“You bought the land,” I said.
“I’m sorry, what land?”
I looked at him without speaking. Finally he smiled and gave an offhanded shrug.
“Why?” I asked. I had an idea of what that land must have cost. I also had an idea about who had tipped off the IRS.
His eyes never left my face. “I know a good thing when I see it and when I do, I go after it.” There was something uncomfortably intimate about the moment.
Simon smiled then. “Take care of yourself, Kathleen,” he said, and then he left.
Roma came out to the porch. “Maggie said that was Mia’s dad.”
I nodded.
“That was nice of him, bringing that food.”
“He’s a nice man,” I said. And a complicated one, I added silently.
I went back to the table and ate another lemon tart. Rebecca came and gave me one more hug. “I have to go,” she said. “I think you’re in good hands, but if you need anything . . .”
“I know where you are,” I said.
Marcus arrived as Rebecca was going out the door. She gave his arm a squeeze and said, “Take care of our girl.”
“I absolutely will,” he said with a smile, wrapping me in his arms. His clothes were damp.
“Why didn’t you go home and change?” I said.
“Because I didn’t want to spend one more minute away from you,” he said. “I hope it’s okay that Eddie’s going to get me some dry clothes. I don’t want to make it hard for Roma.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
Maggie got a bowl of soup for Marcus and by the time he’d finished it Eddie had arrived with his dry clothes. “Go take a shower,” I told Marcus, patting his face with my padded hands.
He leaned down to kiss me. “I won’t be long.”
“I’m really glad you’re okay,” Eddie said to me.
“Stay,” I said.
He looked over at Roma, who was making a fresh pot of coffee. She couldn’t stop hovering, watching me, feeding me, trying to make me sit down.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Stay. Please?”
Eddie sighed softly. “All right.”
There was an empty chair at the table next to Elliot and I sat down beside him. Roma immediately came over. “Is there anything you want?” she asked.
“Marry Eddie,” I said.
She just looked at me. I could see how close to the surface her emotions were. I took her hand awkwardly with my two bandaged ones. “You’re one of my best friends and you know I love you, don’t you?”
She frowned. “Of course I do.”
“I learned something today,” I said. “I learned that no one has the right to tell another person who they’re supposed to love. And that includes you. You don’t have the right to tell Eddie who he should love. And by the way, that’s still you.” She tried to pull her hand away but I wouldn’t let her. “You love Eddie and he loves you and the rest doesn’t matter. Life is too short to waste happiness.”
“What if it turns out to be a mistake?” she asked in a shaky voice.
Elliot had been listening to the conversation. “Then you do everything in your power to fix it,” he said.
“You asked what I wanted,” I said. “This is what I want.”
“Me too,” Roma said softly.
I let go of her hands. She looked across the room “Eddie,” she said.
He turned to look at her.
Roma took a deep breath and let it out. “Eddie Sweeney,” she said. “I love you. Will you marry me?”
Eddie looked at her, stunned.
I bunched up my napkin and threw it at him. “Hey,” I said. “This is the part where you say yes.”
“Yes!” Eddie said, a huge grim splitting his face. He grabbed Roma and swung her around, almost taking out Maggie and my toaster oven.
Elliot tipped his head to one side. “Nice work, Ms. Paulson,” he said.
He held up his hand and we high-fived—very gingerly. Marcus was in the kitchen doorway. He smiled at both of us. I smiled back and nudged Elliot with my shoulder. “You too, Elly May,” I said.
If you love Sofie Kelly’s Magical Cats Mysteries, keep reading for an excerpt of the first book in Sofie Ryan’s New York Times bestselling Second Chance Cat Mysteries . . .
THE WHOLE CAT AND CABOODLE
Available now!
Elvis was sitting in the middle of my desk when I opened the door to my office. The cat, not the King of Rock and Roll, although the cat had an air of entitlement about him sometimes, as though he thought he was royalty. He had one jet-black paw on top of a small cardboard box—my new business cards, I was hoping.
“How did you get in here?” I asked.
His ears twitched but he didn’t look at me. His green eyes were fixed on the vintage Wonder Woman lunch box in my hand. I was having an early lunch, and Elvis seemed to want one as well.
“No,” I said firmly. I dropped onto the retro red womb chair I’d brought up from the shop downstairs, kicked off my sneakers, and propped my feet on the matching footstool. The chair was so comfortable. To me, the round shape was like being cupped in a soft, warm giant hand. I knew the chair had to go back down to the shop, but I was still trying to figure out a way to keep it for myself.
Before I could get my sandwich out of the yellow vinyl lunch box, the big black cat landed on my lap. He wiggled his back end, curled his tail around his feet and looked from the bag to me.
“No,” I said again. Like that was going to stop him.
He tipped his head to one side and gave me a pitiful look made all the sadder because he had a fairly awesome scar cutting across the bridge of his nose.
I took my sandwich out of the lunch can. It was roast beef on a hard roll with mustard, tomatoes and dill pickles. The cat’s whiskers quivered. “One bite,” I said sternly. “Cats eat cat food. People eat people food. Do you want to end up looking like the real Elvis in his chunky days?”
He shook his head, as if to say, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
I pulled a tiny bit of meat out of the roll and held it out. Elvis ate it from my hand, licked two of my fingers and then made a rumbly noise in his throat that sounded a lot like a sigh of satisfaction. He jumped over to the footstool, settled himself next to my feet and began to wash his face. After a couple of passes over his fur with one paw he paused and looked at me, eyes narrowed—his way of saying, “Are you going to eat that or what?”
I ate.
By the time I’d finished my sandwich Elvis had finished his meticulous grooming of his face, paws and chest. I patted my legs. “C’mon over,” I said.
He swiped a paw at my jeans. There was no way he was going to hop onto my lap if he thought he might get a crumb on his inky black fur. I made an elaborate show of brushing off both legs. “Better?” I asked.
Elvis meowed his approval and walked his way up my legs, poking my thighs with his front paws—no claws, thankfully—and wiggling his back end until he was comfortable.
I reached for the box on my desk, keeping one hand on the cat. I’d guessed correctly. My new business cards were inside. I pulled one out and Elvis leaned sideways for a look. The cards were thick brown recycled card stock, with SECOND CHANCE, THE REPURPOSE SHOP, angled across the top in heavy red letters, and SARAH GRAYSON and my contact information, all in black, in the bottom right corner.
Second Chance was a cross between an antiques store and a thrift shop. We sold furniture and housewares—many things repurposed from their original use, like the tub chair that in its previous life had actually been a tub. As for the name, the business was sort of a second chance—for the cat and for me. We’d been open only a few months and I was amazed at how busy we already were.
The shop was in a redbrick building from the late 1800s on Mill Street, in downtown North Harbor, Maine, just where the street curved and began to climb uphill. We were about a twenty-minute walk from the harbor front and easily accessed from the highway—the best of both worlds. My grandmother held the mortgage on the property and I wanted to pay her back as quickly as I could.