Must Love Pets: A Romance Box Set Read online

  Jerry pointed his spoon at Joe. “You know who the cat lady sounds like?”

  “She’s not a cat lady.”

  “Pippi Longstocking.” At Joe’s blank look, he continued. “From the books. She’s this obnoxious brat who has no parents and does whatever she wants.”

  Max swiped at Joe with one paw, and Joe jumped back. “Guess he didn’t like my generic cat call,” Joe said.

  “Maybe you’re supposed to bow and say: ‘Dinner is served, your grace’.”

  “Did Pippi Longstocking have a cat?” Joe asked.

  “How the hell should I know? Wait. I think she did have a cat. No, a monkey. She had a monkey. And a horse.”

  * * *

  Melody answered the door to find the man from yesterday standing on her front step, Max in his arms. Relief washed over her, and she took the cat from him. “I just got home from work and found him gone again.”

  “You might want to check for an escape tunnel.”

  “Did you eat the cupcake?”

  “Er…”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Not that I didn’t want to.” He followed her inside. “It was just such a work of art that I hated to destroy it.”

  “I’ll bet you threw it away.”

  “It’s in a place of honor. Really.”

  “Where?”

  “The dashboard of my car, but soon, very soon, it will be in my house on a bookshelf.”

  “You do know it won’t keep.”

  “If the weather stays dry, maybe it’ll dehydrate and harden.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Where do you work?”

  “Library.”

  “They let you dress like that at a library?”

  Today she was wearing her Alice in Wonderland costume. “I’m a children’s librarian.”

  “Ah, okay. That makes sense. Kind of.”

  “It’s for story hour.”

  He looked relieved. “But all kidding aside, how is Max escaping?”

  “Tiny doggy door. I’m going to have to seal it. I hate to do that, because he loves his outside time.” It pained her to think of depriving him of such happiness, but it had to be done.

  Max jumped to the floor.

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  “Joe.”

  “I’m Melody.”

  He nodded as if to say the name suited her, while Max rubbed against Joe’s legs, purring madly. Did he miss male companionship?

  “Do you like football?” she asked.

  Joe looked up in surprise. “Yeah, you?”

  “No, but Max… Well, I think Max likes football. Do you drink beer?”

  “Not a lot. I mean, I’m not an alcoholic, if that’s what you’re asking.” He was eying her with perplexity now. A little afraid.

  “I think Max likes beer. Not drinking beer, but sitting on a person’s lap when he drinks beer.”

  “Okay.” More perplexity. “Do you have any beer?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll check.” She ran to the kitchen, dress and apron swirling. Yes, a couple of bottles in the back of the refrigerator. “It says I should have drunk these a year and a half ago!” she shouted, then turned to find the man right behind her.

  “Doesn’t really matter, since this is just a test.” He slipped the bottle from her grasp. She dug an opener shaped like a cat from the silverware drawer, and handed it to Joe. He popped the top and headed back to the living room, planting himself in the corner of the couch. He put his feet on the footstool and took a timid sip of the stale beer. Max silently jumped on his lap and curled up.

  Melody watched as Joe petted Max in a way Max didn’t like to be petted. But Max didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to like it. “Good grief. I don’t even know what to say. I really think Max is looking for male companionship.”

  “No males around here?”

  “Not for a while.”

  “I see,” he said in a way that meant he understood she was no longer in a relationship. She didn’t like to tell people about David, especially strangers. It always made it seem that she was looking for sympathy, or it caused a long, awkward silence, followed by escape. “My husband died.” She waited for the awkward stuff. “Max was actually his cat.”

  “I’m sorry.” Joe scratched Max behind the ear, and Max pushed into his hand and purred even louder. “I don’t know anything about cats, but he does seem to have formed an odd attachment to me.”

  That hurt.

  “But hey, I’ll bet it’s because I fed him chicken.”

  She liked the way Joe didn’t ignore her dark revelation but commented, sympathized, and moved on. “I didn’t even know he ate chicken.”

