Jessie crouched to pick her up, and carried her through to the dining room where Cara sat at the table.
“Here’s your cat.” She set her down on a chair. “Now, what have you done to Zach?”
Cara’s hands began to stroke the soft fur.
“What had to be done,” she said. “He needs some time to himself.”
What had to be done? The words swirled around in Jessie’s head.
Cara smiled up at her. “Do you like jigsaw puzzles?”
Distracted by Zach, the question took Jessie a moment to process. “Puzzles? Yeah, I guess so.”
“I love them. Thought we’d start one.” She gestured to a box. “Found this in the living room.”
The box featured a painting of an old merchant sailing ship on a storm-tossed sea, with an enormous Kraken reaching tentacles from the depths to snare the vessel. The corner of the box bragged, “5,000 pieces.”
“That’s a huge one,” Jessie commented. She did like jigsaw puzzles. Been a long time since she’d done a big one. She glanced at the table. “But we’ll need this for supper.”
Cara smiled. “You don’t know Weres. Given a choice, they head outdoors. It’s in their nature. The puzzle is safe here.” She opened the box. “Sit down and give me a hand.”
Jessie’s mind spun, but a moment later, she found herself sitting. The woman must be using her mojo on her. She decided she’d talk to Zach later, to find out what the hell was going on.
She dug through the box for the first corner piece. And found it.
* * *
Kade and the Weres loaded up their bowls. While most took them onto the porch to eat, he sought out Cara.
Cara and Jessie worked hard at something on the dining room table. Kade carried his bowl in with him to see they were leaning over a mess of jigsaw pieces. Tons of them.
Intrigued, he sat at the end of the table. Intending just to observe, but then he spotted an edge piece that might work over there...
A few minutes and half a dozen edge bits later, his ears tracked Zach as he came down, plunked chili in a bowl, and disappeared back up the stairs.
Jessie stopped working on the puzzle when he appeared, but just as it looked as though she would stand up to follow him, Cara pointed to a piece.
“Does that belong in this corner?”
By the time they’d explored the possibility, Zach was gone.
Kade glanced at Jessie and then back to Cara. His eyes narrowed. When Cara ignored him, he examined the image on the lid. “Look at all that water and sky. This is going to be a challenge.”
“It’s beautiful. I like paintings over photographs,” Cara said. “They are more interesting.”
“That, and the fact no one has managed an image of a Kraken,” Kade mused. “Although they’ve come close.”
Cara scoffed. “Babies.”
Jessie’s silver eyes widened. “Kraken are real?”
Kade waited for Cara to fill her in, but when the older woman stayed fixated on her puzzle piece, he relented. “They seldom emerge from the ocean’s depths,” he said. “They prefer it there.”
“But they used to, or there wouldn’t be any legends about them,” Jessie pointed out.
Kade met her eyes, and his stupid heart did a flutter in his chest as he responded to her obvious fascination. It was unexpected, considering how new this all was to her. Laura’s reaction to the revelation of Cryptid existence bordered on wide-eyed horror. Much more typical.
But Jessie was brave as hell. Absorbing all this, asking questions.
