Here Comes Trouble Page 0,9
your footing. Then you can let go with one hand and grab the side.”
To her credit, she wasn’t squealing or obviously freaking out. She didn’t yell back down to him, either, so he just worked to get the thing as stable as possible. “Okay, just swing your left leg over.”
He could see the grit and determination on her face and found himself still marveling a little over the dichotomy that was Ms. Farrell. She of the cool elegance and cultured features who would look perfectly at home in tutu and toe shoes…was presently swinging from a tree in baggy khakis, a hoodie, and a pair of well-worn hiking boots. He assumed she’d been wearing the very same thing earlier, but he honestly hadn’t noticed. All he remembered really were her soft gray eyes and prim-looking mouth, and the incongruous directness of her personality.
He heard her grunt, then lost about ten years off his life when one hand slipped off the limb just as her other leg caught the side of the ladder. “Grab the ladder! I’ve got you.”
He planted his bare feet in the scruff of winter grass and braced the ladder as best he could. Fortunately, while the width of the limb had made it hard for her to grab on to, it made for steady support for the ladder.
A few seconds later, she was safely on the top rungs and he let out a deep sigh of relief. “I’ll hold it while you come down,” he called up to her.
As yet, other than grunting to get on the ladder, she hadn’t said a single word. And, at the moment, she didn’t appear to be in any hurry to climb down, either. Maybe she was just taking a moment to collect herself now that she was safe. But seconds ticked by and she still wasn’t moving.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she said, the word muffled by the sleeve of her hoodie as she was ducking her head between her arms, which were clutching the rungs above.
Her back was to him—well, mostly it was her butt above him—but he couldn’t see her face. “You thinking you might want to come down sometime soon?”
There was a pause, then, “I’m thinking that I need to get this damn kitten to get its claws out of me first.”
What? “What kitten?”
“The world’s stupidest one, who thought that climbing a big tree would be a great adventure, until it got stuck and then figured that climbing all the way out to the end of the limb would be a better bet than just climbing down the damn tree.”
“Ah,” he said, suddenly fighting a smile. “That kitten.”
“Exactly. It’s inside the front of my sweatshirt. Trying to climb me. I just need to—” She shifted a little, and the ladder wobbled, which made Brett jump back into action and brace it again, but that didn’t keep his smile from growing when a rather superlative string of swear words erupted from his heretofore-thought-of-as-elegant innkeeper.
“Maybe your best bet is just to get you both down on the terra firma and then get untangled before either of you does more damage.”
“Oh, I’m going to do some damage all right,” he heard her mutter over his head, as she slowly began to descend, one careful rung at a time. And which he didn’t believe for a second. People who dragged massive ladders out from God-knows-where in order to climb into a centuries-old oak tree to save a terrified kitten were doubtfully the abusive types.
As soon as she was on the ground, he let go of the ladder and took her arms, turning her to face him. “Here, let me get him.”
“Her,” she grunted, “which, I am well aware makes two stupid females stuck in a tree. Just let me pry this one claw out of my—ouch! Dammit, cat!”
Brett carefully unzipped the hoodie to find the most innocent looking, teeniest of tiny baby kittens…presently doing actual bloody damage to the front of its rescuer’s torso.
“Damn,” he muttered as he tried to pry the claws out of both fabric and skin, which brought a few more swear words, but given the situation, her restraint, otherwise, was impressive.
As Kirby was clearly past the point, Brett softened his own voice and did his best to calm the still-terrified kitty and de-prong the thing from the front of Kirby’s body. But every time he got one claw out, the kitty would redouble its efforts elsewhere, as if it were past comprehending that letting go no longer meant a