Софи Келли - Paws Аnd Effect

“I’d like that,” I said, smiling into the phone even though he couldn’t see me.

“See you shortly,” he said.

I was wearing an old T-shirt and leggings and my hair was half up, half falling out of a messy bun. I had time to change before Marcus arrived.

Then I heard a knock on the back door. “If that’s Elliot, you can deal with him,” I told Owen, who murped what sounded like agreement and kept on eating.

It wasn’t Elliot, though; it was Marcus. He pulled me into a one-armed hug.

“How did you get here so fast?” I said.

He grinned. “I was already in the driveway.”

I tugged at my T-shirt. “I was going to put on something a little less covered in cat hair,” I said, brushing a clump of Owen’s fur from my knee.

“I like covered in cat hair,” Marcus said, pulling me in for a kiss.

A meow came from the kitchen. Marcus laughed. “Hey, Owen,” he called.

There was another meow in answer.

Marcus followed me inside.

“What’s in the bag?” I asked, pointing to the canvas grocery bag he was carrying. He shot a quick look over in the cats’ direction.

“B. A. C. O. N.”

Hercules glanced in his brother’s direction, stretched and then ambled over to sit in front of Marcus.

“Don’t tell me he can spell,” Marcus said.

“Apparently he can,” I said. “He hasn’t mastered subtlety, just five-letter words that pertain to food. And keep in mind that Owen has a nose like a wolf.”

Right on cue the little tabby lifted his head. His nose twitched and he turned and made a beeline for Marcus, pawing the tote he’d just set on the floor.

“Hey!” I said sharply. “Don’t do that.”

Owen ignored me completely. He raised a paw and tried to reach into the top of the bag.

“Don’t do that, either,” I snapped. I picked the bag up and set it on the counter.

“Later,” Marcus whispered to them. He looked at me. “Got any tomatoes?”

“There’s a couple in the fridge.”

“How about a breakfast sandwich?”

“Sounds good,” I said. After a moment there were two agreeing murps from the floor.

“Sit,” he told me, making a shooing motion with one hand. Both cats immediately sat on the kitchen floor and then glared at me as if I was somehow ruining it for everyone by not sitting down right away too.

“I’m just going to get myself a cup of coffee,” I said.

Marcus gestured at the chairs. “Sit,” he repeated. “I’ll get it.”

So I sat, watching him get a cup of coffee for me and one for himself. The cats watched the bag with the bacon. “I have to tell you something,” I said. “I talked to you father last night.”

“Did he plead his case for why he thought he should be my lawyer and not Brady?”

He thought I meant at the restaurant.

“Here,” I said.

Marcus was holding an egg and the shell smashed in his fingers. He dropped it in the sink and ran water over his hand. “You let him in?”

I nodded.

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to talk to him. I think he can help.”

I watched Marcus take one deep breath and then another before he spoke. “I don’t want his help.”

I suddenly didn’t know what to do with my hands. I pushed at my messy bun with one hand and it went sideways. I pulled out the bobby pins and elastic and shook my hair loose. It gave me time to get my feelings under control a little more.

“I know you don’t want his help. And I wouldn’t ask you to take it. But I do want it.”

“Kathleen, you don’t know what he’s like,” Marcus said, frown lines carving deeper into his face.

“He’s charming, manipulative, and has no scruples about saying what he thinks you want to hear just so he can do what he was planning on doing all along. And he always thinks he’s the smartest person in the room, which he may very well be some of the time, but not all of the time.”

Marcus shook his head. “Okay, so you do know my father. What did he want?”

I leaned my elbow on the table and propped my head on my hand. “He wants to help you.”

“On his terms.” Marcus turned back to the counter and reached for another egg.

I nodded. “Yes, on his terms. Doesn’t mean I agreed to that.”

He glanced at the cookie tin/first-aid kit that I hadn’t put back in the cupboard and then looked at me. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Merow!” Owen said.

I sighed. “Your father tried to pet Owen. I told him not to.”

“He doesn’t listen well. Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” I said. “It was just the back of his hand. I cleaned it up and put on a small bandage.”

Marcus cracked an egg into my red mixing bowl. “Thank you,” he said. “But I meant Owen.”

At the sound of his name Owen meowed loudly again just in case we were, say, deciding who was getting bacon and who wasn’t.

I smiled and shook my head. “No, you don’t,” I said.

Marcus grabbed a fork and began beating the eggs. “No, I don’t,” he repeated. “But it’s just typical of the things he does.”

“He loves you.” I shifted in the chair, pulling up both legs so I could lean my chin on my knees.

“I do know that,” he said. “And I love him. I just don’t always like him.”

“So I’ll be careful. I’ll try not to be charmed or conned by your dad. Can you live with that?”

He sighed and then nodded. “I can live with that.”

I smiled. “So maybe you can stop beating the heck out of those eggs.”

Marcus finished our breakfast sandwiches—scrambled eggs, cheese, bacon and fried tomatoes. I was glad I hadn’t changed after all when a bit of egg fell out of my sandwich, bounced off my T-shirt and landed on the floor.

Hercules immediately put his paw on top—not that Owen was going to go after a bit of egg when he could be eating the extra bit of bacon Marcus had slipped him and I’d pretended I hadn’t seen. I had warned Elliot not to try to pet the cat, but that didn’t mean I thought it was okay that Owen had gone all Wolverine on the man.

Herc looked up at me with a slightly pained expression on his furry face. The egg had been sandwiched next to the fried tomatoes, which meant he now had tomato on the bottom of his foot.

I lifted my napkin off my lap. “Hold up your foot,” I said to him, gesturing with my free hand. He dutifully held up his paw, but not the one that was still firmly on top of that bit of egg, because who knew what one’s brother might do if it was uncovered.

“The other foot,” I said, nudging it with one finger.

“Merow,” he said and his green eyes darted in Owen’s direction.

“No, he won’t.” I leaned forward and put my left hand, on its edge, next to the bite of egg, which had to be pretty soggy by now. Hercules hesitated, then lifted the paw and I managed to wipe it with the napkin in my other hand. He turned it over, licked it a couple of times for good measure and then dropped his head to finally eat the scrap of scrambled egg.

I tried to sit up again but my center of gravity was off. I flailed one arm in the air and then I felt Marcus’s hands on my shoulders pulling me upright.

“Thank you,” I said, kissing his mouth and only getting about half of it because I was still slightly off balance.

“You’re welcome,” he said. He got up for the coffeepot.

“You haven’t said what happened last night,” I said, reaching for my sandwich.

Marcus shrugged. “It was just more of the same, the same questions I’ve answered three times now. What kind of a relationship did Dani and I have? Did we stay in touch? What did we talk about the day she died? What did we argue about?” He pulled his hand back through his hair. “I’ve done the same thing myself but only when I had a viable suspect—which I’m not in this case.”