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“I want to show you something.” Aunt Edi waved her over to the table where she’d laid out his military medals.
“Just a sec.” Cath held up a finger. “I need to feed Tiger first.”
He handed her the plate of scrambled eggs he’d made earlier. Someone had told him once cats liked cold food. “Will this do?”
“Let Mitch take that upstairs.” Aunt Edi waved her hand at him. “He’s already eaten and he said you two had to hurry. Sit down, dear. These are medals Mitch was awarded in his first years of service. He was only a teenager.”
Mitch swallowed a groan. He’d told his aunt Cath wouldn’t be interested. Hurley did not need to know what he’d done overseas. What was the proverb? “Ignorance is bliss”?
He turned the pieces of pain perdu, and poured her a mug of coffee strong enough to make a spoon stand. She looked up at him with those blue eyes, and a vise squeezed his chest. Here it comes. “You even have a Purple Heart.”
“I always wondered what was wrong with me.”
“Why didn’t you tell her?” Aunt Edi asked, indignant.
“Yeah, why didn’t you tell me?” Cath mimicked.
“There was no need.” In his opinion, the medal represented his worst failure. He lined up the jam, honey, and powdered sugar and set the French toast in front of Cath.
“How much time do I have to eat this?”
He picked up the plate of scrambled eggs. “How about ten minutes?”
“Why am I not surprised?” Cath lifted those delicate brows, and Aunt Edi laughed.
Smart-ass. Mitch shot her a look before leaving the room.
“Watch out.” Cath’s voice followed him into the hall. “Tiger’s loose.”
“I figured she was.” He ground his teeth. Cath pretended to be charming with his aunt, but she tossed plenty of barbs at him. Last night she’d bitched about having to look up at him. Too bad. He wasn’t going to slice off his legs to make her happy. Dammit. Now the old shrapnel wounds in his calves ached.
He cracked the bedroom door, crouched and ready to catch a sprinting ball of orange fur. Instead, the kitten streaked under the bed. He plastered himself on the floor. The kitten stared back at him. He coaxed her close enough to make a grab, and she clung to his shirt. Would Cath cling to him like this when she climaxed?
He’d be more likely to feel her claws, but he needed to start thinking of Cath as an inanimate object. Last night she’d clutched this kitten like a life preserver, and he’d gotten the feeling she depended on Tiger as much as the kitten relied on her. Stop thinking about her.
Mitch set the kitten down and retrieved his gun from the room he used. Downstairs, Cath sat at the table alone, her mug balanced between slender fingers, staring out the window. “It’s been thirteen minutes.”
“You can count past ten!” Her mouth hung open.
“Amazing, huh?” He zipped his windbreaker. Did she ever let up?
“Wonders never cease.” She took a last sip of coffee and handed the mug to him. “Why’d you quit and become a bounty hunter?”
She might as well have said “lousy” bounty hunter. “You don’t quit. You separate.”
Kurt walked into the kitchen, and Mitch lifted the coffeepot. His brother extended his cup and nodded to Cath.
“How are you this morning?” she asked, enunciating each word as if she spoke to someone whose second language was English.
Kurt frowned, and she signed and spoke. “Thank you for letting me stay. I really appreciate it.”
Kurt nodded and left, and Cath looked sucker-punched. “I told you he didn’t want me here.”
“He’s fine with you being here.”
She finished and rose. “Do you think he understood me last night, or was he faking it?”
“Kurt wouldn’t fake anything.”