Dalton cradles her body wrapped in the towel. “She swallowed. That’s a good sign. We’ll warm her up and see if she’ll respond. We’ll need to get her to a vet.”
“I’ll start calling.”
I drag my phone out of the pocket of my shorts and start Googling emergency vets.
“There she goes,” Dalton says, and I look up.
Mama cat licks the end of the syringe. He squirts out a little more.
“That’s the biggest hurdle,” he says. “Stabilizing them for the next step.”
“Same as cats as in humans?”
He nods. “She’s coming around.” He holds on to her and peers into the box. “When I think I can set her down, I’ll look at the others, but they are all wiggling.”
I place the first call, then move the box closer to the wall socket so I can slide the warming cushion beneath the litter. They all look up at me and cry with faint mews. They’re all mewing. My eyes smart with tears.
A voice comes on the line. “SoCal Emergency Pet Care, how can I help you?”
As I explain the situation to the woman, I glance up at Dalton. He’s watching the mother cat as he slowly feeds her watered-down food. He’s so intent on her, as if saving her can somehow make this hard day better than it was.
And my heart definitely catches at the sight.
18
DALTON
Nadia insisted she could manage the cats at the emergency clinic and there was no point for me to lose my sleep between shifts sitting in a waiting room.
I reluctantly let her go and fall asleep instantly, waking only when I hear the door open.
“How are they?” I ask.
She rests a cat crate on the floor. “Discharged. Mom is eating. Kittens were fed. They all got flea baths. I have some nutrition supplements and kitten formula to take the load off Mama Cat while she recovers.”
“So they came home?” I sit up and rub my head.
“Yes. I couldn’t afford to leave them, and they didn’t think it would matter as long as they were monitored.”
“Did you find a rescue?”
She unlatches the top of the cage and pulls it off. “Every one of them I called was full. I’m on several waiting lists.”
“I wonder if anyone ever gets off the list.”
She shrugs. “There are lots of homeless cats in the world.”
I kneel in front of the crate, half-asleep even though Nadia was gone for a solid five hours. “So now we have more secret cats?”
“Are you upset?” Her voice has a note of panic in it, as if she believes I might kick the litter out.
“No. Just wonder how Cattarina is going to handle it.”
“She loves other cats, usually. It’s her size that scares them.” Nadia bites her lip, her eyes shifting to the bed. “She’ll come out eventually and investigate.”
We sit opposite each other on the floor, the crate between us. All the cats are asleep. I reach to pet the mother, her fur soft from the flea baths. They all look like fluff balls.
“Should we name them?” I ask her. “Or is that a bad idea with rescues that might get adopted?”
