A Season For Grace. Линда Гуднайт

the sudden inflow of light, the kid’s head whipped around. A mix of fear and resentment widened his dark eyes.

      “Nice place you got here,” Collin said, stooping to enter.

      “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

      “Stealing from convenience stores isn’t wrong?”

      “I had to. Panda—” Mitchell glanced down at the box “—she’s hurt.”

      Curiosity aroused, Collin moved to the boy’s side. A mother cat with three tiny kittens mewed up at him. Mitchell stroked the top of her head and she began to purr.

      Collin’s heart slammed against his ribs.

      Oh, man. Déjà vu all over again.

      “Mind if I take a look?”

      The kid scooted sideways but hovered protectively.

      Collin frowned. The cat was speckled with round burns, several of them clearly infected. “What happened?”

      “Some kids had her. Mean kids who like to hurt things. She was their cat, but I took her when they started—”

      Collin held up a hand. He didn’t need the ugly details to visualize what the kid had saved the cat from.

      “You can’t stay here, Mitchell. Your mother is worried.”

      “She’s just worried about her ten bucks.”

      “You shouldn’t have taken it.”

      The kid shrugged, didn’t answer, but Collin’s own eyes told him where the money had gone. And if his nose was an indicator, the kid had scavenged a pack of cigarettes somewhere too which would explain the store owner’s guilty behavior. He’d probably sold cigarettes to a minor.

      “I’m not going back to her house.”

      “You have to.”

      “I can’t. Panda and her babies will die if I don’t take care of her. Archie, too.”

      “Archie?”

      The kid reached behind them to the other couch and gently lifted a turtle out of a shoe box. A piece of silver duct tape ran along a fracture in the green shell.

      Emotions swamped Collin. He felt as if he was being sucked under a whirlpool. Memories flashed through his head so fast he thought he was going blind.

      At that moment, little Miss Social Worker poked her head through the opening. “I thought I heard voices.”

      Mitchell shrank away from her, blocking the box of cats with his body.

      “I won’t leave her,” he said belligerently. “You can’t make me.”

      “Maybe your mother will let you keep them,” Collin said, hoping Mitchell’s mother was better than he suspected.

      “I’m not going back there, I said. Never.”

      “Why not?”

      The boy’s face closed up tight, a look Collin recognized all too well. Something ugly needed to be said and the kid wasn’t ready to deal with it.

      As the inevitability of the situation descended upon him, Collin pulled a hand down his face.

      After a minute of pulling himself together, he spoke. “Nothing’s going to happen to your cat. You have my word.”

      Mitch’s face lightened, though distrust continued to ooze out of him. “How can you be sure?”

      “Because,” Collin said, wishing there was a way he could avoid involvement and knowing he couldn’t, “I’ll take her home with me.”

      The boy’s face crumpled, incredulous. The belligerent attitude fled, replaced by the awful yearning of hope. “You will?”

      “I know a good vet. Panda will be okay.”

      Mia ducked under the black plastic and came inside. Her eyes glowed with pleasure. “That’s really nice of you, Sergeant Grace.”

      “Yeah. That’s me. Real nice.” Stupid, too.

      He was a cop. Tough. Hardened to the ugliness of humanity. He could resist about anything. Anything, that is, except looking at Mitch’s face and seeing his own reflection.

      Like it or not, he was about to become a big brother—again.

      He only hoped he didn’t mess it up this time around.