Chloe raised her brows. “Cake shop?”
“That’s the latest plan,” Dani called from the hallway. “But don’t ask her about it, or she’ll start whining about the tyranny of skeptical parents who refuse their daughters business loans, and you know I can’t stand her spoiled-brat routine.” Ignoring their youngest sister’s outraged gasp, Dani marched back into the room with a hissing cat in her grip. “Now,” she said, holding up the squirming bundle of fur. “Is this the creature you rescued?”
“No,” Chloe murmured. “That’s one of the countless other cats I acquired two days ago.”
“Shut up.” Dani squinted into a pair of narrowed, feline eyes, her expression stern, her jaw set. She had a habit of grinding her teeth when she was concentrating especially hard. Finally, she ended the interspecies staring contest and announced, “I judge this cat to be . . . a boy.”
“Excellent,” Chloe said, quite satisfied. “We’ll name him Smudge.”
“Oh, Chloe,” Evie tutted. “You ought to name him Cat, like Holly Golightly.”
The nerve of little sisters. Bossy boots, the lot of them. With a withering glare, Chloe said, “Don’t tell me how to raise my children. His name is Smudge. The end.”
“Wonderful.” Dani set Smudge down and he ran off in a blur of smoke. After a minor collision with a table leg, he was gone. Dani snorted and slipped into their old Nana’s patois. “Him ’fraid like puss.”
“Of everything,” Chloe admitted. “I think that’s why he was stuck in the tree, actually: he could’ve gotten down, but he was too scared.”
The air in the room changed, excited grins blooming like flowers, all eyes turning to Chloe. “Ohhh, yes,” Eve sang, leaning back against the cushions. “The tree. That you climbed. Like a badass! Care to share?”
Ah. Chloe smiled coyly. “It was rather impressive,” she murmured, feigning modesty.
“Do tell,” Dani drawled from her position sprawled out on the floor. Honestly, the woman was allergic to chairs. She was also good at ferreting out lies. But would she notice a minor (read: huge and ginger) omission? Hopefully not, because Chloe had no intention of bringing up Red’s role in the palaver.
“I saw the cat, I got the cat. It was all very athletic. I climbed that tree like . . . like Lara Croft!”
“With sweaty cleavage and frequent, strangely sexual grunts?” Dani mused.
“With effortless expertise,” Chloe corrected. Inaccurately.
“I’m sure you were quite Byronic,” Eve said.
There was a short pause before Chloe deciphered that one. “Darling, do you mean heroic?”
“No.”
Dani rolled her eyes. “Regardless, I’m glad you did it. Climbed the tree, I mean. Sorry that it triggered a spell, but also glad.”
“Are you really, Dani?” Chloe narrowed her eyes, all suspicion. “Because it was part of my plan to be fabulously reckless and extremely exciting, and a little birdie tells me that you have a personal investment in my failure.”
“Oh, don’t be like that, darling. It’s only fifty pounds; of course I’d rather lose. And anyway, I don’t remember ‘cat rescuing’ or ‘tree climbing’ being on the list. Am I wrong?”
“No,” Chloe admitted. “This was an extracurricular activity.”
“Well, then. My fifty pounds is safe. But what will you do about the cat, long-term? Pets aren’t allowed here, are they?”
“I’ve made a temporary arrangement with the superintendent,” Chloe said, then mentally kicked herself.
Her sisters, predictably, collapsed in a chorus of lustful shrieks and sighs. “Red,” Eve said with such feeling you’d think she and the superintendent were Romeo and Juliet made flesh.
“Redford Morgan,” Dani purred, vixenish in a way Chloe had never mastered. Danika Brown was a left-wing academic and amateur spiritualist who shaved her head because “hair is just so much effort,” but beneath it all, she took after Gigi. If Dani had been the one rescued from a tree by a handsome man, or woman, for that matter . . . well, she’d have secured said rescuer’s affections by the time they hit the ground.
“How did you broker this deal?” Eve asked innocently, fluttering her lashes.
“She offered her body of course,” Dani grinned.
“Oh, be quiet, the both of you. I’m not so desperate as that.”
“Because sleeping with that man would be such torture,” Eve snorted. “He is sex on a stick, Chlo. And he’s so sweet.”
“Sweet?! Clearly, you barely know him.”
“Which is why I’m not yet pregnant with his babies. What’s your excuse?”
“Her excuse,” Dani said, “is that he’s so hot, he short-circuits her little robot brain.”
“My robot brain is huge, thank you very much,” Chloe sniffed. “And he does not short-circuit anything.”
Dani gave a slow smile, an action that had been known to cause proposals, jealous fist fights, and in one notable case, a minor car accident. “Wonderful,” she purred. “In that case, I expect you to sleep with him as soon as possible. Isn’t sex on your list?”
Chloe narrowly avoided choking to death on her own astonishment.
“It is,” Eve piped up. “Oh, go on, Chlo. Shag him. Tell us all about it.”
Good gracious, sisters were a nightmare. “Men,” Chloe said firmly, “are not for me.” Especially not that man. I wouldn’t know what to do with him. But her mind proposed several heroic suggestions, and her mouth went dry.
Dani cocked her head. “Finally decided to try women? Wonderful.”
“I am trying no one, thank you very much.” Clearly, her subconscious needed the reminder as much as her sisters did.
“Why not?” Eve demanded, her romantic nature clearly offended.
“You know why not.”
“Clearly, I don’t.”
Sigh. “It’s too much work. I can’t be bothered.”
Two sets of dark, unimpressed eyes speared her.
She doubled down. “It’s very awkward, dating while disabled. People can be quite awful. And you know I don’t have much energy to spare for social nonsense.”
“Social nonsense,” Eve snorted. “I swear, Chloe, you are so full of it.”
Eve clearly didn’t realize that “social nonsense” was Chloe’s succinct way of phrasing “the constant disappointment that is human nature.” She’d learned the hard way that people were always looking for a reason to leave, that affection or adoration or promises of devotion turned to dust when things got tough. Losing Henry had shown her that. Waking up one day to realize that her friends, bored with lists and rain checks and careful coping mechanisms, had left her behind . . . that had been unnecessary emphasis on a painful lesson. Chloe’s family was abnormal in their loyalty, and she loved them for it, but they didn’t seem to understand that others couldn’t be trusted. Better to be alone than to be abandoned.
She refused to let that happen again.