Book 2 of 2, sequel to Alaska's Illicit.
In which Mikaere returns to Alaska, but upon arriving realizes that she has a new problem: Vaughn, Darren, or should she just stick with Jared?
Vaughn's past and life are revealed, and also a serial killer mi...
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CHAPTER TWENTY: CAT
By the time she was five, Jasmine Jacobs knew she didn't like cats.
It began one warm summer afternoon, on a walk with her mother. She hadn't wanted to go, but she was promised a reward of dessert when they eventually returned. So she went. The sun was blinding, and she kept complaining about the heat.
And then it happened. Out of nowhere, a stray cat appeared, hissing drastically, and lunged at her.
Her mother swiftly moved her out of the way in time, calmly urging the cat in another direction, but to this day Jasmine still maintains that she barely made it out alive.
She held onto that memory with an iron grip, and so developed an irrational fear of cats, which, as she grew up, eventually turned into just an irrational dislike.
And it only worsened when her father's friend's pet Mittens scratched her, right on her left forearm, when she was ten -- she still has the scar to prove it.
So you can imagine the newly-turned twelve-year-old Jasmine's reaction when her least favorite aunt pulled a kitten seemingly out of thin air, placed it on the floor in front of her, and said: "She's yours."
Looking back, she realized it was probably because she had once straight-up told her she was her least favorite aunt. But at the time, she was completely stunned. What was she to do?
She looked at her mother, intent on telling her they would have to find another home for it when she felt it.
The slightest pressure on her toes.
She remembers glancing down and meeting the kitten's eyes as it put its little front paws on her foot, its little grey twig of a tail twitching curiously back and forth.
Jasmine slid the thing off her foot and walked away, ignoring the tug at her heartstrings as she did. As cute as it was, it was still a cat. It would take the hint and go lay in a windowsill somewhere else.
Except it didn't. It followed her around for the rest of the day, and Jasmine was certain her aunt had secretly sprayed some cat-nip scent on her or something.
The kitten never meowed at her, though. It just quietly trailed behind her and watched, waiting. Waiting for what, Jasmine didn't know, but she was getting annoyed with it all.
Finally, she had enough.
She bent down, scooped the scrappy, fluffy thing up, held it eye-level, and said: "You think you can change how I view cats or what?"
And it mewed in reply.
So she kept the thing, telling herself it was to show her aunt that she had failed to upset her.
And she called it Cat.
And so Cat watched while Jasmine grew up. From twelve to seventeen to twenty-two and onward, she became her little companion.
