Claws for Alarm Read online

  “We do have a lot of people who can help,” Jo said reassuringly.

  “But still,” Val began, but I cut her off.

  “We’ll be fine. Val is just a perfectionist.” I patted her hand. “This is an awesome opportunity. We get that. We’ll get it done. I’m confident.” I hoped I was doing a good job of convincing her. I wasn’t sure I was totally convinced myself, but one thing I’d learned in all my years in business is that you never pass up an opportunity that could save you years of marketing efforts. And bring you a lot of extra funds. In our case, it meant helping more animals, and I wasn’t about to say no to that.

  Grandpa, smooth as usual, jumped in. “We have a big family. There’s enough of us that we can get anything done when we put our minds to it,” he said, seemingly to assure Jillian, but I think he was really assuring Val.

  “Well, that’s lovely. I mean, family is the most important thing, right?” Something crossed her face as she said it for a split second, a look that was so far from the bright, beaming smile and jubilation she’d displayed ever since she’d arrived. But just as quickly, it was gone.

  “You bet,” I chimed in, willing Val to stay quiet unless she had something positive to say. While her confidence had definitely been building since her divorce and her subsequent foray into an already-successful business venture—and of course, Ethan—she still had some doubts that reared their ugly head along the way. And Val was definitely not the fake-it-till-you-make-it type. She was the kind of girl who, in high school, had studied the lesson beyond whatever lesson she was getting tested on, just in case. She had to be one hundred and ten percent prepared for anything before she felt confident enough to try it. In a way, starting up this business on the heels of her divorce had been a huge step for her. I’d almost expected her to say she needed to go to project-management school or take event-planning courses or something that would make her feel like she had the ability to do the job. I’d been super proud of her for jumping in and figuring it out—and she was excelling and really making a name for herself.

  This was another one of those tests. And I really needed her to be up for the challenge.

  “You know I can always help,” Ethan said. “I may not be the best waiter, but I can at least manage the catering.”

  Val was beginning to realize she was outnumbered. And I knew my sister. The last thing she would want would be to give off a vibe that said she wasn’t sure of herself. I watched her make the mental decision, square her shoulders, and finally nod. “You’re right. I’m being a worrier. We’ll get this done and we’ll rock it.”

  Jillian sprang to her feet so fast she almost toppled the tray of muffins in front of her and pulled Val into a hug with an eardrum-shattering squeal. JJ scrambled for cover under the table. “I am thrilled! You are going to have such a name for yourself after this. All of you. I just. Cannot. Wait!” She stepped back and nodded in satisfaction, looking at all of us. “This island is never going to forget this party. Trust me.”

  Chapter 6

  With all that settled, Jillian left in a flurry of kisses and promises to call me later with “next steps,” along with a lot of winking and vowing that we were going to be floored by what she had in store for us. “We must have a planning meeting ASAP,” she pronounced, squeezing Val’s hand. “I can’t wait to meet your team!”

  Jo followed her out, looking a little embarrassed by her colleague as they departed.

  It took a few minutes for the dust to settle. I had a lot of energy, especially for my business and related activities, but the whirlwind that was Jillian Allen had left me kind of exhausted. I also felt like I had to keep Val motivated and enthused. Once I heard Jillian’s car pull away, I turned back to my crew. They all still sat at the tables Ethan had pulled together. JJ was on the floor under Grandpa’s feet, snoozing. Apparently he was the only one not fazed by the task ahead. Adele had come out, too, to see what the rest of the visit had been like, and was eating her way through what was left of the olive platter.

  “Well,” I said brightly. “She certainly is full of energy.”

  “A little overwhelming,” Val said.

  “I might call it intense,” Grandpa mused, spearing an olive with a toothpick and popping it into his mouth. “And certainly oozing with self-confidence.”

  I got the sense he didn’t exactly mean that as high praise. “She’ll be fine. She wasn’t that bad,” I said, although my protest sounded weak even to my own ears. “And she has to be intense. She’s got a huge job running the fundraising for that place.”