  Max didn’t even seem like her cat anymore. One minute he was peeing on a stranger’s clothes, the next he was snuggled up to somebody he’d never seen before yesterday. Did Max need a kitty shrink?

  Joe seemed to be mulling something over in his head. “You don’t know me, but I could drop by sometimes. After I get off work.”

  Melody remembered how she’d thought of him after he’d left. Even today at the library her brain had wandered back that direction.

  “To hang out with Max,” Joe said, making it clear it was all about the cat.

  “Kind of like a Big Brother?”

  “Exactly.” He gave Max a head massage and fluff. “How does that sound, buddy? You and me? Hanging out?”

  Max dove off the couch, slid under the red chair with the skirt, grabbed a catnip mouse, curled up with it in the center of the room, and clawed it madly with both back feet.

  Chapter 5

  Joe stopped by the next night. And the next.

  Very quickly the pretense of the visits being for Max was forgotten.

  Joe told Melody he worked at a shelter, and Melody had already confessed that she was a kids’ librarian. Neither flinched or recoiled. Max took this as a very good sign. So good, in fact, that he once again found himself racing through the house and sliding under the bed to come nose to nose with his favorite toy mouse. He nipped it gently on the head and trotted back to the living room with it dangling from his mouth.

  Melody laughed the way she always laughed when he appeared with the mouse. “I swear he thinks that thing’s alive.”

  Of course he didn’t, but it was the next best thing to a living mouse. Confession time. He actually liked it better than a real mouse. Once he’d seen a real mouse in the basement. It squeaked and jumped out from behind a broom. Max ran like hell, and for quite some time he avoided that area.

  Now, his legs weak with joy, he rolled in a strip of sunshine, the mouse between his front paws. He was that happy. The only thing that could have made his world better was if Melody hadn’t closed off the doggy door. But Max’s freedom was a small price to pay for his mistress’s happiness.

  * * *

  The relationship moved quickly.

  Too quickly.

  Max would have preferred they take it a little slower. Max was all about caution and patience. He could wait all day for a treat, and he could wait all day for Melody to come home. Life was all about waiting, but people were dangerously spontaneous, especially Melody. Humans tended to jump into things with no thought, when in truth the most pleasurable part of life came from the anticipation of catnip, not the crazy buzz.

  But he had to step back and give Melody her freedom, and giving her that freedom meant allowing her to make mistakes without his intervention. This was a different kind of love that didn’t come easily for Max. This kind of love took restraint. Sure, it would have been simple to pounce on her back when she was making dreamy eyes at Joe. Sure it would have been simple for Max to fake illness when she was preparing to go out with Joe for the third night in a row, but throwing herself too quickly into a relationship was who Melody was. It wasn’t Max’s role to try to make her more like him. That’s not what love was about.

  So, when Melody and Joe came into the house, laughing and hugging, Melody’s eyes bright and her
face flushed, Max tried not to worry. And he tried not to feel jealous. But he did try to make her feel guilty for forgetting to feed him any special treats. There was only so much a cat could take.

  “I think Max feels neglected,” Melody said.

  She and Joe were standing in the kitchen, both holding a glass of wine. Max was in the dining room watching them from a distance, wondering if Melody would think about giving him a treat from the green bag.

  “I have been away more than usual, and I think he’s also upset with me for sealing the doggy door.”

  Joe pulled the cork out of the wine bottle. “I have an idea.” He poured more wine into their glasses, then recorked the bottle and placed it on the counter. “Why not take him to some of your story hours? He could be kind of a mascot.”

  Melody stared at Max as if seeing him in a whole new light. “Wow, I don’t know. I’m not sure he’d like that.”

  “He’s pretty social. Think about how he came to the shelter two times. In fact, why not have a story hour at the shelter?”

  Max was pretty sure story hour involved kids. He’d been around kids a few times in his life, and it wasn’t something he wanted to repeat. He straightened from a sitting position and rubbed against Melody’s legs, meowing, hoping to distract her, hoping she’d forget Joe’s suggestion.

