Ms. Bravo And The Boss

In the end, he settled on putting his ear to her door, just to listen for the possibility of plaintive meowing.

“What are you doing, Jed?”

Luckily he had nerves of steel. He didn’t so much as flinch at the sound of her voice—even though he felt like a bad child caught with his grubby hand in the candy box.

Slowly, he pulled his ear away from her door and stood to his full height, turning to face her as he did it.

She watched him from the far end of the hallway, a stack of boxes in her arms. “Well?”

The best defense is always an offense. “Your damn cat. I was getting worried about it.” He strode toward her. “Here. Let me help you with those.”

She allowed him to take the boxes. “But you hate cats.”

“Open the door.”

She eased around him and did just that. It wasn’t locked.

The cat was there waiting. It didn’t look any the worse for wear. “Mrow? Mrow-mrow?”

“Wigs!” She scooped it up, scratched its big head and kissed it on its whiskered cheek. “How’s my big sweetie?”

“Mrow-mrow.” It started purring, the sound very deep. Rumbly. Like an outboard motor heard from across a misty lake.

Elise said...to Jed this time, “Just set those down inside the door. Thanks.”

He set the boxes where she wanted them and then turned to leave, figuring he’d escape before she asked him any more questions about why she’d come home to find him with his ear pressed to her door.

No such luck. “Why where you worried about Wigs?”

Resigned, he stopped and faced her again. “You left the cat locked in there all day. That can’t be good.”

“Well, that’s kind of sweet of you.” She seemed bemused.

He hastened to disabuse her. “I am never sweet.”

She actually giggled. He despised gigglers—or at least, he always had until this moment. She held up the cat. It hung from her hands, totally relaxed, and big enough that its rear paws dangled at the height of her knees. “See? He’s fine. I left him plenty of food and water. He doesn’t mind a little alone time.”

“A little? You’ve been gone for eleven hours.”

Her soft mouth pursed up. “It’s my day off. How is it any of your business how long I’ve been gone?”

It wasn’t and they both knew it, which meant there was absolutely no point in answering her. So he didn’t.

Eventually, she got tired of waiting for him to defend himself and informed him icily, “I have one day off a week and I had a lot to do.”

Yeah, he felt like a jackass. But somehow, he couldn’t just apologize for invading her private space and move on. “That’s a big cat.”

Her mouth got tighter. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

He narrowed his eyes and flattened his lips. “That cat needs space.”

“He’s fine in my room. My apartment is a studio, smaller than my room here. He was perfectly happy there.”

Smaller than her room here? That was way too small. And she was a Bravo. He’d grown up in the area and he knew of her family. The Bravos had always had enough money to be comfortable, at least. The Bravos didn’t live in cramped one-room apartments. He wanted to ask her how she’d ended up in one.

But that would be a personal question and they were not getting personal. “Next time leave your door open, that’s all I’m saying.”

She blinked as that statement sank in. “You mean, let Wigs have the run of the house?”

Suddenly, his throat had a tickle in it. What was that about? He never got a ticklish throat. He coughed impatiently into his hand. “Yeah. And come to think of it, don’t lock that cat up in there at all. Let it have the house to roam in.”

A tiny gasp escaped her. “You mean, all the time?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“But what about how you hate cats?”

“I’m making an exception in this case,” he growled at her. She looked at him with distinctly dewy eyes, so he commanded, “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“I...well, okay. I won’t.”

“Good,” he said, scowling as hard as he could. And then he turned on his heel again and started walking away fast.

“Jed?”

He stopped. But he didn’t turn. “What?” he grumbled at the great room in front of him.

“Thanks.”

He almost said You’re welcome, but caught himself just in time.

* * *

In the next week, the work continued to go well. Very well. Elise just kept typing, never dropping a word or making a sound, no matter how loud and aggressive he became while acting out the voices of his characters.

On Thursday, he cleaned three of his rifles and a couple of Glocks as they worked. She seemed to take that in stride—didn’t even bother to comment when she saw the weapons, gun oil, cleaning rags and brushes laid out that morning on a folding worktable.

Jed had never been a happy man. He found the concept of happiness more than a little silly. A man did what he had to do in life and what he had to do was rarely that much fun.

But with Elise working out so well, the pressure was off in terms of his deadline and hopefully his career. He was getting more work done, faster, than when he had Anna. It was a hell of a relief. Maybe this was happiness.

If it was, it wasn’t half bad.

The damn cat had free rein of the house. The animal talked too much and had a tendency to climb up on tall cabinets and drape its giant body on the wide-beam staircase railings and along the backs of couches. But so what?

Jed had told Elise that the cat could roam free and he wasn’t a man who reneged on his word. He ignored the creature. It wasn’t that hard.

Another week went by, as smooth and productive as the previous one. Jed dared to feel confident that he was out of the woods at last. He was going to make it. He would have the book turned in by the final deadline—or maybe even before, at the rate they were going. Elise was a damn treasure.