Chapter Twenty-Three
Taylor knew the exact moment Caitlin had made up her mind to stop listening to logic and go with her gut. A woman in a pink dress with dark hair said something to her, and she stopped breaking eye contact. After polishing off her wine, she met his eyes directly and took off in his direction. Thank. Fucking. God.
But then, something happened. The dark-haired woman jumped and pointed, calling to Caitlin, who stopped dead in her tracks.
Taylor tensed all over as he studied the two women frantically speaking to one another. Something was wrong.
All around them, servers were clearing tables and delivering desserts, champagne, and coffee. On the stage, Jane tapped the microphone, and it whistled, the feedback causing some reaction at the tables. Still, Caitlin and the other woman talked, looking around the room like they were under attack or something. Taylor headed toward the back and circled toward them behind two pamphlet-strewn tables with no chairs.
“Thanks again for coming to our first Animal Attraction Pet Adoption fundraiser,” Jane said.
Taylor picked up the pace as both women crouched down to peek under a table.
“We hope you will pick up some literature about our project on the back tables and tour our petting room to meet some of the lovely animals that are being cared for at our sister facility, Eden Farm, in Warren, New Jersey, until they find their forever homes.”
By the time he got to them, both women were on their hands and knees, halfway underneath one of the empty tables. For a moment, he simply stared at the ball gown–clad backsides sticking out from under the long, white tablecloth. The one in black was particularly fine, and he couldn’t help but grin. “Everything okay?” he asked, squatting down and lifting up the tablecloth on the other side to peek under.
With a squeal, both women flinched, the one in the pink dress smacking her head on the bottom of the table. Wiggling out, both shot to their feet.
The woman in the pink dress looked him over everywhere but his face, then whispered to Caitlin, “Oh, yeah. Definitely call the fire department.”
Caitlin rolled her eyes. “This is Fiona Nichol, one of my best friends and the vet at Animal Attraction,” she said before gesturing to him. “Fiona, this is Taylor Blankenship.”
“Hi,” Taylor said, shaking Fiona’s hand. She had a firm shake, but didn’t make eye contact.
Caitlin, still visibly shaken, tugged up the front of her strapless dress and frantically searched the room for something. He’d imagined her face over and over during the past week, and he’d not even come close to how pretty she was in real life. Her blond hair was pulled up, revealing her long, kissable neck. She looked refined, well, as refined as one could look after crawling around under a table.
“Everything okay?” he asked again.
“Um…” Caitlin leaned down like she was checking to see if a bathroom stall was occupied.
“We lost Alastair,” Fiona said.
“Fiooooona!” someone screamed from the room nearby.
The woman ran to the doorway of the room from which the scream had come. “Crap. The kittens are out, too.” She pointed at Caitlin. “You find Alastair.”
Meanwhile, up onstage, Jane was still talking about where donations would go and what kind of animals would be handled as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Maybe nothing really was out of the ordinary.
“Who is Alastair?” he asked Caitlin as he followed her to the back of the room.
“He’s a ferret.”
“A ferret,” he repeated.
“Yeah. A brown and black weasel thing. Long hairy body. Beady eyes. Super fast.”
Okay. That was definitely out of the ordinary. A swift weasel running across people’s toes would not go over well, especially if it made it to Grams’ table. She nearly melted down when a mouse was in one of the cabins several anniversary parties ago.
“There!” Caitlin struck out to the other side of the room.
“Do you have a plan?” he asked, right on her heels.
“Catch it?”
Well, that was a plan, he supposed. Zipping from under a table in the middle to one on the outside, the ferret was no more than a flash of fur, but so far, the guests were focused on Jane at the front of the room. The thing stuck its head out from under the tablecloth, looked right at Taylor, as if in challenge, then darted to a different table. Oh, yeah. This had disaster written all over it.
Something crashed in the animal room. “Fiooooona!” a voice screeched.
