The Older Woman. Cheryl Reavis

weren’t the only one to do that, were you?”

      “I was the only one to throw up,” he said, and she laughed again. Easily. Pleasantly. He hadn’t been trying to be cute. He’d been telling the truth again—but he was beginning to feel pretty damned witty here.

      He stretched his legs out in front of him. He wouldn’t have thought the blanket would help, especially in July, but the pain was already beginning to lessen. “I’m going to have to get me one of these,” he said.

      “You can have that one,” she said.

      “No, I didn’t mean—”

      “I know you didn’t. I have another. Actually, I have two others. My sisters seem to think I have no other way to keep warm. Take it.”

      He looked at her. She meant it.

      “Well, okay. Thanks.”

      “You’re welcome.”

      She disappeared again, and when she came back she had an apple in her hand. “Eat that,” she said, throwing it to him. “Put your feet up.”

      She left him sitting there—with the cat. After a moment he maneuvered both legs onto a nearby ottoman. Then, he occupied himself eating the apple and looking around the room. Nice place. Neat. Clean. He could see several framed photographs on a table—little kids mostly. Or maybe the same two kids—a boy and a girl—at different ages.

      Hers?

      He didn’t think so. At least, he’d never heard anyone mention that she had kids.

      The cat finally made her move, stepping carefully onto the blanket on his lap and then standing a moment before cautiously lying down. He sat there stiffly, trying to decide how badly he minded. The cat wasn’t hurting anything, he supposed, not even his bare legs under the blanket. After a moment he tentatively let his hand rest on its fur. It began to purr immediately. He couldn’t hear it, though. He could feel it with his fingertips.

      “Just as long as nobody sees me,” he told the little beast before it got too comfortable.

      He took a quiet breath. He was so tired. After a while, the cat stretched out across his knees. The added warmth was not…unpleasant.

      He closed his eyes. He heard a telephone ringing somewhere and Meehan answer it. The conversation was brief, and, as far as he could tell, nonhostile.

      Must not be the boyfriend.

      He heard the rain, and a strong gust of wind against the house. And then he heard nothing.

       Chapter Two

       S omething’s wrong with my hand.

      The realization penetrated his sleep and wouldn’t leave. His hand was tingling. No…not tingling. Vibrating.

      He opened his eyes.

      The cat.

      It was purring. It had moved off his legs and was sharing half—more than half—of the heated throw. His hand rested heavily on its back.

      “What time is it?” Doyle said out loud, in spite of the fact that he didn’t hear Meehan anywhere.

      The cat rolled into a ball and hid its face in its paws. He looked around the room. It was still daylight.

      Wrong, he thought immediately. It wasn’t “still” anything. The sun was shining, and it was on the morning side of the house. He attempted to move his legs off the ottoman—and regretted it immediately. He rarely slept the whole night through, but apparently he’d done just that, and he was paying dearly for the inactivity.

      His cane was propped against the couch. It had a note taped to the handle, one direct and to the point: “Latrine—doorway straight ahead. Kitchen—doorway to left. Coffeepot comes on at five-thirty.”

      He could smell coffee, come to think of it, but first things first. With considerable effort he managed to get to his feet and then make it to the latrine and back, closely supervised by a meowing cat all the way. It ran along in front of him into the kitchen and pointedly sat down facing a base cabinet door.

      “What?” Doyle said in response to yet another of its inquisitive chirps and in spite of his determination not to talk to it. The cat immediately stood, did a kind of four-pawed, feline ballet pivot and sat down again. And stared at him.

      “Can’t help you,” he said. “Just passing through.”

      And he intended to do just that, but the coffee-maker gurgled. He looked in that direction. There was another note taped to it. He hobbled over to read it:

      “Cups in cabinet in front of you. Unplug pot when you leave.”

      The coffee smelled great, and he was never one to pass up an invitation. He reached up and opened the cabinet door and took out a shiny black coffee mug. He poured some coffee into it while the cat did figure eights at his feet.

      “Nine point six,” he said, looking down. “Maybe seven.”

      The cat ran to the base cabinet door again and meowed loudly.

      “Okay, okay. I get it. That’s the chow door and the MRE’s are in there, right?”

      He hobbled over and opened the door. A small box full of pouches of cat food sat on the bottom shelf—the feline version of Meals Ready to Eat. With some difficulty, he got one of them out.

      “See?” he said to the cat. “I’m not as dumb as I look.” He might not speak the language, but he’d had plenty of practice muddling through, anyway, in his time. In the Balkans. In Haiti. In Korea.

      He shook off the feeling of loss the memory of a healthier and more useful time gave him and glanced around for something to commandeer for a cat food dish. He saw nothing particularly appropriate, so he tore the pouch open and down one side and placed—dropped—it on a paper towel on the floor. The cat didn’t mind roughing it in the least.

      He walked painfully back to his coffee. It was really good, and he took the cup to the table and eventually maneuvered himself into a chair. He stretched both arms over his head and yawned noisily, wondering idly where his hostess had gotten to. Maybe the boyfriend had had second thoughts about the situation. Maybe he’d regrouped and come back here last night with his hat in his hand—or his bag of bagels—and Meehan, overwhelmed by his generosity and not wanting to explain what the gimp was doing snoozing on her couch, had trotted off with him to his place.

      Doyle picked up the coffee cup and immediately put it down again. He didn’t much care for that scenario. It didn’t fit his idea of what Kate Meehan was like, for one thing. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would let a man jerk her around, especially one who had done his dead level best to make her cry. She was the kind who would—

      He gave a sharp exhalation of breath and repositioned his aching legs. What the hell did he know about Meehan and her situation?

      Nothing.

      Still, he was kind of surprised that she would go off and just leave him alone in her house. On the other hand, she’d trusted him enough to inflict him on Mrs. Bee. It looked as if she trusted him enough to leave him all alone with the Meehan family silver, too.

      The doorbell abruptly rang—way too early for callers in Doyle’s opinion. He toyed with the idea of ignoring it, then decided that it might be Meehan with her arms full, and the least he could do was let her into her own house.

      He struggled to his feet and then to the door—the wrong door. The doorbell rang again, and he hobbled in the opposite direction, this time with a cat escort.

      The boyfriend stood on the patio with his little white bag and a cardboard coffee cup holder holding two cups.

      “This ought to be good,” Doyle said to the cat. He opened the door wide and stood waiting, enjoying the man’s startled look much more than he should have. But—as he’d told Meehan—he didn’t get out much.