“I object!” Nan cried when the five of us burst into the county court roughly twenty minutes later.
The nearest clerk waved us over to her window behind a thick layer of plexiglass. “Hello, there. What are we objecting to today?”
Charles pushed himself in front of Nan. “Hi, yes. We’re here for the arbitration hearing regarding Ethel Fulton’s estate.”
The woman nodded her permed head and continued to smile brightly at all of us. “Oh, lots of folks have come in for that one. Room B-2. You’re right on time. Good luck.”
Before we could stop her, Nan ran down the hall and flung open the door to Room B-2. “I object!” she cried.
The rest of us ran after her and popped in a second later.
“Longfellow,” the person who sat at the front of the room said, fixing Charles with a stern look. “Control your client, and do it now.”
We all sat in the back of the room, careful not to make direct eye contact with any of the other heirs. I did a quick scan and saw that Anne was nowhere to be found.
Drats! I still desperately wanted proof that it had been her, and I wanted to make sure she understood the lengths I would go to in order to protect my cat from any future shenanigans on her part.
“Now,” the arbiter said, “there have been several challenges to the will of Ethel Fulton, particularly in regards to one Octavius Fulton. Is he here today?”
“Yes, your honor.” I rose to my feet with my furry friend in my arms, not sure whether I was addressing the arbiter correctly since this was all a huge first for me.
“Let me guess. Octavius is the cat. Isn’t he?” the man asked with a bored expression.
“Yes, but Ethel loved him like a son and wanted to make sure he was cared for in the manner to which he’d grown accustomed,” Charles explained.
“I can see that.” The arbiter flipped through the copy of the will in front of him and cracked his neck to either side. He glanced up at us again a few minutes later with a tight-lipped smile. “There are precedents for this. Ethel could have left the entire state of Maine to her cat for all I care. It’s not up to the court to question that. So, why are we here?”
“The house,” a scratchy voice wheezed from near the door.
Everyone turned, and I about lost my lunch when I saw who was standing there.
Anne Fulton was every bit as frumpy as I remembered. Her gray hair had been cut short, and her arm was freshly bandaged but still bleeding heavily.
“Is that your work?” I whispered to Octo-Cat.
“You bet it is,” he answered proudly, then narrowed his gaze on Anne and let out an impressive hiss.
“The house wasn’t specifically in the will,” the arbiter said.
“Maybe not,” Anne said, keeping a great deal of distance between us as she approached the front of the room. “But somehow the cat’s still managed to inherit it.”
“Actually, the house is mine,” I said.
“And mine,” Nan added.
“My clients purchased the house from the open market. Their ties to Ethel Fulton’s estate are irrelevant,” Charles added helpfully. My hero.
“I agree,” the arbiter said. “Anything else to contest?”
Nobody said anything, but Nan wore a giant, sappy grin. Octo-Cat had hopped into her lap, and she was petting him with slow, leisurely strokes—just the way he liked.
“Then the terms of the will stand as written,” the arbiter said. I expected a gavel to bang, but it didn’t. Oh, well.
We remained seated until all the Fultons had shuffled out of the room. I was sad to see that my old boss, Richard, hadn’t been able to make the trip up from Florida, but happy that this was finally over.
Only Anne remained behind.
“I know it was you,” I hissed.
Octo-Cat backed me up with a hiss of his own, too.
“Why did you take my cat?” I demanded, gripping the edges of my chair so I wouldn’t be tempted to charge straight up to her and give her the beat-down she deserved.
Anne didn’t even look sorry. “That’s my aunt Ethel’s cat. He should have stayed in the family after she’d gone.”
“Him or his trust fund?” Nan shot back. “Because judging by that open wound on your arm, our dear Octavius doesn’t want anything to do with the likes of you.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Anne spat. “And you can’t do anything, either. So I took a cat for a few days. It’s not like I committed murder.”
“You’re walking on really shaky ground,” Nan warned as Octo-Cat jumped off her lap and trotted over to the villainess of the hour.
“I’m going to get that house,” Anne mumbled, then grabbed her injured arm and fled through the door right as Oct-Cat was getting ready to take a fresh swipe.
