Born To Die

where he stood on his hind legs and began clawing at the glass while growling and barking and working himself into a frenzy.

“Hush! Kaiser! You stop that!” Lois yelled as she scooted her chair back. “What in the Sam Hill?” She was on her feet and heading to the back door. “Oh. . my.” Her hand flew over her chest as she looked through the glass.

Alvarez followed her gaze and spied a bedraggled cat seated on the back patio’s covered table, its luminous eyes unblinking as it stared into the apartment through the slider.

“Dear God in heaven, that poor thing is Jocelyn’s. Oh, for the love of. . I can’t let her in because of Kaiser. He’d tear her limb from limb… but she’s freezing.”

“I’ll take her.”

“Oh, no! I won’t let you take her to a shelter! We’ll find her a home.” Lois was horrified as she bent down and picked up her quivering, anxious dog.

“I meant I’d take her home.”

“Oh, well… good!”

Still barking as if he’d seen the face of Satan, Kaiser wiggled and scrambled as Lois carried him out of the living room. “His kennel is in my bedroom,” she called over her shoulder, then reprimanded the dog. “You know better, Mr. Kaiser. . ” Her voice became muffled, and the cat, frost in its whiskers, looked up at Alvarez.

Alvarez unlocked the door and slid it open. Without a second’s hesitation the cat, black with white toes and a spot under her throat, strolled inside to rub up against Alvarez’s jean-clad leg. “Hey.” She leaned down, petted the cat’s arched back, and melted when the animal started doing figure eights between her ankles.

Somewhere a door shut.

“I swear he hates cats!” Lois said, returning to the living area. “Oh, I see you’ve already made friends. Poor little thing! She must be starving.”

“I’ll feed her.”

“Good! Good!” Lois tried to pet the cat, but it ran and hid beneath the sofa. “Uh-oh. So now she’s shy. You know, I’ve got an extra pet carrier. I used it when Kaiser was a puppy. We could put her in that.”

“If we can catch her.”

“You try and I’ll find the crate.”

To Alvarez’s surprise, the cat didn’t put up much of a fight. Within ten minutes, she was in the car, driving back to her own apartment, the animal yowling piteously from its carrier in the backseat.

She wondered, as she hauled Jane Doe, the name she’d settled on for the moment, toward her front door, if she would have the heart to take the cat to the shelter, or if as of now Jocelyn Wallis’s cat was hers. In her mind’s eye she saw Lois Emmerson and her dog in matching sweaters and couldn’t help but fast-forward to her own life. Would she suffer the same fate as the older lady? End up living alone with an animal who was a surrogate child, a cat with her own set of clothes?

“Never,” she breathed, unlocking her door and stepping into the sterile studio she called home. She fed the cat from a can she’d gone back and swiped from Jocelyn Wallis’s apartment, folded a towel for a kitty bed, and let the cat explore. While Jane Doe was nosing around, Alvarez poured some of the kitty litter she’d also taken from the dead woman’s home into a box with short sides. She placed the cat into the box. “Remember this, okay, Jane?” she asked, and the cat promptly ran out of the bathroom. “Great.”

Alvarez hurried through the shower, toweled off quickly, and changed into black slacks and a rust-colored turtleneck. She added big hoop earrings, and for once, let her long black hair fall free.

Back in her small kitchen area, she found a dusty bottle of Cabernet in the pantry and swiped it clean while the cat dared jump onto the counters. “You’re pushing it,” she warned, and Jane responded by yawning and showing off needle-sharp teeth. “Be good.”

Not on your life, she imagined the cat saying as she grabbed her coat and scarf, threw them on, and, before she could talk herself out of it, snagged the bottle and her purse and walked out the door.

Snow was softly falling, millions of tiny flakes glistening in the lamplight.

Telling herself she was six kinds of a fool, she made her way through the coming blizzard to her Jeep, where, once inside, she paused.

Was she really going to do this?

Take up Dan Grayson on his offer?

With a stray cat locked in her apartment?

Keys poised over the lock, she closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Oh, hell,” she muttered. What was the worst that could happen? She’d embarrass herself? She’d find him alone with some other woman? He’d be home alone, not expecting anyone and surprised to find her outside his door?

Who knew?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Or Nada aventurado, nada adquirido, as she used to say as a teen, an expression that made her grandmother shake her head at her.

Jabbing the key into the lock, she twisted on the ignition. Seconds later, she was driving out of the lot, through the falling snow, and wondering what the hell she would say to her boss once she landed on his doorstep.

CHAPTER 14

“ We’ve been over this before.” In Santana’s large bed, with firelight flickering through the open doorway to the living area of the cabin, Pescoli levered up on one elbow. Sighing, exasperated with her own conflicted emotions, she stared down at the man she hated to admit she loved. God, she was a fool.

Especially for him.

The lingering scent of chili—turkey chili, he’d informed her — mingled with the smell of burning wood. Their Thanksgiving dinner had been less than traditional, and she loved him for it. Most of the hours together had been spent right here, in his massive bed, his dog, a husky named Nikita, curled on the floor near the door. Outside the windows, snow fell softly, and for a few peaceful hours it was as if they were totally alone in the world.

Santana, too, was naked, his skin tanned against the white sheets, his black hair mussed and falling over his forehead, his eyes still dark with passion, and she found him incredibly sexy. Still. After over a year of being together.

The bastard had the audacity to grin, his teeth a slash of white in the shadowy room. “And I have the feeling we’ll go over it again and again and again before you can face the fact that you need me.”

“Need you?”

“Yep. That’s what it is. Deal with it.”

“I don’t need—”

“Anyone,” he finished for her. “Yeah, I know. I’ve heard it enough.”

“So why are you pressuring me?” He’d asked her to move in with him. Again. A year ago, while she’d been recovering from the mental and physical wounds from dealing with a madman, she’d agreed that living together would be a good idea. It had sounded safe. Smart. Been so tempting. But now…

“Come on, Regan. Would it be so bad?” He was reaching up, his warm, calloused hands scaling her ribs. Her skin tingled where he touched her, her blood warming. “We could have a lot of fun.” He raised himself upward and touched the tip of one of her nipples with his tongue. His breath was warm against her wet skin. “Think about it. Making love every day, late at night, and in the morning. .”

She felt that familiar yearning deep within. As if he sensed her response, he reached lower and fanned his fingers between her legs, fingertips skimming the most sensitive of areas. “Think about it,” he whispered against her breast.