Sisters by Choice (Blackberry Island #4)(43)

“The body’s cold,” he said. “I’d guess it died at birth. Did you contact the cat rescue place?”

She shook her head.

He held out his hand for her phone, then disappeared. Sophie stayed with Lily. The kittens had stopped nursing and seemed to be asleep. She gently stroked their tiny bodies, grateful to feel heat and heartbeats.

“I called them,” Dugan said as he walked back into the bedroom. “They’re sending a tech out tomorrow to check on the rest of the litter, but they said not to worry. This sort of thing happens.”

“Where’s the kitten?”

“I put it in my car. I’ll bury it at my place.”

“Thank you.”

He held out his hand then pulled her to her feet. “Let’s move the babies and clean up the box. They said to offer Lily food, but not to worry if she doesn’t eat for a few more hours. I put a big towel in the dryer to warm it up. That way the kittens won’t get cold.”

The relief of something positive to do made Sophie feel marginally better. She put out food for Lily, then helped Dugan move the tiny kittens onto the warm towel. They woke up and squeaked out their protests. It only took a couple of minutes to clean up the box and put down fresh towels. Lily ate a little and used the litter box, then returned to her babies. She licked each one of them, settling them close to her. In a matter of minutes the whole family was asleep.

Sophie and Dugan retreated to the kitchen where he opened a bottle of wine. She saw her groceries were put away and had no idea when he’d done that.

Once she had her wine, he sat across from her at the kitchen table.

“That was hard on you,” he said, his tone conversational.

She sighed. “Is that your way of asking why I freaked out?”

“It was unexpected. I get you were upset.”

“Babies shouldn’t die.”

His gaze was steady. “You’ve had a lot of loss in your life.”

“Asking or telling?”

Instead of answering, he reached across the table and took her hand in his. “I’m glad I could help.”

Her eyes filled with tears again. “Me, too. I know it’s silly, but it just hit me. Probably because I lost my cat not long ago. I’d had CK since I was a freshman in college. She’s the reason I started the business. We’d been through everything together and I couldn’t imagine losing her, but then I did.”

“Is that why you’re fostering? Because you’re not ready to have a cat of your own?”

She nodded. “Kristine suggested it. I thought it would be good to have another heartbeat in the house, but I didn’t think a kitten would die.”

“Are your folks alive?”

The change in topic surprised her. “I don’t know,” she said. “My mom died when I was a teenager. It was really awful. She was killed in a car accident, so there was no warning. My dad had left a few years before. Mom was the one who worked hard. She was a pharmacist—the only one on the island. My dad was always looking for the next big thing, which he never found. He drifted from scheme to scheme until one day he drifted right out of our lives. At the time I thought he was leaving my mom. I didn’t think he was leaving me, too. But when she died, he didn’t want me to come live with him.”

She closed her eyes against the memories.

“So you lost both parents at the same time,” Dugan said quietly.

She nodded. “We’ve only spoken twice since then. The last time was ten years ago.”

“Did you go into foster care?”

“What? No. I moved in with Kristine and her family. They did everything they could to make me feel welcome, but it was still so hard. I missed my mom every day. I was a teenager, so we’d been fighting a lot. She worried I wouldn’t make something of myself. After she died, I did everything I could to make her proud of me, but it’s not like she knows what I did.”

“You don’t know that.”

She looked at him. “Please don’t get metaphysical on me.”

“I would never do that. I’m simply pointing out you have no idea what happens after we die. It could be nothing, it could be completely different from what we’ve been told. Maybe she knows everything you’ve done and is proud and happy.”

Sophie wished that were true. “What about your family?”

One shoulder rose and lowered. “I’m so normal, I’m boring. One of three kids, raised on the East Coast. I have two sisters. I’m the middle one.”

“But the only boy. That makes a difference.”

He grinned. “So they tell me all the time. My parents are still married and I get home about once a year.”

“How’d you end up on Blackberry Island?”

Humor brightened his eyes. “I was on a spiritual journey and found my way here.”

“Did you inherit the house you live in?”

“No, I bought it.”

He paused as if waiting for her to ask more. Under normal circumstances she would have pursued the topic, but she was too sad.

“Tell me about CK Industries after you graduated from college. Did you grow too fast?”

Another zig in the direction of their conversation. She considered her answer. “It wasn’t that we grew too fast. It was more that I couldn’t control things as much as I would have liked. I made a lot of dumb decisions when it came to employees.”