A Home for the Holidays by Emilie Richards

Author:Emilie Richards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1993-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

One week before Christmas, Egan found the kitten. He had entered an alleyway to get a side view of an apartment building he planned to renovate. Busy peering three stories above him, he almost didn’t see the tiny stray. From the corner of his eye, the scrap of black fur looked like a child’s bedraggled earmuff, thrown out with the week’s garbage. Then the earmuff trembled and mewed pitifully, and without another thought Egan whisked the kitten under his jacket and nestled it against his chest.

He spent another ten minutes looking for the remainder of the litter, or perhaps a mother cat who had been too frightened by his appearance to rescue her baby. But the alley turned up no new creatures. Wherever the kitten had come from, it—she, he ascertained quickly enough—was alone, and nearly frozen.

Back inside the building, he examined his find. She was already warmer and more active, and he judged from the activity that he had probably rescued her in time. She was tiny and thin, but there was enough meat on her bones to have helped her withstand the cold. Her long fur was completely black, except for microscopic white paws and a heart-shaped spot just under her chin. Clean, with her fur fluffed out, she might have been cute. As it was, she looked exactly like the alley kitten she was.

Immediately he thought of Chloe.

Then he lectured himself. Chloe had never shown the slightest interest in having a pet. During their one abortive Christmas-shopping expedition, he had steered her through the mall on the way back to his car, and they had passed a pet shop. He had stopped—because he was biologically incapable of not stopping to croon over animals—and Chloe had been forced to stop, too. There had been three Siamese kittens playing together, and he had laughed at their antics. Chloe had been quiet—bored, perhaps—beside him.

“They’ll be gone before the end of the day,” he’d said. “Do you want to go in and see if they’ll let us hold one?”

She’d looked at her watch. “Maybe another time.”

“A woman who doesn’t like kittens?”

She’d given him a peculiar look, her Chloe-closed-off look. “I really can’t stay. We’re having a staff meeting at nine tonight.”

And they had left the kittens playing in the window.

This kitten was nothing like the pet shop’s picture-perfect specimens. It wasn’t purebred or well nourished. It was dirty, sad and cold.

And still he thought of Chloe.

Maybe it was because Chloe had been orphaned, too. Certainly she had never been thrown out into the cold. Her basic needs had been met. But she had been left to shiver on the inside, to long for the warmth and love of a real home, and a family that wouldn’t change with the seasons.

The kitten mewed and cuddled into his palm. His hand vibrated with her baby purrs. He held her up to his cheek, and her tiny eyes opened. It was like looking into Chloe’s eyes when she was most vulnerable.

“Do you want a home?” he asked softly.

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