Page 57 of Wife Number One

I didn’t need this. Not today. What I needed was a job, so I was never tempted to come back to this shithole again.

But I had Kara’s sweet face stuck in the back of my mind. Her holding a tiny newborn, wrapped in whatever cloth we’d been able to scrounge up. I remembered the feeling I’d had, watching the two of them curled up on a dirty mattress in the middle of Hell.

It was the feeling that had made me turn over a new leaf. It was a high I’d been chasing for years. It reminded me of the man I wanted to be. The one I was still trying to become every day.

I wasn’t the sort of man who left the defenseless behind.

So I picked up the three squirming kittens, let their fleas crawl all over my hands, and protected them in the same way I’d so desperately wanted to protect Kara and Hayley Jade five years earlier.

The vet in Saint View rejected me away in under two minutes. They already had two litters of kittens they’d rescued and had no room for more. So I drove the sleeping fluff balls, content now that I’d stopped at the supermarket and bought them some food, into Providence, hoping the vet there might be more willing to help.

As soon as I stepped foot in the door though, I already knew what the answer was going to be. The receptionist shrugged and parroted much the same thing the first vet had told me. There were too many strays, and they couldn’t continue to take them in when people willing to adopt them were few and far between.

“Should I try the vet in the city?” I asked her, staring down at the three little bodies all entwined with each other in a food coma tangle. “The other vet said I’d just have to take them to the pound.”

The receptionist gave a sad smile. “There’s no point trying the vet in the city. They’re even worse off than we are and overrun by strays.” She reached into the box and stroked a fuzzy kitten head. “Could you keep them?”

“I’m allergic.”

She squinted at me. “Actually allergic, or ‘you just don’t like cats’ allergic? You haven’t sneezed once since you’ve been here.”

Dammit. She had a point.

I sighed and held the kittens out to her. “How much is this going to cost me?”

She winced. “To get that eye cleared up, give them all shots, deflea them, run a few medical tests to check for other diseases they might have picked up… Probably about a thousand dollars.”

I widened my eyes. “Are you for real?”

She shrugged. “It’s that or the pound.”

I really didn’t want to spend a thousand dollars of my savings. It had taken such a long time to build that up. I couldn’t get a job anywhere, so I was going to be going through my savings pretty quickly with no income coming in.

But something deep inside me knew I couldn’t leave the kittens for dead either.

The receptionist smiled at me as she took the box, clearly realizing I was going to agree. “You’re a good cat dad. Your wife is going to love the new additions to your family.”

“No wife,” I clarified. “Just me and an empty apartment.”

She paused. “Oh? Maybe I could come over and help you get the kittens settled in.”

I suddenly felt like an idiot for not recognizing that she’d been fishing to see if I was single. When had I gotten so out of practice?

Probably in the five years since I’d last gone on a date, I realized with a jolt.

The woman was pretty. Probably more than pretty, really. Most guys would take a glimpse of her blond hair and big blue eyes and get hard over her All-American, girl-next-door, cheerleader vibe.

But it did nothing for me.

It only made me think about how Kara’s hair had been the opposite, long and dark. How her eyes had looked black in some lights, and warm honey brown in others. How her body had been all curves and softness, while providing a home for her baby.

Like I did every time a woman asked me out, I shook my head and turned the receptionist down.

Because she wasn’t the one woman I couldn’t get out of my head.

The receptionist blushed pink when I explained I’d be fine alone but told me to come back in an hour after the vet had checked out my animals.

Apparently, I owned three fucking cats now.

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