Page 6 of Buck & Mari

They weren’t friends.

They weren’t even colleagues.

She brought her parents’ cat to entertain the patients and that was the end of their relationship.

Although, she’d seen the knowing looks of some of the nurses on the floor.

They seemed to think that watching her avoid the doctor’s hints was entertainment.

“I was hoping I’d see you today.” He reached out a hand toward Ebi and the pesky feline leaned into his palm with a purr and got up, moving her whole body against him.

Smiling at that, he turned to look at Mari again. “She’s so affectionate.”

Mari felt her jaw tighten a little at the comment.

She doubted that he understood her sometimes tense relationship with Ebi. He probably thought they were good friends.

She wasn’t about to argue or spend any time disavowing him of that idea.

“She’s affectionate, all right.” Mari turned back toward the receptionist. “Where should I start?”

From behind the desk, the receptionist looked like she was eating up the tension in the hallway. “Uh... maybe the sunroom. We have a few patients in there who have finished their treatments for the day. They could probably use some scritches.”

Mari smiled and reached out for Ebi.

The furry terror actually leapt into her arms.

It was a strange kind of thing for them.

When Ebi knew that she was going to see patients, she was easier to deal with as if she understood where they were going and what they were going to do.

If Mari had been reaching for her to take her back to the car and the carrier, there would be claws and maybe a little hissing added in for effect.

Instead, Ebi was happily sitting in her arms waiting to see the patients in the sunroom.

So that’s where they went.

The first person that Ebi headed for was a lady they both knew well.

Missus Tamura was an older woman who had run a neighborhood market with her husband for decades. She’d never had any children, but she and her husband had become uncle and aunty to all the children in the area, sometimes handing out snacks and food when they went hungry.

Now, in her later years, her husband was in a full-time care home, while Missus Tamura came to the rehabilitation center to recover from a fall she’d taken.

Ebi picked her way across the tiled floor and leaped up into Missus Tamura’s lap, settling down with an almost human sigh of satisfaction.

“Hello, pretty kitty.”

Missus Tamura’s whole face was transformed.

One moment she was tired and worn and then she was smiling, with both of her hands moving over Ebi’s well-fed body.

In the same way that Ebi would ‘knead’ in Mari’s blankets, Missus Tamura’s hands were gently moving across the cat’s side.

The feline had no issue with the older woman’s hands.

In fact, she looked like she was having the time of her life with the soft, aging hands moving through her fur.

“I’ve never really liked cats until I met Ebi.” Missus Tamura’s soft voice reached Mari’s ears and Mari took the seat next to her, sitting down to listen.