Reckless Harmony (Harmony Falls #2)
Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
I f Rayna had known her Friday night would end with her sworn enemy’s face planted firmly between her tits, she would have worn a bra.
It had started normally enough. She’d worked later than usual unclogging a toilet because of a hysterical client and a boss who couldn’t say no, then spent nearly two hours coaxing a stray dog out from under a parked car in the Walmart parking lot with chicken nuggets and a prayer. Once the dog had been assessed and safely dropped off at a foster home, she’d delivered food and supplies to three other fosters before finally parking in her driveway.
By that time, it was almost nine, and despite her growling stomach, she didn’t have the energy to cook anything. She’d stripped off her work clothes, had a hot shower, pulled on a pair of yoga pants and her rattiest, most comfortable sweatshirt and grabbed the box of Cheerios. She’d stuffed a few handfuls of cereal into her mouth while checking the Little Whiskers Rescue emails. There’d been the usual number of emails asking for help with animals that she had neither the resources nor the budget to help. There were also emails from both the cat and dog team foster coordinators, as well as one from Zuri, her events coordinator volunteer, about the upcoming bachelor/bachelorette auction fundraiser.
Rayna heavily regretted agreeing to the fundraiser, especially now that the date was getting closer and they were still looking for an MC and at least five more bachelorettes, but it was too late to back out now.
She hesitated before closing the email, shoving a final handful of Cheerios into her mouth, and closing the lid of her ancient laptop. It made a decidedly disturbing whirring noise that grew louder and louder, and she crunched down the cereal, waiting for the laptop to decide if it would continue gasping for existence or blow up and kill them all.
The whirring stopped, and she gave the laptop a thumbs up. “Decided to fight another day, huh?”
She stood with a soft grunt and muttered a curse when she nearly tripped over her ancient beagle, Bea, who was sound asleep on the floor beside her feet. There was no point in scolding the dog. Bea was mostly blind and nearly completely deaf, and she was living out her golden years in a state of permanent bliss, not affected in the least by the many foster cats and dogs that came in and out of her life like a revolving door.
Rayna reached down and patted Bea’s side. The dog’s tail thumped happily on the floor before she lifted it, and a long, low, braaaap filled the air. It was followed immediately by a smell that Rayna’s bestie Emma referred to as Bea’s death smell.
As Rayna escaped the kitchen, waving her hand in front of her face in a vain attempt to dispel the noxious fumes, she had to admit that Emma wasn’t exaggerating. Bea’s farts did usually smell like she was dying.
Happily, despite the blindness, deafness, and her advanced age, Bea was surprisingly healthy. At this point, if Rayna didn’t do something about her stress level, the beagle would probably outlive her.
Shrill barking erupted from the living room, and she sighed, veered away from the stairs, and headed toward the living room. She clapped her hands sharply as she entered. “Ladies, what is the issue in here?”
The two tiny black chihuahuas, completely identical and impossible to tell apart unless you lifted one and checked for the white blotch on her belly, ignored her as they continued to bark at the bookshelf in the corner of the room.
“Ghosts?” she said as she joined them.
Their tiny bodies quivering and their oversized ears on high alert, they let out another volley of high-pitched barks that made Rayna’s fillings vibrate.
“Coco! Lola! Enough, please!”
She scooped up a dog in each hand. At three pounds each, they weren’t even as heavy as the hand weights Rayna had in her home gym. Still, she hadn’t done a workout Wednesday or Thursday night, and it wouldn’t hurt to get some exercise in. Holding the dogs securely, she did a few bicep curls as she examined the bookshelf.
“Freddie, get out of there, buddy,” she said when she caught a glimpse of black and white fur.
Still pumping the chihuahuas like they were dumbbells, she made a psp, psp, psp sound. There was an answering hiss from the bookcase before the long-haired tuxedo cat emerged from behind a battered copy of The Call of the Wild and a dust-covered vase with equally dusty fake flowers in it.