  “She didn’t even pet the cats!” Adele protested. “What kind of cat lover doesn’t even play with the cats?” She sounded so dumbfounded by the idea that I almost had to laugh. Adele would be perfectly happy in a world with more animals than people. Perhaps no people at all.

  But of course she’d noticed that too. It had been odd. I mean, that’s why people came to cat cafés, right? Granted, Jillian was here on other business, but she was still an animal person. “Look. If she’s a bit hands off, well, that’s fine. She’s charged with the schmoozing to bring in the money and the big donors. Whatever works for the good of the animals, right?” It certainly wasn’t my style, but in some of these bigger organizations, that was just how it was. And as long as they were doing good work, who was I to judge? “We have a huge opportunity here. To raise a ton of funds and get our place noticed all along the eastern seaboard. Can we all try to have a bit more enthusiasm about this?”

  Val looked properly abashed. Adele did not. Grandpa kept eating. “You know I’ll do whatever I can to help,” he said finally, around a mouthful of cheese and crackers. “I think anything that benefits the animals is a good thing. Sometimes we have to put aside our own personal preferences.”

  Thank goodness for Grandpa Leo.

  Val cut herself a piece of Ethan’s yummy chocolate cake. Let the stress eating begin. “So I guess I should start planning something,” she said. “Do you know where you want to have this thing?”

  “It would be cool to have it at the café,” I said thoughtfully.

  “No. Sounds too fancy for that,” Val said around a mouthful of chocolate. “Even if it is a good idea, I don’t think she’ll go for it. My guess? She’ll want the fanciest venue on the island. Something waterfront.”

  “Will we be able to get something on such short notice?” I asked.

  “See?” Val pointed her fork at me. “I’m not the only one who thinks we’re jumping the gun here. These are the kinds of things we need to think about before we run off like fools counting our money.”

  “Relax,” I said. “I’m sure she’s got connections. She said she was here on other business, so she must be somewhat familiar with the island. She probably already has something in mind.”

  “She’s staying at the Paradise,” Grandpa said. “Why not have it there? It’s fancy.”

  We both looked at him. “How do you know that?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I asked her when we were talking. While you were upstairs.”

  “Did you also ask her how she knows Mish? Because she totally avoided that question when I asked her.”

  Grandpa shook his head. “I didn’t ask that.”

  “Well, I’d love to know why Mish was yelling at her,” Adele said to me.

  “The Paradise is a good idea,” Val said thoughtfully. “And Dad knows them over there. Maybe he can pull some strings to get us a date.” She looked at me. “You really think we can do this in such a short time? I don’t want to get overwhelmed and mess everything up.”

  “You would never mess it up,” Ethan and I said in unison, then both burst out laughing.

  “I know we can do it,” I said firmly. “Listen, there’s times when you just gotta go big or go home. Think of it as our big break—both the café and your business. It could get us all national publicity. Definitely will raise our profiles on the island and beyond.”

  She ate her cake slowly. “Okay. I’ll give it my all. I
hope this Jo has got lots of staff to spare.”

  I tried to tamp down my impatience. I was nothing like either of my sisters. I was the typical oldest, driven and motivated and, yeah, a bit bossy. Val was the middle child, and she’d taken the middle-child syndrome to a bit of an extreme by becoming the stringent, rule-following, type-A personality in the family, next to my dad. If something went off plan, she lost her mind. And Sam was the woo woo, yoga-worshipping hippie who took my mom’s personality a bit to the extreme. I often found myself impatient with both of them. “I’m sure she does. She’s probably getting them ferry tickets as we speak.”

  “Okay. But if something goes horribly wrong, don’t blame me.” Val had to get that parting shot in.

  “Oh, come on.” I dismissed her concerns with a wave of my hand. “What could go wrong? It’s gonna be great. By the way, who do you think the celebrity she has in mind is?” It was actually many small rescue organizations’ dream to have a celebrity endorser. That was the kind of thing that brought you lots of recognition and funding.

