Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
George Lowery stood in the office at his Christmas tree farm, hands on his hips, staring up at the strangest Christmas tree topper he’d ever seen.
At the very top of the tree opposite the register, the one facing the window that overlooked the main parking lot of the farm, was a small tabby kitten perched precariously in the branches.
It blinked down at him with alarmed green eyes, clearly replaying all the life choices that had led it to this particular moment.
“How in the blazes did you get up there?” George ran a hand through his gray hair, shaking his head as he stared up at the small cat.
It was obviously the same rascally little kitten that had clawed the dickens out of him at Mabel’s toy shop, when he’d found her asleep. Now it stared down at him with those owlish eyes, letting out a small pitiful mraow as it did its best to hang on to the uppermost branch with its tiny paws.
The tree swayed slightly, sending a scatter of pine needles down to the floor, and the kitten yowled with alarm.
George sighed heavily, wondering how he was going to get the thing down without getting clawed again. He’d have to grab his work gloves, for sure.
This wasn’t how he’d planned to spend his Friday afternoon.
He’d had some help coming in for a little while, so he’d intended to get a couple hours work in on the gazebo before the evening tree pickups rolled around.
Now, instead, he was rolling over ideas in his head for how to fetch a kitten down from the tallest Christmas tree in his office.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” George asked, staring up at the kitten. “She sent you here to spy so she could get more ideas for her pranks.”
The kitten let out another plaintive meow, the top of the tree swaying as it scrambled to keep its grip on the branches. This time, the meow sounded just desperate enough to tug at George’s heartstrings.
“Alright, fine. Hold your horses—or your whiskers?” George chuckled, then immediately felt embarrassed for talking to a cat. “Just hang on there, you little rascal. We’ll get you down.”
The tree was nearly seven feet; the tallest one in the office and one of the tallest trees on his lot. The kitten was well beyond his reach even on his tiptoes, which meant he needed a stepladder at the very least to fetch it down. With another exasperated sigh, he pointed sternly at the kitten.
“Don’t you move. Stay right there, and I’ll be back.”
The kitten blinked owlishly again in response, and George gave it a narrow look before heading out of the office and to the adjoining shed to get a stepladder.
He flicked on the light, looking around.
The shed was packed full of tools, ladders of varying heights, netting for Christmas trees and twine to tie it up with, cords for tying them down to trucks, saws, and pretty much everything else that could be imagined, including three rolls of lights and some additional boxes of Christmas decorations that he hadn’t yet found a use for this year.
The stepladder was toward the back, leaning against the wall. George maneuvered around the boxes of Christmas decorations, only to knock over all three spools of light as his foot nearly caught on the last one.
He reached down to grab the lights, only to smack his head on the underside of the workbench along the shed wall.
“Son of a nutcracker!” He rubbed at the spot on his head, which he suspected might turn into quite the bump, and picked the lights up a second time to put them back where they’d been sitting.
Still rubbing at the newly sore spot on his head, he made his way to the back of the shed and fetched the ladder, hoisting it over one shoulder as he picked his way back toward the front door.
All that little cat’s fault, he thought, grumbling to himself.
“Mabel should have managed to keep the little stinker inside,” he mumbled, heading back toward the office.
She was probably frantic about it by now, he thought.
Honestly, he knew at least half the reason he was so concerned with getting the kitten down and safely back home was because it belonged to Mabel…
temporarily, at least. He had a soft spot for Mabel, and while he’d never denied that, the thought of her being frantic and upset over the kitten did something strange to his chest. He rubbed absently at it, feeling like there was a sore spot there too.
“Need some help there, George?”
He nearly jumped at the sound of the voice, turning to see Jackson trudging up the path toward the office. “Oh! Hey there, Jackson. Just fetching a ladder to get a kitten out of a tree.”
Jackson frowned. “A kitten out of a tree? What, you take up firefighting now?”
“Mabel found some scraggly little thing in her backyard,” George explained, pushing open the front door of the office cautiously, just in case the kitten had managed to get down on its own and was now loose in the office.
“Now it’s in my office tree, somehow. No idea how it got from her toy shop to here. ”
“The office Christmas tree?” Jackson chuckled, shaking his head. “Now this I’ve got to see.”
