The Nine Lives of Christmas Page 5

  Zach should feel sorry, Ambrose thought indignantly. This was betrayal of trust, plain and simple. He watched from behind his prison bars as Blair Baby showed Zach the hat she’d brought for Ambrose, a small version of the silly red hats with the white pom-pom that some humans wore this time of year in honor of the Santa monster.

  “This will cover his torn ear,” she said. “It’s got an elastic strap so it will stay on.”

  She had to get it on first, and if she thought Ambrose was going to let her anywhere near him with the ridiculous thing she could just think again. A dog would go along with such nonsense and think it a great joke, but no self-respecting cat would lower himself to that level.

  “That may be pushing it,” Zach said doubtfully.

  There was an understatement.

  “Oh, he’ll be fine,” said the cougar.

  He would not!

  The next thing Ambrose knew, he was airborne and swinging like a bird in a cage. Eeew. He was going to be sick. He watched bushes and lawn and trees pass dizzily by and then he was in the back of the shiny black car. Zach and the cougar climbed in front and the engine roared to life. Once again Ambrose was moving … and getting more nervous by the second. Why was Zach torturing him like this?

  The cougar, of course. It had probably been her idea to install that horrible pet door.

  Oh, the terror he had felt at the mere sight of the thing. It had brought back vivid memories of his most humiliating death. Granted, if he hadn’t dug his claws into poor Snoopy and ridden the crazed beagle all over the house he wouldn’t have met his end in the first place. Those pet doors weren’t meant for piggy-backing pets. Snoopy had ducked through theirs at the last minute and, like some silly cartoon character, Ambrose had crashed into the actual door. The impact had broken his neck. So, yes, his bad. He’d gotten what he deserved, but still, those things should be outlawed. And women who convinced impressionable men to install them should be put down.

  It felt like an eternity before the car stopped. Zach took the cat carrier from the backseat and Ambrose got a view of an endless field of cars. In front of them loomed a big, big building. Ambrose huddled in the corner of his cage. This wasn’t going to be good.

  Inside, the building was larger than all the houses Ambrose had lived in put together. And scary, with humans milling around and … dogs!

  Ambrose backed farther into the corner of his cage. This was worse than the animal shelter. At least there the horrible beasts were behind bars where they belonged. Here they strolled around on thin leashes attended by distracted humans. Ambrose’s fur began to stand on end. This was awful. And they hadn’t even gotten to the Santa monster yet. At this rate Ambrose would probably never live to complete his assignment and save Zach. He’d die of fright right here. Good-bye life number nine.

  He bobbed and swayed as Zach carried him across the huge place. Somewhere a chorus of cats was meowing “Silent Night,” a Christmas carol Ambrose remembered from past lives. But he didn’t see any of his fellow felines. Where were they, and how could they be so calmly singing in such a dangerous place? Were they brain damaged?

  Finally Zach set the cage down and Ambrose got a close up glimpse of human feet and legs, and more dogs—a little dachshund, a sloppy old basset, and, oh, no, there was a German shepherd, sitting with his tongue hanging out. Nasty things, German shepherds. Horrible. Unpredictable. Mean. He knew this from personal experience. He’d had a horrible encounter with one in the life he’d lived as an alley cat, right around the holidays, naturally. Talk about your blue Christmas. At the sight of Ambrose, this one stood and barked, almost giving Ambrose a heart attack.

  Never let them see you sweat. (A man in Adelaide’s TV had said that once.) Ambrose arched his back, puffed out his fur, and hissed.

  Zach’s voice drifted down to him. “It’s okay, Tom. He can’t get you.”

  So you say.

  As if to prove it, Zach picked up Ambrose’s carrier and moved him out of range.

  “Hi,” said a disembodied female voice.

  “Uh, hi,” said Zach.

  “We’re almost done with the dogs,” said the voice. “If you’d like to browse and come back in five minutes that will give your cat a chance to calm down.”

  The only thing that would help Ambrose calm down was getting out of here. When would the torture end?

  Never. Zach and the cougar wandered around the store, giving Ambrose glimpses of birds he couldn’t hunt and fish swimming out of reach. The ways people could find to torture a cat in this place were endless.

