Beauty & the Beasts Read Online Free Page B

eyes momentarily. Because the very fact that she was tempted scared her.
    “You must have some yourself,” she hazarded.
    “Only three.” He flashed a grin over his shoulder as he opened the sliding door and adroitly stuck out a foot to thwart the black cat who shot forward. “But I have a horse. I lost two elderly dogs last year. I’m sure some more will find their ways to my door one of these days.”
    Wonderingly she said, “So you understand,” and meant it in more than one way. He understood why she had so many cats, why she cared enough to volunteer here. Why all this mattered.
    This time his glance was unreadable. “Yeah, I understand.” His tone became bland. “So. Lead on.”
    She closed the sliding door behind them. “Joan,” she called. “Are you here?”
    No answer. The silence meant that Joan was either out in the feral building or had gone to start dinner in her own small apartment. Which wasn’t cat-free;eight who qualified as personal pets lived in the tworoom quarters with her.
    “Good God, what’s this?”
    Madeline laughed. Mudhen, who always made a point of greeting visitors, was wrapping himself around the vet’s ankles. Perhaps ten years old, Mudhen had arrived several years ago, battered and hostile. His gray coat had a tinge of tan that made it look perpetually dirty; scars twisted his face, and only one eye had survived. But he’d decided the people here were okay, this was home, and he could manage it better than anyone else. Joan had never even considered putting him up for adoption.
    “That’s Mudhen.”
    “He’s ugly as sin.” But Eric had crouched, albeit with a grimace of pain, and was gently running his fingertips down the homely cat’s broad back. Mudhen’s permanent expression of malevolence didn’t change, but a gruff purr rattled the air.
    “We can’t all be beautiful.” It came out tartly, even as she knew that, in this instance, he didn’t deserve her scorn.
    His eyes narrowed, but he chose not to react. Instead, he rose to his full height and his voice became more distant. “Shall we get on with it?”
    Biting her lip, she showed him the kitchen. “Joan has her own kitchenette in her apartment. We use this one only for medicines and preparing food for the cats. People donate chicken or fish sometimes that we cook, and of course a few cats are on special diets.”
    Eric made noncommittal noises and studied theirsupply of medications, some in a cupboard and others refrigerated. Madeline chattered about individual cats as they progressed through the former family room and garage and out into the chain-link-fenced runs.
    There the only comment she could think of was, “We can’t really mow out here.” As if he couldn’t tell. Bringing a mower through the house would have been difficult to start with; no exterior gate had been installed, so that vandals couldn’t let the cats loose with an easy snip of wire cutters. Inside the enclosure various wood climbers reached to the chain-link ceiling, with ramps and balance beams stretching like spider webs between. Thorny rosebushes and lilacs and rhododendrons grew around the perimeter. And everywhere cats of myriad colors and shapes sunned themselves on the rough grass.
    “The cats probably prefer it this way.” Eric scooped up a small gray-and-cream tortoiseshell that had plopped herself in front him to stare up beseechingly. “Who’s this?”
    “Hannah. She’s ten, which makes her a little harder to place. Her owner went into a nursing home. We haven’t found Hannah a new family yet, but we will sooner or later.”
    The small tortoiseshell burrowed her head under his chin and purred softly. When he followed Madeline to the bedroom wing, Hannah remained curled in the crook of his arm.
    They visited the kittens in the first bedroom. A litter of tiny newcomers, no more than five weeks old, huddled in a nest of flannel sheets in one cornerof a cage. Another cage was empty. A miscellaneous lot of leftovers