The dog barely opened one eye and thumped his tail once.

“You’d never pass the exam to be a full-fledged therapist.” He scratched the dog’s ears. “But I’m glad you’re here to listen to me. There’s just something about having someone trust me again, even with a little of her life’s story, that sure feels good.”

Tinker looked up at him and barked.

“Okay, okay. Yes, I know the Carson sisters trust me, and the folks trust me with the cemetery, and people around town trust me to do a good job when they hire me to do odd jobs, but this is different.”

Tinker wagged his tail and licked Sloan’s hand.

“I’m glad you can’t talk and ask me why, because I couldn’t answer that question.”

Chapter Eight

Kate was in the basement working on a recipe for blackberry shine when someone knocked on the door at the top of the stairs. “Come on down,” she called out.

She knew who it was the minute she heard combat boots on the old wooden steps. Someday, she kept telling herself, she was going to ask Sloan to replace the stairs and maybe paint them white, so as she got old they’d be easier for her to see.

“I’m glad you’re here.” She didn’t even look up from her notebook. “That rain last night blew down all kinds of limbs. Reckon you could work a few hours?”

“Not today, but I’ll sure get them on Friday,” Sloan said when he reached the bottom of the stairs. “I’m on my way into town for supplies. Y’all need anything?”

“Nothing I know of, but you might check with Betsy,” Kate replied.

“Maybe some cat food?” He pulled a kitten from behind him and held it out to her.

Kate dropped the pencil on her worktable and reached out with both hands. “Where’d you get it? Can we keep it?” She held it close to her chest like a baby and swayed back and forth. The kitten snuggled down into her arms and began to purr.

“I guess so. It showed up on my porch this morning. Poor little thing was havin’ a fit for something to eat. I fed her a scrambled egg and some milk, but she’ll probably do better on her own kind of food. Y’all said something a while back about lookin’ for another cat, so I thought maybe you’d want her,” Sloan said.

“We’ve never had a girl cat in the house,” Kate said. “When we were kids, we had a big old gray fluffy boy named Dutch.”

“Why’d your mama name him that?” Sloan sat down on the bottom step.

“Dutch is a breed of Bantam chickens, so it seemed appropriate, and the cat was colored up like a banty rooster that had been on the property when she was a little girl.” Kate eased down into an oak rocking chair and started it in motion with her foot.

“That little girl is solid black, so I’ll be interested in what name y’all come up with. I’ll be going now. See you in a couple of days,” he said.

“Thank you,” Kate said. “This will help Betsy so much if Ginger decides to leave.”

“How about you and Connie? Think it will help y’all if Ginger leaves?” he asked.

Kate swallowed a lump in her throat. “I’m sure it will, but honestly, Sloan, I want her to stay as much as Betsy does. Things were gettin’ so routine and old around here. She’s spiced things up for us.”

“Kate Carson, are you about to cry?” he asked as he got to his feet.

“How can a person get attached to someone in only five days?” She wiped her eyes with her shirtsleeve.

“Looks like you already fell in love with that cat in only five minutes,” he said. “Ginger is a sweet woman. It wouldn’t be hard to get attached to her, especially knowing what all she’s been through. I don’t think she’d want your pity, though.”

“You’re right,” Kate said. “She needs a friend, not pity.”

“My granny used to tell me that friends were better than gold,” Sloan said.

“Your granny was one of the wisest women I ever knew,” Kate told him.

“Yep.” He nodded. “See you later.”

She sat there for several minutes, just simply enjoying holding the baby kitten in her arms. Then the door at the top of the stairs opened and Connie’s voice echoed off the walls. “Kate, you got to come up here and see what Ginger found on the back porch.”

“I’m on the way.” She pushed up out of the rocking chair and headed up the steps with the baby kitten still in her arms. She’d wanted a while longer to savor having it all to herself, but it was only fair to share with her sisters.

Betsy held out something as Kate emerged from the doorway and said, “Look!”

Connie, Betsy, and Ginger all seemed like they might break into a jig any minute.

Two little white ears popped up out of the towel that Betsy was holding, and two blue eyes stared right at her. “Ginger found it on the back porch, half-drowned and cryin’ for someone to rescue it.” She opened up the towel and showed Kate the all-white kitten.

Too bad, Kate thought, she didn’t find two out there, and then each of us could have our very own. “Well, look what Sloan just brought us.” She held up the black kitten.

“It’s a beautiful day.” Connie rubbed her hands together. “We’ve got a black one and a white one living in a brothel. Couldn’t be better. We’ll have to have a meeting after supper tonight to talk about names. The white one is a girl.”

“So’s this one,” Kate said.

“Just gets better and better,” Betsy said. “The symbolism is fantastic. Mama would have just loved it. Remember how she used to say that Dutch was gray because it was a mixture of black and white?”

“Want to hold this one?” Kate held her kitten out to Ginger.

“I’ve always wanted a cat, but . . .” She let the sentence trail off as she took the kitten. “Oh, my goodness! It’s so soft. The white one was wet and didn’t feel like this.”

“You’ve never held a kitten before?” Betsy asked.

“Yes, but not one this soft,” Ginger admitted as she held it up close to her face and kissed it on the nose. “I can’t imagine anyone throwing such sweet creatures out in the rain.”

Kate considered herself a strong, independent woman. She’d endured a lot in her lifetime and had overcome even more, so why in the devil was she choking up for the second time that day? Three old women stood there in the kitchen, with a young woman who definitely needed help and two stray cats. What was so emotional about that?

“Are you going to keep them?” Ginger glanced out the kitchen window and caught a glimpse of Sloan picking up a few sticks as he made his way to his truck. He tossed them into the bed, then got into the vehicle and drove away.

“Oh, yes, we are,” Connie answered. “We’ve been talkin’ about gettin’ another cat ever since the old tomcat that came begging for scraps at our back door up and died. That was over three years ago, and we just never got around to it.” She reached for the black kitten, and Ginger handed it over to her. “I decided last week to put a river rock in my bag of stones.” She pulled a velvet bag from her pocket. “Mama said it signifies water and will bring your wishes to you.”

“I don’t believe in all that crap, but I got to admit that the rain was probably what brought these babies to us. Someone most likely dumped them out in Rooster, and they were looking for shelter when the rain started last night,” Kate said.

If these three ladies were this excited over a couple of kittens, Ginger couldn’t begin to imagine how they’d react to a baby. She probably should leave before she gave birth, just so her child wouldn’t be spoiled rotten.

Housework, making another batch of jam, and even the moonshine business got put on hold the rest of the afternoon while they all sat in the parlor and laughed at the two kittens’ antics. The sisters named the black one Hetty after the lady that had helped their mother in the house when they were little girls. She’d been a short, gray-haired woman with a ruddy complexion, which she said came from her Irish ancestors, and the girls had loved her. The white one got tagged with Magic because Connie declared that it was pure magic that they’d gotten two in one day and that they were the same size and got along so well. Maybe they were littermates and Hetty had just gone farther on down the road than Magic had.

Ginger watched the kittens romping around and then falling flat on their stomachs and sleeping, usually at the same time. Would it be so bad to have twins who could grow up together? she asked herself. She hadn’t even thought of having more than one baby until Sloan brought up the possibility. Now she began to yearn for two, even though she had no idea how she’d even support one.