  The carrier finally came to rest once more and this time Ambrose saw no dogs, only a few sets of human legs and feet. Still, he couldn’t relax. He may have escaped the dogs, but the Santa monster was still waiting.

  The cage door opened and even though Ambrose tried to resist, Zach managed to haul him out.

  “It’s okay,” cooed Blair Baby, the animal hater.

  No fur today. Instead she was wearing a sweater with snowflakes. It was too late for camouflage. Ambrose already knew she was the enemy. She came at him with that ridiculous hat and he pushed up against Zach with his ears flat to warn her she’d better back off.

  Here was another reason not to like her. (As if he needed another!) She was stupid. She kept right on coming. Ambrose averted his head, but her bloodred claws continued reaching for him. So he did what any self-respecting cat would do. He defended himself. With a hiss, he unsheathed his claws and shot out a paw. Ha! Got her.

  His attacker backed away with a bleeding scratch and let out a screech followed by a word that Ambrose learned way back in his third life. It was not a nice word. She held out her hand. “Look what that animal did to me!”

  So it was bleeding. So what? She started the fight.

  “Damn it, Tom,” snapped Zach, and shut Ambrose back in the cage.

  Imprisoned unjustly, and in trouble with Zach—this was not good.

  Meanwhile, outside the carrier, Blair Baby was still carrying on. “That animal should be put down. He’s dangerous.”

  “No, he’s not,” scolded the same female voice Ambrose had heard earlier. “He’s just scared.”

  “Excuse me?” snapped Blair Baby.

  “I said he’s scared,” the voice snapped back.

  “And what are you, a cat shrink?”

  “Come on now, Blair,” said Zach. “That’s uncalled for.”

  You could say that again.

  “I know a few things about cats,” said the other female.

  “Naturally. You have to be highly qualified to work here,” said Blair Baby.

  Probably, so why was she using that sneering tone of voice?

  “The biggest qualification is a heart,” the other female retorted. “So you shouldn’t bother applying.”

  “Do I look like I need to work here?” snapped Blair Baby.

  “I have no idea what you need,” said the voice sweetly, “but you might consider therapy.”

  “Ho, boy,” said Zach under his breath.

  Blair emitted the human equivalent of a growl, then announced she was going to go wash the cut before it became infected, and stomped away on her skinny legs, her haunches jiggling.

  Zach said to the other female, “Sorry, Merilee. She’s, uh…”

  “Yes, she is,” said the Merilee person. “Really, you can’t blame your cat for being upset. Most cats don’t like to travel. It unnerves them. You have to kind of ease cats into a situation like this. After all, this is a strange place. That can be scary.”

  A human who understood? What a treasure!

  “I can see that,” said Zach.

  Yeah, finally.

  “I guess the hat wasn’t such a good idea, either,” said Zach.

  “Right up there with me telling your girlfriend what I thought of her. I’m sorry.”

  “She’ll get over it,” said Zach. “Blair’s a sport.”

  Here was a new word for Ambrose to add to his vocabulary. Sport: horrible human female. />
  Merilee squatted down and looked into the carrier. He regarded her with an air of wounded dignity befitting someone unjustly incarcerated.

  He could tell right away that this woman understood his plight. She had kind eyes. And … wait a minute. Was it possible?

  “I’m sorry you’re scared, sweetie,” she said.

  He looked closer. Yes, this was indeed the volunteer from the animal shelter. They had met in another life. She’d tried to save him when his owners banished him to the nasty place for scaring that stupid canary to death. Sentenced simply for behaving like a cat—grossly unfair! Merilee had gotten him featured as a pet of the week in the Angel Falls Bugle, but all to no avail. “Someone will want you,” she’d assured him.

  No one had, though. Was it any wonder Ambrose had turned bitter in his later lives and taken to torturing unfortunate beagles? A guy couldn’t trust anyone, not even Merilee, who had failed to save him from destruction.

  She opened the door and Ambrose braced for betrayal. Now she would pull him out and feed him to the Santa monster.

