Page 24 of The Love Shack

“I disagree. Your thief of a cat has been visiting me.”

Her brows lifted. “Oh?”

Right. Look at her playing innocent with her littleOh?like she didn’t know how sneaky that cat could be. “I’ve busted her twice trying to steal my things. When she’s not doing that, she has her butt in my face.”

Expression comical, Berkley said, “Should I ask?”

He gave her a mock frown. “I was squatted down, working on some plumbing, and somehow she got in the house. One minute I was under the kitchen sink facing a drainpipe, and then suddenly a cat tail swiped across my nose. It startled me so badly, I clunked my head on the cabinet and then fell on my ass.”

She fought a grin to say with a measure of seriousness, “But you didn’t land in the lake, so you can’t complain too much.”

“Good point.” Her skin was now dry, and her nose was turning pink from the sunshine. He liked seeing her like this. Friendlier. More open.

His food might all spoil before he got it home, but at the moment he didn’t really care. Helping Berkley lift some of her worries seemed like the most important thing he might do this week. “I looked around, but I couldn’t figure out how she got in.”

“I’m not surprised. I spent months trying to make her a house cat, just so she’d be protected from predators and accidents, and I worried that she’d leave or get lost.” Heaving a sigh, she said, “It was terrible. She screeched like I was mistreating her!”

He cracked a grin. “Poor Berkley. Trying to do the right thing but I guess the cat didn’t appreciate having her freedom curtailed?”

“She hated it, and it didn’t matter anyway. Cheese kept finding a way out.”

“And you worried every time?”

“At first, but then she always came back, so I stopped torturing us both and just let her do her thing while I watched to figure out her pattern. Only once or twice have I had to let her in, and that was in the winter. In the summer, if there’s a screen in a window, she’ll wiggle in around it somehow. If it’s a screen door, she’ll open it.”

“I have a sliding door, but the screen was closed when I checked.”

Berkley tilted toward him and confessed, “I’ve seen her openand closedoors that aren’t latched. Finding it closed only shows how polite she is.”

“No way,” he said, just to keep her talking. Every time he was around her, he saw a new facet of her. Antagonistic, vulnerable, proud, determined. And now teasing and happy—probably because pets were her favorite subject. It worked for him.

She put a hand on her heart as if swearing an oath.

All it did was draw his eyes to her chest, to plump breasts cupped in red material.

“One hundred percent true.”

Her words shot his gaze back to her face, to a smile that was pure sunshine, and he hadn’t known that he liked sunshine so much. He’d lived and labored in countries that were hotter than Hades, where the sun could roast you, especially while doing heavy construction. To him, a cloudy day meant cooler conditions to accomplish whatever he had on his agenda.

Here in Cemetery it was a little different. A pleasant day brought out the vacationers, which added to his print shop sales, but he was typically indoors until the early evening.

When he was working on his renovations after work, the lowering sun meant a respite from the blistering heat, mosquitoes galore and the extra humidity from the lake.

Sitting here with Berkley, the sun reflecting off the lake seemed nice. Peaceful.

Even the stench of the dead fish didn’t bother him.

Taking his silence for interest, she continued. “Totally shocked me the first time Cheese did it. She nudged the door open with one little paw, came in, then nudged at it until she got it closed again.”

“You realize how unbelievable that sounds, right?”

As if to convince him, she said, “One time I was soaking in the tub. I was at home alone—I mean, I’m always alone, you know?”

That was a double whammy right there. First putting that particular image in his head, and then squeezing his heart with the easy acceptance of her isolation. He nodded.

“When the bathroom door opened, I almost died of fright—until Cheese stepped in, casual as you please, and then closed the door again.”

Okay, yeah, so he was still back there with her soaking in the tub. The visual of that, complete with steam, played out in his mind. Didn’t take much imagination to remove the swimsuit from the picture of her now. He could see her with her pink-tipped hair pinned up, all the camouflage of her makeup removed.

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