“I don’t need any help,” George grumbled, but he didn’t protest when Jackson followed him into the office. The kitten was still clinging to the very top of the Christmas tree for dear life, letting out intermittent, demanding yowls of protest as it hung on.
“It got itself up there, and now it has the gall to insist I get it down,” George muttered, setting up the stepladder. “Nothing but a bother,” he added, although the bite in his voice truthfully didn’t sound all that sincere.
Jackson leaned against the doorframe, watching amusedly as George finished positioning the stepladder.
“Well, well,” he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest and one foot over the other, tapping his boot idly against the floor.
“Look at you, helping Mabel out instead of pranking her. I can think of all kinds of mischief you could get up to with her kitten here. But instead you’re just being nice. The times, they are a changin’.”
George narrowed his eyes at Jackson, turning slightly to shoot him a glare.
“I’ve been plenty nice to her. Brought her casseroles when her wrist was all messed up, didn’t I?
Anyway, I’m not the one who loves playing pranks.
That’s all her. I just respond to what she puts out there, that’s all.
Not about to take it lying down. She’s always the one starting it though. ”
“Is she, now?” Jackson raised an eyebrow.
George ignored that, testing the ladder’s stability. “This doesn’t mean anything,” he grumbled, as he started to climb, tugging on his work gloves. “I just don’t want this scraggly little beast terrorizing my farm. Who knows what kind of nonsense it might get up to if I didn’t get it out of here?”
The kitten let out another yowl, as if in agreement, and the top of the tree swayed precariously, sending another shower of pine needles to the floor.
“Sure, George,” Jackson said bemusedly, still watching from his vantage point in the doorway. “Whatever you say.”
George ignored him, focusing instead on the task of getting the sharp-clawed little creature down without injury—to it or to him.
He climbed the stepladder all the way up carefully, until he was within reach of the trembling kitten.
It was looking at him with those same owlish green eyes, tiny claws digging into the branches.
“Come here, you little troublemaker,” George murmured, voice surprisingly gentle. It wouldn’t do any good to scare the little thing off before he managed to get it down, he told himself. He reached out slowly, trying not to scare it.
The kitten hissed, recoiling as far as it could in the thin branches.
“Careful not to startle it,” Jackson called from below, and George gritted his teeth.
“I got it. Quit backseat driving the kitten rescue,” he growled, reaching out once again, although if he were being entirely honest with himself, he didn’t really know what he was doing.
He wasn’t a cat person. There’d been a few outdoor cats on the tree farm over the years, mousers who kept rodents away from the office and outbuildings, but he’d never made pets out of any of them.
He preferred dogs, all things considered, although he hadn’t had a pet at all in years.
Dogs were straightforward and loyal, whereas cats were mischievous and unpredictable.
Kind of like Mabel, he thought, then quickly pushed the thought back to where it’d come from.
He extended a gloved hand. “Come on now,” he coaxed gently. “I’m trying to get you down. Make this easy on us both, why don’t you?”
The kitten regarded him suspiciously for a moment, then suddenly leapt—with surprising agility, even for a cat—not into George’s outstretched hands, but directly onto his shoulder.
George let out a yowl to match the kitten’s, as tiny claws dug through his shirt and into his skin. “Ouch!” he shouted, which only served to make the kitten’s claws dig in deeper.
The ladder rocked, and he nearly lost his balance.
He grabbed the kitten with one hand, yanking it free of its death grip on his shoulder as he clung to the ladder with the other.
The kitten squirmed, still meowing loudly and indignantly, as if George had been the one to turn the rescue haphazard instead of the kitten.
Jackson roared with laughter, startling the kitten again. If not for the work gloves, George would have ended up with claws buried in his hand. “Might want to put it back, George. Perfect Christmas tree topper, if I do say so myself.”
“Very funny,” George muttered, carefully making his way back down to solid ground with the wriggling creature clutched against his chest. Once he was no longer in danger of falling, he examined the tiny kitten, making sure it was alright.
He still had no idea how it had made it from Mabel’s toy shop all the way out to his farm.