A Season for Grace. Linda Goodnight

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      This was why he didn’t want to get involved with Mia’s project. And now here he was, knee-deep in trash and recollections, moving toward what appeared to be a shelter of some sort.

      Plastic trash bags that stretched across a pair of ragged-out couches were anchored in place by rocks, car parts, a busted TV set. An old refrigerator clogged one end and a cardboard box the other.

      Mia was right. The kid had smarts. He’d built his hideout in an area unlikely to be buried for a while and had made the spot blend in with the rest of the junk.

      As quietly as he could, Collin leaned down and slid the cardboard box away. What he saw inside made his chest ache.

      The kid had tried to make a home inside the shelter. An old blanket and a sack of clothes were piled on one end of a ragged couch. A flashlight lay on an up-turned crate. Beneath the crate, the kid had stored the canned milk, a jar of water, cat food and a box of cereal.

      In the dim confines Mitchell knelt over a cardboard box, cotton ball and peroxide in hand.

      Collin had a pretty good idea what was inside the box.

      At the sudden inflow of light, the kid’s head whipped around. A mix of fear and resentment widened his dark eyes.

      “Nice place you got here,” Collin said, stooping to enter.

      “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

      “Stealing from convenience stores isn’t wrong?”

      “I had to. Panda—” Mitchell glanced down at the box “—she’s hurt.”

      Curiosity aroused, Collin moved to the boy’s side. A mother cat with three tiny kittens mewed up at him. Mitchell stroked the top of her head and she began to purr.

      Collin’s heart slammed against his ribs.

      Oh, man. Déjà vu all over again.

      “Mind if I take a look?”

      The kid scooted sideways but hovered protectively.

      Collin frowned. The cat was speckled with round burns, several of them clearly infected. “What happened?”

      “Some kids had her. Mean kids who like to hurt things. She was their cat, but I took her when they started—”

      Collin held up a hand. He didn’t need the ugly details to visualize what the kid had saved the cat from.

      “You can’t stay here, Mitchell. Your mother is worried.”

      “She’s just worried about her ten bucks.”

      “You shouldn’t have taken it.”

      The kid shrugged, didn’t answer, but Collin’s own eyes told him where the money had gone. And if his nose was an indicator, the kid had scavenged a pack of cigarettes somewhere too which would explain the store owner’s guilty behavior. He’d probably sold cigarettes to a minor.

      “I’m not going back to her house.”

      “You have to.”

      “I can’t. Panda and her babies will die if I don’t take care of her. Archie, too.”

      “Archie?”

      The kid reached behind them to the other couch and gently lifted a turtle out of a shoe box. A piece of silver duct tape ran along a fracture in the green shell.

      Emotions swamped Collin. He felt as if he was being sucked under a whirlpool. Memories flashed through his head so fast he thought he was going blind.

      At that moment, little Miss Social Worker poked her head through the opening. “I thought I heard voices.”

      Mitchell shrank away from her, blocking the box of cats with his body.

      “I won’t leave her,” he said belligerently. “You can’t make me.”

      “Maybe your mother will let you keep them,” Collin said, hoping Mitchell’s mother was better than he suspected.

      “I’m not going back there, I said. Never.”

      “Why not?”

      The boy’s face closed up tight, a look Collin recognized all too well. Something ugly needed to be said and the kid wasn’t ready to deal with it.

      As the inevitability of the situation descended upon him, Collin pulled a hand down his face.

      After a minute of pulling himself together, he spoke. “Nothing’s going to happen to your cat. You have my word.”

      Mitch’s face lightened, though distrust continued to ooze out of him. “How can you be sure?”

      “Because,” Collin said, wishing there was a way he could avoid involvement and knowing he couldn’t, “I’ll take her home with me.”

      The boy’s face crumpled, incredulous. The belligerent attitude fled, replaced by the awful yearning of hope. “You will?”

      “I know a good vet. Panda will be okay.”

      Mia ducked under the black plastic and came inside. Her eyes glowed with pleasure. “That’s really nice of you, Sergeant Grace.”

      “Yeah. That’s me. Real nice.” Stupid, too.

      He was a cop. Tough. Hardened to the ugliness of humanity. He could resist about anything. Anything, that is, except looking at Mitch’s face and seeing his own reflection.

      Like it or not, he was about to become a big brother—again.

      He only hoped he didn’t mess it up this time around.

      Chapter Four

      Mitchell sat huddled in the back seat of the patrol car, tense and suspicious. The cardboard carton containing cat, kittens and turtle rested on the seat beside him. The rest of his property was in a battered paint bucket on the floor.

      “I told you I’m not going back there.”

      Mia turned in her seat, antennae going up. “Why not? Is something wrong at home?”

      The boy ignored her.

      Ever the cop, Collin spoke up. “Juvie Hall is the other alternative.”

      “Better than home.”

      The adults exchanged glances.

      Collin hadn’t said two complete sentences since they’d left Mitch’s lean-to. He’d simply gathered up the animals and the rag-tag assortment of supplies and led the way to the cruiser. Mitchell had followed along without a fuss, his only concern for the animals. For some reason that Mia could not fathom, the two silent males seemed to communicate without words.

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