Love's Nine Lives. Cara/Cassidy Colter/Caron

she reminded herself.

      Exactly, Conan thought, and a better decision you have never made.

      “He is the last man on earth,” she wailed, unfolding her list of contractors and studying the crossed-out names bleakly. She picked up the phone.

      Drastic measures were called for! Conan leaped on the counter and buried his face in the butter.

      “Conaann!”

      He hadn’t heard such genuine distress since he had launched himself at the window. His face covered in butter, he leaped from the counter and raced down the hall.

      After a full second he realized she was not following. He crept back down to the kitchen and peered around the corner at her.

      The butter would be stored now, under lock and key, just like everything else. He had gambled with his last card in hopes of distracting her and he had failed utterly. Because she had the phone in her hand and a look of fierce determination on her face.

      “My cat is acting bizarre,” she muttered, obviously working up her courage and her conviction.

      Bizarre? Excuse me? Who was forgetting to fill the food dishes?

      “Conan needs a cat door.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop, unaware that Conan had crept back and was watching her.

      “Mr. West?” she said. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you? It’s Bridget Daisy here.” She tucked the phone under her ear and scraped the butter into the garbage. She closed the lid with a snap. “We need to talk about the cat door.”

      But Conan was sadly aware that whatever transpired between Bridget and Justin Pest next, the cat door was only an excuse.

      Still, he had lost the battle—and the butter—but not the war. Surely he was a crafty enough cat that he could get rid of this new threat to his and Miss Daisy’s world? That world was topsy-turvy enough with the whole diet thing, never mind adding the complication of a barbarian.

      If he played his cards right, Conan thought there was a possibility he might get his cat door first before dispatching the barbarian.

      Who needed butter when the world was full of purple finches?

      It had been a bad week. Conan had been starved, he was bald and now he had been unfairly labeled bizarre. Still, all cats had been blessed with a gift that the great philosophers and spiritual leaders of the ages tried, largely unsuccessfully, to emulate.

      No one could detach from their difficulties and immerse themselves in the pure joy of the moment quite like a cat. Conan lifted his paw to his face and removed some of the lovely pale yellow substance that clung there. He licked it delicately and sighed with bliss.

      Ah, Foothills. His favorite creamery.