Rachel Lee - No Ordinary Hero

“Amazing. Do you need to go to them?”

“No, that only reinforces the behavior. We all, me included, wish there was some way to comfort them, but there isn’t. They interpret the comfort as positive reinforcement, and it makes it worse. And right now we don’t have any dogs who freak out enough to require sedation. So the best thing to do is let it burn itself out.”

“That must be hard to do.”

“It is, I admit. I have to remind myself often enough that trying to soothe them will make it harder on them in the long run.” He gave a faint smile. “When it comes to animals, I’m a natural-born hugger.”

She returned his smile. “That’s a good thing. I like people who want to hug kids and animals. It’s the ones who don’t that concern me. So you can really leash-train a cat? I’m still trying to imagine that.”

“Oh, Colleen won’t be able to walk her, or anything like that. But she can be trained to accept leash limitations. By that I mean if she’s sitting on Colleen’s lap and decides she wants to run after a bird, she won’t throw a clawing, hissy cat fit because she can’t get any farther than six feet. She may glare her disapproval, but before long she’ll climb back on Colleen’s lap, and eventually she’ll stop trying to run after things outside.”

“I was raised with the notion that you can’t teach cats anything.”

He laughed quietly. “Cats do a good job of keeping it a secret. I had my last cat perfectly trained. I fed him when he wanted, played when he wanted, and … he never ever tried to get out the door after just a few attempts when I caught him and dragged him back in. He learned his limits. The same way he learned to stay out of the fridge when the door accidentally shut on him, catching him in the side.”

“Oh, my!”

“ That only took one lesson.” His dark eyes danced. “One of the main differences between cats and dogs is that dogs are eager to please. More of a pack mentality. Cats … well, less so.”

Thunder rumbled again, this time louder. This time Mike glanced at the window, and Del noticed that the kitchen was definitely darker now.

He looked at her. “Are you going to be okay by yourself tonight?”

“Because of the noise, you mean? Of course I will. It’s just a noise. With my luck I’ll probably find out another wall stud just collapsed or something. I’ll be honest. I knew there was some rot in the place, but I didn’t expect it to be quite so extensive. And then down in the basement there’s this ridiculous brick wall that’s starting to crumble a bit.”

“A brick wall?”

“I know. Weird. I guess someone thought it would be attractive, like they started refinishing the basement and never got around to completing the job. But it’s just dark. The thing is, I keep wondering if, when I tear it out, I’m just going to find that there’s a big gaping hole in the concrete. That’s the way everything else in this house is going.” She gave a little shake of her head and a rueful smile. “At least the roof is solid.”

“Maybe you just need to bulldoze underneath.”

She laughed, imagining propping up the roof while destroying the house beneath it. “Don’t tempt me. But actually, there’s a positive side to all this.”

“Tell me.”

“I get to remake most of the place. The load-bearing walls so far seem to be fine, but since so much else is a mess, I can reconfigure the floor plan in lots of ways I wouldn’t have attempted otherwise. A work-through rather than a work-around.” She stared past him for a few seconds, envisioning it. “This may become the house I stay in. If I’m going to do all this work, I may as well enjoy the fruits.”

“What would you do differently if you decide to stay, as opposed to just selling it?”

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