Cash nodded. “I live out that way. I can show you.”
I definitely broke the speed limit getting to the old bridge, with Cash directing every turn. It wasn’t long before we’d moved away from the clean white picket fences in the middle of town and toward an area I’d never been in before. There were no freshly painted pickets here—this was all tired chain-link fences, sagging porches, and lawns that were more weeds than grass. There was the occasional flower bed where someone was making an effort, but mostly it was just dirt. I wondered if Cash’s house was like that too. I knew he and his brother lived with a bunchof guys that weren’t their family, so I guessed there was a story there.
And yet he hadn’t hesitated to dig every cent he owned out of his pocket to pay Dog’s bill, and that told me a lot about Cash and what made him tick.
We pulled up on the side of the road near the bridge, and Cash was out of the car before I’d even turned the engine off. It was past dawn now, but the new day was gloomy, so I grabbed the flashlight I always kept in my car and jogged after Cash toward the side of the road. It was covered in brush and weeds and a fair amount of sheer garbage. It had to be an unofficial local dumping spot. There were tires, crates, trash bags, and beer cans strewn throughout the stringy bushes.
Then, in the quiet morning air, I heard it—a thin, distressed meowing. Cash heard it too, and he darted forward into the long grass, stopping every few seconds to listen. I swept back and forth over the area with the flashlight, making the shadows on the bumps and the ruts in the ground move and shift, but I couldn’t see anything. But we couldhearthe kitten, so it must be close, and I wasn’t giving up. Cash dropped to his knees and laid his head against the ground, and after a few seconds he lifted his head and grinned.
“Over here,” he said and crawled forward toward a pile of old wooden crates.
I followed him with the flashlight and caught a flurry of movement. Cash reached a hand between the wooden slats of the bottom crate, and when he turned to me, he was holding a tiny orange body. It was utterly still and my heart stuttered for a moment as I feared the worst, but then the kitten let out a soft squeak, and I could breathe again.
Cash stood and held the kitten out to me and grinned. “We saved it!”
“Yeah,” I said, grinning back as I took the kitten, its fur soft against my palms. “We did.”
And even though we’d lost the mother, this felt like a win—and with how I’d been feeling lately, I was going to take any wins I could get.
By the timewe got back to the clinic, Kayla was already there, digging in her bag for the keys to unlock the door. She looked between us, one eyebrow raised, and said, “Do I wanna know?”
Cash shot her a wary look.
Then her gaze caught on the kitten he had cradled against his chest and her expression softened. “Rescue mission?”
“Mother cat was hit by a car and didn’t make it,” I said. “The rest of the litter is inside.”
That was all it took for Kayla to switch into professional mode. “How many and how old?”
“Four, around three weeks,” I said.
Kalya hummed. “Let’s hope they make it.”
A worried divot appeared in Cash’s forehead. “You have to save them,” he said, and the urgency in his voice surprised me. He looked at Kayla with wide brown eyes and said, “Please?”
Kayla shot me a surprised look of her own, and I realized this was the first time Cash had ever spoken to her directly, a sign of how desperate he was.
“Yeah, we’ll save them,” she said, giving Cash a reassuring smile. “Right, Doc?”
I nodded, even though there were no guarantees.
By the time I’d finished examining the newest arrival—another male—Kayla had prepared the KMR and had four syringes ready and fitted with the special nipples we kept onhand for the neonates. I looked around for Cash, surprised he wasn’t in the treatment room with me.
“He’s feeding Dog,” Kayla said, even though I hadn’t asked, “but I’m guessing he’ll be here soon.”
“I thought he might like to feed them, that’s all,” I said, not sure why I was defending myself.
“Right,” Kayla said, giving me a look I couldn’t quite place. “He’s here for the kittens.”
There was the squeal of sneakers on linoleum, and then Cash appeared in the doorway. His gaze locked on the tiny orange bundle in my hand.
“You wanna feed him?” I asked.
Cash hesitated. His palm flexed against his thigh like he was imagining how it might feel and the longing was clear in his eyes, but then his shoulders slumped and he shook his head, his eyes darting to the clock on the wall.
Right. He had a job to go to.
“Okay,” I said, “but if you come by after work, you can feed them then. Trust me, there’ll be plenty of chances. Plenty.”
