Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(64)

She watches as he measures out a length of tube along the kitten’s body, marks it with a Sharpie, and draws some liquid into a narrow syringe.

“It’s so hard to listen to him crying.”

“Crying is actually a good sign. It means he’s hungry. If he weren’t crying, I’d be worried.”

Holding the kitten so that he’s lying on his belly, Doctor Bailey gently places the tip of the tube into his mouth. Amid continued high-pitched wailing, he eases the tube inside, gradually getting it all the way down the kitten’s throat and into its belly.

“The first time is always hard,” he says, “but once they get used to it, they swallow the tube more easily, knowing food is coming.”

With the tube inserted, he presses the syringe ever so slightly. As the first few nourishing drops hit the mark, the crying stops.

“There we go. That’s it, little guy,” Doctor Bailey says softly.

Bella leans over his shoulder to see. “He’s eating?”

“Yes, he is. Like a champ,” he adds with a laugh.

She swallows hard, so unexpectedly moved that it takes her a moment to find her voice. “Do you think he’ll live?”

“I think he has a fighting chance.”

For a few minutes, they watch in silence punctuated only by the squeaky cries from Spider’s siblings in the crate.

Then she asks quietly, “What about the puppy?”

“Hmm?”

“The puppy. The one you were trying to save the other night, when we were here. He’d had surgery. Did he make it?”

He looks up. “So far. He’s still here, out back, recovering.”

“So you’ll keep the kitten here, too?”

“Do you mean boarded, as a patient?” He shakes his head. “The queen hasn’t rejected him, and we don’t want that to happen, so he should continue to nest with her and the littermates.”

“The queen?”

“The official name for a feline nursing mother.”

“Queen Chance the Cat. I can’t wait to tell Max she’s royalty.”

Doctor Bailey flashes a brief smile. “I’m going to give you everything you need to hand-raise him, and I can loan you a good book on the subject, too.”

“Wait—hand-raise . . . ?”

“It just means you’ll do the feeding, and the queen will do the rest—grooming, litter-box training, socializing. She’ll instinctively handle everything he needs to become self-sufficient. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For now, you’ll have to feed him every two hours around the clock for the first week, then every three hours for the next—”

“Wait,” she cuts in again, “I don’t even live here. Max and I are leaving on Monday.”

He frowns faintly, digesting this information. “I see. So the cat . . .”

“I don’t know. I don’t know who’s going to take care of her, or the kittens.”

She thinks of Grant, with his fancy watch and vagabond lifestyle.

And of Odelia, who already has her hands full—not to mention a lame leg.

And of Millicent, barely willing to take in her own daughter-in-law and grandson.

Somebody has to rescue Chance and her kittens.

But it isn’t going to be me. I wish . . .

No matter how much she aches to keep a pet for Max, no matter how badly she wants to care for Chance and the kittens, no matter how desperately she wants to save this fragile newborn life . . .

She can’t take the cats with her to Millicent’s, and she has nowhere else to go.

You can stay.

And have Max surrounded with people who make a living by talking to the dead? A Spiritualist colony is no place to raise an impressionable child who’s lost his father, and it’s no place for a widow who needs to accept that the love of her life is gone forever.

“I can’t,” she says quietly. “I just . . .”

Choked up, she shakes her head and swallows hard, staring down at the miniscule kitten. He’s once again huddled beside his siblings but cradled beneath his mother’s protective paw.

Chance feels about her baby exactly the way Bella does about Max. She’ll do anything to keep him safe.

She finds her voice. “I don’t have any options. There’s just no way I can help.”

“All right. I understand.”

“You do?”

“Believe me. I hear that a lot.”

“What about you? Can’t you keep him? And help him? Isn’t this an animal rescue?”

Doctor Bailey’s face is grim. “I’m overextended as it is. This time of year is kitten season. Do you know how many nursing queens and litters have come my way this week alone? It’s hard enough to find foster homes for the healthy ones. If you’re positive you can’t take responsibility for them,” he says, gesturing at the crate, “then the most humane thing to do might be—”

“No!” Bella hears herself shout as the awful insinuation hits her. “No, you can’t do that.”

“Isabella, my fosters are all tapped out. I can’t hand-raise a kitten at the expense of all the other animals who need me.”

“I thought you had other people on your staff?”

“Just my assistant. She lives in a one-room apartment with three cats of her own, and she’s already fostering a stray queen and litter in her bathroom and a contagious stray in her closet.”