“Some genius trucked his favorite cow off to another farm while he was watching. They’d been together for years, and he didn’t appreciate them taking her away from him.”
Her perception of the animal’s emotions impressed him. Petite as she was, mothering a helpless kitten had seemed like a natural fit. It should have been a real stretch for him to picture her facing down a raging bull, but for some reason he had no trouble envisioning it. Maybe it was the spunky attitude she’d shown, or her no-nonsense approach to his injury.
Or maybe it was something else completely. Since he’d never met anyone like Heather, he had no frame of reference to enable him to make that kind of judgment. So he did what he usually did when he was perplexed by an unanswerable question. Put it out of his mind and moved on.
“How are the kittens doing?”
“The bigger ones seem comfortable enough, but the tiniest one worries me. She doesn’t seem to feel connected to them at all.”
“Maybe she’s not.” Heather gave him a quizzical look, and he explained. “This time of year, there’re lots of new kittens around, either in people’s outbuildings or the woods. The mothers instinctively move them from spot to spot, and it’s not uncommon for one of them to get hit. If the kittens are out in the open, someone will bring them in to the center like Sierra did today.”
“Do you have a lot of barn cats on the farm?”
“About a dozen, I’d guess. They’re great for rodent control, so we’re happy to have ’em.”
“Are they catchable?”
“I guess we could figure out a way to get ahold of them,” he replied. “Why?”
“If we neuter them and give them some basic vaccines, they won’t add to the feral population, and the ones you have won’t pass along any nasty diseases.”
“Huh. I never thought of that.”
“Most people don’t,” she commented sadly. “In rural towns like this, you don’t even notice wild cats because there are so many places for them to hide. But many of them are sick, and they keep adding to their numbers until the health of the entire population is compromised. You don’t hear anything about it until a rabid stray bites a person, and then it’s all over the news for a few days before some other story takes over.”
The bitterness in her tone got his attention more than the words. “It sounds like you’ve been up on this soapbox before.”
“For all the good it’s done,” she said bitterly. “The last clinic I worked at during my residency, they called me the ‘crazy cat lady,’ and not in a nice way.”
“Gave them a reason to ignore you.”
“Yes,” she acknowledged with a shocked expression. “How did you guess?”
“Happens all the time when someone has the nerve to buck the system. If folks can write a crusader off as nutty, they can ignore the problem. I just can’t imagine anyone doing it to someone as smart as you.”
Heather had given him plenty of looks in the short time they’d been acquainted with each other, but this was one he hadn’t seen yet. Shining in those incredible eyes was a combination of gratitude and astonishment. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but she’d finally quit glaring at him, so he figured that was a good sign.
“You think I’m smart?” When he nodded, she shook her head with a quick laugh. “Most guys can’t see past the blond hair and blue eyes. What makes you so different?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he was quick to correct her, “you’re cute as a button. But Erin threatened me with grave bodily harm if I even thought about making a play for you.”
“Really?” Now those eyes gleamed with something he’d seen plenty of in his lifetime: feminine interest. “And if she hadn’t?”
“We’d be having dinner tonight.”
For some reason, she laughed. “Oh, you’re a real piece of work, country boy. What makes you think I’d say yes even if you were allowed to ask me out?”
“I don’t know, darlin’,” he drawled with a lazy grin. “Past experience?”
“You realize that sounds arrogant, right?”
“Confident,” he corrected her smoothly as they arrived at the front porch of a light gray cottage with white shutters. “After all, I’m a Kinley boy.”
“Meaning?”
Grinning, he went up the steps and opened the screen door for her. “Ask around town. I’m sure you’ll find out all you wanna know.”
“Please,” she scoffed, rolling those gorgeous baby blues. “I’m too busy to waste my time with gossip. I’ll just figure it out on my own.”
“I take it that means you’re planning to stay in Oaks Crossing awhile.”
“It depends on how Bailey does here, so I’m still working on that one. I guess we’ll have to see.”
“I guess we will.”
His response got him another curious look, but she didn’t say anything more as she went through the screen door he opened for her. Following her inside, he had to admit that Heather Fitzgerald was the most intriguing woman he’d ever run across. Nothing like the sweet, uncomplicated girls he preferred, she had the kind of depth a laid-back guy like him was probably safer admiring from a respectable distance.
It was a good thing Erin had proclaimed her off-limits, he mused with a grin. Otherwise, he might have been tempted to bridge that gap and discover what it was about her that made him want to break the rules.
Heather went through Josh’s front door and into a living room that clearly announced the owner wasn’t around much. The couch and mismatched chairs looked old, the throw pillows were faded and the windows were unblocked by drapes. Through an open side door, she glimpsed a bedroom that looked as if it had recently been through a mini tornado.
In short, the single-story cottage was the very definition of a bachelor pad. Then she noticed the collection of framed pictures on the dusty mantel and walked over for a better look. The people in them bore an unmistakable resemblance to one another, and she smiled at the scenes of picnics and muddy backyard football games. In one, a much younger version of her new boss, Erin, was standing atop a pyramid, arms extended in triumph. Recognizing Josh on the bottom row, Heather asked, “How old were you in this one?”
“Oh, thirteen maybe. Those are my older brothers, Mike and Drew, on either side of me. Right after Mom got this shot, the foundation guys pulled out, and everyone but Erin landed in a pile on top of us. The princess ended up breaking her arm.”
“That wasn’t very nice of you.”
Unfazed by her scolding, he chuckled. “You should’ve heard what she was yelling at the time. That wasn’t very nice, either.”
Heather hadn’t met all the Kinleys yet, but from what she’d gathered, they were one of those big, raucous families that had a lot of fun together. She’d been so occupied by their move that getting acquainted with the rest of Erin’s family hadn’t been a priority for her before. But now Heather found herself looking forward to meeting the rest of the clan.
“All right,” she said briskly, heading for the kitchen. “Let’s get that hand cleaned up so you don’t scare the doctor half to death when you show up at his office.”
“I really can drive myself,” Josh argued while she rummaged through a small bank of cupboards for a clean towel and some peroxide. “You don’t have to babysit me like