The Nine Lives of Christmas Read online

  “Get used to it, Tom,” Zach called after him. “We’re doing a remodel here.”

  Hopefully he’d be finished come spring. Then he’d sell the house, and take the money and run. There was no point in a single guy keeping a big house like this. He’d buy himself one of those slick new condos they were putting in over on Falls Ridge, where he could have a view of the town and the Cascade Mountain range beyond.

  Thinking about how he would invest his profits gave Zach plenty of energy, and by the time his firefighting buddy Ray arrived he had taken up half of the old vinyl. He’d also managed to mangle the subfloor pretty good, too. Tim the Tool Man, the next generation.

  “Whoa, dude,” said Ray, taking in the pile of vinyl pieces. “You didn’t waste any time.”

  Ray was a big guy like Zach, but unlike Zach, he actually knew one end of a hammer from the other. He was divorced and his only child was a Chihuahua named Taquito (Tacky for short) that went everywhere with him. Ray had been more than happy to help remodel the kitchen in exchange for pizza and beer.

  He frowned at the dents and craters in the subfloor and said, “We’re gonna have to do some major patching before we can put down new vinyl.” He started into the kitchen, the quivering Tacky in his arms. The toe of his boot made contact with the container of milk Zach had put out earlier and tipped it, starting a white stream running across the pocked floor. “What the hell?”

  “Forgot to pick that up.” Zach tossed the container in the sink and dropped a paper towel on the milk.

  “Why was it down there in the first place?” asked Ray, setting Tacky down. The animal tucked his tail between his legs and trembled.

  “I took in a stray cat,” said Zach, and tossed the towel.

  Ray made a face. “Cats.”

  Zach handed him a hammer. “What have you got against cats?”

  “They’re chick pets. Women love ’em cause they’re cute. Me, I want an animal that does something, like play fetch, guard your house.” Tacky was jumping up on his pant leg now and Ray gave him a pat on the head.

  Zach crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “Like Killer there?”

  Ray frowned. “Hey, he knows how to sound the alarm. Dontcha, boy?” he added, his voice softening.

  “You have to take care of a dog,” Zach argued. “Look at you. You’ve got to leave Tacky with your mom when you’re at the station. Cats are different. They take care of themselves.”

  “Yeah? I guess the cat got the milk out of the fridge all by himself,” Ray said with a smirk.

  Zach pointed a crowbar at him. “Okay, smart ass. How about putting something besides your mouth to work?”

  Ray grinned and got busy.

  “Anyway,” Zach said to both Ray and himself, “I’m just keeping him till I can find a nice home for him.” Where that would be he wasn’t quite sure. But it wouldn’t be here. The cat needed someone who would love him the way Ray did that dumb rat-dog of his. And besides, the little guy wouldn’t be happy here. All the banging and noise scared him.

  It didn’t do much for Tacky, either, who went running when his master tossed his first chunk of vinyl on the pile with a thud.

  By the end of the afternoon the kitchen looked like it had been hit by a hurricane and the two men were sweaty and starving and ready to order pizza.

  “Hey, thanks, man,” Zach said as Ray popped the top off a bottle of Hale’s Ale. “Get out a beer for me, too, will ya?”

  “Uh,” Ray said, looking guilty. “This is the last one.”

  Zach gave Ray’s gut a slap. “At this rate you’re going to have to start running with me.”

  Ray made a face. “I’m in shape. This is just insulation for winter. And the only run I’m doing today is a beer run. Come on, Tacky.” He bent to pick up the Chihuahua, which was back and climbing his pant leg.

  “Naw, I’ve got it,” said Zach. “You and Tacky stay here and chill. If old Tom comes out of hiding you can introduce them.”

  Ray picked up the little dog. “We better hope your cat stays hidden. Tacky would eat him alive.”

  Zach was still laughing when he hit the shower to clean up.

