She stared at him, her heart pounding, trying to look enchanted by his tale, wondering what power they had made together, to allow him to see her world so clearly.
He fixed breakfast while she showered. The rain had stopped, the sky was clearing and the morning turning hot. He took their tray to the terrace and stood calling the little cat; he hadn’t seen her since the day before. “Tom can’t have hurt her? He tried to kill his own cat. I swear I’ll kill him if he touches her.”
“She would scratch him, Braden. She would run from him.”
“Go ahead and eat. I’m going to look for her. Maybe while we’re gone she would be safer in a kennel.”
Dismay made her choke. “Wouldn’t she be terrified? Has she ever been in such a place?” But he had already started up the garden. She saw him glance up at the white house, his hands tightening into fists.
She ate as he searched; she put his plate in the oven. She watched him tramp through the woods then go down toward the highway. She loved him for caring so much. When he returned she said, “I’d look for her, but she won’t come to me.”
“You’ll need to pack a few things.”
“Yes. I’ll go do that.”
“You won’t need much: a bathing suit, some shorts, and that smashing green-and-white dress for dinner. I’ll call Mathew Rhain about the safe deposit box. If he’s back, we’ll stop there on our way, after we drop off the paintings.”
She headed across the lane toward the village then doubled back through the wood where Braden wouldn’t see her. Within five minutes the calico came running down the garden. He scooped her up, hugging and rubbing her, unashamed of his pleasure. “Where the hell have you been? Dammit, you scared the hell out of me.” He held her away, looking into her eyes. “I hope to hell you’re sufficiently afraid of that—of Tom. Where do you go when you disappear?” He carried her to the kitchen. “You don’t give a damn that people worry about you.” He put her down and opened a can of chicken. She wolfed down the chicken, then wound around his legs as he assembled the painting rack, put it in the station wagon, and began to load paintings. Before he went up to talk with Morian about taking care of her, he shut her securely in the house.
Morian put her arm around him, scowling. She was enraged by the slashed painting, but, Braden thought, she didn’t seem surprised. She said, “Of course I’ll keep the calico. I’ll shut her in my bedroom when I’m gone, and fix the windows so no cat could open them. Olive should be back soon; she’ll watch the house when I’m not home.”
“What about the key? Doesn’t Anne have a key?”
“Not anymore. I got it back from her.”
He waited for her to explain but she didn’t. She said, “The calico will be fine, Brade. Sleep on my bed, eat caviar.”
He hugged her companionably. “She’s shut in the studio, I’ll bring her up before we leave.”
But when he returned to the house, the calico had disappeared. He had left the door locked. Melissa wasn’t back, no one had come in. The windows were closed. He searched the house, puzzled, then worried, then angry. And why was he so damned upset, worrying over a damned cat?
But he kept searching, behind the stacked canvases, under the bed, even in the cupboards. There was no way she could get out. He had given up at last and was taking out the last two paintings when she appeared from the bedroom and shot past him out the front door. He watched her race away up the garden to disappear behind Olive’s house, and he leaned the paintings against the station wagon and went after her.
He didn’t find her. He went back to the studio and called Morian. Hell, if the cat could evade him like that, she could sure as hell evade Tom.
In the village Melissa shopped for a small suitcase, a bathing suit, and tennis shoes. She returned to the garden to find Braden irritated because the cat had disappeared again, and Morian trying to soothe him, promising him she would search for the cat and care for her. Morian said there was nothing for Braden to worry about, she’d call him if there was a problem; and she gave Melissa a look that startled and alarmed her—as if Morian knew very well where the little calico would be.
But of course she was imagining that; there was no way Morian could know.
Chapter 55
She was afraid of taking the elevator by herself. She got out of the station wagon nervously as Braden paused in traffic. She entered the brick office building, pushed the elevator button, and steeled her nerve to slip inside. She was glad she was alone and not among strangers. She rode up feeling skittery, wanting to climb the wall. She tripped as she left the moving box and thought the door would close on her. Unnerved, she fled to find Mathew Rhain’s office.
A blond, tight-lipped secretary took her name. Melissa turned her back on the woman and stood looking at the watercolors of sailing ships that decorated the waiting room. When Mathew Rhain came out of the inner office she froze, so startled she found it hard to speak.
