Just Say [Hell] No Read online

  “Which makes one wonder,” Marko said, “why you came at all.”

  Koti grinned, not a bit abashed. “To have something to entertain her with, of course.” He asked Nyree, “Think you could email me a couple of those snaps? My daughter Maia would like the one of me with the puppy, and I’d like the one of the puppy weeing on Marko. That one would be choice.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Happy to help.”

  He gave her his address, then said, “Seeya, mate,” to Marko, and was gone, but Marko wasn’t looking at him. He was watching Nyree.

  He said, “So.”

  “So,” she said, then blinked. Slowly. It was an extravagant thing, all sooty black lashes and sea-green eyes with dark flecks. Changeling eyes.

  “Cats,” she said, shaking him out of it. “I thought a white kitten. With the… ah… blue jersey. Contrast again. If you’d just… pick it up.”

  Now that Koti was gone, the room seemed too quiet. A faint hiss from the ventilation system, the imagined sound of Nyree’s soft breath, and that was all. She picked up her camera, which she’d had on a strap around her neck, as if arming herself. But he could still catch her scent.

  Cookies. That was what it was, odd as it sounded. She smelled like a cookie, and she looked like she’d taste like one, too. Absolutely delicious.

  She didn’t even come to his shoulder. Too short. He wasn’t going to say “too curvy” again, because he wasn’t thinking it. But definitely too short.

  “Kitten,” she reminded him, seeming to get her assurance back along with the camera.

  “Right.”

  Except not. He approached the chair where the white kitten was perched, and the kitten drew back. He came closer, and it hissed, its ears flattened, its sharp little teeth showing. It lifted a paw, claws extended, in case he hadn’t got the message. He looked at the claws, looked at the teeth, turned to Nyree, and said, “Maybe not.”

  “But it’s friendly,” she said. “Here.” She reached down, scooped the kitten up, and offered it to him.

  The kitten spat.

  Nyree said, “All right. Maybe not,” and put it back into the cardboard box. Where it hissed at Marko some more.

  The tiny gray kitten was still in there. Colored like a puff of smoke and just about as substantial, staring at Marko out of big round eyes. He picked it up, maybe because he wasn’t quite ready to go home yet, and the tiny animal curled into the palm of his hand. He put his other hand over it all the same and lifted it carefully to his chest.

  “Not as good a contrast,” he told Nyree, “but more cooperative, eh.” He held the little thing close to his body, and before he quite realized what was happening, it threaded its delicate way carefully along his forearm, its claws digging into his jersey and his skin, until it got to the crook of his elbow, where it settled in.

  “Well, bugger,” he said. “I think this one likes me.” He stroked its head, just because it was impossibly soft, sweetly curved, and so small.

  Nyree didn’t answer. She was focused all the way in. His face wasn’t going to be in these. Instead, it would be a speck of a gray kitten against a dark blue jersey and some anonymous bicep. Worked for him.

  “Did you have cats?” she asked, still shooting.

  “No. I’m more of a dog person. As you saw.”

  “Mm-hmm.” The kitten was exploring again, clinging to his jersey. Climbing his chest. “I don’t think she cares.”

  “It’s a she?” The little claws were sharp. “Oi,” he said, picking her off his shirt and holding her a bit away from him. “Mind your manners.” A tiny vibration came through to his hand, and he realized she was purring. He put her back in the crook of his arm, because she liked it, and possibly to keep her claws out of him.

  “She’s a bit of a special case,” Nyree said, still snapping away. “Brought in all alone a couple weeks ago, not even the size of my palm. She’s been bottle fed at the front desk ever since. That’s why I brought her out, because she’s a cuddly one. Confident, too. She was my backup plan.”

  “So do you work here all the time?” he asked. “And what?” he added when she lowered the camera and looked at him. “That was smooth. Followed straight on from what came before.”

  “No,” she said. “I volunteer every week or so to photograph the animals, that’s all. Call it my good deed. Nobody can take a proper photo, and the poor things end up looking like they were shot from Mars, or like they have an enormous head. Nobody’s going to adopt them like that.”

