“Are you hurt?”

Hurt? No. Hurting? Always. “Are you going to help me or not?” she demanded.

He rolled his eyes. “You do know how to charm a fella.” But he unfolded his arms and pushed off his jacket, clearly preparing for action. The leather landed at his feet like a dead thing, which she supposed it technically was. Unless it was fake.

“Is that real?” she asked, nodding toward it.

He arched an eyebrow again—the show-off—and approached the tree in his T-shirt and jeans. “That’s what you’re worried about right now?”

“I’m the sort of person who climbs trees to rescue cats. Clearly, I care deeply about animal welfare.”

“You a vegetarian?”

Well. He had her there. “Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“I’m working on it.” Ethical consumption had been easier at home, where they had a cook.

He grinned up at her, grabbed a branch, and started climbing. “Right. You only eat veal on Sundays, that sort of thing?”

“Certainly,” she quipped. “Which is no worse than doing drugs on Sundays.”

“Chloe. I don’t do drugs on Sundays.”

There; he’d used her name. Now was the perfect time to follow suit and use his. The one everyone else called him, not Redford or Mr. Morgan. But she felt so awkward about it that she couldn’t figure out what to say, and in the end, after an uncomfortable pause, she …

Well. She simply blurted out, “Red.”

And that was it.

He hauled himself up another branch—he was much quicker and more graceful than she’d been, the awful man—and cocked his head. “Yeah?”

Oh dear. “Um … do you know this cat?”

His climb continued. She tried not to stare at his hands and his forearms and the way his biceps bunched beneath his shirt as he lifted himself up. “Why,” he asked, “would I know that cat?”

“I’m not sure. You are in a position of authority in the local community.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “I change lightbulbs for old ladies and send out rent reminders.”

“Sounds like authority to me.”

The cat, which had been purring quietly, chose that moment to miaow again. Chloe scratched it between the ears. She appreciated the vocal support.

“Whatever you say,” Red muttered, and then he was directly beneath her. Proximity to him unnerved her more and more every time they met. Which might have something to do with the mountains of guilt she carried after spying on him repeatedly.

At least she knew for sure, now, that he hadn’t seen her last night. Because if he had, he probably would’ve left her to die in this tree.

“So, is it real?” she asked, mostly to divert her own train of thought.

“Is what real?” he shot back, sounding more than a little exasperated. His voice was gravelly, its cadence oddly musical, his words flowing together in an elision of consonants and shortening of vowels. He sounded as dynamic as he looked.

“The leather.”

“No, Chloe. Don’t worry. I’m not running around wearing a dead cow all the time.” He reached up from the branch beneath her and said, “Can you hold my hand?”

Could she? Possibly. Should she? Debatable. His touch might stop her heart like an electric shock. Then again, she was hardly in a position to refuse. “Let me secure the cat,” she mumbled.

“Fuck the cat. It’s playing you like a violin.”

Her gasp tasted of ice and pollution. “How dare you? This cat is an angel. Look at it. Look!”

He looked. His eyes were pale green, like spring pears. He studied the cat thoroughly before saying in very firm tones, “That thing could climb down any time it wanted. It’s having you on.”

“You’re a heartless man.”

“Me?” he sputtered, as shocked as if she’d accused him of being Queen Victoria. “I’m heartless?”

She drew back, affronted. “Are you trying to suggest that I’m the heartless one?”

“Well, you did—”

“Please don’t bring up the post room incident.”

“Actually, I was going to bring up the time you made Frank Leonard from 4J cry.”

Chloe huffed out a breath. “I did not make him cry. He was already teary when the conversation began. It was all a misunderstanding, really.”

Red grunted skeptically.

“Honestly, I see no need to rehash the past when I am in a tree, selflessly saving a cat.”

“If you want to make this a competition,” he countered, “I’m in a tree saving a cat and a woman.”

“You are absolutely not saving me, thank you very much.”

“Oh? Shall I get down, then?”

“Fine. Throw a tantrum, if you must.”

“Throw a—?” Red’s incredulity was quickly cut off by a growl. “I’m not doing this with you.”

She blinked down at him. “Doing what?”

“Arguing. I don’t argue with people.”

“That sounds dull,” she murmured.

“You—just—hurry up before I lose my shit, would you?”

“You’ve not already lost it?”

“Swear to God, Chloe, you’ve got three seconds.” He waved the proffered hand around for emphasis. There was a smudge of magenta ink beneath his thumbnail.

Chloe sighed, then picked up the cat to see if it would permit such familiarity. It did. Reassured, she unzipped her jacket a bit, stuffed the cat inside, zipped it up again. A furry kitty head rested against the hollow of her throat, a warm body curling up against her chest. The sensation was so wonderful, for a moment she almost forgot the pain clawing at her senses.

She rather liked this cat.

After fiddling for as long as possible, she put on her big-girl knickers and reached for the hand awaiting her. It was the third time she had ever touched Redford Morgan. She knew, because the first time—their first handshake—had sent a thousand tingling darts shooting up her right arm, darts that had dissolved into a strange, pleasurable sensation that was not unlike a muscle relaxant, and she had not approved. The second time, when they’d bumped into each other a few days ago, had only reinforced her decision to avoid all physical contact with the man.

Yet here she was, feeling his callused palm in hers, this time not for a handshake but a—she reluctantly admitted to herself—rescue. The usual darts of sensation returned. Red didn’t appear to be sending them on purpose, so she decided, for once, not to hold it against him. Sometimes, when she saw him roaming the halls or the courtyard with a heartrending smile for everyone but her, she wished she had nothing at all to hold against him.

Usually when she’d taken her strongest painkillers and was therefore high as a kite.

“Can I keep it?” she asked, to distract herself, more than anything else.

“Keep what?” he frowned as he helped her climb down. His grip on her was steely; his other hand cupped her elbow. He supported almost all of her weight and pulled her onto a lower branch.

“The cat,” she said, and concentrated on not falling tragically to her death.

“What are you asking me for? Put your feet here, look.”