LITMIR.BIZ

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of thirty women, twenty-six of them have pets.”

      “And of that twenty-six, I couldn’t get a single client,” Eden mumbled, wishing she hadn’t wasted Bev’s time. “Still, it wasn’t all bad.”

      She didn’t have to take her eyes off the road to know Bev had shot her an incredulous look. Probably a sneer, too, if Eden knew her friend.

      “Hey, I made contacts. That counts. They might not have signed on board today, but all it takes is one good word, one rich matron with a colicky dog, and I’m set.” She slanted a sideways glance toward the passenger seat. “And, hey, at least dessert was good.”

      “Well, I’ll give you the desserts point. But do you really think a matron or two using you as their vet is going to stop the bank from calling in the loan?” Bev didn’t even bother with the skeptical look this time. Her tone, even wrapped around chocolate icing, spoke volumes.

      “Until I come up with something better, this is the best shot I’ve got,” Eden said morosely.

      Damn her mother. Damn herself for not forcing Eleanor to sign herself off the property when Eden had bought her out. She should have known better. According to her personal bio, Eleanor Gillespie was a free spirit. A wild wind that couldn’t be tamed. Eden sighed, her fingers clenching and unclenching on the steering wheel. A loving flake who specialized in making life difficult for her only child.

      From preschool when she’d used all of Eden’s classmates to test her politically incorrect, factually accurate and visually scarring nursery rhymes to high school when she’d volunteered as a parental chaperone at the senior all-nighter, then lectured everyone on birth control, sexual satisfaction and the benefits of a vegan lifestyle, she’d been a challenge. But she was also fun and bubbly, creative and clever, and loved Eden in her own self-absorbed, offbeat way.

      Eden rounded the corner of narrow country road, tall trees looming on either side of the asphalt. But just as she passed the pretty stone gates that led to the Sullivan Estate, something white flashed. She lifted her foot off the gas, peering through the window. She saw it again.

      White fur and gray spots.

      She slammed on the breaks.

      Bev’s hand shot forward, bracing against the dash.

      “What the hell …?”

      Half on and half off the road, Eden killed the car engine and threw her door open.

      “It’s Paisley,” she called as she hurried around the car toward the stately bank of large maple trees Laura Sullivan had planted when she was a young bride. “Mrs. Carmichael has been frantic since the cat ran away last week. We need to rescue her.”

      “That cat is evil,” Bev muttered, following her. “Besides, do you really think ran away is the right term? That sounds so innocent. I heard it was more like a prison break, complete with injuries and property damage.”

      Eden waved that away. So Paisley was a little difficult. She was a rare snow Savannah. Being standoffish was a characteristic of the breed, as was the need for play and fun. Since Mrs. Carmichael wasn’t much good at either, the poor cat had probably run off out of boredom.

      Before she could explain the psychological makeup of Savannahs, there was a loud screech, then a crash boomed out from behind the women.

      Except for a teeth-clenching wince, Eden froze.

      Bev screamed.

      Cringing, they both pivoted toward the car.

      Eden had forgotten to set the parking brake.

      She and Bev stared at the tree-hugging vehicle in silence.

      Damn.

      “This is a bad week for cars around you,” Bev observed with a resigned sort of huff.

      Eden groaned. It was like she was a walking, talking accident waiting to happen.

      The car wasn’t new, or even in very good condition, but it’d been big enough for her to transport anything smaller than a horse, was paid for and had looked decent enough not to irritate wealthy potential clients.

      Now the passenger fender had formed an intimate relationship with a redwood.

      After staring at the car for a solid minute, Eden sighed and deliberately turned her back on it to walk the rest of the way across the street.

      “Aren’t you going to do something? Where are you going?” Bev hurried after her. When Eden stopped under a tree and peered through the leaves, then reached up to test the strength of one branch, the cheery blonde gaped. “You can’t be serious? You’re still going to try to rescue the cat?”

      “Why not? The car is already a mess—I might as well have something to show for it.” A safe, secured pet was a reasonable price to exchange for a molested fender. And maybe, if she was lucky, this could be her chance to bond with Paisley and get in Mrs. Carmichael’s good graces.

      “Paisley,” Eden called in a cajoling tone. The cat, perched high on a maple branch, stopped its upward bounce to toss Eden a disdainful look. “C’mere, pretty kitty.”

      “Why don’t we just call Mrs. Carmichael and tell her we saw her cat. She can come get it herself,” Bev suggested when her stilettos slid on the dirt bank. “And give us a ride while she’s at it.”

      “Sure, a sixty-year-old woman needs to be climbing a tree after her cat,” Eden dismissed, her own stubby-heeled Mary Janes not slipping at all—girls who tended to trip over their own feet wore stilettos at great risk—as she made her way around the base of the maple.

      After a few more calls, a few snarky remarks from Bev and another dismissive look from the cat, Eden sighed. She looked up the road, then down, to make sure no cars were coming. She only climbed trees once in a blue moon, but somehow she always managed to get busted.

      “You’re lookout,” she told Bev. She glanced down at her pretty blue cotton dress, then tugged the back of the pleated skirt forward between her thighs, tucking it into the wide black belt. “There, modesty intact.”

      “There, fashion destroyed,” Bev said, shaking her head in dismay. “If anyone asks, I tried to talk you out of this. I pointed out the likelihood of you falling, of you breaking yet another bone or something horrible happening to your hair.”

      Eden’s fingers combed through the thick swath of heavy brown hair at her shoulders and gave Bev a confused look. “My hair?”

      “I think it’s the only thing you haven’t messed up so far. It’s due.”

      Eden grimaced, then shrugged. Bev was probably right. Some people might lament their fate, others would spend hours in therapy. She figured that by simply accepting that she was a little accident prone, she was not only ahead of the game in terms of dealing with emergencies—because after all, she created at least one a month—but she was saving a fortune on psychiatric fees.

      “Watch for cars,” she warned again, reaching up to grab the closest branch.

      “What do I do if I see one? Whistle? Throw myself across the driver’s window to hide their view?”

      There might be a few drawbacks to having a BFF with a smart mouth, Eden decided as she levered her body onto the first branch.

      “Just give me enough warning so I can hide,” she said as she gained her balance and slowly stood upright to reach for another limb.

      With Bev’s voice droning in the background, covering everything from the fact that she’d never learned to climb a tree to the insanity of grown women acting like squirrels, Eden scurried higher.

      A minute later, she was one branch away from Paisley.

      “Hi, sweet kitty,” she said in a soft singsong voice. “Are you up here playing Queen of the Jungle? You should be—you look like royalty.”

      She kept the soothing tone going,

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