Need You for Keeps (Heroes of St. Helena, #1)(13)
“I called the county shelter,” Peggy said quietly. “They can take the kittens this afternoon.”
Shay was already shaking her head. “It is the height of kitten season. We’ll be lucky if any of these guys will find a home, let alone all of them.” Which meant they would never get the chance to know what it felt like to be loved and cherished. “Call them back and tell them you found another shelter.”
Peggy dug her hands into her hips, everything in between giving a jiggle. “You aren’t a shelter, missy, you are a foster mom—who is already at her limit for fosters.”
“Kitten season, Peggy.” Shay narrowed one eye and her boss narrowed back. “Plus with the calendar out, Bark in the Park in a few weeks, and the signings, all that exposure is pretty much a guarantee that Jabba and the others will find their homes by the end of the month. You want me to tell these kittens they don’t get a home because of thirty silly days?”
“Fine, you can keep Mr. Whiskers and his siblings here until the end of the day,” Peggy said, picking up the biggest one. “But they better be gone come dinnertime.”
“Mr. Whiskers?”
“They came with names.” Peggy held up a piece of binder paper that had Shay’s name scribbled in purple marker and enough fold marks to pass for origami. “And instructions.”
Shay cuddled Dot close to her chest and gave him a little scratch under the chin, while Peggy unfolded the letter. It didn’t take much before a little rumble of contentment escaped from the kitten, although his eyes remained guarded and glued on Shay.
“Dear Saint,” Peggy read, then with a sigh, handed Shay the letter. “Just Saint, isn’t that sweet?”
Sweet and telling. She stared at the rudimentary letters, and the heart over the i in saint gave her a pretty good idea of who had dropped off that box. It looked as though Goldilocks was taking her journey into sainthood seriously.
There wasn’t a signature at the bottom, but a list of names with coordinating drawings. Not that they helped distinguish one from the other. Besides Kitty Fantastic, a solid gray one with curled ears, and Dot, whose given name was Patches, they were all orange and white.
“Mr. Whiskers, Princess, MiMi, Lovekinz, Kitty Fantastic, and Patches,” Shay read aloud while trying, without much luck, to match the drawing to the kittens.
“I got as far as Mr. Whiskers being the biggest and Patches with his spot, but then I was stumped.”
Shay looked from the list to the box, counting three times to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. “Where’s the sixth kitten? There are six names but only five here.”
“I know, I counted several times,” Peggy said gently, giving Mr. Whiskers a kiss on the head. “The closest I could come up with is that Kitty Fantastic didn’t make it.”
Shay gave a single nod and pulled Dot close. “I’d better call Dr. Huntington and see if he has time to check these guys out,” she said, referring to the town’s vet, whose heart was as big as his belly and who always gave discounts for Shay’s fosters. “Do you mind if I get them cleaned up and settled in one of the smaller kennels?”
“Make it fast. We’ve got a full schedule today.”
“If Dr. Huntington clears them, I’ll take them home on my lunch break. These guys have had a rough start. The least I can do is get them cozy and settled while I find their families.”
“I imagine with all that cuteness, it won’t take long.”
It was more a sad statement than a question, so Shay stopped fussing with the kittens to look up at her boss doting on Mr. Whiskers. “They will go fast. So if you want to keep Mr. Whiskers—”
“Nope.” Peggy didn’t sound all that confident, but she put Mr. Whiskers back in the box all the same. “When Chaplin passed, I promised myself no more pets. It hurts too much when they go.”
According to Peggy’s friends, Chaplin’s passing came on the heels of losing her husband, so instead of investing her heart into a new companion, she threw herself into turning her small pet food store into a full-functioning pet spa. Not that Shay blamed her. Sometimes it was better to just live without than to risk the heartache that accompanied loss.
“If you’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” Peggy took one last, long look, then closed the lid and handed Shay the box. “Where do you think they came from?”
“I don’t know.” Goldilocks might have dropped off these cats, but Shay knew the kittens weren’t hers. She would never neglect animals this way. “Wherever it was, they wouldn’t survive going back.”
Twenty minutes later, Shay had the little guys bathed, fed, and sleeping in one of the kennels. Dr. Huntington had agreed to drop by on his lunch break, and Shay was cleaning up the kitty tub when a commotion came from the front of the store.
She dried off her hands on her apron and walked out to find her first customer of the morning looking irritated, drip-dried, and spitting mad.
Ida Beamon, owner of Cork’d N Dipped—a wine and chocolate bar—and founding member of the Booty Patrol, was a shotgun of a woman who favored coral lipstick, dime-store jewelry, and offensive sweatshirts. Today’s said QUACK OFF and had a picture of her Norton.
Norton, a tropical whistling duck, had a black belly, brown body, and a bright orange beak. He also walked on a leash, liked playing catch, and believed himself to be a dog. He had been one of Shay’s first fosters when she moved to town.