  Melody smiled. “I think he likes the idea!”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Melody and Joe laughed in shared camaraderie, as if the idea of a cat understanding the conversation was hilarious. Max hated Joe in that moment, and he wished he’d never brought him home to Melody.

  Be careful what you wish for. That’s what his sister used to tell him.

  It had been better when it was just the two of them—Max and Melody.

  Melody said something, and Max spun around to see her smiling at Joe. She’d used the voice. The voice that was for Max and only Max. Kind of soft and sweet.

  Max knew it was coming, but he’d hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. Joe and Melody disappeared into the bedroom. Max tried to follow, but the door closed in his face.

  Max stood on his hind legs to scratch and paw at the doorknob, trying to turn it. From inside, Melody laughed and told him to behave.

  Behave? This was his house. That was his bedroom.

  Max wished he could turn back the clock to the morning he decided to find Melody a mate. Oh, how foolish he’d been that day. How naïve. He’d thought they would be a family—the three of them, the way it had been when David was alive. This—being shut out of the bedroom—was unacceptable.

  Max wasn’t even sure where to sleep, because he always slept on the pillow next to Melody’s head. There he could keep an eye on her and feel her soft breath on his whiskers.

  He strode through the house several times. There was the cat bed he never used. He sniffed it with distain. On the couch was the blanket that plugged into the wall on cold winter nights. The weather was warm now, and the cord lay forgotten on the floor. The blanket didn’t interest him either. Instead, he sprawled on the floor not far from the bedroom door and waited. Maybe someone would come out soon and he could slip inside.

  But it wasn’t until morning that Melody shuffled out to the kitchen in her fuzzy pink slippers to get a drink of water. Max shot inside the room and hid in the closet until she went back to bed. That’s when Max began sniffing Joe’s clothes, then his backpack that had been left on the floor. The zipper was down, which made it easy for Max to dig around inside. His paw came into contact with something hard. He dug more, pulling a T-shirt out of the way. There, hidden deep in the backpack, was something Max had hoped to never see again.

  For a moment, Max was too scared to move. Too scared to think.

  The people in the bed were paying no attention to him. Maybe they were asleep, maybe they were cuddling. He didn’t even want to know. Max finally ran from the room, but once in the kitchen he couldn’t quit thinking about the backpack. He had to look in it again. Maybe he could scare the thing into leaving. Maybe he could pull it into the light where it might not look the same, where it might not look like what he thought it was.

  He returned to the bedroom, creeping silently. He sneaked up on the backpack. He gingerly placed a paw inside, pulled hard, and jumped. Carefully, he moved forward again. The light in the room was dim, but his eyes were good. He stepped close enough to make out something metal. Something shiny. A gun, sticking out of a leather holster. Just like the gun that had killed David.

  Chapter 6

  Just pretend they aren’t there.

  That’s what Max kept telling himself, but how did you ignore a massive litter of screaming brats?

  Today was something called Earth Day, and Melody was reading from a Dr. Seuss book at Joe’s shelter. Really, could these wild animals even grasp the odd world of some crazy old guy with a beard? Did they care about the message? Max doubted it. And quite honestly, he didn’t care either. Sure, he liked trees. He loved trees, but on his walk to the shelter he’d seen a lot of trees. And there was that big green space. A lot of trees there too. So what was the big deal?

  Of course he wouldn’t have been quite as grumpy if he hadn’t been wearing something Melody called a thneed. She’d been thrilled about it last night when she’d put in on him for a test drive. Made out of yarn, with dangly appendages. He’d liked that. Oh, had he ever, but she’d gotten cross when he began shredding the outfit.

  Now he was sitting on a low table, dressed in the lime-green thneed, waiting for story time to end.

  And it hadn’t even started.

  Joe was there. This had all been Joe’s idea. Joe, Joe, Joe. Everything was Joe now, and Max hadn’t yet figured out how to break them up, but by God he was working on it.

