Persian Penalty

“He worked hard on those directions. If I had asked for clarification I would have offended him,” I said with a tight-lipped smile. “Anyway, they’re from a bird’s-eye view. They don’t think of things the way we do, so of course they don’t describe them that way, either.”

“I can’t wait to eat the good fries!” Paisley chimed in, making me giggle.

But Charles still appeared quite frazzled. “Is she even in Katahdin at all? Do we know for sure?”

“Bravo said she was, but this isn’t anywhere near his flock’s territories, so I doubt he knows the actual boundaries.”

“Right, so it’s a wild goose chase—er, a wild seagull chase—for me. But it’ll be fine. I can figure this out. I just have to think like the witness, put myself in his… wings, I guess. I’ve got this, babe. Enjoy your downtime. Call if you need me, and I’ll come straight back.”

“Thank you. I love you,” I called after him. I really needed this. Of course, I wasn’t properly on my own, thanks to the pets.

Octo-Cat had already fallen asleep on the pillow at the head of his bed while Paisley wagged her tail and licked between my fingers. “What now, Mommy?” she asked.

I had to think fast to come up with a valid excuse to be on my own, otherwise her feelings would be deeply hurt. I glanced around the room, landing on the door to the en suite bathroom. “Um, I’m just going to take a nice bubble bath.”

“Okay, Mommy! What will I do?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

“Why don’t you curl up and take a nap with Octo-Cat?” I said, picking her up as I stood and then setting her onto the other bed beside the crabby tabby. When he woke up, he was going to be livid. Luckily, I’d already be locked safely away in the next room—provided that lock worked at all. Just to be safe, I crept back into the main room and grabbed my cell phone and bathrobe. That way I’d be prepared if I got stuck and needed to get someone to help me out.

Back in the bedroom, dear, sweet Paisley had wrapped herself around Octo-Cat so that he was the little spoon and she was the big spoon. Never mind that he was more than twice her size. It made for a comical picture, and I snapped a quick photo on my phone before leaving the pets to themselves and retreating to the bathroom to draw my bath.

What an adventure this was shaping up to be already. And no matter how things turned out with my long-lost grandmother, I doubted I’d ever be able to forget even the slightest bit of our journey to find her.

But oh, how I hoped this would end with a happily ever after.

9

Evening gave way to night.

I trusted Sharon and the info she had located on my behalf, but there had to be more to the story. Deep down, I knew my grandmother couldn’t be bad. At least that’s what I told myself over and over again as I soaked in that clawfoot tub filled past the brim with bubbles.

Eventually, I gave up on relaxing in the bath and tiptoed into the bedroom to try to catch a nap. Cat and dog were both still curled together and snoozing softly, which meant I might actually stand a chance of grabbing some shut-eye. Heavens knew I needed it after the terrible sleep I’d gotten the night before.

I slid off my diamond engagement ring and placed it on the nightstand beside my phone, then pulled the quilt to my chin and shut my eyes. It didn’t take long at all for me to nod off.

I awoke later when Charles returned via the sliding glass door. The room now lay in complete darkness other than the faint glow from his cell phone.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered as he made his way over to the bed and began to grope for the lamp. “We forgot to jam up the door like we said, and I was having trouble with the lock and key again. Go back to sleep.”

“It’s okay. I’m up now,” I mumbled, helping him with the lamp. Our hands collided, and something went skittering to the hardwood floor below.

“Oops,” I said.

Charles dove to the floor so I didn’t have to.

I glanced at the empty nightstand just as he popped up with my phone in hand.

“Can you grab my ring, too?” I asked, accepting the cell phone from him.

He returned to his hands and knees and searched under both beds. “Ang, I don’t see it down here.”

“But it’s gotta be there. I took it off before my nap and put it right by my cell phone,” I argued, getting out of bed to help.

We searched for a good five minutes but both came up short. So I decided to ask the cat for help—a decision I did not take lightly, but this was my engagement ring, after all.

