Page 8 of Bear for the Holidays

“How dare we forget that we were put on this planet to serve. This might be a good time for you to rescue your underwear from her nest.”

As Nik removed his underwear to a safer location, Deanna realized it was Pearl’s day off and dialed her number. She paced in the living room as the phone rang, and when Pearl picked up, she sighed of relief.

“Oh thank God, you’re there.”

“Is everything okay?” Pearl asked, and Deanna smiled ruefully at the sudden alertness in her cousin’s voice. That was Pearl, ready to handle everything at a moment’s notice.

“Yes, yes, it is. No one’s dead, no one’s hurt, I haven’t gotten evicted, and I’m eating enough protein.”

“Well, that really does cover a lot of ground,” Pearl said with a laugh. “What’s up?”

Deanna was briefly distracted by Nik coming out to grab a pile of kitchen towels from under the sink. She peeked from the doorway to see him carefully lining the drawer while the cat made her displeasure with his changes obvious.

“Come on, do not tell me you picked up a taste for nice underwear in ten minutes,” she heard him grumble.

“Deanna?”

“I’m still here. But, long story short, I was heading up the mountain to deliver some stew to the Shevchenkos’ son, and I stopped for a little pregnant cat who’s currently camped out in said son’s underwear drawer. He’s replacing said underwear with kitchen towels, so we’re all good on the underwear front, and now we need to know what to do.”

“That snow’s coming down. Are you good to stay where you are until it’s safe to drive?”

“Yeah… Yeah.”

“Okay, we are circling back to the underwear in a minute, but your first job is to get a litter pan. Things will get messy without one.”

Nik was just emerging from the bedroom as Pearl said, it, and Deanna bopped him lightly on the arm.

“Litter pan,” she said, and he nodded, giving her a thumbs-up as he went by.

“Okay, Nik’s taking care of that. What else?”

“How pregnant does Mama Cat look?”

“Um, sort of like someone stuffed an orange into a sock?”

“Is she kind of crying a little and pacing in space?”

“Yeah.”

“Then she’s probably close. If–what was his name again?”

“Nik Shevchenko.”

“Okay, if Nik Shevchenko doesn’t mind–”

Pearl cut off for a moment, and Deanna waited impatiently for her cousin to come back on.

“Oh, hey, Cass knows him, and I think I do too. Met him at a Christmas party last year. He seemed nice. So, it’s his underwear you were talking about?”

They were perfectly innocent words, but Deanna narrowed her eyes at her cousin’s slightly sing-song, chipper tone.

“Pearl! I need help!”

“Right, right. Okay, at this point, as long as there’s no complications, Mama Cat is just going to do what it is mama cats do.”

A clatter of pans in the kitchen made Deanna look over to see Nik with a number of containers spread on the floor around him, looking over them with a frown. When he saw her looking, he held up a baking pan with an questioning expression and she shook her head emphatically.

“She doesn’t need any help from us?”

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