Cat Playing Cupid Read Online Free PDF

looking warily at the car. Willow stood watching as Charlie tucked the tray safely down on the front seat of her SUV, laid a soft lap blanket gently over Sage, and fastened the seat belt around the tray, securing his rigid little body. He widened his eyes as the belt seemed to imprison him.
    â€œYou must lie still. The belt is to protect you, to keep you from falling. The car will seem fast and bumpy. I’ll hold on to you, too.”
    Willow hopped up into the car, seeming to swallow her own fear of the great metal machine as she settled gently next to Sage. Charlie, moving around the SUV, swung in and laid a hand on Sage’s shoulder; as she started the engine he went even more rigid, his eyes growing huge with fear.
    â€œIt’s all right, Sage. That noise is just the engine. Please be still. Please, don’t hurt yourself more. I promise I won’t let you be harmed—and soon the hurt will ease.”
    But Willow said simply, “Be still, Sage. You must mind us! It won’t be long.” It was all Willow could say—she, too, was shivering with fear of the noisy vehicle as Charlie set out up the ranch lane, driving slowly. When they went over a bump in the gravel road, Sage whimpered with pain, and Charlie felt her stomach twist.
    â€œDr. Firetti will ease the hurt,” she repeated. “He’ll help you rest and heal.”
    Sage blinked up at her in a terrified yet slowly trusting way that made her heart hurt with tenderness. He was in such pain, yet he was doing as Willow and she told him, the terrified young cat was trusting her, and that innocent trust almost undid her.
    Heading out on their long road to the highway, she punched in Dr. Firetti’s number on her cell phone. One ring. Two. Firetti answered on the third ring as she turned onto the highway and down the hills toward the village. She thought her call had probably interrupted his dinner. Driving as smoothly as she could on the old, two-lane road, through the heavy dusk, she told Firetti that the cat was a stray she’d been feeding, that she’d been waiting for him to grow a bit tamer before she took him down to be vetted and have his shots.
    She told Firetti the cat had been in a fight with another stray. She didn’t know how else to handle the matter. She thought about the possibility of rabies, but she didn’t think that likely; there was not much rabies in their area except for the occasional rabid skunk or bat—and certainly thosetwo bands of speaking cats were far too wise to get near a rabid beast.
    But Firetti wouldn’t know that. Under the circumstances, the doctor would probably have to quarantine Sage, and that would complicate matters. Sage was not a cat to be kept in a cage, the speaking cats loved their freedom too well, were too intelligent to tolerate confinement; Willow had had experience with cages, and Charlie knew how stressed she had been.
    Well, she’d deal with that problem when Firetti mentioned it.
    â€œWhen you are healed,” Willow told Sage, “Charlie will take you back to the ranch so you can come and find us, so you can rejoin the band on the far hills.”
    â€œNot back to Stone Eye’s band?” Charlie whispered.
    Willow looked up at Charlie, her green eyes flashing with challenge. For a moment their gazes held again, transcending their difference in species; it was a moment that seemed beyond time, where species were no longer separated, where each knew the other intimately; it was an exchange that thrilled Charlie.
    â€œStone Eye is dead,” Willow told her.
    Charlie looked at her, startled.
    â€œLast night, Stone Eye’s warriors slipped into the ruins, stealthy and swift. Stone Eye wasn’t with them, not in the first wave. They attacked brutally. We fought them, but they were fifty or more, and we were only twelve. We couldn’t stand against them, it would have been our end. When they killed two of our young strong