Page 82 of The Auction
“Fine. Creed O’Mara, will you please do me the honor of going on a date with me to Pete’s where we can have a couple of brewskis and you can flirt with me?”
He glared down at me. “Don’t say brewskis. And I don’t flirt.”
“I. Don’t. Flirt,” I repeated like a caveman. “So how did you charm Angie into coming home with you?”
(Note to self: I will forever and always hate the name Angie, despite knowing none of what happened that night had been her fault.)
“My extreme good looks,” he said, with total sincerity.
I bent over laughing.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Many, many women find me incredibly good looking.”
I reached out and slapped his arm. “Stop. My stomach hurts.”
“Why couldn’t I have landed in some other town with some other chick being auctioned off?” he muttered to himself.
“Wait? Was that an auction joke?”
“Toosoon?”
“Nah.” My head turned toward the barn when I heard a noise.
I knew that sound and I knew better than to be lulled into its clutches. That weak little mew was the sound of sirens leading people for centuries to their inevitable doom.
“What’s that sound?” Creed asked me, following my stare into the depths of the barn.
“Ignore it,” I told him.
“What is it?”
“Probably a kitten that got separated from its mother,” I told him, shaking my head.
He started toward the barn but I stopped him with a hand to his stomach. “Don’t do it. You’ll find it, bottle feed it, love it, snuggle it in blankets thinking you can save it, only for it to die in the end. Cat moms know what they’re doing when they leave the weak behind.”
“Seems heartless,” he said.
“You want to feel absolutely useless to the world? Try to save an abandoned kitten at three weeks.”
“Why do I feel like this isn’t your first rodeo?”
“Let’s go,” I said, pulling on his wrist. “I can’t listen to it.”
“You can go. I’ve got one more piece I want to dig out so I can see how much wood I’m going to need to fill the gap.”
Instantly, I started walking away from the barn. I thought about the shoe box in my closet upstairs. Last time I’d used it was years ago. Herb hadn’t let the kitten in the house, so I’d slept in the barn for three days, trying to keep it warm and fed. On the third day I’d been freezing because of a cold snap in early fall.
Poor thing had had no chance.
I ended up getting a cold and Herb had railed on me formy foolishness. Nature only selected the strong. It was all part of the cycle of life. Blah, blah, blah.
So I’d stopped trying.
An hour later, Creed walked into the kitchen through the back door, something cradled in his arm where his elbow met his bicep.
“We don’t leave our wounded behind,” he said, simply.
“Yeah, big guy. I figured,” I said. I’d already gotten the shoe box down from my closet. “Okay, this is the drill. You can’t just give it milk.”
