I shook my head.“All yours.”
“You seem…” The bag broke open, spilling the cat and his lobster roll onto the porch with me. He grabbed the food with his paws and tried to regain his normal, dignified air. With a twinkle in his eyes, he turned his head to one side then the other as he examined me. “Less irritating than usual,” he decided at last. “What’s wrong?”
“Bravo is having a hard time finding my grandmother.” I shrugged, trying to play off my devastation.
“So what’s the big deal? You’ve lived without her this long. Besides, I haven’t seen my mother or any of my brothers or sisters since I was a kitten. And you’re well past your youth now, Angela.”
I chuckled at his logic.“Cats and people aren’t the same. I think you know that better than anyone.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Octo-Cat said, bits of lobster hanging from his chin and whiskers. “And I spend way too much time with humans and other lesser creatures these days…”
He paused to let this sink in. I assumed the other lesser creatures referred to Paisley and Pringle but knew better than to ask for specifics.
“It might be nice to know what happened to my litter mates,” he continued, running a paw over his face. “Ever since we found those kittens, I got to thinking. What if all my brothers and sisters turned out almost as awesome as me?”
“That’s hard to believe,” I said with another laugh. Leave it to Octo-Cat to make my personal tragedy all about him.
“You’re right. It would be almost too amazing, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
I turned to look at him, cupping my cheek in one palm and resting my elbow on my thigh.“What do you mean?”
He finished chewing his bite and swallowed hard.“We’re searching for your family. I want to search for mine, too.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I think it’s fair to ask, since it is my trust fund that pays all our bills.”
“Remember how curiosity killed the cat?” I asked with one eyebrow raised, a slight smile playing at my lips.
Octo-Cat scoffed at this.“That’s just a vicious generalization, and you know it. But fine, I am curious. What’s so wrong about that?”
He had me there. It was only natural that with all the focus on my family Octo-Cat would also wonder about his.
“Okay,” I said, nodding for emphasis. “I’ll help you.”
“Don’t make me pull out my—” He stopped suddenly. “Wait, you’ll help? That easily?”
“That easily,” I confirmed, my smile widening now.
“Well, okay, then. Thank you.” He returned to his lobster roll, making such fast progress of it that I was worried he may choke.
Just then, a raccoon skittered up the porch steps and grabbed the remaining sandwich with greedy black fingers.
Octo-Cat growled and took a swipe, but Pringle had already managed to climb up onto the railing and out of reach of the irate tabby.
“For me?” the raccoon crooned. “Why, Angie, you shouldn’t have.”
“She didn’t!” Octo-cat yelled and flicked his tail wildly behind him.
Pringle stuffed the entire thing in his mouth, cheeks bulging, then swallowed it down and slowly licked each of his fingertips.
“I hate you,” Octo-Cat muttered before running back in through the pet door.
I let out a long sigh.“Why do you have to get him riled up like that?”
“That cat has never liked me. So, frankly, I don’t trust his taste. Although that lobster roll was delicious. Would have been even more delicious without the cat spit on it, though.” Pringle chuckled to himself, then clambered down from the railing and came to sit at my side. “So when do westart our next case?”
I sighed again—something I did often in my raccoon neighbor’s presence. “When someone hires us.”
“Hey, not being hired hasn’t stopped you before. You’ve gotten involved in plenty of cases just because you happened to stumble upon them. Let’s go for a nice walk through downtown, see what trouble we can stir up there.”
I stared at him for a moment, but when I realized Pringle had no idea why this suggestion would be problematic, I attempted to explain.“If I show up with a raccoon in broad daylight in the middle of a crowded street, there will definitely be trouble. And not the kind either of us would enjoy. Besides, maybe I don’t want another case right now. Honestly, I could really use a break.”
“Level with me here. I’m going stir crazy. I’ve almost finished my second watch-through of all forty-ish seasons of Survivor. What am I supposed to do when I’m through with that, huh?”
“Start a third watch-through,” I suggested with a shrug.
His jaw fell open as if I’d just made the most shocking and offensive recommendation of all time. It looked like he wanted to say something more, but before he could a car pulled onto our long driveway and began its approach to the house.
Pringle scurried off to hide, because as much as he liked bugging me and Nan, he was still wary of other humans. If he would have waited just a couple seconds longer, though, he would have seen that the new arrival was someone he’d come to trust, thanks to our recent adventures forcing them to work together while the rest of us were out of town.
“Hi, Charles,” I said when my boyfriend parked and got out of his car. He wore his button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and still wore his suit pants, although he’d ditched the jacket and tie.
“Ready to go?” he asked, waiting at the car door and eyeing me suspiciously.
I stood and brushed away the crumbs that had fallen to my lap while Octo-Cat and Pringle battled over the lobster roll.
“Angiiiie,” Charles ground out. “Don’t tell me you forgot!”
Somehow“forgot what?” didn’t feel like the right response here, so I just smiled and batted my eyelashes.
“About the movie,” he prompted. “It was your idea for us to see it tonight.”
“Oh! Oh, right! I am so sorry, Charles. Things have just been…” I popped to my feet as I searched for the right word. Busy wasn’t accurate, but I was still very overwhelmed, regardless. “They’ve been a lot lately. If you give me five minutes, I can run a brush through my hair and then we can go.”
He shook his head and trotted up the steps, taking me in his arms before I could slip away.“Let’s stay in tonight,” he said, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead and reminding me all over again why I was crazy about this particular man.
I looked up at him with half-lidded eyes.“You don’t mind?”
“Nah.” He pulled me to his chest and held me tight. “As long as I get to spend time with you, it doesn’t really matter what we do. How about you choose tonight, and I’ll choose what we do next time around.”
We shared a slow kiss. I practically melted into him as he held me.
That is, until Octo-Cat rushed back through the pet flap and shouted,“Gaaah! You know I hate it when you two groom each other in my presence.”
I laughed and kissed Charles again. Octo-Cat would just have to deal with it.
Chapter Three
Charles and I ended up watching a made-for-TV movie on the Disney channel, which offered just the right amount of wholesomeness mixed with campiness to lighten my mood—and to send me drifting to sleep early.
The next morning, I woke up and took a quick shower, hoping it would help make me more alert for the day ahead. It didn’t.
So I pulled on my favorite ratty polka-dot bathrobe and padded down to the kitchen, where I found Nan at the sink, rinsing some mixed berries in a colander.
“Good morning, sleepy head,” she sang out. “I’ll have you know, ten o’clock has already come and gone.”
“Sorry,” I said around a yawn. “I don’t know why, but I’ve just been so exhausted lately.”
Nan finished with the berries and patted her hands dry.“There’s some vanilla yogurt in the fridge and granola in the cabinet, if you’d like to help yourself to a parfait.”