Just then, the ferret dashed under the empty table closest to them. Caitlin motioned for Taylor to take the opposite side. After a moment, she held up three fingers and did a countdown. On three, they peeked under the tablecloth. Alastair stood up on his back legs and made a weird chirping sound. Caitlin nodded, and they got on all fours and inched closer, creeping toward the creature in the middle like a scene out of a ridiculous cartoon. No way was this going to end well.
With a trembling hand, she began to reach toward Alastair, who dropped to all fours and made a weird series of sounds like a roulette wheel. Christ, Taylor hoped the thing didn’t bite. He held his hands out to either side to cage Alastair in as Caitlin inched closer, clearly intending to grab him.
Taylor held his breath. He was pretty sure Alastair was holding his breath, too, as Caitlin scooted forward on her knees in her long, strapless dress, hand still extended. Light peeked in under the floor-length tablecloth in a circle, illuminating the three of them just enough for him to clearly see when she reached for the ferret, but her dress didn’t go with her. The scene had gone from something out of a cartoon to something out of his wildest dreams.
Alastair squeaked and bolted out from under the table, Caitlin made a muffled shriek and fell forward, almost knocking him over, and Taylor simply laughed. He couldn’t help it. And to his relief, Caitlin started laughing too as she wiggled and writhed, trying to wrestle her dress back in place while lying on it. She rolled to her side and yanked the top back up, but not before he got an eyeful of her pale breasts with the rosy nipples he remembered with absolute accuracy. His entire body went hard. Thank God they were underneath a table and nobody could see them—which brought to mind all kinds of possibilities.
“Alastair one, Caitlin zero,” she said, rolling to her back under the table, breathing heavy and still clutching the top of her dress.
“Don’t forget me,” he said. “I scored a point there, too.” Still on his hands and knees, he arched an eyebrow. “Maybe two points.” And he’d like to score a whole lot more. He was with her again, after thinking he might never see her. And the best part? She hadn’t told him to get lost. Yet.
Jane’s voice drifted in under the tablecloth as she thanked people who had covered expenses for the evening’s event while Taylor and Caitlin stared at each other in the circular slip of light. He wanted to touch her, but didn’t want to screw up. Jane had let him know what was hanging Caitlin up after she’d texted asking who the hell Felicia was. He had to play his cards right.
Slowly and deliberately, he extended his hand, pausing long enough to give her opportunity to pull away or say no. But she didn’t say no. She met his eyes, breaths coming in shallow pants. Gently, he ran his fingers over the smooth skin of her neck and across her bare clavicle, and she trembled, gooseflesh rising in the path of his touch. He liked this dress. Really liked it.
Soundlessly, he leaned down and pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, and she sighed, just like she had the first time he’d kissed her. A sigh that sounded like coming home. Grams had been right, there was something real between them. He was so relieved; he was finding it hard to breathe.
“Caitlin, I—”
Light streamed in from their left and they both flinched. “You were supposed to be snagging Alastair,” a woman’s voice whispered. “Not playing grab and tickle under the table like a couple of horny high schoolers!”
Caitlin snorted, then giggled.
“No more wine for you,” Fiona scolded.
“How did you find us?” Caitlin asked.
“Your legs sticking out like the Wicked Witch of the East when she was smushed by Dorothy’s house was my first clue.” She gave Caitlin a hand up while Taylor backed out and rose to his feet.
Only a few people at nearby tables were watching them. Most had their attention on the stage, where Jane was reading from cards in front of a slide show with pictures of animals interspersed with charts and graphs.
“I have no idea how the animals are escaping their cages, but I’m still missing a kitten,” Fiona said. “Alastair headed through that door.” She pointed to a narrow open door in the back corner. “You are still assigned to Alastair. Don’t worry about picking him up. He’s super sweet, and the people at the shelter told me that he’s never bitten anyone. Just don’t grab his feet or his tail. He evidently hates it.” She shot a worried glance at the stage. “We need to find him before Jane stops talking. She plans to direct people to check out the animals, and I had a request from a man to meet Alastair as a possible present for his wife.”
