The cashmere bundle started to move, a surprisingly strong mewing sound emerging from it.
‘It’s a cat,’ Claire protested.
‘A kitten,’ Brad corrected her, opening the cashmere to reveal its occupant. ‘Not even six weeks old yet, I guess … Too young to survive on her own, anyway, that’s for sure …’
‘Her?’ Claire questioned.
‘Well, I don’t know for certain, but she’s so pretty I guess I thought she had to be female,’ Brad confessed, both his face and his voice softening as he gently extracted the kitten from his sweater and showed her to Claire.
Her first thought was that the animal was so small that she was almost afraid to touch her; her second was that, as Brad had said, she was extraordinarily pretty—a little fluffy tabby with white socks and huge, brave eyes.
‘John didn’t like animals,’ she heard herself saying uncertainly. ‘He would never allow them in the house … He thought—’
‘He thought.’ Brad stopped her. ‘But what do you think, Claire?’
Claire could see the anger in his eyes although she couldn’t understand the cause of it.
‘This was John’s home,’ she reminded him with quiet dignity, ‘and I—’
‘And you what? You were just a visitor here? But it’s your home now, isn’t it? Your home, but perhaps not, after all, a home—the home for this little one. What she needs isn’t just somewhere where she’s permitted as a visitor; what she needs is somewhere where she’s wanted and loved …’
For some reason his words hurt her, uncovering a wound that she had not even acknowledged was there before, Claire realised.
Without being aware of what she was doing she had stretched out her hands and taken the kitten from him. The creature felt as light as thistledown but surprisingly warm, and as Claire held her she suddenly heard the most extraordinary noise. It took her several seconds to realise what it was and when she did she exclaimed, enchanted, ‘She’s purring!’
‘She obviously likes you,’ Brad told her.
‘I’ll have to keep her out of the drawing room,’ Claire heard herself saying crooningly as she held the kitten protectively.
‘She probably can’t lap properly yet,’ Brad was warning her. ‘You’ll have to feed her with an eye-dropper for a while. Cat formula will be best … We reared three of them that way. The kids found them in an old barn. Skin and bone, they were. I never thought they’d live …’ He smiled reminiscently to himself, remembering his sister Mary-Beth’s determination to save them.
He had been terrified that they weren’t going to survive. It had been the first time since their parents’ death that she had taken an interest in anything.
Claire started to put the kitten down and immediately she wailed in protest.
As he saw the soft, loving look in Claire’s eyes Brad mentally marvelled at the ability of the young of any species to ensure their own survival.
‘I’ve never had a cat before,’ Claire told him uncertainly. ‘I’m not sure what—’
‘It’s simple,’ Brad told her. ‘She’ll need her own bed, some food, plenty of love—oh, and a soil tray, and you’ll have to have her checked over by a good vet. Didn’t you ever have any pets as a child?’ he questioned her curiously.
Claire shook her head.
‘No … I … I was brought up by my great-aunt. My … my parents were killed when I was very young …’ She saw his face and shook his head. ‘It’s all right … I can’t even remember them—at least, not clearly. Just …’ She hesitated, not wanting to remember how often as a child she had cried herself to sleep, clinging to the memory of her mother’s perfume, her father’s voice …
‘She … she didn’t approve of pets and then John …’
Brought up by a great-aunt; that explained the air of quiet attentiveness she had, that lack of modern restlessness that could be so wearying.
He wondered if she realised quite what an intriguing person she was, and then reminded himself grimly that the other man—whoever it was that she only had a part-share in—had no doubt already told her so.
Did her relationship with him predate her husband’s death? Somehow he doubted it. He could, however, well imagine her falling victim to someone in the aftermath of his death, needing someone to lean on and turn to … And who better, perhaps, than a man she already knew?
Surely she knew that it was a relationship that couldn’t go anywhere, that she was demeaning herself by accepting such a meagre offering—a plastic and unsatisfying imitation of what love, commitment … sex between a man and woman should really be about?
It angered him that she could have allowed herself to be dragged into such an unfulfilling relationship. Angered him and saddened him as well.
And as for the man involved, whoever he was—Tim or someone else—he wasn’t very much of a man, in Brad’s opinion, if he could take advantage of someone so obviously vulnerable. Irritably Brad caught himself up. Take advantage of her! She was an adult woman, for God’s sake, and just because she looked … and he felt …
She was still crooning softly to the cat and the thought crossed his mind that it was no wonder that her late husband had wanted her as a stepmother for his daughter. There was something about the soft, tender curve of her mouth as she held that impossibly small bundle of fluff and nothing that made his own guts ache and …
Hell, he didn’t have space in his life for something like this, for someone like her. He had plans … dreams … that boat to build and sail.
‘You’ll have to find a name for her,’ he told Claire gruffly. She flushed slightly as she acknowledged his comment. The kitten felt so soft and warm, its small body throbbing with purring pleasure as she held it.
‘What about dinner this evening?’ she remembered as Brad headed for the door. ‘Will you—?’
‘Yes, if that’s convenient,’ he confirmed.
He had a meeting with Tim at three and some paperwork to go through, but he guessed that he could do that later here, and he wanted to phone home, check that everything was OK, he admitted to himself. The fact that his siblings were all now adult didn’t do an awful lot to lessen his feelings of responsibility towards them.
He frowned as he looked down at the postcard again. Mary-Beth had been going through a bit of a difficult time with her marriage recently. She was inclined to be very hot-headed and impulsive, with very clear and uncompromising views, outwardly strong-willed but inwardly still vulnerable.
There was a girl at work who had been making a bit of a play for her husband, and although nothing had actually happened Brad knew that she felt hurt and angry at the fact that her husband had obviously been slightly flattered by the girl’s attention.
Brad could see both sides of the situation. His sister had been very wrapped up in the children recently, and her husband, Abe, whilst quite obviously loving her and their children, couldn’t understand what she was so angry about, especially when he had been the one to tell her about the girl’s interest in him.
Claire saw his frown deepen as he continued to stare down at the kitchen table and Sally’s postcard but the kitten had started to cry, distracting her.
‘Sounds like she’s hungry,’ Brad said. ‘You could try her with a few drops of milk from an eye-dropper if you’ve got one.
‘I’ll pick up some formula and the other stuff for you on my way back to the office if you like.’
Claire