  Much to his surprise, however, she merely dropped a couple of kitty treats in his carrier and then shut it again, saying, “There you go. You just relax and enjoy those.”

  Relax? Here on the floor right in the middle of a store that allowed people to bring in dogs? Right.

  But the door to his carrier remained shut and the cougar stayed gone. When no one was looking Ambrose moved forward and sampled the cat treats. Delicious.

  So Merilee was still a nice woman, trying to bring some goodness into dark places like this. Ambrose peered up to see Zach smiling at her. Obviously, he liked her. Surely these two good people should mate. They were bound to produce more good people.

  Here came the cougar again, a paper towel pressed to her hand. Who invited her back? She grabbed Zach by the arm and said, “Let’s go, Zach.”

  “Uh, thanks, Merilee,” said Zach.

  Then the cat carrier was airborne once more and they were leaving the store, and that was the end of pictures with Santa. Good.

  Even better, Zach and the cougar were fighting.

  “What were you thanking that clerk for? Did you hear how she talked to me?” Blair Baby ranted as they pulled away from Pet Palace.

  “Did you hear yourself?” Zach retorted.

  “That animal is feral.”

  “No, he’s not. He was just pissed,” Zach snapped. “I told you putting the hat on him was a dumb idea.”

  You’ve got that right.

  “Well, excuse me for trying to help,” huffed Blair Baby.

  Zach said nothing.

  At last she let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. You’re right; it was a bad idea. Let’s not fight over a silly cat.”

  Silly? This woman who just made a public fool of herself is calling me silly? I’ve seen birds with bigger brains.

  “I’m not the one doing the fighting,” said Zach.

  She said nothing to that. Instead she came back with, “I guess you’ll just have to snap a picture of him when he’s sleeping. If you can get a shot that doesn’t show his ragged ear you might find a home for him by Christmas.”

  By Christmas? So now the cougar had set a deadline for getting rid of him. How soon till Christmas? Zach’s mother had stopped by the other day to remind Zach that Christmas was right around the corner. But which corner? How much time did Ambrose have to get back in Zach’s good graces before the cougar found a way to make him disappear?

  “It might not be so easy,” said Zach.

  “I’m beginning to suspect that you don’t want to get rid of this cat,” said Blair Baby.

  Good. He shouldn’t want to.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Well then, say it now. What are you thinking?

  “Look,” said Zach, not sounding happy. “Can we forget about the cat?”

  Forget about the cat? What a bad idea!

  “Fine,” she said, her brittle voice reminding Ambrose of a small, yappy dog.

  Now there was fresh silence in the shiny black car, and it wasn’t the cozy kind of silence Ambrose and Zach enjoyed when they were lounging on the couch in the evening.

  At last the cougar spoke again. “I guess I’ll just go home.”

  Good idea. Go home and stay there.

  This time it was Zach who sighed. “No, don’t do that. We’ll drop off Tom, then we can go do something fun.”

  “All right. But I am not coming back to your stinky house,” said the cougar.

  Fine by me, thought Ambrose.

  “Not unless we stop by Hallmark and pick up some scented candles,” she added. Now her voice was a purr. “Cinnamon, perhaps. Something … spicy?” She reached a red-tipped hand across the seat toward Zach and started slithering it up his leg.

  “Hey, now, I’m trying to drive,” he protested, but Ambrose could tell it was halfhearted. Zach and the cougar were back on friendly terms.

  This turn of events robbed Ambrose of the satisfaction he’d felt over his small victory in Pet Palace. Zach hadn’t figured out what to do with him but the cougar had. She wanted him gone by Christmas. Gone where, he had no idea, but he did know one thing: the way his luck had been running it wouldn’t be any place good. This did not bode well for his ninth life. It didn’t bode well for Zach, either, who clearly needed Ambrose to save him from a fate worse than death by a cat door.

  Ambrose shifted his paws under him and settled down to think. He was going to have to do something to fix this problem.

  FIVE

  Back at the house Zach turned Tom loose with a stern reminder to use his cat door. “Litter boxes are like diapers, dude, and you’re too old for diapers. Don’t let me down.”

