CHAPTER SEVEN
Amelia
“I can’t just go out to a bar and hook up with some random guy,” I say. “It’s not who I am, Ellery.”
My best friend smiles at me over the coffee I brought her. We’re on a fifteen-minute break from our respective jobs and sitting on a concrete bench outside the library. I brought her coffee in exchange for her advice.
I groan. “I can’t. He’s perfect right now.
He listens and compliments me and gives me useful advice when I ask for it.
There’s no way the reality will live up to my idea of him.
His message this morning, telling me to smile when I want to scowl and to compliment someone when I want to snark at them, actually worked.
I’ve been smiling just thinking about him all day. ”
“Your ex isn’t every guy, Melly.”
I give her the side-eye as I sip my coffee. “I didn’t say anything about Bryson.”
She bumps my shoulder with her own. “He’s the one who made you think love and romance can’t last.”
“It’s not just him,” I say. “I mean, sure he’s an asshole, but all relationships end up the same.
In the beginning, you love everything about the guy, and he finds everything you do cute.
There are sparkles and a heart that pounds hard every time he smiles.
Over time, it always changes. The flame burns out, and then you’re just arguing about groceries and the phone bill. ”
She shakes her head. “Now you’re talking about your parents. Pretty sure they still adore each other, even if they do drag you into their arguments about bills they can’t pay.”
I slump. “They do adore each other, but I don’t want their future. I want to be independent and make my own decisions. It’s hard enough knowing Harper’s depending on me every day. She’s all I can handle.”
“Believe me,” Ellery says. “I understand not wanting a relationship, but what’s the big deal of having some fun with HandsyGuy37? He wasn’t in your life before and, even if you never meet him face-to-face, the conversation will still get stale at some point, right?”
My stomach drops at the thought. I hadn’t realized until this moment just how big a deal it would be to lose my conversations with HandsyGuy37.
For all I know, he could be a serial killer, and yet he’s become a huge part of my day in just over a week.
I look forward to talking to him, to getting his take on things.
I look over at Ellery, the realization that I really like a guy I’ve never met fully sinking in. Her crooked smile says she noticed how caught up in this guy I’ve gotten long before I did. That smile says she poked me about meeting him to get exactly this reaction.
I narrow my eyes. “I hate you.”
She nods, accepting it. “But you want to go out with me Saturday night, don’t you?”
I grit my teeth. “I really do.” Because I need to be with a human man to remind myself HandsyGuy37 is just words on a screen, and I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.
“Yay!” She does a little dance in her seat, then hops up. “I’ve got to get back to work. How’s being charming going?”
I roll my eyes. “I feel like such a fraud.”
“That’s customer service, baby. You want to be in the limelight, you have to play the game.”
I snort at her ridiculousness. “Limelight. It doesn’t feel like that when I’m chasing a stray dog through mud.”
“You’re a superhero, even in mud.” She lifts her coffee cup in thanks and heads inside.
I finish my coffee, throw the cup in the trashcan next to the bench and head back to my truck. I’ve got a call on the other side of the county for a small black cat that’s trapped in a crawlspace.
Seems to me like the cat could figure out how to get out of a crawlspace if it were so inclined, but the homeowner isn’t the cat owner and she wants the cat gone.
I already feel a deep foreboding about confronting a second crawlspace this week. I mean, it’s hardly unusual to find animals in crawl spaces, but it’s never fun or easy.
I play music on the thirty-minute drive and recite HandsyGuy37’s advice. I will be charming and kind and pleasant. And I’m going to win the scholarship.
“I’m going to win that scholarship,” I say. It feels good to say it aloud. After days of discussing it with my parents and my brother and my sister-in-law and Ellery, to the point I’m sure everyone is sick to death of hearing about it, I’ve decided to go for it.
I’m going to go for my dream, and my family and friends have promised to help.
It’ll be really hard, but I can’t miss out on this opportunity. I may never get another one.
And Harper will be fine. I’ll be ridiculously busy for most of her childhood, but she’ll understand. I hope.
Something to worry about if I even get the scholarship.
“I’m going to get the scholarship.”
I pull down a long dirt drive that hasn’t been graded in way too long. I bounce and swerve to avoid the worst potholes for about half a mile before I come upon a small house in the middle of vast fields of farmland.
This has to be a barn cat.