  Fifteen minutes later, the pizza order had been called in to Little Lola’s and Zach was on his way to Safeway for more beer. Most residents of Angel Falls really got into holiday decorating, so he had a scenic drive, past neighborhoods with a mix of old and new houses snuggled in among fir trees and shrubs, and decked out in holiday lights. Inflatable Santas and snowmen waved from lawns, and it seemed every home had a wreath hanging on its front door.

  Zach supposed his house, which sat unadorned, looked like he was harboring the Grinch. But hey, he was busy with important projects. He didn’t have time to screw around turning his place into a Christmas clone of every other house on the block. And he didn’t have to. There was another advantage to being single: no honey-do list. Anyway, this wasn’t his favorite time of year, so why be a hypocrite and deck the halls?

  It was the first Friday in December and the parking lot was full of cars. Outside the grocery store a Salvation Army volunteer dressed up as Santa was braving a drizzle of sloshy snowflakes, ringing his bell and wishing people a merry Christmas. Zach dropped a dollar in the bucket and went inside. The store was crowded with people on their way home from work and picking up last-minute dinner supplies. He caught a whiff of deli chicken. It made his stomach rumble and he hurried toward the beer aisle dodging shoppers as he went. A woman passed him coming the other way, looking hot in black heels and a red party dress. Yow, Mama! At the end of another aisle he came upon a vignette of what always happened after the party was over. A harried mother snapped at her little boy: “I said we weren’t buying that. Put it back!” Now, there’s another shining testimonial for family life, Zach thought with a silent sigh.

  His mom may have split up the family but she’d never snapped at him. That was one thing he’d say for her. It was about the only thing he could say for her.

  En route to the beer he caught sight of the pet food aisle and remembered the spilled milk. Since he was there he might as well look for some food for Tom.

  Half the aisle was cat food, and he stood for a moment in front of the mountains of bags. Good grief. How many brands of this stuff do people need, anyway?

  He didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until a soft voice at his elbow said, “It’s hard to know what to get, isn’t it?”

  He turned to see a redhead with big green eyes smiling timidly at him. She only came up to his chest and with her short curly hair and turned-up nose she reminded him of an elf. Elfette? Whatever the chick version was. She was lost in a down coat that looked way too big for her and her calves were swallowed up inside some ugly rubber galoshes, but judging by what he could see of her thighs he was sure she was hiding a nice little bod under that coat. Out of nowhere the chorus from Dr. Hook’s “You Make My Pants Want to Get Up and Dance” popped into his mind.

  He kicked it out right away. This woman also looked like the girl next door, the kind you settled down with, had kids with, the kind of girl a man didn’t want to hurt. Not that Zach made a habit of hurting anyone. He didn’t have to worry about that with the women he hung out with, women who were content with just having some fun and keeping things casual.

  He reached for something generic and the elfette gave a little gasp. He looked over his shoulder. “Not good?” The price was right.

  “Well, not the best. Do you have a cat?”

  “I just took one in.”

  Her eyes lit up and she looked at Zach like he’d told her he rescued a child from a burning building. “Oh, you adopted him?”

  Zach squirmed inside his jacket. “More like foster care. His owner died. The kids were going to take him to the shelter.” Like he probably should have done.

  “It’s great you took him,” said the elfette.

  Just for a while. You should remind her of that, thought Zach. But he didn’t.

  “The shelter always has a
surplus of cats and not all of them find homes. Some of them…” The corners of her mouth fell and she didn’t finish the sentence.

  She didn’t have to. Now Zach could hear the theme music from Psycho running through his head.

  “Anyway, it’s wonderful that you’ve saved one.”

  Yeah, that was him, Mr. Wonderful. He could have fessed up that cat adoption hadn’t exactly been his idea, that old Tom hadn’t taken no for an answer. Instead he asked, “So, what’s wrong with this food?” putting the conversation back on track before he could be tempted to do something dumb, like suggest she come over and meet his cat.

  “The cheap dry food can be hard on their kidneys. And if you have a boy cat, well, they have a tendency toward prostate problems,” she added, and her cheeks grew pink.

  Cute. Zach couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman blush. That probably had a lot to do with the kind of women he hung out with.