  If he and Blair came home and Tom had whizzed inside the house it wouldn’t be pretty. Blair would be mad. Actually, so would Zach, and Tom would be a dead cat.

  “Are you sure he knows to use his cat door?” asked Blair.

  “He’d better,” said Zach. The cat was becoming a problem.

  That wasn’t fair, he concluded as he trailed Blair around the Hallmark store, past rows of holiday wrapping paper, ribbons, and cards. For the most part the little guy was pretty easy to get along with as long as Zach remembered to feed him. And Tom didn’t make scenes.

  Which was more than Zach could say for Blair. He’d seen a whole side of her he’d never witnessed before, and it hadn’t been pretty. The way she’d carried on at Pet Palace when Tom scratched her had made shoppers gawk and had set a three-alarm fire racing across Zach’s cheeks.

  Worst of all, though, had been the disgusted expression he’d seen on Merilee’s face. He couldn’t blame her. He’d been pretty disgusted, too, not just with the way Blair had treated Merilee but also with himself. He’d known the poor cat was scared the second he looked in the carrier. He should have left the store right then.

  He sniffed the candle Blair held under his nose. “Yeah, that’s nice.”

  She smiled. “Good. I’m getting it for you.”

  A candle, just what he’d always wanted. “I can get it myself,” he said, reaching for it.

  “Huh-uh. I want to.” She danced out of range. “Think of it as a peace offering,” she added, looking penitent.

  She wanted to make up for the scene in Pet Palace. Now, that was sweet. It was times like this, when Blair was being cute and fun that he liked hanging out with her. Okay, so she’d been a bit of a drama queen back at the store, but maybe she had a right to be a little dramatic. After all, the cat did scratch her.

  The candle purchased and bagged, she propelled him toward the door. Outside, though, she stopped to put her change in the Salvation Army bell-ringer’s bucket.

  “Thank you,” said the man. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas to you, too,” she said. “I never pass one of those buckets without putting in something,” she informed Zach.

  How could a guy stay mad at a woman when she did things like that?

  “Now,” sh
e said briskly, “let’s go get some dinner. And when we get back to the house I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  New lingerie? He grinned. “Okay.”

  But the surprise was nothing pleasant.

  “A tree?” he said, staring at the gigantic cardboard box in the back of her SUV.

  She nodded eagerly. “I found it on sale, fifty percent off. Merry Christmas early!”

  “A tree,” he repeated. And a fake one at that.

  “And I’ve got the most gorgeous ornaments for it,” she continued, grabbing a smaller box. “We can put it up tonight.” She smiled at him. “Are you surprised?”

  “Speechless.” She was looking so pleased with herself, so ready to please him. How to tell her he didn’t want the thing?

  There was no way, of course, not without hurting her feelings. A tree in the bay window, and a wife and kids. He suddenly felt like all the air had been sucked from his lungs. In a desperate search for oxygen, he took a deep breath.

  “You don’t like it?”

  He knew that expression. She was staring at him in disbelief, like he’d somehow betrayed her.

  “No, no. It’s just, well, I hadn’t planned on a tree. I mean, what does a single guy need with a tree?”

  “It’ll give you Christmas spirit,” said Blair.

  “I don’t know.” Zach had pretty much lost his Christmas spirit. Watching your dad move out over Christmas break, getting dumped by your fiancée on Christmas Eve—little things like that tended to make a man lose his zest for the holidays.

  “Trust me,” Blair said. “It’ll be gorgeous, and we’ll have fun putting it up together, just you and me.”

  He swallowed his reluctance and nodded.

  “Anyway, this is our first Christmas together and I wanted to give you something special, something significant.”

  Something significant? What was she expecting to get from him? He forced a smile and tried to breathe.

  “Come on,” she said eagerly. “Let’s get it in the house and get started.”

  More like get it over with. Tom sat watching from a far corner, tail flicking back and forth, as they set up the lighted tree. Zach was feeling a little twitchy himself. “Now, before we start, let’s set the mood,” said Blair. Next thing he knew she’d set up his iPod to give them some background Christmas music, the scented candle she’d bought was burning, and they were trimming the tree with silver garlands. Okay, this wasn’t bad, kind of nice, actually.