Page 14 of Oops I Fell For The Lumberjack Next Door

Three sentences. No greeting. No question. But she texted me, which means she's scared enough to reach past the grudge.

I'm on my porch before I finish reading. Flashlight from the hook by the door, boots already on because I never fully take them off before bed. Tinsel raises his head from his spot by the woodstove, ears forward.

"Stay. She'll eat you."

He puts his head back down. Offended but obedient.

Through the tree line, Margot's cabin is lit up. Every light on. She's in the yard with her phone flashlight, still in the clothes she wore today, calling for the cat in a voice that's trying hard to stay steady.

"Princess Buttercup! Buttercup, come here. Please."

I come through the trees, and she spins toward my flashlight. Her face is pale. Eyes wide. She's been crying, recently, the skin around her eyes still damp, but she's wiped it away because Margot Hemmings doesn't cry in front of people. Especially me.

"I've checked the yard. Under the cabin. Behind the woodpile. She's not here."

"How long."

"Maybe twenty minutes. I was editing. The side door swings open if you don't pull it hard. She must've pushed through."

Twenty minutes. Not great for a fourteen year old indoor cat in mountains full of coyotes and owls and cold that drops into the thirties at night. But cats are resourceful, and old ones tend to stay close.

"She won't go far. Older cats stick to cover. We'll check the tree line first, then work outward."

"We?"

"You got a better search team?"

She stares at me for a beat. Then she nods. Quick. Grateful.

We walk the tree line together. My flashlight sweeps the underbrush while hers tracks the ground. I call for the cat because Margot's voice is starting to shake, and the name comes out of my mouth with a sincerity I wasn't expecting.

"Princess Buttercup. Here, girl."

"She doesn't come when you call," Margot says. "She's a cat."

"Then we'll find her the hard way."

The hard way takes us through the scrub pines behind her cabin, along the fence line that marks the edge of my tree farm, and into the strip of old growth that runs between our properties and the ridge. The forest is dark. Real dark. No streetlights, no glow from town, just my flashlight beam cutting through branches and the occasional rustle of something small moving in the undergrowth.

"She's had this cat since she was twenty one," Margot says. Quietly. Talking to fill the silence, or maybe to fill the fear. "Found her at a shelter in Reno. She was the meanest kitten in the litter. Hissed at everyone who tried to hold her. The shelter volunteer said she was unadoptable."

"And you took her."

"Obviously." A branch catches her jacket. She pulls free. "She's been with me through college, Portland, San Francisco, the marriage, the divorce. She's outlasted every man I've ever dated."

"Smart cat."

A small sound from Margot. Half laugh, half sob. She catches it fast. Keeps walking.

We search for over an hour. Along the creek bed, through the fern stand, around the back side of my barn where mice nest in the hay. I check the culvert under the access road. Nothing. Margot checks the woodpile again. Nothing.

At eleven fifteen, we're standing in the clearing between our properties, flashlights dimming, and she's gone quiet in a way that scares me more than the crying.

"I can't lose her, Briggs." Voice flat. Controlled. Barely holding. "She's all I brought. Everything else is furniture and boxes. She's the only thing from my old life that matters."

My chest hurts. This woman standing in the cold with her arms wrapped around herself, terrified of losing the one creature that chose her unconditionally. Fifteen years of hating me, and right now none of it matters because her cat is in the woods and she's falling apart.

"We're not done." I angle the flashlight toward the ridge trail. "Cats like high ground. There's a rock outcrop about a quarter mile up. If she went that direction, she'd stop there."