  “I always buy the top of the line and alternate it with canned cat food.”

  “Top of the line, huh?” Well, he supposed he could do that for old Tom. “Which brand do you buy?”

  She showed him, and then she led him straight to what she said was her favorite (and, naturally, most expensive) brand of canned food.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You’re a real expert. Are you a vet or something?”

  The blush returned. She shook her head, making the curls bounce. “No. I work at Pet Palace.”

  His girlfriend’s family owned Pet Palace. Zach almost shared this information. Almost.

  “Cats are my specialty,” the elfette added.

  “I’ll remember that if I need some expert advice,” Zach said. They were starting to get pretty friendly here in the pet food aisle. It was time for him to get back to Ray and pizza and the safety of his own home. “Uh, thanks.”

  “My pleasure,” she said.

  Pleasure. The word conjured some naughty images of himself and the elfette that were bound to earn Zach a lump of coal in his stocking. If you’re going to think pleasure, dickhead, think about Blair. Good old Blair, who always preferred being naughty to being nice. She’d done the marriage thing and gotten it out of her system, which made her and Zach a perfect match.

  With his thoughts properly realigned, he gave the girl next door a pleasant nod and then got out of there. Nice girls were a heartbreak waiting to happen. He knew from personal experience.

  * * *

  “Hey, about time you got back,” Ray greeted him as he walked in the door with a giant sized sack of cat food slung over his shoulder. “The pizza got here five minutes ago. Let’s break open the beer.”

  Beer? Shit. “Oh, man, I forgot the beer.”

  “Well, if that don’t beat all. We come over and bust our chops all afternoon and who does he remember?” Ray asked Tacky, who was camped out on his lap. “The damned cat. Never send a boy to do a man’s job.” He stuffed the last of a pizza slice in his mouth, set Tacky aside and started to get up.

  Zach propped the bag by the door, along with the plastic sack full of canned cat food. “I’m on it. Don’t get your Jockeys in a knot. And don’t eat all the pizza before I get back,” he added before shutting the door.

  He’d run over to the Gas ’N Go and pick up some overpriced cheap beer. No way was he going back to the grocery store. If he saw the elfette again he might just suffer a moment of insanity and get her name and number.

  * * *

  Merilee White stood in line at the checkout flipping through a copy of People and trying to find her holiday spirit. Darn. For a moment there she thought she’d connected with that gorgeous man on the pet food aisle. He’d looked like a modern-day Viking, blond and big. His face had been almost perfect, the only flaw a slightly crooked nose that looked like it might have gotten broken at some point. And those eyes! Blue as a fjord. He’d seemed so nice, and he was an animal lover, too, which, as far as Merilee was concerned, made him a perfect man.

  From the way he’d looked at her she could have sworn he was interested. But then he’d gotten skittish and bolted. What the heck had she said? What had gone wrong?

  She sighed. So much for the grocery store being a great place to meet men. Where had she heard that, anyway?

  Oh, yes, her sisters. It seemed they were always meeting men in the grocery store. They also met men at the gym, at the mall, the coffee shop, business conventions, the women’s lingerie department. Sheesh. Why couldn’t she have been a sexy fashion diva like her successful older sister or a bubbly blonde like her baby sister?

  She sighed. Her sisters always told her she didn’t send out the right vibes.

  What did they expect? Her pheromone broadcast tower was broken. She frowned at her down coat, which was now way too big for her, and could almost hear her older sister’s scolding voice.

  “Advertise,” said Gloria (nickname Glorious). “Who can even find you buried under those ugly clothes? Men are lazy. You have to make it easy for them.”

  Gloria’s idea of advertising was wearing low-cut tops and butt-hugging jeans, but outfits like that weren’t for Merilee. She’d never worn clothes like that. Of course, she’d never had the figure for clothes like that. Maybe now she did, but she sure didn’t have the confidence for them.

  “What exactly would I be advertising?” she’d muttered. “In those kind of clothes men are going to ask me how much I charge.” Even as she’d said it she’d thought, You should be so lucky.