“Octo-Cat, have you seen my ring?” I said, right after I picked up Paisley and removed any evidence of their shared nap. He’d never tell me a thing if he discovered what I’d let happen. He had a huge soft spot for the tiny rescue dog, but rarely was it enough to overcome the selfishness that came standard issue with his being an upper-middle-class cat.

“I’ve seen it,” he answered around a yawn. “Nothing special, if you ask me, but then again, neither is UpChuck.”

I pulled the pillow out from under him, and he rolled onto the mattress.

“Give that back,” he moaned.

“Take what you said back,” I demanded.

“No.”

“Where’s my ring?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. You clearly have it out for Charles, so it makes sense you’d try to sabotage our wedding by—”

“I’ve had enough,” he spat, popping to his feet. “Call me when you come to your senses. C’mon, Mutt.”

Paisley looked at me with wide, shimmering eyes.

“Go,” I said. “Keep him out of trouble.”

She wasted no time scampering after him as Charles crossed the room and opened the sliding door, allowing both animals to disappear into the night.

“It’s really not here, is it?” I said, staring hatefully at my bare ring finger. How had I lived with it like this for so long? Darn it, I never should have taken that ring off.

“Let’s go check in with reception,” Charles suggested, moving toward the wooden door on the other side of our room. At least it was easy to open from the inside. “I saw Millicent was still up when I came through that way.”

Sure enough, Millicent sat in her chair with her book. At this point, I had to question whether our proprietress was, indeed, an art installation and not a businesswoman.

“Excuse me?” I said, stopping in front of her.

She held up a finger and continued reading for at least a minute before she finally raised her eyes to meet mine. “Yes?” Her eyes were wide, her expression mostly blank.

“Has anyone turned in a ring for the lost and found?”

“We don’t have a lost and found,” she replied with no follow-up questions and no hint of apology.

The fluffy orange cat hopped up onto a nearby windowsill to glare at me and Charles. Maybe all my time with Octo-Cat had made me cynical, or maybe I was still miffed about him bullying little Paisley, but something seemed off about him.

“Oh. Well, I have a lost item. A pretty important one at that.”

“I’ll let you know if anything turns up,” Millicent said, tucking an orange curl behind her ear and revealing an earring I hadn’t noticed her wearing before—a big dangly one with a little gemmed tassel.

The Persian’s eyes zoomed toward the gaudy piece of costume jewelry, and he wiggled his behind as if to attack.

“Not now, Louis,” the lady told him. He growled and ran across the room to hide. Poor cat must’ve been starved for stimulation if he got so worked up over earrings.

“Yeah, well, thanks for your help,” I mumbled, wondering if Millicent would even remember having our conversation.

“Oh, while we have you,” Charles interjected, waving his hand in front of her.

Millicent groaned and tore her eyes from the book a second time. “What is it now?”

“There seems to be a problem with the door to our room.”

She bobbed her head and shifted her jaw. “Uh-huh. Which one?”

“Both, actually,” he said with a chuckle. “One doesn’t open, and the other doesn’t close.”

“Oh, right. I put you in the Shoreline suite. The locksmith should be here early next week to fix both of them. I wasn’t going to book anyone in until that was taken care of, but then you two showed up with your little problem, and well, I had to do something to set it right.”

Charles’s brow furrowed. I could see he was about to go into full-on lawyer mode if I didn’t do something fast. “But—”

“Yup! Okay, thanks,” I said, grabbing him by the hand and leading him back around outside.

“I don’t think she likes us very much,” he said once we were both outdoors and out of earshot.

“Who would?” a nasty voice spat.

I looked around and found the big, orange Persian from earlier slinking by. Louis, that was the little scamp’s name.

I tamped down my urge to scold him like I would whenever Octo-Cat took up an attitude with me and refocused my attention on Charles.

“Care for a moonlight walk on the beach?” he said, waggling his brows.

“I thought you’d never ask,” I said, falling into step beside him as we strolled outside and headed for the water.