She sighed and made a mental note to dust tomorrow as the cat jumped gracefully to the ground and strutted toward her. The chihuahuas growled in unison and she shushed them as she lifted them up and down toward her shoulders.
“Freddie’s been here a lot longer than you have, and he’s been known to cut a bitch,” she told the dogs as Freddie sniffed at her yoga pants before, tail up and flicking back and forth delicately, he left the living room.
“I told you when you arrived last week to steer clear of him, and I meant it,” she said as she carried them upstairs, still lifting them rhythmically. “He’s lived a hard life and will mess you up if you give him attitude.”
She set the dogs down in the hallway, smiling a little when, their tails wagging eagerly, they followed her into her bedroom and then into the attached bathroom.
“He doesn’t want to be a jerk,” she said as, her stomach still growling, she reached for her toothbrush, “but he also likes his personal space. If you want to make a new friend, stick with Bea or even Molly. She’s desperate for some attention. I don’t know if it’s pregnancy hormones or what, but that cat is…”
She trailed off, staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. She hadn’t seen Molly once since she’d gotten home forty minutes ago, and that was weird. Really weird. Usually, she couldn’t keep the friendly calico cat from climbing in her lap or twining around her legs the minute she walked through the door.
She stared at the two chihuahuas, who stared back. “Where’s Molly?”
Their tails wagged, and Lola, or maybe it was Coco, sat down and gave her a hopeful look.
“I don’t have a c-o-o-k-i-e for you,” she said. “I need to find Molly.”
She left the bathroom and called for the cat, making every cat enticing sound in her arsenal as she walked the upstairs hallway and checked every room before going downstairs. Coco and Lola followed her dutifully, more out of the hope they’d get a cookie than any sense of loyalty, as she checked each room on the main floor.
Her stomach starting to churn, she rechecked the laundry room, a favourite place for both Molly and Freddie. Freddie was in there, scratching around in the litter box, and he stopped what he was doing to give her a haughty glare.
“Freddie, baby, where’s Molly?” she asked. “Where is she?”
Freddie jumped out of the litter box and leaped onto the washing machine before taking another leap onto the wall shelf that held the laundry supplies. He curled up between the soap and the basket of odd socks before cocking one leg and licking his butt hole.
“Shit,” she said as she left the laundry room and headed back into the kitchen. She studied the room as Coco and Lola joined Bea, who had moved to a dog bed in the corner of the room. They climbed in beside her, curling up between her front legs as she snored loudly.
Her heart thumping, she walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway. “What the hell?” she said as she stared at the basement door. She always kept the basement door closed but it was currently open. Just a bit, but big enough for even a very pregnant cat to get through.
She ran to the door and flicked the light switch. She walked down the wooden steps, squinting in the dim light from the bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The basement was unfinished, and while she had plans to finish it someday, those plans hinged on both money and time - neither of which she currently had very much of.
“Molly, here, kitty, kitty,” she said. The basement was even colder than usual, and her heart clanked to a stop when she heard the tell-tale whistle of wind.
“No, no, no,” she repeated as she jogged across the basement in the direction of the whistling. The basement had three small windows, none big enough to egress. She stared in mute horror at the middle one and the broken glass that littered the floor below it. A large rock sat among the shattered glass, and she muttered a curse. Who the hell would try to break in through the basement window? And why? It’s not like she had anything of value in the place.
She froze as she stared at the hole in the glass. The window might have been too small for a human to crawl through, but it was more than big enough for a cat determined to get outside. And Molly was forever making a break for the outdoors. She’d spent at least a year outside before being taken in by the rescue, and despite being heavily pregnant and the cold weather, she was convinced her destiny waited for her beyond the house.
Using her phone’s flashlight, Rayna studied the glass, whispering, “Oh shit” under her breath when she saw the bit of orange fur clinging to the broken glass. Molly had escaped.