Chapter 15
The next day at work Felicity threw herself into cat cuddles and taking the dogs for walks and tried not to think about the proposal that wasn’t a proposal or the approaching meet-up with her long-lost father/potential weirdo stranger scam artist. She was so deeply not-thinking-about-it while she cleaned out the rabbit run in the corridor that she didn’t hear Andrea calling her until her boss’s voice was practically booming.
‘Felicity? For goodness’ sake. I’ve been calling and calling you. I nearly had to actually get up off this chair and everything. Can you please find Charlie something to do? He’s hanging around my office like a bad smell.’
‘Sorry. Yes, of course. Send him this way.’
Charlie stuck his head around the door frame and grinned.
‘Hi, Charlie,’ said Felicity, pulling fresh straw from a bale and laying it out in their little hutch bit, scooching the biggest rabbit gently over as she did so.
Andrea and Felicity had named him Bugs because of his perfect grey fur and little white markings.
In standard fashion, Charlie didn’t have the faintest idea who Bugs Bunny was.
‘I smell very nice – honest.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ said Felicity with a smile. ‘Now come and help me get the lunchtime feeds ready for the kittens.’
The previous week they’d had a delivery of five tiny ginger kittens from a farmer down the road whose cat always liked “visiting” the neighbourhood females.
They were so tiny they were still having milk replacer, which meant a lot of mixing up of powder and then the delightful task of having to hand-feed them.
They’d named them all after vegetables for some reason Felicity couldn’t quite remember now.
‘It’s a hard life,’ said Felicity, scooping up the first kitten, the one they’d named Parsnip, and feeling its soft warm fur against her cheek.
Charlie was watching her so intently her face heated. ‘Reckon you’ve got the best job ever,’ he said.
‘Reckon I might just have,’ said Felicity, with the little body purring away in her hand. She passed it to Charlie. ‘Here, you do this one and I’ll have this’ – she scooped another one out of the run – ‘little dot here.’
‘Carrot, I think that one is?’
‘Is it? I thought this one was Carrot and that one with the white feet was Pumpkin?’
‘Who cares?’ Charlie practically gulped as he took the tiny body, holding it close to his chest and whispering in its ear.
‘Told you they all loved you. You’re a natural,’ said Felicity after a moment.
‘Do you think?’
‘I can see it.’
Charlie flushed with pride as he stared down at the little kitten, his dark hair flopping over his face in a way that made her think of James, although his hair wasn’t quite as unruly. He really was very handsome, even if he was practically half her age.
‘You’re staring,’ said Charlie, after a moment, his eyes not leaving the kitten against his chest.
Felicity felt her face and ears grow even redder and inwardly cursed her red hair and pale skin for giving her away yet again.
‘I was looking at the kitten,’ she said primly.
‘Sure you were.’
They worked in silence then, Felicity trying to remain professional as she showed Charlie the best way to hold the tiny kittens while they syringed the milk replacer gently into their mouths.
As they fed the first two the other three were mewling from their box, impatiently scrabbling over each other as they waited their turn.
‘You two all right in here?’ said Andrea, passing the doorway.
‘He’s really getting the hang of it,’ said Felicity.
‘Good stuff,’ said Andrea, and sailed out of view.
‘You paid me another compliment,’ said Charlie, gently placing down the first kitten and trying to select another from the undulating pile of fur balls in front of them.
‘I’m nice,’ said Felicity, giving her own kitten a last kiss on the top of the head.
‘Oh, I know that,’ said Charlie in a low voice. Felicity looked up. Was he blushing again? This was getting awkward.
She popped her kitten back in the box and began backing away. ‘I’ll let you finish up here, just make sure you don’t miss the little runty one at the back, and don’t drop any, whatever you do.’
‘As if I would.’
‘Thanks, so much… er… I’ll see you in a bit.’
She practically ran down the corridor.
‘He fancies you,’ said Andrea, without looking up from a pile of sign-over papers, as Felicity walked into her office.
‘Who?’ said Felicity, trying to sound nonchalant.
Andrea rolled her eyes at this pathetic effort. ‘Charlie, of course.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘He does. He keeps hanging around after work trying to get a chance to speak to you. I have to practically march him to the exit.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
Andrea nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, he does. It’s become quite the awkward end to the day.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I figured he’d get over it in a few days but it seems to be getting worse.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it’s not that at all.’ Felicity’s words rang hollow even to her own ears. ‘He just seems to really like it here, maybe that’s why he’s hanging around. You should have seen him with those kittens earlier.’
Andrea looked up then, peering at Felicity over her grubby reading glasses, which made her pale-blue eyes even bigger.
‘Want me to ask them to move him somewhere else? I can, if it’s a problem.’
‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ said Felicity, lifting her chin.
‘Good.’
‘See ya in a bit.’
‘Will do.’
Felicity headed to the break room to find a jumper as it was inexplicably cold in the centre that day. She opened her locker and her mouth dropped open.
Sitting in her locker in the break room was a small shoebox. It was wrapped in pink paper with one of those cheap stick-on bows in red on the top.
A shudder went through her.
Last time someone had given her a mysterious box it had contained an engagement ring.
A stunning Tiffany ring, no less. A stunning Tiffany ring that was meant for someone else.
One of the many girls, in fact, that she had unknowingly played second fiddle to over the years.
Cold prickled the back of her neck. Surely Adam couldn’t have left this here, could he?
Surely all that was done now. She looked over her shoulder, half expecting him to be leaning against the door frame. He always had liked surprising her.
Satisfied there was no one around, she tentatively opened the box, and gasped. Inside was the most horrific thing she had ever seen. And she had been forced to watch Hellraiser as a kid. Twice. Her brother had a lot to answer for.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she drew out the item, a small wooden rabbit.
It looked as though it had been hand-carved as its features were rather crudely drawn in felt-tip pen and in its tiny (creepy) paws it was holding a blood-red heart.
On the heart was written, again in felt-tip, the words, Be Mine.
There was no way Adam would have ever left something so hideous even at the height of his stalking.
Felicity let out a sigh of relief, then bit her lip. If not Adam, then who? And why?