  She’d turned down Gloria’s offer to take her shopping and Gloria had given up in disgust.

  “Guys don’t like to take risks,” said Merliee’s younger sister, Liz. “You’ve got to send out a clear signal that you’re interested so they know they’ve got a green light.”

  So far very few men had seen the green light. (It worked about as well as the old pheromone broadcast tower.) She was now twenty-six and she’d had only a handful of relationships—a very small handful at that. Okay, it was more like two fingers’ worth, and neither had been a keeper. Of course, the prime time for finding keepers was in college. In college, just as in high school, she hadn’t been the kind of girl who keepers looked at. Even now, although she’d lost fifty-two pounds in the last three years, the insecurity that had ridden her since middle school, right along with the extra weight, refused to budge.

  “You’ve just got to put yourself out there a little more,” Liz insisted.

  Easier said than done. Merilee had always been quiet. Her embarrassment over her weight had made her painfully shy around guys. On top of that she’d gotten lost in the giant shadow of her overachieving siblings. Not only were her sisters magnificent, her younger brother was a star. Literally, on a television soap. Then there was her older brother who had his successful business, his perfect wife, and his two gorgeous children. Well, so what? She had …

  She slapped the magazine shut and put it back in the rack. The last thing she needed was to read about beautiful people.

  You are not a failure, she told herself firmly. Dropping out of veterinary college didn’t make a girl a failure. It simply made her broke. She’d go back and finish when she got more money. And meanwhile there was nothing wrong with working in a pet supply store and volunteering at the local animal shelter. Animals needed love, too. And animals appreciated a girl no matter what she looked like. Animals saw into a person’s soul.

  Merilee paid for her groceries—cottage cheese, salad makings, and a candy cane (a girl needed to live it up once in a while)—and left the store with a stoical smile. But as soon as she was in her car she let out a sigh.

  “Oh, stop already,” she scolded herself. “Your life is not so bad.” And to prove it she flipped on the radio to a station that was playing Christmas music and began to sing along. ’Tis the season to be jolly. Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-LA!

  There. She felt better already. Life was good. She had food and shelter and people in her life who loved her. Christmas was right around the corner, which meant lots of family fun and time-honored
traditions. So what if she didn’t have a man. Did a woman need a man to be happy?

  Some little voice at the back of her mind whispered: No, but it sure helps.

  THREE

  The cat stayed hidden the entire time Ray and Taquito were over. “Just as well,” said Ray.

  “Oh, that’s right,” sneered Zach. “Killer there would have hurt him.”

  “Dogs hurt cats,” said Ray, scowling.

  “Big dogs, yeah, but I’ve seen rats bigger than that mutt of yours,” Zach teased, making Ray frown. “And, judging from the looks of him, old Tom’s survived a few fights.”

  “A real beauty, huh?” Ray shook his head and took a swig of beer as the action movie they were watching boomed its way across Zach’s TV screen. “That seals the deal. You won’t be finding anyone who wants him. Looks like you’ve got yourself a cat.”

  “Oh, no. I’ll find a home for him.” Somewhere, someplace, somehow.

  There had to be someone he knew who’d want a mangy orange tomcat with a torn ear. “Anyway, what was I supposed to do, let the little guy get the needle?”

  Ray shook his head. “Man, you are a pushover.”

  “The hell I am,” Zach retorted. “I’m just not a cat killer.”

  “You don’t know that they’d have killed him,” Ray observed.

  “Trust me,” said Zach. “They would have. They have too many cats at the pound already.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Someone told me,” Zach hedged.

  “Someone? Who?”

  “Just someone I met in the store,” Zach said, keeping his eyes trained on the TV. But he could feel his friend studying him. He turned to see a grin growing on Ray’s face.

  “Like a chick someone?”

  Zach shifted on the couch.

  Ray nodded knowingly and pointed a finger at him. “So that’s why you forgot the beer.” He gave a snort. “Well, well. My man is going domestic. Got himself a cat and next he’s gonna get a woman and find the old husband collar slipped on his neck same as what happens to all the rest of us.”