Probably a waste of my time. I force a smile onto my face. It’s not a waste of time, it’s my job, and I will be charming.
No matter what. I will be charming.
A woman emerges from the front door of the house as soon as I jump out of my truck, dust puffing up around my feet.
She looks about my mother’s age, though she moves with an energy and vitality my mother hasn’t had for years. Her dark hair drapes over one shoulder in a long braid. “Are you here about the cat?”
I smile. She seems nice enough. This shouldn’t be too hard. I stick out my hand. “I’m Amelia Burns with animal control.”
She scowls. “You’re late. I called over an hour ago.”
I swallow. Hard. “I was on the other side of the county, Mrs. Hughes. I apolo—”
“Only takes half an hour to get from one end of the county to the other. You’re lucky the cat is still there.”
“I thought you said the cat was stuck.”
Her scowl deepens. Damn it. I’m already screwing up.
“This is a lovely property you have here.”
She doesn’t get less scowlier. “The property’s my son’s. His wife stuck me out here in the middle of nowhere because I tell her the truth and she don’t want to hear it.” She turns on her heel and starts toward the house. “Come on. I’ll show you where the cat is.”
I follow her around to the back of the house, and she points at the entrance to the crawl space. The opening is low to the ground and barely big enough for a human to get through.
That sense of foreboding I had all the way here turns to dread. I am not going to crawl in there. I’ll just insist on leaving a trap.
But I remember the kitten I saved two days ago. If I’d followed procedure and left a trap for him, he’d have died. And I hate to have any animal die on my watch. I literally lose sleep over it.
“Is there another way to access the crawl space?” I ask.
“This ain’t the crawl space. This is just a teeny tiny space under the house. I’ve been telling my son for months he needs to come over here and close it up, but his wife doesn’t like him spending time over here.”
I need to get on this woman’s good side. “Maybe that’s for the best,” I say. “It doesn’t sound like you’d want her showing up with him whenever she felt like it.”
The woman glares at me as if I’ve insulted her. “I would never be disappointed by a visit from any of my family. Even her. But nobody ever wants to come out here and see me.”
I’ve said the wrong thing, but I’m beginning to get a feel for this woman. She’s lonely, maybe even scared out here alone. “That’s a shame,” I say. “You keep your home up beautifully. It seems very welcoming to visitors.”
Finally, she looks at me with something approaching a smile. “I work hard on the flower beds. I’m out here weeding every day.”
“It shows. You said the cat is stuck in there?” I do not ask how a cat could be stuck when there’s an exit fully big enough for it to walk out whenever it pleases. I feel like I just won a gold medal in the charm Olympics.
"I can leave a live trap here and come back tomorrow to pick up the cat,” I say. “It shouldn’t be a—”
“No,” she practically screams. “He’s trapped. I can hear him scratching down there, and I’ve tried luring him out with food. Nothing works. If he could get out, he’d already be out. You have to help him.”
Her eyes are genuinely glassy with tears. The tough woman clearly has a soft spot for animals, and I can certainly relate to that. “Is there another cat or dog on the property that might be scaring the cat enough for it to feel it’s not safe to come out?”
“I don’t have any pets,” she says. “I work long hours, and it wouldn’t be fair to an animal for me to keep him.”
“Cats actually can do really well at home alone for long hours, especially if you have more than one.”
Her eyes light and her lips finally tip up just the tiniest bit. “You really think so?”
“I work long hours myself and just got a cat. I really think so.” I don’t tell her that my cat is going so stir-crazy being stuck inside that he’s been tearing up the house while I’m gone. I hate to even think it, but we might not be able to keep Marmalade.
“Oh, that would be wonderful.” She clasps her hands together and smiles for real.
“Let me just grab a few things, and I’ll see if I can get in that hole and rescue your cat.” I can already hear Shaleigh yelling at me for not following procedure.
I’m not taking a chance with another animal if it really is stuck.
And I’ll be careful. I’m always careful.
“My cat,” she says. “I do like the sound of that.”
It seems highly unlikely this cat has an owner who cares about it, since the nearest house appears to be over two miles away.
I’ll still check once I get it out, but we can worry about that after I rescue the cat.
If he does belong to someone, I’ll send Mrs. Hughes over to the Weston farm for that kitten I rescued last week.
For the second time in less than a week, I find myself crawling under a house, this time, though, it’s into complete darkness.