  “Maybe it’s Chris Hemsworth.” Val swooned a little. Ethan cocked his head at her. She pretended not to notice.

  “Ooh, maybe. I think he likes animals. There was that magazine cover with the cute dog. But I would peg you for a Robert Pattinson fan, no?” I was teasing her; my sister had an unnatural obsession with the Twilight movies. Something she’d neglected to mention to Ethan, given the smirk he was trying to hide.

  “You’re a jerk,” Val muttered, twin circles of pink standing high on her cheeks.

  At least she’d stopped obsessing over the party. “Now”—I clapped my hands together and stood—“I need to go call Katrina and share the good news. She’ll be over the moon. Don’t you think, Adele?”

  “I do, actually,” Adele said. “She needs money.”

  Finally, a positive. And from Adele, too. Cheered, I put my arm around her and led her out of the café back toward the house. JJ, apparently also tired of the conversation, trotted along behind us. “I know she’s been worried about funding. That’s why I want to do this. Even if the money comes into the café and not the town directly, we can supplement her work.”

  Adele nodded. “I agree.” She pushed the door open, letting JJ through first. He raced in with a squeak and made a beeline over to the kitten area. He loved kittens. Whenever we had babies, he spent most of his time with them. Like a surrogate dad or something. It was adorable.

  She waited for me to step inside too. “Seriously, no one asked what that scene in the street with Mish was about?”

  “I started to but she sidetracked me. She did say she knows Mish, though.” Which troubled me a bit. If they knew each other, why hadn’t Mish mentioned it when I told her about Jillian coming here? She had seemed a bit off after that. I thought of her stalking around out front on her phone, looking angry. Then she’d come back in, hadn’t said two words, and left as soon as possible. But was back here half an hour later, when we came back from our marina outing with Damian.

  “She knows her?” Adele asked. “And she didn’t bother to mention it? How on earth would she know her?”

  “I don’t know.” I needed to ask her. Whatever it was, I didn’t want any problems that could get in the way of a successful event. I told Adele as much. “If she has a conflict or something with Jillian, we’ll need to be mindful of that with the schedule.”

  Adele cocked her head at me. “You serious, boss? These cats need a lot of scooping. As you well know.”

  “I do know.” I smiled. “And I’m still pretty good with a litter scoop. But that looked like a pretty intense conversation. And I was all the way in the back seat.”

  “Yeah. Something was going on out there, no doubt about it.” Adele pursed her lips and shook her head. “But that’s Mish. She’s got a bit of a loud streak anyway.”

  “Mish?” I was surprised.

  “Yes, Mish,” Adele returned. “She’s got a temper, that one.”

  “Really? You’ve seen it here?”

  “Not with the cats or anything. But yeah, she got peeved at a delivery guy one day and almost took his head off when she realized we were missing part of our order. And her own people at the store?” Adele whistled. “They fall in line for sure.”

  “How do you know this?” I asked. “I’ve been friends with her since we were kids and I didn’t know she had that kind of presence.”

  Adele smiled. “You forgot I have three jobs. Well, at least until you hired me on full time. Which reminds me, I need to quit something. But the kinds of jobs I have? You hear things. Can’t really hide much on this island. Plus, she was a cheerleader. Aren’t they usually pretty loud?”

  Chapter 7

  Adele and I called Katrina together to give her the good news about the fundraiser. She was over the moon as we predicted, despite how distracted I could tell she was. Apparently her new Lab charge wasn’t the most well-behaved, which was probably why she had been running loose on the streets.

  With the good news communicated, I left Adele to her new shelter-manager duties and headed up to my room, JJ on my heels. It was about time for his afternoon nap. Luckily, I’d cleared the afternoon of appointments so we didn’t have to worry about time constraints, since I hadn’t known what to expect with Jillian’s visit. So now I had some free time to start thinking about our big plans.