“This would have probably been a better proposal than the RV, huh?”

“I liked your proposal,” I said, stretching up to give him a quick kiss.

“If you liked that, you’ll really like this. I’m pretty sure I found your grandmother.”

I gasped. “Really? Where?” It’s not that this news surprised me. It just made me so, so happy.

“Oh, no no no,” he tsked playfully. “You don’t get to jump to the end of the journey after sending me on that seagull chase.”

He moved to regale me with tales of his heroic exploits as he tooled all around the Katahdin area, trying to make heads and tails of Bravo’s directions. “I may have had to sample a few different fries to help me determine which were the good ones. Well, according to a seagull, anyway.”

“Eww, you ate out of the dumpster?”

He fixed me with a wounded expression. “Drive-thru, but thanks for assuming that.”

We both laughed for a good long while as we slowly moved along the beach, hand in hand beneath the night sky.

Everything would be okay. I knew it then. I’m pretty sure I’d known it this whole time, but it was easy to forget when my nerves got the best of me.

With Charles at my side, I could conquer anything. We’d meet my grandmother and find my ring.

We just had to take one thing at a time.

One foot in front of the other.

Yes, everything would be just fine.

10

I had another rough night of sleep. Coming here had only added to my worries. It’s not like I expected to find instant relief just knowing I was near to my grandmother, but every time I was left alone to my thoughts, dread prevailed.

The walk with Charles on the beach had put my mind at ease, but as soon as he drifted to sleep, the swirling cyclone of anxiety wreaked havoc once more.

Sharon’s news had set me on edge, and now every new inconvenience—whether big or small—pushed me closer and close to my falling point.

Quarreling animals.

A rude proprietress.

My missing ring.

The unlatchable door.

That last one really irked me. Generally, Maine was a safe place to be, but I didn’t like the thought that just anyone could walk off the street and accost us while we were sleeping.

Since I couldn’t sleep anyway, I decided to research the bed-and-breakfast online. First I checked the site Charles had used to book our stay, where our host had a 3.5-star average. Some of the less favorable reviews mentioned how rude and off-putting Millicent had been toward them during their stay, but most of the negative remarks centered around far more mundane things—an uncleaned room, cat barf in the hallway, not enough gluten-free breakfast options.

Feeling somewhat justified in my disdain for Mrs. Strobel, I decided to dig deeper, moving on to the more well-known travel sites to see what I could find in the much larger sampling of guest feedback there. One of the more recent reviews actually mentioned the faulty door we’d gotten stuck with. I read on with interest. That was two weeks ago, and still Millicent hadn’t bothered to fix the issue. I wondered if she even planned to fix it at all.

How far back did this issue go?

I did a search for “door” within the reviews and found three others that mentioned it. One was written several months ago. It also mentioned an antique brooch that had gone missing. I searched for “missing,” “stolen,” and other synonyms and found four more reviewers who had lost something valuable while staying in this bed-and-breakfast.

Was Millicent a thief? Were those gaudy earrings I’d noticed earlier taken from an unwitting guest?

And had Millicent moved Charles and me to this room with two double beds not out of judgment but rather to gain access to my engagement ring?

These were the questions on my mind when I finally drifted off.

I didn’t stay asleep for long, though. A cold breeze tickled at my cheeks, drawing my eyes to the glass door.

Open again.

Paisley lay curled at my hip, nestled between me and Charles under the blankets, but Octo-Cat’s bed sat empty.

I pulled on my robe and worked my feet into my shoes sans socks, then headed out using my phone as a flashlight.

“Octo-Cat,” I whisper-yelled after sliding the door shut after me. It would probably be open again by the time I got back to the room, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t at least try to close it properly. Had Octavius opened it on his way out, or did someone else enter our room?

I shuddered at the possibility of just that as I moved closer to the lake. An owl hooted in the distance, and a host of crickets sang a song about the night. It was catchy, that ditty of theirs. Perhaps one day I would learn the words for myself.

