Chapter Twelve

That she’d tossed his last words to her back at him made Archer laugh, but he still walked straight through the kitchen of his new house, barely stopping to drop the food, climbed the single-stringer black iron and walnut floating stairs, stripped off his clothes in the gray and sage bedroom, and shut himself in his showroom of a shower.

With the spray pummeling him from three directions, he relived every second of the time he’d had Bridget under him, pleasuring her until she’d come for him just like a fucking dream. Abusing himself to a replay of her every whimper, gasp, and groan, he shuddered when the bolt of pleasure shot down his spine all the way to the soles of his feet, took a two-second time-out, and then slammed full force into his balls. Slapping his palm against the marble, he clenched his teeth and choked on her name as an orgasm tore from him with the heat and ferocity of liquid lightning.

It took the edge off but left him feeling distinctly…lonely. He finished his shower quickly, pulled on sweats and an old Stanford hoodie, and went downstairs to eat his dinner in his home office while attending to his other job, running Skyline.

Staring at his laptop, cruising through emails between sips of beer and bites of what really did live up to its Ultimate Burger name, he took satisfaction in the fact that he’d acquired or installed extremely competent operational managers at each of the airfields. What had started as a ragtag string of small, independent outposts was evolving into an efficient, coordinated enterprise.

Even so, questions arose in the normal course of things. Problems came to light. He worked through a full inbox of both, authorized some personnel requisitions, and—for the fun stuff—reviewed the specs on a couple new planes the Colorado team had on their wish list. The current profits and projections warranted the capital investment, but before Skyline dropped a few mil, he planned to check them out personally and kick the—

A scratching noise behind him had him swiveling. There was nothing there. Just a low, wide bookcase flush against the wall, but as he sat, listening, the sound came again. The sound of small claws against drywall.

Ugh. Welcome to spring in the wilderness. What sort of rodent had built a nest in his wall? Rats? He couldn’t do rats. If he had an infestation in his new house, he was going to have to burn the place down.

The rustling sound came again. Fuck. Squelching a serious case of heebie-jeebies, he stood, prepared to grab his laptop, move to another room, and research which pest control company could get their asses to his doorstep, like, yesterday, and resolve the situation. Laptop in hand, he took a step around his desk, then paused as a new noise came through the wall. This one was more like a yowl—a pathetic, high-pitched yowl.

After putting the laptop back on his desk, he walked over to the bookcase, knelt, and knocked on the wall. The cry came again, louder.

Okay, he didn’t know a lot about rats, but he’d never heard of any mustering up that kind of vocalization. It seemed to be coming from behind the bookcase. He got to his feet and dragged the case out from the wall, then crouched in the gap. The scratching and yowling came more furiously now, from inside the wall, by the baseboard.

Raccoon? Vole? Baby fox? The desperate mewl came again, and he decided whatever it was—even the world’s most articulate rat—he couldn’t, in good conscience, leave it trapped in there. Using his elbow, he punched a hole in the drywall, about half a foot above where he estimated the thing crouched. Pushing past unmanly squeamishness about sending his unprotected hand into the unknown to capture some animal with claws, probably teeth, and possibly rabies, he dug through the insulation, working his way down.

Whatever it was started to scramble along the baseboard.

“Oh no, you don’t.” He made a grab, and something furry slipped through his fingers. “Hey, in there. Last chance. I’m not knocking more holes in my wall.” On the second attempt, he scooped up a furry, spindly, wiggly handful of…something.

“Ouch!” A sharp-clawed something. “Okay, motherfucker. Let’s do this.” Bracing himself for an unpleasant encounter, he carefully pulled his uninvited houseguest out into the open, and came nose to whiskers with a small, scraggly…cat?

“Yooowl!”

A kitten. Holding it by the neck scruff, he turned it this way and that, checking the animal out from all sides while it scratched the air in a bid for freedom. The skinny, fierce-eyed female clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

“I’d name you Bridget, but that’s taken. You are sort of cute, though.” Dirty and cute, with bits of drywall and insulation sticking to matted gray-and-white fur. “Come on.” He transferred the kitten to his other hand and held it securely around the middle, little legs dangling. Toes splayed. “Let’s clean you up.”

They accomplished that in the stainless-steel kitchen sink, after much drama, much swearing, and some brute force. He was almost as wet as the cat by the time he wrapped it in a towel, not to mention bleeding from several nasty scratches to his hands and wrists.

“Jesus.” He examined the back of his hand. “Is it too late to put you back in the wall?”

“Yeeoow.”

