Page 14 of Herding Cat

“Oh my God. He’s an orphan? All alone in the world?” There was a strange lilt to her voice, something wounded and anguished. Something he didn’t understand, but it caught his attention. “Where does he live?”

Luke grimaced. “Ma’am—”

“Where does he live?” Her tone did not brook denial.

His partner asked the boy the question and was treated to a long spate of rapid Cantonese. When the boy was done, Luke sighed.

“Well?” Catherine prompted.

“Ma’am—”

“Will you stop fucking calling me ma’am?” A snarl.

“Uh. Catherine.” Luke flushed. “The boy says he lives at an orphanage.”

“Oh, poor baby.”

The boy, sensing Catherine’s tenderness, offered a wobbly smile, one designed to make a fertile woman ovulate, or at the very least, gird her loins and go to war to protect a child. Which Catherine did.

“We’re taking him there.”

“Catherine—”

“We’re taking him there now.” She hunched down and smiled at the boy. Took his hand and squeezed. “Don’t worry. I won’t let them hurt you.”

“We’re not going to hurt him,” Luke sputtered and Catherine frowned at him.

“Ask him why he needs to steal,” she said.

“He already told me. Some cockamamie story about a baby sister who needs an operation.”

“Ohhh!” And yeah. Garrett was pretty sure she ovulated right there on the spot.

“Ma’am, you can’t believe the stories these urchins tell.”

She pulled the boy into her arms and stood. “Can’t I?”

Luke shot him a look, something helpless and pleading, but Garrett just shrugged. If Catherine was so determined to save this boy, to go to this nonexistent orphanage and see the nonexistent baby sister who needed a nonexistent operation, fine.

It beat the hell out of more Night Markets.

Also, she might learn something about believing the stories told to her by vagabonds with big brown eyes.

Chapter Four

Catherine wasn’t sure why she insisted on carrying the boy as they made their way to the address he gave, but when Luke asked to take him, she refused. Maybe it was the way the boy cuddled into her, his warmth or his shivers.

She could tell both her escorts were rolling their eyes at her—insisting on taking this boy home, insisting on carrying him—but she didn’t care. This felt right. It felt like the right thing to do.

To her surprise, the street he lived on wasn’t in a dingy, dangerous slum, something from Oliver Twist, perhaps—as one would expect of a pickpocket—but a quiet neighborhood speckled with businesses and apartment buildings and not far from the market.

As they made their way up the stoop, she noticed the sign above the door and her heart gave a little skip. It was, in fact, an orphanage.

She shot a triumphant look at Luke, who muttered, “He probably knows this place. Doesn’t mean he lives here.”

But when they knocked on the door, it was answered by a plump woman with streaks of fading red in her silver hair, whose eyes went wide as she spotted the boy. “Tsu Mae!” she cried. “What on earth are you doing out?”

“Ma’am,” Luke said. “The boy attempted to steal this woman’s purse.”