“We had a tiger-striped gray-and-white cat named Louie. Well, his entire name was Louis L’Amour,” she said, pronouncing Louis the French way, “but we just called him Louie.”
Nick grinned. “Louis L’Amour? A cat with literary pretensions, huh?”
She looked at him and laughed. “Emily named him. My kid sister. Back then, she couldn’t decide if she wanted to grow up to write Western stories like L’Amour or paint Western scenes like Remington.”
“And today she’s, what? A writer? A painter?”
Lissa grinned. “She’s the VP for marketing at MS Enterprises. Her husband’s company. They do international construction.”
“So, why don’t we call this guy Louie?”
“Let’s. And what about her?” she said, nodding at the kitten sound asleep in Nick’s hand.
“I’m not good at naming things.”
“Everybody’s good at naming things. Just look at her. Does she remind you of anybody? Of anything?”
“You’re so sure she’s a she?”
“Nope. It’s not easy to tell when they’re this little, but I’d bet your kitten is a girl.”
“My kitten?”
“Yeah. Your kitten.” Lissa looked at him. “She seems happy to be with you.”
He looked at the cat that now lay curled like a comma in his hand.
“Dumb thing that she is,” he said, but with a tenderness that made Lissa smile.
“So, come on, Gentry. Stop stalling and come up with a name.”
Nick looked at the kitten, at that soft golden fur and the darker gold ears.
“She’s the color of peaches,” he said.
“That’s what you should call her. Peaches.”
He grinned. “Why not? Louie and Peaches.”
Brutus, lying at their feet, raised his muzzle from his front paws and whined. Nick laughed.
“Brutus approves. In fact, he says it’s perfect.”
“Perfect,” Lissa said, and thought, with a little rush of surprise, how right the word was to describe not just the moment, but the entire day.
* * *
She made a quick and easy supper. Meatloaf. Mashed potatoes with caramelized onions. Green beans. Dessert had taken a back seat to putting away all the groceries and dealing with the kittens, but the men reacted to a batch of chocolate chip brownies as if they were profiteroles filled with whipped cream.
Sometime after six, she set about planning what to cook for the freezer in addition to the lasagna that was cooling on the worktable. The dinosaur haunch was in the fridge, marinating in tamari, garlic, herbs and a touch of honey, ready to go into the oven first thing in the morning. She’d leave Nick directions for when to take it out and what to do after that, because she’d be gone by the time the roast was ready.
The thought made her feel a little sad. Foolish, of course, but she’d started to feel comfortable here.
She dried her hands, smiled at the kittens sleeping in their box, and heard the pad of Brutus’s paws against the oak floor.
Smiling, she turned toward the dog. “Did you come to keep me comp—”
She broke off in mid-sentence. The dog wasn’t alone. Nick was with him—Nick, leaning on a wooden cane instead of a crutch.