  “In between your work as a photographer?”

  “No.”

  “Paratrooper?” he suggested. “Cage fighter? Heart surgeon?”

  The hands on the camera stilled, and the curvy little body stopped moving. “I don’t have a worthwhile occupation? Why not?”

  He sighed. “I’m asking myself, am I here because this is hard work? Or in spite of it?”

  “You’re here,” she said sweetly, “because of the knitting bag. I know how New Zealand Rugby thinks.”

  “Bugger,” he said. “You know about that.”

  She was still snapping, because the kitten was climbing his chest again, making it all the way to his shoulder, forcing him to put up a hand to steady it just in case. Nyree said, “You could say it was a two-island sensation. Keep your hand there. Very nice bicep, and it makes the kitten look even smaller. How many centimeters is that thing? The hand, not the bicep. I know how big the bicep is. Freaking enormous.”

  He said, “I’m oddly cheered that you noticed I have biceps. Not to mention big hands. Shallow of me, I’m sure.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. “No correlation.”

  He sighed. “Shot down again.”

  He thought she might be smiling. “Actually, there is one. Just not the one you think. Do you want to hear it?”

  “Of course I want to hear it.” The kitten was on the move again, prowling along the collar of his jersey and coming to rest on his other shoulder.

  “Here you are, then. My gift to you for being such a cooperative subject. Ring finger.”

  “Uh…” His right hand was occupied with corralling the kitten. He held out his left one. “I’ve got a ring finger, yeh. But no ring, if you notice, so if that’s what’s bothering you, you can stop being bothered. No wife, no fiancée, and no girlfriend. I pass.”

  She sighed. “Was I asking? I was not. That it’s longer than your index finger. Considerably.”

  He studied it. “So it is. Tell me that’s good.”

  “Depends what you mean by ‘good.’ Your ring finger being longer is a marker for more testosterone. As compared to a man with a longer index finger. Something about the second trimester and testosterone levels in the womb. There’s a size correlation as well, but not the, uh, one you may be thinking.” She was blushing, he thought. “Never mind. They did a study, so there you are.”

  He thought about asking exactly what the size correlation was. He didn’t. The idea was there in her mind. That was enough. He said, “There I am indeed. Cheering news. More testosterone’s a good thing, one hopes. Unless not.”

  She shrugged, trying to pull off “unconcerned,” but her cheeks were still tinged with pink. Size, eh. She’d forgotten to take photos, too. “Correlated with athletic ability,” she said. “Plus sense of direction, physical aggression, and risk-taking.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  She lifted the camera again. “I’m just telling you. You’re used to it working on women. It’s part of the subliminal message they get from you, along with the pheromones and the muscles and so forth. A fertility marker, like a woman’s low waist-to-hip ratio is for men, though more subtle, because women aren’t aware of it. That would be our prehistoric brains talking. But as I know about it, I can discount it.”

  “Unless you decide you need a man with high testosterone.” Along with the pheromones and the muscles and so forth. That sounded positive.

  “Which I don’t. So, you see…”

  He sighed. “
Always something. No joy in life without these obstacles in the way, though. As a high-testosterone man, that is.”

  The contest begins, he thought. Too right, Mum.

  That was when the kitten decided to go for territory unknown. She climbed straight up the side of his head, perched on top of it, her needle-sharp claws digging into his scalp, and let out her first meow.

  She’d climbed the mountain, so she roared.

  Was it still a win if you went home with a cat?

  He was focused. He kept his eye on the ball and his mind on the job. He was single because relationships interfered with rugby, and vice versa. When his career was over, he’d turn his attention to the personal side. Not now. If anything, he needed to double down.

  And yet he still seemed to be getting a cat.

  Not just any cat. The spawn of the devil. A tiny gray ball of fur who’d decided he was her man, and she wasn’t going to let him go. What could you do, though, if you put her back in the box and she meowed at you piteously and tried to climb the pasteboard walls to get to you again? How about when you put your hand on her to soothe her distress, and she climbed straight up your arm, snuggled in behind your neck, and clung on like a limpet?

