Carla Neggers - The Carriage House

She tore open the crumpled packet and dumped the food into the cat's new dish. Tippy Tail, stretching, still scraggly-looking, emerged from Tess's camp bed and padded over to the little girl. Dolly ran her hand over the cat's back. Tess thought the old cat looked as if she'd just delivered four kittens and could use a nice, long rest.

"Are you okay, Tippy Tail?" Dolly cooed. "You have cute babies. You be good to them, okay? I know you will." She looked back at Tess, her eyes bright with affection. "Tippy Tail is a good mommy cat, isn't she?"

Considering the animal had intended to have her kittens in a dirt cellar, Tess wasn't so sure. But what did she know about cats? "She seems to have good maternal instincts."

"What's instincts?"

"An instinct is knowing in your heart what's the right thing to do."

"Oh." Dolly stood up and watched Tippy Tail eat, then, dutifully keeping her distance, peeked at the kittens, who were all asleep on the sleeping bag. She whispered, as if Tess didn't know any better, "We should leave them alone."

She ran out the side door and plopped down on the steps as if she was in for an extended visit. Andrew motioned to her with one finger. "Got to go, kiddo."

"Can Tess come over for supper?"

Tess winced, standing at the bottom of the steps. "Actually, Dolly, I'm thinking about heading back to Boston tonight. That's where I live-"

"Please!"

Andrew leaned against her car, arms folded across his chest, looking relaxed and sexy, slightly less suspicious than last night and at lunch. "You're welcome to join us for dinner before you head back."

"Thanks, but-"

"Why're you going back to Boston?" Dolly asked. "Why can't you stay?"

Andrew gave the barest hint of a smile. "That's a good question, Dolly."

"Well, because I have a lot of work to do, and I'm not getting any of it done here." But the lie was transparent, even Dolly Thorne looked dubious. Tess sighed. "And my Tippy Tail adventures last night have me a little off center. The thought of staying here alone doesn't exactly thrill me."

Dolly's forehead creased. Then her eyes brightened, and she clapped her hands together. "Silly! Who wants to stay in this old place? It's got mice. Harl says so." She jumped up, yanked on her father's hand with excitement. "Tess can sleep over at our house, right, Daddy?"

He tugged gently on one of Dolly's braids. "I've already made the offer, sport."

The little girl swung around to Tess, who could feel her stomach muscles tightening. When a six-year-old was involved, she had to be careful, whether in being attracted to her father or lying to him. She said, "I don't know. Why don't we wait and see?"

Then, as if to deliberately exacerbate her situation, a familiar brown pickup rolled into the driveway.

Tess swore under her breath. "Oh, no."

"What is it?" Andrew asked.

"My father and one of his buddies."

Dolly frowned. "Where's your mom?"

"What? My mom?" She felt as if she'd been hit in the gut, but managed a smile at the little girl. "My mom's in heaven, too."

"She is? She died?"

Tess remembered being perfunctory about such things at six one minute, weaving fantasies and dreams the next. She nodded, trying to match Dolly's mood. "Yes. She died when I was a little girl."

"Like my mommy."

"My mother had a very bad disease, cancer."

"Ick."

Andrew said softly, "Dolly, we should go. Tess has company."

She jumped up, skipping across the driveway as if she and Tess had just been discussing picking flowers.

Davey Ahearn got out of the driver's side of his heap of a truck, his best friend of many years climbing out of the passenger side. Davey had a fresh cigarette lit.

Tess shook her head. "No way. You're not smoking in my house."

"Not even a hello first, just put your butt out? You and your old man. He wouldn't let me smoke all the way up here. Couple of pains in the ass." He tossed his cigarette onto the gravel and ground it out under his steel-toed boot. Then he noticed Dolly. "Geez, I didn't see the kid."

She gave a regal toss of her head, the sunlight catching the flowers in her crown. "I'm Princess Dolly."

"Yeah? No kidding. I'm Davey Ahearn, the hired help."

"If you'll excuse us," Andrew said to Tess. "Din-ner's at six. Come whenever."

That was all Davey needed. Tess could see him go on high alert. She ignored him. "Can I bring anything?"

He shook his head.

She knew she had to introduce them. If she didn't, it would make things worse. Her father came around the truck, and she said, "Pop, Davey, this is Andrew Thorne and his daughter, Dolly. They live next door. Andrew, my father, Jim Haviland, and my godfather, Davey Ahearn."

"You the architect?" Davey asked.

Andrew nodded. "More of a contractor these days."

"Yeah, you're not as big a jackass as most architects I've had to work with." He glanced at Dolly again and reddened. "Sorry."

Jim Haviland was more pensive, taking in Andrew with a tough-minded scrutiny Tess had come to expect whenever her introductions involved a man, no matter who it was. But he said, "Pleased to meet you," and let it go at that.

Dolly disappeared through the lilacs, calling for Harl, on some other tangent, and Andrew seized his opening.

Tess ticked off the seconds until he was reliably out of earshot. Only then, she knew, would her father and Davey speak.

"So," Davey said, easing in beside her, "you take this barn instead of cold hard cash before or after you checked out who lived next door?"

"Davey, I swear to you, if you don't wipe that smirk off your face-"

"I hear his wife died a few years ago."

"Davey."

Her father crossed his arms, rubbed a toe over a small, protruding rock in the driveway. "Dinner, huh?"

"It's a courtesy. His daughter's cat had kittens- " She groaned, throwing up her hands. "Come on, I'll explain while I give you the grand tour. What are you two doing up here, anyway? And don't you have my cell phone number? You could have called."

But the idea that these two men needed to call before seeing her didn't even register with them. She saw her father giving her house a critical once-over from the edge of the driveway. He was trying to look neutral. When he had to try, it meant he wasn't, and usually not because he approved.

Davey picked up his ground-out cigarette butt and set it inside his truck, turning back to Tess. "Business was lousy at the pub. Too nice a day. So, your old man and I decided to take a drive up here, see what's what." He gave the kitchen steps a test kick. "Good, at least I can get inside without falling on my ass."

"This place has character, though, doesn't it?" Tess tried not to think about last night but she didn't want to tell her father and Davey what she'd seen, not until she was sure herself what it was. She'd have to keep them out of the cellar. "Isn't the location just gorgeous? You can smell the ocean."

"Smells like dead fish," Davey said.

She ignored him. "Come on. But you have to be quiet, I don't want to scare Tippy Tail. That's Dolly's cat. She had kittens in my bed early this morning."

Her father exhaled in a loud whoosh. "Jesus H. Christ," he breathed, and followed his daughter and best friend into the carriage house kitchen.

Davey grinned at the sleeping kittens and mother cat in her camp bed. "Did I tell you this place was a goddamn barn? These guys are cute now, but wait'll you get little kitty turds all over your kitchen floor. They won't be so cute then."

"They don't look so cute now," her father said. "I don't get what people see in cats."

"I set up a box with a towel in a corner in the bathroom," Tess said. "It's a lot cozier than out here in the open. I'm hoping Tippy Tail'll move the kittens there, free up my bed."