Page 12 of Purrfectly Adorable

“Thank you, Del. I’ve got this.”

8

BRANDON

Surveillance is a boring pain in the butt job. But the sight of Delia puttering around her house, backlit by the lights in the window. Her dark hair glows golden around her shoulders and my heart skips a beat.

What is it about this girl that makes me want to take care of her, protect her?

Settling back into the seat, I groan. I’m tired. I haven’t been able to sleep worrying about what’s going on here. I want to take care of all of Delia’s problems.

I don’t even get mad when she wakes me at the crack of dawn on my days off. The dang goat making all the racket at daybreak? The way she smiles at it and the little pain butts its head up against her? Adorable. I don’t know why.

As usual, Delia’s house is lit up like the Fourth of July and she’s got her new-age music pumping from the open windows as she dances like a willow in the wind around the house.

I can’t stop grinning. Her fashion choices are atrocious, her music makes my ears bleed and yet…I can’t stop grinning.

After another hour or so, the house goes dark and I sit up straighter, pulling out my binoculars to see more clearly. Thedigital clock on the dashboard shows that it’s 11:30. The house has been quiet for at least an hour. Yawning, I sink down further in my car seat, crossing my arms to my side. It’s a little chilly tonight and I didn’t want to fall asleep so I left my jacket off. Don’t want to be too comfortable.

A shadow separates itself from the side of the house and moves towards the downstairs window which for some loony reason Delia left partway open. Obviously she’s done this before. A hand reaches out and pushes at the screen, pushing it out of the way and then lifts a leg over the sill.

It all happens so fast that I barely have time to think before I slam my way out of the car and race to the house. The figure’s already out of sight and I groan.

I leap up over the sill and roll into the room, my hand on my gun.“Mrrow!”A scream and thenthump, thump, thump!

“Dang cat!” But I growl and run around the corner just in time to see a dark figure stand up and then fall to the ground at the bottom of the stair case with a husky groan.

The lights go on upstairs. “Hello?”

“Stay upstairs, Del!”

“Who’s there?”

“I don’t know yet but I think Princess caught your visitor.”

I reach out and catch at the arm, clicking my flashlight on at the same time. “Felix? What are you doing here?”

“Doesn’t matter.” His eyes close and he sighs.

“It does. If you don’t tell me I’m going to run you in. How about that for a reason?”

“Brandon? Are you alright? Did you catch them?” Soft footprints come closer and I roll my eyes.

“Seriously, Del! Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Felix? What are you doing in my house?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It kinda does,” she grumbles. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s Hetty. We’ve been seeing each other but she didn’t want her mom to find out. You know how controlling she is. She wouldn’t approve at all.”

“So you’ve been coming here…why? I didn’t know anything about this. Why break into my house?”

“Princess Peppercorn. She grabbed something from my house when Hetty was there…visiting.”

“Ah.” I nod my head. “Klepto kitty strikes again. What did she take this time?”

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