“Well, well, well,” Lauren said, a grin spreading across her face as she took the kitten from Caitlyn and held her a bit closer to the horse. The kitten was purring like a little engine. “Is this what’s been missing from your life, Miss Molly? Did you have a barn cat at the old ranch?”
As if to confirm it, Miss Molly’s tongue swiped the kitten, which promptly shook itself and hissed at her. Clearly not a match made in heaven, Lauren thought. Still, she thought she knew now what it would take to get Wade’s horse back to her old self.
“Do you have plans for this kitten?” she asked Caitlyn.
“No, she most certainly does not,” Emma said emphatically. “You want her, she’s yours.”
Lauren ignored Emma and kept her gaze on Caitlyn. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
Caitlyn frowned. “I guess not. Mom said I had to get rid of one of them anyway. How come you want her?”
“I think Miss Molly here needs a friend,” Lauren explained.
“A horse wants to be friends with a kitten?” Caitlyn asked, clearly fascinated by the idea. “Won’t she hurt the kitten?”
“I’ll see that she doesn’t,” Lauren promised. “Until she’s bigger and until she and Miss Molly are used to each other, I’ll keep her in the office except when I’m around. So, what do you think? Is it a deal?”
Emma nudged her daughter. “Say yes.”
“Okay, okay,” Caitlyn said. “But I can come see her, right?”
“Anytime you want. Have you named her yet?”
Caitlyn shook her head. “Mom said it would be harder to give her up if she had a name.”
Lauren grinned at Emma. “Your mom is a very smart woman. What would you think if we called her Good Golly?”
“That’s a funny name,” Caitlyn said, her nose wrinkled as she considered it.
Emma chuckled. “I get it.” She looked at her daughter. “There was a very popular song way back in the fifties, ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly.”’
“Then together they’d have the name of the song,” Caitlyn concluded. “Cool.”
“Definitely cool,” Lauren agreed. She could hardly wait to share the news with Wade.
Something was up with Lauren. She’d been casting strange looks his way all through dinner. Wade couldn’t get a grip on what was going on. When he asked, she just mumbled some nonsense about having had a great day and refused to say another word.
But as soon as dinner was over and the dishes were cleared away, she announced casually, “I think I’ll take a walk down to the barn. Want to come along, Wade?”
“I spent all day on a horse. Why would I want to go see more of them?” he grumbled.
“Trust me,” she said with a suggestive wink. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
His lack of enthusiasm vanished in a heartbeat. “Now that’s an invitation a man would have to be insane to turn down,” he said, and followed her outside.
It was a hot, still night with no evidence that it was likely to cool down. Wade would have been perfectly happy to sit in a rocker on the porch, Lauren in his lap, and try to stir up a breeze.
Instead, they were kicking up dust and getting overheated in a far less interesting way. Still, maybe that payoff she’d promised at the barn would be worth it. In fact, he was counting on it.
It was cooler inside the shadowy depths of the barn. Lauren paused first at Midnight’s stall, offered the horse a cube of sugar and filled Wade in on his progress. The matter-of-fact recitation suggested this wasn’t why they’d come.
Before they moved off toward Miss Molly’s stall, Lauren stopped him. “Wait here. I have to get something.”
Wade had visions of a blanket, maybe a couple of ice-cold beers, a handful of juicy strawberries. When Lauren came back with none of those things, he barely restrained a sigh of disappointment. He regarded the flannel shirt she was carrying—one of his, if he wasn’t mistaken—with suspicion.
“What do you have there?”
“You’ll see,” she said, once again giving him that mysterious smile.
She led the way to Miss Molly’s stall. To his astonishment, the horse immediately perked up as they neared.
“What the devil…?” he murmured. “How did this happen?”
“Just wait.” Lauren knelt down and unwrapped her bundle. A kitten, little more than a few weeks old, opened its eyes and meowed sleepily. Miss Molly whinnied in response.
As Wade’s mouth gaped, the horse put its head down and nudged the kitten gently, drawing a hiss for her efforts. That didn’t seem to daunt Miss Molly in the slightest. She swiped her tongue over the black-and-white fur ball. As if resigned to the attention, the kitten stood patiently for another couple of swipes, then danced away to wind itself around Lauren’s ankles.
“Well, I’ll be darned,” Wade said.
“I take it there was a cat in the old barn,” Lauren said.
“A big old tomcat,” Wade confirmed. “He wasn’t good for much but chasing mice.”
“And apparently keeping Miss Molly company,” Lauren suggested.
Wade recalled the number of times he’d found the old cat curled up on the windowsill in Miss Molly’s stall. “You’re right. I never paid a bit of attention to it, but when she was in the barn, he was always pretty much underfoot.”
Ecstatic at the change already evident in Miss Molly, he grabbed Lauren by the waist and swung her around, then planted a solid kiss squarely on her mouth. “You’re a certified genius,” he declared.
“I wish I could take full credit, but Caitlyn’s the one who brought the kitten for me to see,” she told him. “Miss Molly reacted the instant she heard the first meow, and I knew we were on to something.”
“Still, you were the one who said from the beginning that the horse was homesick. I thought you were nuts.”
She patted his cheek. “I do like a man who can admit his mistakes.”
“I’ve made my share,” he agreed. “And I own up to them when I do.”
“Will you