  But first, I wanted to call Lucas. Today had been such a whirlwind, I hadn’t even had a chance to check my texts after I’d texted him earlier.

  He had. I smiled a little. Things had been going so well with us I still had to pinch myself most days. I was not used to it. I’d never had a relationship like this. Before Lucas, I didn’t have the best track record. I tended to pick long-haired musicians who had a lot going for them in the sexy department, but not a lot in the maturity department. As a bonus, Lucas was a semi-longhaired, mature musician. It was like I’d created him out of thin air. And ever since we’d gone through a bit of a rough patch a few months ago, our relationship had gotten even better.

  Wish I was there too, he’d said. I’ll be home early tonight. Hey did you hear about the giant boat in the marina??

  Laughing, I called his cell. When Lucas answered I could tell I was on speakerphone, which meant he was grooming.

  “Hey babe,” he said.

  “Hey. You have someone on the table?” Grooming speak for Are you giving someone a haircut?

  “I do, but he’s easy. I can talk. How did it go today?”

  “It was … interesting.” I filled him in on Jillian—the weird thing with Mish, Jillian’s fascination with the café, and her offer. “Val is a little skeptical of our ability to pull it off, but it’s too good of an opportunity to pass up. Katrina needs the funds.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive. She really thinks she can get that many people, huh?”

  “She does. She sounds pretty convincing, so I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. This Mish thing is bothering me, though.”

  “Yeah, weird that she knows her. Are you going to ask her?”

  “Of course. Oh, and about the boat? I saw it.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. Damian came over and dragged us all there. It’s impressive. They have bodyguards and everything. They chased Val and me right off the dock.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  I laughed. “No. But it’s fine. You coming home soon?”

  “Probably an hour or so. What do you want to do for dinner?”

  “We can cook something here unless you want to go out.”

  “Staying in sounds good to me. I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”

  I tossed my phone onto the bed next to me. JJ, who was napping on my pillow, opened one eye and glanced at me with a look that said Can you be any more disruptive? I’m sleeping here. I gave JJ a pat on the head and headed downstairs to the living room. The house was quiet. Grandpa was on the sofa, his feet propped on his old black leather ottoman as he flicked through the new
s stations on the TV. The ottoman made me laugh. It had been around since I was a little kid, probably years before that. It had rips and tears, and the wooden legs were scratched up from years of use. My mom had told me Grandma had tried multiple times to get rid of it, even going so far as to buy him a fancy new one, but he’d sent it back to the store in that stubborn, Grandpa Leo way he had, insisting that this ottoman had character and was as much a part of the fabric of this house as he was.

  Grandpa glanced up when I came in. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Want to take a walk to Damian’s with me? I want to get fish for dinner.”

  “Sure,” Grandpa said. “I can do the grilling honors. But I get to pick the fish.”

  “Sounds good to me.” I grabbed JJ’s leash and harness from the hook next to the door and got him ready to go. “How come you’re not downstairs?”

  When Grandpa wasn’t working in the café, out walking, or playing cards with his friends, he spent his time down in his basement office. He’d opened his own private investigation firm after he’d finally retired from the police chief role just a couple years ago. He hated not being part of the action, and this kept him busy. It had also helped me out on many occasions. He never seemed to have a shortage of things to investigate.

  It was good for him. He’d been devastated at the thought of leaving police work behind. Now he had two fulfilling careers and a house full of family. In some ways, his life was fuller now than ever before, with the exception of Grandma not being around. I think at first he was just trying to fill the hole both she and his job had left behind, but now I liked to think he’d found happiness again.

  “I have some work to do later, but I was taking a break.” He held the door open for me, closing and locking it behind us.

  “So what are you working on right now?” I asked as we headed down the street.

  He glanced over with a small smile. “Why, you want to help out with some investigating?”

  “If it’s an interesting case,” I said, only half joking. I did have a penchant for police work. I’d always been interested in Grandpa’s job when I was younger. And since I’d been back, I’d been involved in more police investigations than I’d ever imagined.