  “I don’t like cats,” he told Nyree, picking her off again. “They don’t like me, either. You saw.”

  Wait. This was meant to be the part of the evening where he overwhelmed her with his charm—and testosterone levels—and took her away for a drink, and then dinner. Instead, he was insulting animals. He was losing his grip on the plan.

  “She’s not exactly a cat,” Nyree said. “That is to say, a cat’s not ‘a cat,’ any more than a dog’s ‘a dog.’ A Chihuahua isn’t a St. Bernard, is it? This isn’t a cat. She’s a Burmese. More like a dog, really.”

  “This,” Marko informed her, feeling the claws piercing his skin for the twentieth time, “is not a dog. Not a Chihuahua. Not a St. Bernard. Not a bloody mastiff. This is a cat.”

  “An adorable kitten,” she said. “Who loves you.”

  That was the problem. That Nyree was looking at him with those eyes, and he knew that if he left the kitten here… Well, it wasn’t an option, that was all.

  “I travel,” he offered in what he knew was a weak-ass final gasp doomed to failure, like when you were driving for the tryline in the eighty-first minute, the hooter long since sounded, twelve points down but still in there fighting for that lost cause, for some reason known only to men with hard heads, too much bloody-mindedness, and possibly an excess of testosterone. “What would I do with her for two weeks at a time?”

  “You could leave her with me,” she said. “Although I’m sure she’ll pine for you. She’s a pushover, clearly. Just make sure she’s an indoor cat. There’s too much danger outdoors for her, and eventually, she’ll be too much danger herself to birds. New Zealand birds don’t have enough defense against predators.”

  She was lecturing him. On his cat ownership. Which wasn’t happening. “No worries,” he said. “I know about birds. And I didn’t say I’d take her.”

  “Oh,” Nyree said. “I thought you were going to. Never mind, then.”

  The corners of her full mouth drooped. Bloody hell. He couldn’t disappoint her. He couldn’t even seem to disappoint the kitten. He was getting soft, that was what.

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t take her,” he said. “Call it… call it a trial basis. I’m meant to let you photograph me twice. Not easy, but I’m going to do it anyway. Sunday morning, say, after the Chiefs match, as we’re playing at home? We could meet outdoors. Always good, photography-wise, right? You could bring whatever puppies you want me to hold, and make sure none of them come out with an enormous head. Afterwards, we could have breakfast. Work-related,” he added. You gave it everything you had. That was the only possible path.

  Wait. She’d said, “You could leave her with me.” Which meant he’d be dropping the kitten off. And picking the kitten up. At Nyree’s place. Which meant a trial basis definitely worked. Suddenly, he felt much more cheerful about the whole idea.

  She hesitated. Of course she did, now that he’d realized he wanted it. Bugger.

  “Maybe you could bring Koti with you again on Sunday,” were the next unwelcome words out of her mouth. “If he wanted to meet a dog I know. I think he wants one but is nervous about it, and more shots of him would be good anyway. I barely got him today, for some reason.”

  Bloody Koti James. Was there anyplace he kept his gorgeous self out of? Marko knew he was scowling. He couldn’t help it. “I’ll ask him.”

  Koti would have an engagement, though, that didn’t allow for breakfast. Marko was sure of it. Even if he had to pay him to leave. Or push him into his car.

  That was why, though, instead of charming—well, attempting to charm—Nyree over a drink the way he’d been planning, he was at PetStock in Glen Innes forty minutes later with a kitten on his neck, loading his trolley with kitten chow, cat litter, a “premium felt cat cave” lined with merino wool, and an enormous domed litter box with a special filter. And hesitating over a structure taller than himself, with platforms and perches and hidey-holes galore.

  The Ultimate Cat Gym, the sign said.

  It was covered in leopard print. It also cost nearly six hundred dollars.

  “No,” he told the kitten, moving on with his laden trolley. “Trial basis, and I’m not the one on trial. Perform, or be cut from the squad. I just bought you a feather toy on a pole, you’re barely the size of a tennis ball, and you don’t need a cat gym. Climb a chair instead.”