  He felt something on his head.

  He held his breath and didn’t move and didn’t blink.

  Ignore.

  “Hey, kitty.” A giant face appeared right in front of him, just inches away.

  “How are you, kitty?”

  He had to pull back slightly to get the face in focus. A kid. Of course. Wispy blond hair that looked like it had come from a milkweed. Rosy cheeks and lips. A sweet shyness in her eyes that took Max completely by surprise.

  She smiled. With her stubby little hand, she patted him on the head. Nothing that even came close to a real pet or stroke. Just this awkward pat that he hardly felt. Could anything be more innocent or charming?

  Deep inside, he felt a response he’d previously associated with Melody. A softening of his heart. And then it was gone, and he was once again wishing he were home, coming down from a catnip high while lying in a patch of sunshine.

  Melody placed a chair next to the table. “Everybody sit on the floor.”

  Max was surprised when the kids obeyed. They scrambled for the rug, sitting cross-legged, heads bent back, shifting and squirming the way kids do. The little girl with the milkweed hair gave him one final smile and swirled away. But she didn’t go far. She parked herself close to the table, within touching distance of Max.

  He wondered if Joe would give him chicken.

  Melody opened the book. It was a big book. She’d read the story to him last night for practice. A long story. Kids today didn’t have the patience to sit through a story that long. Especially a book story. No, they needed TV and games and visual sedation.

  Max was mistaken.

  They grew quiet and still. Melody didn’t even have to raise her voice. And what a voice she had. So soft and soothing, so compelling. Max himself was rapt, watching her face as she read, watching the soft curve of her shiny dark hair as it fell against her neck.

  He heard a footfall and looked up to see Joe reaching blindly for a chair, sitting down, his expression similar to that of the kids. Oh, man. The guy was in love, and who could blame him? What a shame, because Max was going to have to put a stop to this whole thing. He hadn’t quite figured out the when and how, but he’d brought them together. He could break them up.

  Even th
ough Max was on cat time, the reading seemed to move quickly. Before he knew it, Melody was shutting the book and picking up Max, pulling him onto her lap.

  “You were such a perfect gentleman,” she told him. She sounded so proud, and Max felt himself expanding a little, his head going a bit higher.

  “Does anybody want to pet him before we leave?”

  Good Lord. Not an open invitation.

  All of the kids—every last one of them—scrambled to their feet, and suddenly Max was being mobbed by sticky hands and jostling bodies. A Beatle in their heyday couldn’t have gotten more unwanted attention. Where were the bouncers? He needed bouncers!

  “Easy,” Melody said, pulling Max closer and shielding him with her arm.

  “You’re scaring him!” the girl with the milkweed hair told the mob.

  Melody stood with Max in her arms. Suddenly Joe was there, trying to control the out-of-control brats.

  Max hoped he’d whip out his gun and tell them to get back, but he didn’t. He just told them they were being too rough.

  The kids whimpered and calmed down. Some stalked away, and others stood waiting for instructions. Those with patience were allowed to pet Max. And then it was over. He would never have to endure such public humiliation again.

  Without touching him, the little milkweed girl looked into his eyes and said, “I hope you come back, Max.”

  Regarding him in a way that said she knew he understood every word she said. Somebody once told him that cats didn’t steal a baby’s breath. No, cats breathed souls into humans. Otherwise every kid on the planet would be a raging sociopath.

  The kids ran off to get ready for bed.

  “That went well,” Melody said.

  Max looked around for his carrier. There it was, under the table. He hated being put in it when the carrier was on his own turf, but right now he was dying to get inside. He couldn’t wait to get home and get out of his thneed.

  “What would you think about doing this once a week?” Joe asked.

  Max couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  Melody pulled the pink carrier out from under the table and put Max inside, zipping it closed. Max watched them both through the mesh. He wasn’t even interested in chicken anymore; he just wanted to go home.