“All right. All right. We’ll figure something else out.” Tucking the towel-wrapped psychopath in the crook of his arm, he opened the pantry. “How about some dinner? What looks good?”

Because spring in Alaska could be unpredictable, he’d stocked the pantry with some basics. Sadly, kitten chow hadn’t made the list. Cats were meat-eaters, though, and so was he. There ought to be something. A can of albacore caught his eye. Perfect.

Leaving the bundled-up kitten on the glossy, polished travertine kitchen floor, he dug a couple small Pyrex bowls from a dark-stained cabinet, filled one with water, and dumped the tuna in the other.

Immediately, he heard tiny nails tapping on stone and figured the scent had caught the animal’s attention. A second later, those tiny nails sank into his sweats. Next thing he knew, he had a kitten halfway up his leg. “I get it. I get it. You’re hungry.”

Peeling the cat off, he gave it a gentle toss to the floor. The little thing landed gamely on four feet and followed as he walked to the other side of the kitchen and placed the bowls along the wall that opened to the living area. She dug right in with the gusto that spoke of a few missed meals. Poor little thing.

Archer took a seat in one of the dark wood stools along one side of the kitchen island and watched the wet furball demolish the tower of tuna. About halfway through the feeding frenzy a new sound filled the kitchen. A sound like the world’s smallest motor. Purring.

“Like that, huh? Enjoy your feast. I’m going to figure out a litterbox for you, because I know how this story ends.” He grabbed himself another beer before going on a hunt in the cabinets for something that would serve in the current pinch. He settled on another Pyrex food storage container. He probably would have used the 9x13-inch dish to marinade steaks before grilling or something along those lines, but it was low enough for the kitten to climb in and out of easily. For litter, he filled it with the contents of his paper shredder. If anyone stole his identity after the kitten was done with his personal papers, they could have it.

On the tile floor in a corner of the laundry room, he made a mat out of paper towels and centered the litterbox there. Satisfied, he returned to the kitchen to find the tiny cat sniffing and scratching at corners.

“No. Nope. Don’t even think about it.” Scooping the animal up, he fast tracked to the laundry room and dropped her, four-footed, into the shredded paper. Tail high and fur standing on end, the kitten took stock for a second, then circled and did some experimental scratching through the paper. Hoping she had the idea, he retreated to the kitchen, retrieved his beer, and wandered through the darkened living room to stare out the big glass sliders. Sunset had come and gone. A round, heavy moon hung low over the cove, as if too lazy to ascend to a more ambitious position in the sky. Stars flickered overhead, taunting their slow, celestial cousin with their dizzying heights.

The chilly air couldn’t bite through his sweats, so he opened the slider and stepped out onto the deck. Resting his arms on the rail, he stared across the cove to the opposite hillside, dotted with lights from houses nestled between the trees. He identified the Shanahan home easily, noted downstairs lights and one upstairs light. Bridget’s bedroom. What was she doing right now, alone in the big, old house? And him, stuck on his side of the cove, alone in his big, new house. It suddenly struck him as a colossal waste. Fuck giving her time and space and moving slowly so she gained the trust to dismantle those walls of hers on her own prerogative. He didn’t have the patience. He couldn’t take the torture of being this close and yet this alone. What would she do if he drove back over and—?

Something thumped the glass behind him. Several thumps, in rapid succession. He turned to find the kitten on the other side of the slider standing on its back legs, pounding away with its front paws. On a half laugh, he opened the door a few inches.

The little feline yowled a couple times as if to complain about being kept waiting, slinked out, explored the deck, and then came over and clawed his sweatpants in preparation to climb.

“No to that.” He scooped her up and tucked her in the front pocket of his hoodie. She shifted around a moment before settling in. Archer resumed drinking beer and second guessing his strategy. The motor started again. He looked down and saw the kitten had turned onto her back and stuck her head out one side of the pocket to stare up at him through slitted eyes. It made him grin. Yeah, he had a hole in his office wall and some Pyrex destined for the recycle bin, but he felt less lonely.

“If you’re going to stick around, you need a name.”

One pink, padded paw appeared by the kitten’s head, as if to say, “Hiya.”

“We’ll give it some thought.” Pondering tomorrow’s schedule—a run to Anchorage in the morning, and a run to Juneau in the afternoon—he came to another conclusion. “We’re going to need a cat-sitter, too. I can’t leave you here alone all day with a can of tuna. Maybe Lilah can find a spot for you in the kennel at the Inn?”

Looking across the cove, he watched Bridget’s bedroom go dark. An idea percolated in his mind, and he felt his grin lengthen into a smile. “Or maybe I have a better idea.”