  An enormous black-and-brown Bernese Mountain Dog padded by on a leash held by a girl barely bigger than he was. The dog turned a tolerant eye on Marko and the fluffball, who was on his shoulder now, and Marko thought, See? That’s a dog. A man’s dog. A working dog. The kind of dog he needed, if he’d needed a dog. Which he didn’t.

  A chorus of barking rushing up from behind nearly deafened him, and pinpricks of pain ran up his scalp as the kitten climbed his head again. He put a hand up to steady her and scowled at the two yapping Jack Russells, barely held back by a stout bloke. The dogs had reared up on their hind legs in an attempt to get to his kitten, the bloodthirsty bastards. Maybe he didn’t like dogs as much as he thought.

  “Sorry,” the bloke said. “They have issues with cats.” He looked more closely. “Marko Sendoa, isn’t it?”

  “Yeh,” Marko said over the considerable noise of the still-barking terriers. “How ya goin’.” He took his kitten and escaped.

  Was he spending the evening looking his fill, and thinking about more, at a black-haired, green-eyed witch? No. Was he eyeing the waist he longed to put his hands around, and the rest of the body he longed to put his hands on, sipping on a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in an outdoor pub where the candles and the music were both soft, and watching her cheeks turn pink under his gaze? He was not.

  And most of all—was he sinking into the spa tub on his patio, the warm air filled with the evening song of the birds in his back garden, with that same sweet somebody by his side, up to her pretty neck in steamy bubbles? He most definitely was not.

  Instead, he was paying two hundred eighty-seven dollars for cat supplies and already thinking about Sunday. Such was the power of a woman on a man who dropped his guard.

  He’d have to be much more careful.

  When he pulled into the driveway in the twilight, he realized there was somebody sitting outside his front door, her back to the wall and her knees drawn up to her chest. A girl.

  No, not that girl.

  What the bloody hell.

  The kitten had ridden home in his lap. Now, he put her carefully into the pocket of his tracksuit jacket and said, “Stay.”

  Did cats know “Stay”? Could cats learn “Stay”? He didn’t know.

  His cat didn’t know it, anyway, because no sooner had he loaded himself up with his first round of supplies and headed up the walk than she was climbing his back again. He said, “Don’t do that. You’ll fall off,
” but she didn’t listen. She just got to his shoulder and hung on.

  By the time he got to the top of the stairs, Ella had stood up. Looking even younger than her sixteen years in her school uniform of plaid kilt, green jumper, and knee socks, her blonde hair falling around her face. He still wasn’t used to her as a blonde.

  She said, “Why do you have a kitten?”

  He said, “I don’t have a kitten. She has me,” juggled the Premium Felt Cat Cave as Ella picked up her backpack and an ominously large duffel, and punched the key code into the pad. “Come in,” he said. “Make a cup of tea while I bring in the rest of this kit.”

  “Do you have herbal?” she asked.

  “No. Why would I have herbal?”

  She sighed. In exasperation. “Marko. Girls?”

  “Girls what?”

  “Like. Herbal?”

  “Oh. No. Girls are out of luck, I guess.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll have a glass of water, then.”

  “You do that,” he said. “But hold my kitten.” He reached a careful hand up for the fluffball and handed her to Ella, then went back for the litter box and the rest of it.

  There’d be a reason. There was always a reason. It couldn’t be for long. She was in her uniform, it wasn’t the school holidays yet, and Tekapo was fifteen hundred kilometers and an entire island—or a world—away from St. Heliers.

  He came back in with the covered litter box and bag of litter, and the kitten uttered a sound somewhere between a meow and a yowl, climbed down Ella’s leg, making her yelp, and trotted across the floor to him like a dust bunny on legs. He told Ella, “Hang on. She either loves me, or she needs to use this thing. I don’t want to wait and find out which.”

  The kitten followed him into the laundry room, where he scattered the litter into the tray. She hopped straight in, and didn’t give him a chance to get the box assembled before she was christening it.

  “Good girl,” he told her when she was finished, and gave her a gentle pat. In response, she climbed his arm again.

  “Doesn’t look comfortable,” Ella observed. She was leaning against the doorway, watching him.