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Chapter Five

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Befitting my mood, it’s raining heavily as I drive home on Monday evening.

Below the speed limit. (Not a good thing to do in New York if you don’t want the bird flipped at you.)

My emotional roller coaster has sucked the life out of me. And my lead foot. I’ve become like those zombies I see in Grand Central about to go home on the train, one of the commuting undead.

The moment I gave my boss my decision, I began to second guess myself.

Back and forth all day.

I did the right thing.

Or did I?

I pull into my driveway and trudge up the steps, head down. Inside I find Rory working on her laptop. She looks up and studies my face. “Uh-oh. I know that look.”

I shake my head as I attempt to hang up my raincoat, but I miss the hook and it falls to the floor.

I roll my eyes and leave it there.

She gets up and moves toward me. “Well? What did you decide?” She grabs my raincoat off the floor and hangs it up.

“I’m not on Air Force One, am I?”

She flashes a wide smile, then gives me a hug. “I’m proud of you.”

“Are you still proud of me if I tell you I’ve been wondering if I made the wrong decision all day?”

She breaks the embrace and leans back. “Yep. You can replay it all you want. Bottom line, you did the right thing. Freckles, you’ve got nothing to prove. You’ve already reached the top of the food chain in your career. Covering the guy in the White House for several months cannot be that appealing.”

“I guess. Y’know, funny thing I discovered about my chosen profession today that I never noticed before. People will eat their young for a promotion. Right after I told my boss I was turning down the assignment he threw it open to anyone who wanted to toss his hat in the ring.”

“I thought he was gonna give it to that woman you hate?”

“Perhaps the higher-ups realized she’s a brainless bimbo. Anyway, you should have heard my cohorts bad-mouthing one another all day, trying to get the assignment.”

“So who got it?”

“They hadn’t decided when I left.”

“Ah, so you’re thinking it’s not too late to change your mind.”

“Actually, I’m not. I’m thinking that the people in the news business need souls.”

“Well, you’re okay in that department, Freckles. Yours is beautiful.”

A loud meow from behind distracts me. “Aren’t the kittens in the spare room?”

Rory looks past me and points. “That’s not one of your kittens.”

I turn and see a soaking wet cat in the window, shivering and crying. “Awww. Poor thing got stuck in the rain.” I move to the window and open it. The cat dashes in and immediately shakes, sending a spray of water everywhere. But it’s still shivering. I grab a towel from the bathroom and kneel down to begin drying it off. “Talk about a drowned rat. Okay, kitty, you can stay here till the rain stops.”

And then it hits me.

White cat with one blue eye and one green eye.

And a red collar.

“Rory, I know this cat!”

“Huh?”

“She’s been lost. Belongs to a little girl I met at A.J.’s deli.” I quickly run to the kitchen and grab the flyer I’d put on the bulletin board, then head back to the living room and hand it to Rory, who has taken over cat drying duties. “Her name is Snowflake.”

The cat meows and looks up at me when I say her name.

Rory looks at the flyer. “Well, one little girl is gonna be real happy.”

I grab my phone and call the number on the flyer. It goes to voicemail so I leave a message. “Nobody’s home.”

“The cat is probably hungry.”

“I don’t have any adult cat food. I’ve got a can of salmon. Think she’d eat that?”

“Geez, Freckles, I dunno if cats like fish.”

Palm slap. “Duh.”

Three hours later Snowflake is dry and curled up at my feet as the doorbell rings. I answer the door and find the little girl and her parents wearing big smiles. The girl yells “Snowflake!” and runs past me. The cat immediately perks up, runs to the girl and jumps in her arms, then starts licking her. The girl hugs her tight.

I feel my eyes well up a bit as I usher her parents inside.

“Thank you so much,” says her mother, the spitting image of her daughter. “By the way, I’m Joanne and he’s Jonathan. My daughter has been devastated since the cat went missing. How did you find her?”

“I saw her in the window when it was raining, so I brought her in. Then I realized she was the lost cat on the flyer. I was in the deli when you guys came by.”

“Really nice of you,” says her dad, a tall, sandy-haired man around thirty who looks like a young Robert Redford. He smiles as he watches the girl and the cat.

“Looks like your daughter and Snowflake have a special bond.”

The guy turns back to me. “Oh, I’m not her dad. I’m her uncle. Joanne’s brother.”

The woman drops her voice a bit. “My ex is out of the picture.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t be. Samantha and I are doing fine. And Jonathan is a big help.”

I hear the tortoiseshell crying from the spare room.

The little girl looks at the door. “Oh, you have a cat too?”

“Right now I have four little kittens. You wanna see them?”

“Yeah!”

I lead everyone to the spare room where I find the tortoiseshell sitting up in front of the other three, as it’s feeding time. The little girl kneels down and begins petting them. “Where’s the mother cat?” she asks.

“Well, unfortunately she went to cat heaven.”

“Oh no.”

I tell them the story of finding the kittens. “Anyway, I’m taking her place until they’re old enough to feed themselves. Would you like to help me bottle feed them?”

The little girl turns to her mother. “Can I, mom? Please?”

“Sure, honey.”

I go to the kitchen and return with the bottles of formula. I sit on the floor next to Samantha and show her how it’s done. “Okay, now, hold your kitten very gently and put the bottle in front of it. It knows what to do.”

The child follows my instructions and beams as the kitten latches onto the bottle and begins draining it.

Her mother pulls out a cell phone. “Oh, this is too cute. I have to get a picture and some video of this.” She crouches down and aims the phone.

The Lost Cats and Lonely Hearts Club: A heartwarming, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy - not just for cat lovers!

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