A Mother's Love - Cheryl Wolverton

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paws. Maggie jumped but didn’t back away. “I’m not going to hurt you. Please let me help you, sweetie. Just let me help you. No one helped me, but I can help you,” she whispered.

      Carefully she moved her hand closer.

      This time the cat only eyed her hand.

      She slipped it under the cat’s head, then its body. The cat growled.

      Maggie made sympathetic noises, crying right along with the cat as she slipped her other hand under it and then picked it up.

      Its tail hung sideways. “Oh dear—oh dear,” she cried, over and over until she had gathered the cat to her bosom. “We’ll get you help immediately. I promise you. I won’t let you down.”

      Maggie heard the church door open. “The animal shelter…Maggie!” Alarm in his voice tensed her spine.

      Jake hurried forward when he saw the bloody mess in her arms. “You’re pregnant. What if it has rabies? What if it had bitten you?”

      Maggie’s face turned as hard as stone. “Will you drive me to a vet?”

      Jake hesitated then nodded. “Just let me take—”

      The cat hissed and swiped at Jake. His eyes widened and he lifted his hands in surrender, backing up.

      “Okay. Okay. You hold it. But I’ll be praying the thing doesn’t take its pain out on you before we get to the vet.”

      “It won’t,” Maggie said, looking back down at the cat.

      Jake paused in pulling his keys from his jeans pocket He eyed her his features probing, searching before he nodded, “You know, Maggie-May, I think you just might be right.”

      He slipped a hand to her lower back, then guided her toward the truck. “There’s a clinic less than two blocks away.”

       Chapter Five

      She wouldn’t let them cut its tail off.

      Jake was still shaking his head over that. Jake sneezed again as he turned into the driveway next to the church.

      “Are you sure you’re not allergic to cats?” Maggie asked worriedly.

      Jake shook his head. “I’m not allergic to anything.” He rubbed at his watering eyes. “Just dust or something, I’m sure.”

      He pulled to a stop and hopped out, then went around the hood to open her door. Once again the cat hissed at him.

      He sneezed.

      “Be careful,” she warned when he reached out to ease her out of the truck’s seat. “I don’t want you to scare her.”

      Scare her? Jake looked at the way the cat rolled its eyes at him and didn’t think the animal was in any way scared. “Careful, now. We don’t want you falling.”

      “I’m fine,” Maggie said, holding the cat close. “I still can’t believe she only had a cut on her side, was missing part of her ear and had a broken tail and broken foot”

      “Well, if the doc was right and it climbed up in someone’s car, I’d say it was real lucky.”

      Maggie nodded, sighing when both feet found solid ground. “The cat is a she, not an it.”

      “Oh.” Jake nodded. He went ahead of her and opened the door to her house. As she approached he sneezed again. “You sure you’ll be okay with her here? Doc offered to keep her for you until the owner was found.”

      Maggie shook her head. “I’ll look after her. We don’t even know if she had an owner. There were no records. That’s why the vet went ahead and gave her shots.”

      Jake sighed He watched Maggie cooing to the cat the entire time the cat growled back at her. The hair on the back of his neck stood up at how mean that cat sounded, but Maggie sat there and made faces at the animal.

      “If you need anything…”

      Maggie looked up, opened her mouth, then shook her head.

      “What?”

      “Nothing. I can get it later.”

      Jake studied her as she went over and sat down on the couch. His gaze drifted to the cat Suddenly it dawned on him. “Cat food.”

      Maggie glanced up, surprised. “Yes. I do need cat food. But I am paying for this.”

      She narrowed her eyes to let him know she was serious.

      Jake shrugged. “I didn’t mind paying for the vet. You saved the cat when the shelter would have put her down. It was the least I could do.”

      Maggie laid the cat carefully on her jacket, which was on the couch, and stood. She crossed the room to her purse and opened it. Jake watched her discreetly count out her money, then hand him some. “I would appreciate it. I’m just afraid to leave her right now.”

      Jake smiled. “No problem. I’ll run up to the store and be right back.”

      Maggie’s face softened. “Thank you.”

      Her smile could easily knock a man off his feet. He couldn’t remember anyone with a smile like that. He found himself grinning like an idiot “Uh, yeah.” Jake cleared his throat “Okay. I’ll just…go.”

      Maggie nodded, turning back to the cat when she growled again.

      Jake shook his head and left, sneezing three times before he got out the door. He tried to remember if he’d ever been around cats and couldn’t recall a single incident except when he was a child. “No. I do not have allergies,” he reassured himself.

      Jake turned and headed across the driveway to his truck. He saw Jennifer and her husband locking up the day care for the evening and paused.

      Jennifer and Gage came over. Gage stuck out his hand and Jake automatically shook it. “How’s the new secretary? She getting settled in?”

      Jake nodded, blinking at the itchy sensation. “She’s fine. I’m sorry, Jennifer, that I was gone so long. It took the doc longer to patch up that cat than we realized.”

      “No problem.” Jennifer peered at him. “Cat allergies?” she asked sympathetically.

      “No.” Jake shook his head. “I just…the truck needs to be cleaned out bad.”

      Gage raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

      Jennifer looked confused. “If you say so. Do you need anything before I leave?”

      Again Jake shook his head. “I’m on my way to the store. No one called, did they?”

      “Yes. Mrs. Rawley. She wanted to make sure this was her Sunday to work in the nursery. Gloria called and rescheduled her appointment from Monday to Tuesday to talk with you. She said she just couldn’t make it.”

      Jake sighed. Gloria was putting off their talk and that worried him. She had come to him about the problems going on in her marriage and their one talk was enough to make him really concerned.

      “And Sister Hollings called. She wanted to talk to you about the music again. She says it’s way too loud on Sunday morning. If it wasn’t turned down, then she said she was going to turn it down herself.”

      Jake smiled. “I know…that guitar…”

      “Just drives me crazy,” Jennifer said with him, and they both chuckled.

      “Gotta love her,” he said. “You left the messages on my desk?”

      “Yeah. They’re all there except Gloria’s. I slipped that in your top desk drawer on top of the phone book.”

      “Thank you, Jennifer. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

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