Nan and I exchanged a quick glance, then she tucked her arm into Cal’s and said, “C’mon, you handsome thing. I want to thank that kind lady who helped us when we first arrived.”
They left through the same door Anne had. Now only Charles, Octo-Cat, and I remained in the arbitration room.
I sighed and laid my head on Charles’s shoulder.
“I’m glad you got him back,” he said.
“Me, too.”
“Are we going home now?” Octo-Cat whined, waiting for somebody to open the door for him. “I’m absolutely dying for some Evian.”
“Soon,” I said after making a brusque hushing noise.
Charles shook his head. “Is he seriously complaining again?”
“Yup,” I answered with a chuckle, pulling myself back into a full seated position.
Charles turned in his seat to face me more directly. “Well, now that he’s back, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you for a while now.”
I gulped hard as blood rushed through my veins. He had something to say.
Did that mean…?
Was he finally going to…?
Would we…?
He placed a hand on each of my shoulders and tried to hide his widening smile. “Now I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but…”
“Yes?” I asked, lowering my eyelashes to show him I was ready for his kiss. Heck, I was pretty much ready to marry him on the spot, and we were already at the county court. I do. I do!
“Angie,” he said softly, then waited for me to re-open my eyes. “You’re fired.”
My heart dropped all the way down to the floor. He was supposed to kiss me, not fire me!
Charles pressed his forehead to mine, and his warm breaths landed near my nose. “I told you not to take it the wrong way. I’m doing you a favor here. Actually, I’m doing both of us a favor.”
“Come again now?” I mumbled, wishing I had something more intelligent to say in that moment.
“I’ve known you wanted to quit for weeks now. Maybe months. What’s stopping you?”
“I didn’t want to let you down,” I admitted.
He tucked a stray tendril of sandy brown hair behind my ear. “You could never let me down, but I don’t want you putting your dreams on hold because of me, either.”
He was so impossibly close that it made it hard for me to focus. I still wasn’t sure exactly what was happening and whether or not I should be happy about it.
“You’re a great P.I., and it’s time you went into business for yourself. You can’t do that if you’re still spending half your days at Longfellow and Associates, so… You’re fired.”
“Thank you?” I said, guessing at the appropriate response. There may have been precedents regarding Ethel’s estate, but what was happening between me and Charles right now was completely and totally new.
He laughed softly. “Don’t thank me. I’m doing this for selfish reasons, too.”
“Oh?” I asked on a soft exhale. Still so uneasy about how close we were. Still wanting that kiss.
“Yeah, because when I was your boss, I couldn’t do this.”
I sucked in a deep breath, but before I could let it out, Charles’s lips were on mine. Oh my gosh, I was kissing Charles!
And it was everything I’d ever dreamed it would be.
“Humans are disgusting,” Octo-Cat complained, taking a swipe at my arm. Thankfully, it was much gentler than the number he’d done on Anne.
Charles laughed as he pulled away. “Let me guess, he didn’t like that.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “But not because he’s jealous, because he thinks it’s gross.”
Charles rolled his eyes, which just so happened to have happy sparkles in them at the moment. “Whatever, cat. I know you call me UpChuck behind my back.”
“Boys, boys,” I said, smiling so hard that the corners of my mouth hurt. “You’re just going to have to find a way to share.”
I stood, and Charles immediately laced his fingers between mine, leaving Octo-Cat to follow behind on foot.
“I can’t believe you’re choosing to focus on this needless romance when you should be focused on getting me Evian as soon as humanly possible,” my cat grumbled predictably.
I scooped him up in my free arm and held him as we walked out of the courthouse. “When we get home, there’s someone very special I want you to meet.”
“Ugh, why? I’m so tired,” he whined.
“He’s the president of your fan club,” I revealed, picturing how insanely happy Pringle would be to meet his idol.
“Can I be the president of your fan club?” Charles asked, giving my hand a squeeze.
I pretended to think about this for a moment. “I don’t really need a fan club, but you can be my boyfriend. That is if you—”
Charles stopped walking, pulled me close, and kissed me again.
I took that to mean he agreed.