Raining Cat Sitters and Dogs Read Online Free PDF Page B

property considerably less valuable than most Siesta Key beachfront land and keeps our property taxes in the lower stratospheric reaches.
    When my grandparents moved to the key back in the early ’50s, they ordered their frame house from the Sears, Roebuck catalog. The carport was added later, and the apartment wasn’t built until after my brother and I moved in with them. Our father had been killed saving somebody else’s children in a fire, and our mother had run off with another man. I say “run off” because that’s how my grandmother always described her daughter’s desertion. I doubt that she really ran when she left. More likely, she skipped.
    I was seven when my father died, and nine when my mother left. My grandfather built the garage apartment when I was about twelve. At the time, he meant it to be guest quarters for visitors from up north. He never dreamed I would end up calling it home.
    When I came around the last curve in the drive, I saw Michael and Paco under the carport by Michael’s car. Michael is my brother, two years older than me and my best friend in all the world. A firefighter like our father, Michael is built like a Viking god. He’s strong and steady as one too, and so good-looking that women tend to grow faint when he crosses their line of vision. Too bad for them, because Michael’s heart belongs to Paco, who is an undercover agent with the Special Investigative Bureau of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department.
    As slender and dark as Michael is broad and blond, Paco also gives women hopeless fantasies of turning a gayman straight. His family is Greek-American, but he can pass for just about any nationality, which is a strong asset in his line of work. He’s also a master at disguise, and there have been times when our paths crossed while he was working undercover and I didn’t recognize him. Since I’ve come close to blowing a few drug busts that way, he now gives me a secret hand signal if we meet when he’s in disguise—usually his way of telling me to back the heck off. After thirteen years as my brother-in-love, Paco is almost as dear to me as Michael.
    Michael works twenty-four/forty-eight at the firehouse, which means he’s on duty twenty-four hours, then off forty-eight. Paco doesn’t have any set schedule, and Michael and I never question him about where or when he’s working. He wouldn’t tell us if we did, and we’re better off not knowing because we would worry a lot more than we already do.
    Michael’s twenty-four-hour duty had ended that morning at eight, and from the looks of the bags of groceries he and Paco were hauling out of his car, he had apparently left the firehouse and hit every supermarket in Sarasota. Michael is the family cook. He’s also the firehouse cook. If it were possible, Michael would be the world’s cook. I don’t think it’s because he loves throwing raw stuff in pots and pans and putting them over heat, I think cooking is merely one step toward his real goal, which is to feed people. With all due respect to the miracles Jesus performed, give Michael a few fish and a little bread, and he’d not only feed multitudes with it, he’d season it and turn it into the best dinner anybody ever ate. Plus he’d give them dessert.
    When I pulled my Bronco into its spot, Michael and Paco paused with their arms full of groceries and watched me slide out of the driver’s seat.
    I said, “Have I missed a hurricane warning?”
    As soon as I said it, I regretted it because it’s not cute to joke about hurricanes in Florida. Especially not in the middle of hurricane season.
    Michael said, “I just stocked up on staples. We were running low.”
    Behind Michael’s back, Paco rolled his eyes at me because he and I are pretty sure Michael has enough staples to last at least ten years.
    I leaned over his car trunk and hoisted out a bushel basket of green beans. “Yeah, I’ve been worried about our green bean supply.”
    Paco grinned and headed