“Nothing says I love you like a weasel,” Taylor said.
“He’s not a weasel,” Fiona replied. “Same genus. Different species.”
“Fiooooona!” came from the animal room.
“Crap.” She ran a hand through her dark hair. “Just find him, okay? Less shenanigans. More ferreting.” She shoved something into Taylor’s pocket, and in a flurry of fluffy pink fabric, she sprinted to the animal room.
…
Caitlin glanced around to find quite a few elegantly dressed people watching them. Hopefully nobody had seen her scoot backwards out from under the table. Thank heavens the tablecloths went all the way down to the floor so nobody saw her Mardi Gras boobs-for-beads moment. Heat traveled up her neck and over her face just thinking about it. And then he’d touched her. Kissed her.
She huffed out a breath. “Let’s go,” she said, striking out toward the door in the corner. She shot a look at him over her shoulder and caught him staring at her butt. “You heard Fiona. No shenanigans.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” After several steps, he added, “I take that back. I dream of shenanigans all the time. Nonstop.”
It was as if all the air had been squeezed out of her as his words reminded her why the near miss under the table was not a good thing. She strode through the narrow door into what looked like a storage room, but all it contained were empty shelves. She closed the door and turned to face him. She needed to put a stop to this before she made another mistake. One more night with him, no matter how amazing, would only compound the hurt she already felt. His coming here could be terrible if she wasn’t careful. Shit, she’d almost gone for an under the table fun and games session.
“Look, Taylor. I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t really get to say goodbye properly and I was kind of rude when you dropped me off, but what happened under the table was…” She shifted her weight foot-to-foot uncomfortably. Why did he have to be so good looking?
“Awesome?” he supplied. “An epic wardrobe malfunction for the ages, leading to what could have been some of the most spectacular shenanigans on record, were it not for a cantankerous non-weasel?”
And now he had to be funny, too. She straightened her shoulders. “About that… I think it’s best that we not go for a repeat.”
His brow furrowed, but he didn’t speak. He just did that unnerving look-into-her-soul thing he’d done before.
She took a deep breath. “I mean, you’re going to be in another city and you’ve got other women.”
“I do?” He arched an eyebrow, but he looked more amused than upset.
“I told you what happened with Gary. There’s no way I can…”
A loud scraping noise came from the corner of the room, followed by that weird chuffing sound Alastair had made when they were under the table.
“Hey, buddy,” Taylor said, taking a few steps toward the animal standing on an empty shelf. “Let’s make this easy because I really want to talk to this woman without you interrupting us again. Cool by you?”
Alastair hopped off the shelf to the floor and stood up on his hind legs, nose twitching. Caitlin held her breath as Taylor crept closer. If he caught the ferret, they could all get out of this room. They could go back to the main area where tough conversations she wasn’t ready to have would be impossible.
Jane had called her a chicken. She wasn’t wrong.
Alastair did an odd hopping kind of walk closer to Taylor, nose up in the air, whiskers twitching.
“I wonder…” he said, patting his pocket, and then reaching in with a smile. “Well, what do you know?” The ferret made a couple of hops as Taylor pulled something from his pocket. “How about a treat, weasel?”
He held it out, and Alastair moved closer.
“Oh, you’re not a weasel, you say?” he said, arm outstretched. “Come closer and tell me about it.”
To Caitlin’s amazement, Alastair wiggle-walked all the way over to them and put his front paws on Taylor’s knee as he gently took something from his fingers. When the ferret stretched up to sniff his pocket, Taylor gave him another treat, then wrapped his hands around Alastair’s rib cage and picked him up, cradling him in his arms like a cat.
Taylor grinned at Caitlin and then down at the ferret, who was wiggling to get closer to his tux pocket. “Hang on, buddy. You’re like holding Jell-O.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out another treat, and Alastair settled down. “We should get him to Fiona before he contorts right out of my grip.”
Caitlin opened the door, and they emerged triumphant, but the scene that met them put an immediate stop to their two-person, one-ferret victory parade.