to smell the outside of the cardboard, then she brushed against David’s leg before going over to sniff at Amy’s shoe. Amy bent and stroked her behind the ears, murmuring, “I’ll be back to see you, pretty girl.”

Which meant she planned to return to his apartment in the near future. Before he started picturing her in his bed, he reminded himself the key word was friends, not lovers. If he kept his hands off her, and he definitely meant to, maybe the chemistry he could still feel between them would lose its potency.

As Amy straightened, Hobo let out what could only be described as a mournful yowl. He stared at the cat. Was something wrong with her?

“Uh-oh.” Amy plopped down beside Hobo again, this time gently feeling the cat’s stomach. “I think you got that box ready in the nick of time. She’s in labor. You’d better put her in it.”

“You mean now?” David said, his blue eyes widening.

“Yes, right now.”

He very gingerly lifted Hobo and carried her to the box. She sniffed it again and seemed to settle down to stay. He started to walk away, but the cat climbed out and followed him, yowling.

“She’s one of those,” Amy told him.

“Those what?”

“If you don’t sit by the box while she has at least the first kitten, she’ll keep following you and have the kittens wherever you are. Some cats are like that. Others demand total privacy.”

“You mean I have to play vet midwife? I studied law, not medicine.”

“She’ll do all the work, but she’s bonded with you and she needs the security of you being nearby.”

David sighed, put Hobo back in the box and eased down on the floor next to it. “You’re the cat expert,” he told Amy. “How about joining me here?”

He knew Amy had chosen the corner so the cat could feel partly hidden, not for space, and this made for a very cozy situation when Amy sat next to him—she was practically in his lap. Such near intimacy made it difficult for him to keep the word friend in mind. She smelled faintly of some light floral scent he couldn’t identify despite his recent acquaintance with nursery plants. Whatever it was, he liked it.

Keep your mind on the cat, Amy warned herself as her knee brushed against David’s thigh. This chemistry thing is merely a matter of endorphins, nothing you can’t ignore. But ignoring the feeling was darn hard when she was crowded against him.

Hobo began to growl, focusing her attention. The cat’s ears went back as she crouched in the box, and suddenly a kitten’s head pushed its way free of her. The rest of the kitten followed quickly and Hobo turned to the tiny thing and began licking it clean.

“Looks like a drowned mouse,” David commented.

The next kitten was tinier than the first and Hobo nudged it away from her without trying to clean it, returning her attention to the firstborn.

“You need to put that reject under her nose so she’ll have to take care of it,” Amy said.

“I need to?”

“She trusts you. I’m still a stranger.”

By the time David cautiously moved the rejected kitten closer, a third one was being born. Again Hobo pushed the second born aside to tend to the new one.

“Why won’t she take care of it?” he asked.

“The poor little thing is the runt of the litter. Cats seem to sense that the smallest one has the least chance of survival, so they tend to the others first. The trouble is, the runt can die during this time.”

“You mean the kitten may be defective?”

“It’s a possibility.”

David’s expression changed from puzzled to determined as, muttering about handicaps, he persisted in setting the tiniest kitten in front of Hobo until she finally gave up and started washing the runt. By the time the fourth and last was born, the runt had revived enough to crawl to a nipple and join the other two.

“No matter if she is a runt,” David said. “She deserves a chance.”

Because he’d identified the kitten as female without any evidence, Amy decided his words might well pertain to more than the kitten, but she hesitated to pry. To help David, as she intended to do, she needed to gain his confidence before asking any personal questions.

“You gave her one,” she told him.

“And she ran with it. A fighter. She’ll do okay.”

They both started to get up at the same time and collided in the narrow space. She grabbed him for balance and his arms went around her. Amy could feel the sizzle of heat as he held her close for a longer moment than either needed to regain their balance. As he released her, she gazed into his eyes and noticed how dilated his pupils were—a sure sign that touching her affected him. Hers probably were, too, since she could hardly deny she didn’t want him to let her go.

“Uh,” she said, backing away, “now you need to ease those messy towels out from under her and let her lie with the kittens on the clean blanket underneath. If you don’t, she may try to move the kittens to another spot. It’s an instinct to get rid of the birth odors so the kittens will be safe from predators.”

He grunted but did as she said. Once he’d disposed of the towels and washed his hands, he said, “Care to celebrate the birth of Hobo’s four kittens by having dinner with me?”