Chapter 3
Chapter three
Thea
Thea looked at the new cat suspiciously.
He was not a familiar cat—not that she spent much time outside of the café. But she knew what a couple of the strays around town looked like, and none of them looked like this.
“He looks suspiciously well-fed,” she said to Guinevere. “He doesn’t look like most of the strays.”
“I agree,” said Guinevere. “There may be more to him than meets the eye.”
That was a cryptic response.
Thea shot Guinevere a glance, but her friend only shrugged. “I’m just as confused as you are, but since the odd man is no longer standing outside, I’m going to go home. I shall leave you with your new pet. Have fun.”
“I don’t want a new pet,” Thea called after her as Guinevere exited with a mischievous grin.
Why was she acting odd?
“I don’t want a new pet,” Thea told the new orange cat, who was looking up at her as if he knew exactly what she was saying.
“You’re not wanted here,” she informed him, “but I will offer you some food and a place to stay for a day or two until we see if someone is missing you, because you look far too well-fed to be a stray.”
He was a handsome cat, his fur a darker shade of orange than Ginger’s, and he had a confident air as he walked toward the fireplace like he owned the building.
He was a cocky little thing.
Thea rolled her eyes as she went back to the kitchen to get him some food, and when she returned, he seemed to be having quite the conversation with Ginger.
The two of them were meowing back and forth as if it were an actual conversation and not just two cats making noise.
Thea shook her head to herself as she put two food bowls down in front of the fireplace. Maybe giving them some food would make them stop. Then she hurried back to the kitchen to finish her preparations for the end of the day.
There was dough to be mixed and left to rise, and everything to wash up, and she did not have time to babysit a cat.
Ginger would be able to look after him just fine.
Thea’s thoughts strayed as she began to knead her dough.
Guinevere had been so insistent on teasing her about Nathaniel, and she’d been aware of how defensive she sounded when she told Guinevere that there was nothing there.
Because if she was being honest, it was a lie.
There was something between her and Nathaniel, even if it wasn’t something particularly recent or particularly strong at the moment.
She didn’t like feeling like she was lying to her friend—but at the same time, how could she admit anything when there was nothing there at the moment?
She and Nathaniel were like two ships in the night, passing by each other without any acknowledgment.
There was interest on his part, yes—but that was all they had, and that was not enough to form a relationship worth confessing to Guinevere.
If Beatrice were here, she knew she’d never hear the end of it. Beatrice would probably see them married within a week. There was nothing her friend loved more than a challenge—and even more than that, the opportunity to see two people fall in love.
But just because Beatrice had found her happy ending didn’t mean that she and Nathaniel were destined for the same thing.
The smell of cinnamon and ginger filled the room as she prepared a batch of gingersnaps for the next day and laid out what she would need to bake more blueberry muffins in the morning.
She was almost at the end of her evening routine, starting to wipe everything down, when she looked over and saw the two cats curled up by the fire next to each other.
Her eyes softened as she took in the picture they made.
They almost looked like a family.
Her eyes widened at the thought.
Would Ginger have kittens?
If she was left with this new cat, was Thea prepared to have kittens running around the café?
She would probably be able to find homes for them with her patrons…but still. The idea was oddly terrifying—
And somehow comforting at the same time.
But then her mind conjured up an image of a tiny, redheaded child holding a wee orange kitten, and her heart constricted.
If she and Nathaniel had a child, they would no doubt love cats, too.
She shook her head at herself as she fetched the broom. She didn’t need to be thinking this way. She had made it more than two years without entertaining thoughts of Nathaniel Alder.
She didn’t need to start now.
She finished and went upstairs to collect her current project. It was not lost on her that she spent her little free time knitting blankets for the orphans at the orphanage that Nathaniel had founded.