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Buffin and Striker had made their own decision. Not Joe nor Dulcie nor Wilma meant to forbid them. The boys had bonded with the Firettis, with these two loving humans; they had bonded with the life of the hospital. They would not be going home with Dulcie and Wilma when the party was over. Even when he looked up at Courtney playing happily with her brothers, he saw a lonely sadness touch the little calico’s face, he knew she’d miss Buffin and Striker, and his own dismay nearly choked him. Dulcie reached out to him from where she lay in Wilma’s lap, her soft paw covered his paw and he saw the same loneliness on both Dulcie’s and Wilma’s faces.

But it was the kittens’ right to step out into the first chapter in their new lives. He looked around the patio at the rest of the party, so happy, talking, laughing, congratulating bride and groom. He didn’t want Kate and Scotty to see his sour mood, to put a painful note on the wedding—Voletta had done enough of that. Though her destructive temper tantrum had caused as much amusement as anger.

Clyde rose to change the music to the old forties hits that they all loved, and as a CD belted out Artie Shaw, half a dozen couples were soon dancing. Max danced the first dance with the bride. At the next number he handed her over to Scotty. After several dances, Kate returned to the kitchen to cut small slices of what was left of the wedding cake. She wrapped each in foil, and handed them around to all the single officers, gleaning laughs and a few startled looks. “This is not to eat, it’s to sleep on. It might not be traditional,” she said, “for men to get the wedding cake and dream of their brides. But who knows, stranger things have happened.” That gained more laughter and rude teasing, enough to make her blush. When she gave the two female detectives their cake, Juana Davis said it was a bit late in her life, when she was already expecting a grandchild. But beautiful young Detective Ray smiled and tucked the cake safely in her pocket.

The bride and groom stayed for a half-dozen more dances before they departed. They were there for the sad moment when Mary and John Firetti cuddled the two boy kittens and headed home—the kittens receiving many kisses from Dulcie and Courtney and Wilma, and nose nudges from Kit and Joe and Pan. It wasn’t as if they were leaving Molena Point, they were only a few rooftops away. Joe thought of Buffin’s future, of the many animals he might help, and maybe humans, too. As for Striker, that kitten knew the number of roofs from the clinic to MPPD as well as to his father’s house, and of course he knew the way back to his mother.

“I’m not leaving for good,” he told Joe. “But right now Buffin needs me, and the Firettis need both of us. And,” the big kitten said, “the first time you need a partner, I’m right there with you.”

Wilma and Dulcie and Courtney left shortly afterward, Wilma carrying them both, Dulcie wiping tears with her paw. Heading home, Wilma was satisfied that the threat of housebreakers was past. Those who had wanted the Bewick book knew well enough it was locked in MPPD’s evidence room—or, they thought the rare volume was there. They had no idea the real book was only ashes. Now the thieves’ minds would be on other matters, on lawyers, on the county attorney, and on their imminent indictments.

Party-cleanup time was plate-licking time for Joe and Pan and Kit. Trash was bagged and taken out, the kitchen given a quick wipe-down, the chairs and tables folded and stacked, then Ryan collapsed on the couch. Upstairs, Snowball woke at the silence and came padding down from her retreat to be hugged and petted and loved; the little cat might not like crowds and parties but she loved the attention afterward that centered on her, alone.

Ryan went out once to look at her poor truck, but soon came in again. They had already brought the bags of tools and power tools inside. Now, Clyde held her close. “I’ll take it to the shop in the morning. We’ll have it right in a day or two if we can get all the parts. You’ll look mighty grand, taking the Jaguar to work among lumber and torn-out walls.”

“I’ll look mighty grand to Lena,” she said coldly. “I wonder if Max will keep Voletta in jail or set bail and send her home. They can’t care for her wounds very well in a jail cell, and he did release Lena to take care of her. At least Lena’s good for something. And,” she said, smiling, “will Voletta get bail under the same conditions? Home confinement and a PO?”

“And a leg bracelet?” Clyde said. That set them laughing, until Snowball, with too much noise again or maybe feeling left out, went back upstairs. But soon they were all in bed, doors locked, lights out, Snowball and Joe Grey snuggled close to Ryan and Clyde.

At the Firetti cottage, Buffin cuddled with his little dog, Lolly, who felt well enough to caper around the bedroom before she settled on the bed, the three animals and Mary and John cozy together.

At the Greenlaw house, Kit and Pan started out in the big bed with Lucinda and Pedric as they usually did. Maybe later, in the small hours, they would head for the tree house and, if the moon grew brighter, maybe for a short hunt.

The clouds did clear, and up the coast where the moon gleamed over the sea, at a small, exclusive inn, embers burned in the fireplace and the terrace doors stood open. The bride and groom, having risen from bed, sat on the wide deck, a quilt wrapped around them, listening to the breakers crashing below. “It wasn’t the usual wedding,” Scotty said, “thanks to Voletta and to our wild little cats.”

“It was the best wedding,” Kate said. “I hope Juana and Kathleen got some pictures of the cats going after that woman and all of us crowding to help them, what a wedding album that will make.”

“That, and the picture of you with icing all over your face.”

“Pictures of both of us with icing,” she said, leaning close against him. “This is a marriage of sharing.”

And it would be. They both knew that, just as the cats knew. At Wilma’s house, where Dulcie and Wilma and Courtney were tucked up in bed, Dulcie said, “They will be happy. Happy because they love each other and because now they don’t need to keep secrets, because they can talk together honestly. And because, knowing those two, they won’t fight but will talk things over, come to a sensible understanding, the way two cats would do.”

“Always?” said Wilma, turning to look wryly at her.

“Almost always,” Dulcie said; and she smiled and rolled over and in seconds she was asleep. Wilma slept, too.

But Courtney pawed under the pillow for the tiny foil package of wedding cake that Kate had given Wilma to save for her. She lay holding it in her paws, sniffing it, at first dreaming wide-awake memories: but soon dreaming visions of times long past, pictures of lands far away, of handsome tomcats suddenly remembered. Yawning, she drifted into sleep clutching her little cake against her whiskers, wondering if the wedding cake would tell her where her future lay, tell her where this new life in which she had landed might take her. Tell her what grand dreams this new world would unfold for her.

About the Author

In addition to her popular Joe Grey mystery series for adults, for which she has received eleven national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year, Shirley Rousseau Murphy is a noted children’s book author who has received five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards. She lives in Carmel, California, where she serves as full-time household help to two demanding feline ladies.

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Also by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Cat Shout for Joy

Cat Bearing Gifts

Cat Telling Tales