Page 1 of Keystrokes and Kittens

Chapter One

Sam

What I didn’t expect to find, one random Monday morning, was a box of kittens on the doorstep of The Pet Pantry—the pet store where I worked.

I panicked. Just purely panicked. The kittens were cold, so I hustled them into the store. I remembered I had a hot water bottle in the back office for reasons I couldn’t fathom at that moment. I made a beeline and had that filled with hot water quickly. Then, as I sat with the box on my desk, I held each kitten and tried to warm them with my hands. As if I could will them to survive.

The three gave weak mewls.

Right. Food.

I abandoned them for a few moments to grab a kitten nutritional supplement food. I prepared it with warm water and then headed back to the kittens. One by one, I gave them a little bit of the liquid.God, am I doing this right?I might run a pet store, but I’d never cared for kittens. Little ones whose eyesweren’t even open yet. Maybe two or three weeks? Or less? I had no idea.

“Hey, Sam? The front door’s wide open. Oh.” Desiree, my part-time employee, stuck her head into my office. “Are those kittens?”

“Yep.” I gave her a panicked look because, unsurprisingly, panic was rising within me.

“They look young.” Her forehead creased more than usual. Sometimes she made comments about the perils of growing old. Wrinkles, sagging, and other stuff. I thought she looked lovely and youthful for fifty-five. But then what did I know?

That Marcella and Lucius never reached that age, and who cares about a few wrinkles?

Yeah. That. Except thinking about my brother- and sister-in-law in that moment wasn’t going to help. A distraction—one I didn’t need. “Can you watch the store?”

“Well, that’s sort of my job.” Desiree rolled her eyes. “You going to be okay?”

“I’m going to run these down to the Safe Haven shelter. Pam will know how to take care of them.”

“Call first?”

I cocked my head.

“Just to make certain they’re open. Sometimes they have weird hours. If memory serves.” Desiree waved away the thought. “That was years ago, so who knows? Okay, I’ll open.” She moved to the safe, unlocked it, and removed the float.

Hardly anyone paid cash anymore, but we had a few dedicated customers who did.

She arched an eyebrow. “You know what you’re doing?”

“Maybe I should search on the internet?” I checked the temperature of the hot water bottle and found it to be warm, but not too much.When someone has hypothermia, you’re supposed to warm them up slowly. So…slow and steady.

“You do that. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

Within a moment, she was gone. Leaving me to sink further into my panic. So I searched for the phone number for Save Haven and hit connect.

After five rings, a cheerful voice answered, “Safe Haven, how may I help you?”

“Is this Pam?”

“Yep. What’s up?”

“It’s Sam Mosley. From The Pet Pantry. I found a litter of kittens on my doorstep this morning, and I’m wondering how soon I can bring them in?”

A long silence. Finally, “It’s the season, Sam. We’re already overrun, and all our fosters are full. We don’t have space.”

My lungs seized. “What do you mean youdon’t have space? You’re a shelter. You always have space.” Because this felt all kinds of wrong.

“I’m just being honest, Sam. We can’t take any more kittens.”

I rubbed my forehead. “So what happens to them?”