Right now, I was too worried about my cat to bother with anything else.

A dark shape shifted on the dock, and I increased my pace.

I pulled up short as I spotted Octo-Cat leaping and flipping into the air, almost dancing in the moonlight. This must’ve been what he was talking about when he mentioned his nighttime activities.

Standing there in the moonlight, I felt a little guilty for intruding on his joy.

“Angela, I can feel you standing there,” he said suddenly, falling to all four feet and then pausing on the pier.

“Sorry,” I muttered, going over to sit next to him. “I was just having trouble sleeping and you were missing. I got worried.”

“I woke up because that stupid door was open again,” he said, meticulously grooming himself. “I got up to see what was going on and I spotted that ugly, flat-faced, sorry excuse for a cat wandering around. I was going to give him a piece of my mind, but, of course, he disappeared before I could. You’d figure with a smell like that he’d be easier to follow.”

“Don’t get into any fights,” I warned him.

“Relax, Angela. I know what I’m doing,” he purred. “So why couldn’t you sleep?”

“The door,” I admitted with a sigh.

“Just the door? I figured you’d be nervous about meeting your grandmother,” he said, smoothing out his tail. “But you know you don’t need to be, right?”

I sat there shocked. Was Octo-Cat actually being… nice? To me? Now?

I stared at him, mouth agape.

“Don’t look so surprised. Sometimes your human ways actually make sense,” he continued, blinking slowly in my direction. “When we talked about finding my family, I was a bit nervous about the possibility. I mean, how could they possibly be as amazing as I am?”

He chuckled, and I found myself absently petting him behind the ears.

“But I realized something, Angela. If they aren’t amazing or awesome, that doesn’t change me. Because I’m still a superb specimen of feline perfection, even if they don’t quite measure up. I mean, so few could ever hope to hold a candle to this.” He postured himself with his chest puffed out and his nose held high, which made me burst out in laughter.

He nodded his approval. “The worst thing that can happen from meeting your grandmother is… well, nothing. Your life doesn’t change, and you just go back and live like you always have. And if we’re being totally honest here, you have a pretty great life for a human.”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t need to.

If I drew this out, Octo-Cat would just return to his usual snark, and I wanted to savor this moment while I could. And so we sat there in the moonlight for a while longer before heading back to our room.

Yes, I needed the people and animals in my life to help me through this, which at first blush might make me seem weak and incapable of handling my own challenges.

But then again, that’s why we have loved ones to begin with. To get us through the bad and to share in the good.

Hopefully tomorrow would bring the latter for Charles, Octo-Cat, Paisley, me…

And my grandmother.

11

The next morning I was already showered, dressed, and ready by the time Charles woke up. I’d spent all week planning my outfit, and now that I was actually wearing it, an odd sense of reverence washed over me.

This was one of the most important things I’d ever done. And whatever happened—good, bad, or somewhere in between—this would be a defining moment of my life.

We fed the pets, then grabbed some coffee from the continental breakfast set-up Millicent had waiting for her guests.

Charles took a pre-packaged Danish, but I was too nervous to even attempt eating anything. Besides, I’d been spoiled by Nan’s expert baking all my life and had become something of a muffin snob. The blueberry to cake ratio of the ones sitting before me was all wrong. I didn’t have to try them to know that. The baked “goods” also looked more than a few days old. No wonder there had been complaints. The longer we stayed, the more and more reasons I was finding to justify the bad reviews.

“Let me just say it one more time,” Charles said as he jabbed his key in the ignition, and I pulled my seatbelt over my lap. “I think I’ve found the right place, but we won’t know for sure until we meet her.”

I nodded once. “Right. And I’m going in without any expectations. Que será será and all that.”

Charles reached for my hand and twined his fingers through mine. “No, you’re not. And that’s okay. It’s okay to want things to go well, so stop giving yourself such a hard time about that. Whatever happens, I’ll be right here.”

“Holding my hand?” I suggested with a grin.