“Please go tend to those scratches. I’ll be stressed out about it until you do.”
His gaze caught hers as if demanding her attention, startling her into perfect stillness. A spark of deep red-orange color pulsed in his pupils for an instant, and then was gone so fast she wasn’t sure she’d really seen it. When he turned toward the counter, she exhaled a shaky breath.
Barty let out a particularly loud meow, startling Brynn into almost knocking over the uncapped bottle of oil.
“Yes, baby, I’m sorry. Let’s try a little oil to work that gum out, okay?” As she started to carefully work the oil into the fur around the gum, she glanced up at Sean, who was disinfecting and bandaging his hand. “He has quite a loud meow, doesn’t he?”
“That’s how he got his name.”
“Barty?”
Sean grinned. “Nope. Bartholomeow, if you can believe it.”
“That’s a good one,” she had to admit. “I’ve heard a lot of funny pet names, as you can imagine. Today I had one of my favorite dogs in here; an enormous golden cross named Peaches. He’s quite an elegant, dignified dog, so I always wonder if he’s a little embarrassed by his name.”
“I think I know that dog,” Sean said, after he put the first-aid kit away. “Tiny little Mrs. Mastroianni?”
“That’s the one. Bordertown is a small place, isn’t it?”
“Mrs. M. is a friend of my mother’s. They used to go for tea, before . . . before.”
Brynn recognized the pain that stamped his face. She’d worn the same expression after her mom had died.
“She’s gone?”
“No. She’s—no. Cancer. She doesn’t have much time left. Maybe three or four months, they tell us.” His eyes were dry, but his voice was rough with the unshed tears that she knew must be clogging his throat.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, wanting to do something—anything. Reach out to him, give him a hug, offer some comfort. But she knew better. Getting involved was dangerous.
Caring about someone was worse. Look what had happened to her mom.
She worked diligently to remove the rest of the gum, and then she washed the oil out of the beautiful Persian’s fluffy tail. He was purring now, lying on his side and enjoying the attention.
“I can’t get over how calm and happy he is for you,” Sean said, gesturing to Barty. “He hates everybody.”
Brynn gently rubbed the cat’s belly, and a thought occurred to her. “Has he always been like this? Persians are one of the best-tempered of all the cat breeds. It’s unusual to hear of one hating people.”
“Come to think of it, he hasn’t. He was a perfectly good cat for the first couple of years she had him. Cute as a button when he was a kitten, too. It’s just for the past year or so—”
Brynn knew what was coming when his voice trailed off. “When did your mom get sick?”
“Right about the same time, I think, although she didn’t get her diagnosis until several months ago,” he said, his eyes widening. “Do you think Barty knew?”
“It’s very common for animals to react when their people get sick,” Brynn said. “There are even doctors who use dogs to detect cancer in humans. They can smell the tumors or the difference in the bloodstream, or something like that, I think. I’m sure cats can do the same, only I haven’t heard of anyone trying to train a cat to do the job.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sean said, lifting the now-clean and gum-free cat up off the table and staring into his eyes. “Are you just worried about Mom, Barty?”
The cat meowed plaintively and quite loudly, and Sean smiled at him. Brynn’s heart stuttered in her chest at the sight of the big, masculine firefighter sharing a moment of compassionate understanding with the beautiful little creature, and the feeling rang every warning bell she had.
“Oh, boy, you should be on a poster,” she muttered, going to wash her hands and drop the comb in the disinfectant.
“What was that?”
She turned around, and he was standing way too close to her, even though she hadn’t heard him move.
“You,” she said, almost accusingly, backing away. “You’re like a movie poster. Hot guy rescues people from burning buildings and saves kittens from trees in his spare time. You don’t own a spandex suit, do you?”
A slow, deliciously wicked smile spread across his face. “Hey, if you’re into that kind of thing, I’ll see what I can find.”