The Pretender by Kathleen Creighton Page A

sounds. “If I call ‘kitty-kitty,’ cats come running from all directions with their tails in the air.”
    “Yeah, well, maybe you’venoticed, but Pia’s not exactly a normal kitty.” She glanced back at him as she stepped through the door onto the veranda. “Josie said she looks like a…tooga—something? A small mountain lion.”
    “Ah— tuugakut. Yeah, I can see that. Small head, long body, long tail…those little tufts of hair on the tips of her ears. Wrong color, though. She’s more like a very small gray leopard. Or a stretched-outlynx cat with a long tail.”
    He followed her onto the veranda, and she felt his closeness like a humming below the level of sound. It made her edgy with awareness, and why should that be, she wondered, when in New York there were strangers invading her personal space constantly—in subways, buses, elevators, sidewalks, crowded hallways and dressing rooms. But no stranger had ever set her senseson alert the way this man did.
    “It’s so dark,” she said, gesturing toward the shadowy courtyard. “I thought there would be lights, or something.”
    “Like in the city, you mean.” She could hear rather than see the smile in his voice. “Yeah…I remember that about the city. It’s never dark.” He moved to stand beside her and she felt his body’s warmth. “There are lights out here. But if youturn them on, you can’t see the stars.” He was looking at her; she could tell by the way his voice sounded, though she didn’t dare turn to see. “Look—there’s no moon tonight. You can even see the Milky Way.” His arm lifted, and brushed hers as he pointed.
    She couldn’t seem to find words to answer him. Dutifully, she tipped her head to follow his direction, and felt a tickling in her scalpas her hair touched his shoulder. Her skin prickled as if all the stars in that black sky had come inside her.
    “That’s…amazing.” Was that her voice?
    She moved away from him, stepping resolutely into the shadowy courtyard. “Here, Pia…come on, Pia-Pia.” Even she could hear the note of desperation in her voice. “Here, kitty-kitty—”
    Hands came to rest on her shoulders, fitting warmlyover the rounded parts, and Sage’s voice, close to her ear, murmured, “Hush.” And it was the voice more than the hands that held her in utter stillness, listening to the sound of her own beating heart.
    When she heard a familiar chirping sound, her heart gave a hopeful leap—until she realized it had come from Sage, not Pia. He made the sound again, and again they waited in absolute stillness,while Abby tried not to breathe.
    Once more he made the little trilling chirp, so much like Pia’s Abby wouldn’t have believed it had come from a human throat if not for the tickle of breath blowing past her ear.
    They waited. She thought she could hear his heart beating, not quite in sync with her own. And then, as she was about to speak, to ask, from far away…came a tiny answering chirrup?
    “I hear—” Abby cried, half turning.
    “Shh.” His hands tightened just a little on her shoulders. “She’s on the roof.” He made the trilling sound again, and after a moment the answer came, from above but closer than before.
    “Stay here. I’ll get a ladder.” He slipped soundlessly into the shadows. Her shoulders felt cold where his hands had been.

Chapter 5
    T he evening was chilly, and she’d begun to shiver by the time he returned no more than a minute or two later, though it seemed like hours had passed while she waited alone in the darkness. Hugging herself, she uttered a tiny whimpering sound of relief as she watched him come toward her, a shadowy form moving in a way she realized had already become familiar to her.
    Wordlessly, he moved past her. She heard a soft creak and a muted click, then a scuffling, crunching sound as he set the ladder firmly in the soil of a flower bed.
    His voice came out of the shadows. “Come here and hold it steady for me.”
    She moved toward