His Thing About Cats, page 1
HIS THING ABOUT CATS
A PARADOX LAKE SWEET ROMANCE NOVELLA
JEAN C. GORDON
UPSTATE NY ROMANCE
HIS THING ABOUT CATS
Copyright ©2022 by Jean Chelikowsky Gordon
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents, places, and dialog are drawn from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real, Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
As always, much thanks to my critique group BFS (Chris, Colleen, and Thomasine) and my editor Jena O’Connor.
CONTENTS
Welcome to Paradox Lake
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
About the Author
Also by Jean C. Gordon
WELCOME TO PARADOX LAKE
Any fan of sweet romance will love the stories of small-town love in the Paradox Lake Sweet Romance series. Grab your tea or coffee, settle into your favorite chair, and be swept away into the cozy Adirondack town where complex characters navigate challenging situations as they find their way to love. Whether it’s love at first blush, old flames reuniting, or second chance romance, you’ll find pure reading enjoyment and satisfy your craving for sweet, wholesome romance.
Part of an ongoing series full of familiar faces, each story will stand on its own. With novel and novella lengths available, there’s something for everyone. Paradox Lake is written by USA Today Bestselling sweet romance author, Jean C. Gordon, who’s penned stories for the No Brides Clubs Series, Indigo Bay Series, and Harlequin Love Inspired, as well as for multiple sweet romance collections.
CHECK OUT THE SERIES
CHAPTER 1
It wasn’t as if it was any reflection on his masculinity. Just like his mother choosing Taylor for his first name after it had switched from a boy’s name to a popular girl’s name wasn’t. Taylor, Ty, Johnson took his time crossing the parking lot to the Ticonderoga Health Center. Everyone had fears. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have a good reason for his. Being attacked by a rabid animal was enough to terrify an adult, let alone a toddler. Only his attacker hadn’t been a wild animal. It had been a cat. Barely more than a kitten.
Ty approached the center’s main door. He could still cancel his appointment with the mental health counselor. Eat the no-show fee. His carpentry/furniture-making business was doing okay. And, now that he’d retired from the US bobsledding team, he had a lot more available work time. He stopped and scrubbed his hand through his hair. But the endorsement offer he’d received after coming off this year’s world championship, the third in a row, was too good to give up. It would give his business a shot of cash, let him pay back some to the sport that had been such a big part of his life, and help give his mother a comfortable retirement when the time came.
The only problem with the offer was that it was with Your Kitty. The company wanted publicity shots of him, and other sports figures, with cats. Possibly more than one cat at a time. He shuddered and gulped a breath. Ty opened the door. Look at it as a challenge. You never turn down a challenge. Yeah. The door closed behind him with a click. He lost that gulped breath. Only this challenge seemed like a bigger one than he’d ever faced before.
Somehow he put one foot in front of the other and sauntered to the check-in desk. “Taylor Johnson to see Dr. Hill.” His voice came out surprisingly normal.
“Right here.” The attractive woman behind the desk made a checkmark next to his name.
He waited for any hint of recognition and got none. Evidently, not a bobsledding fan. Good. He’d made an appointment here across Lake Champlain in New York rather than in his hometown in Vermont, to lessen the chance of being recognized and his fear of cats going public.
“I’ll need your ID and insurance cards, please.”
“Oh, yeah.” He shook the fog of relief from his brain and dug in his pocket for his wallet.
The woman ran the cards through a scanner and handed them back. “All set.”
She gave him an inviting smile, bolstering his ego.
He returned it, half waiting for her to give him her number. She didn’t, but he held onto the boost. He needed all the positivity he could get.
“You can wait for Dr. Hill in the waiting room to my left. When you’re finished check out here.”
“Thanks.” Ty walked the short distance to the room and had barely taken a seat when another attractive young woman, even more attractive than the first, put her head in the room.
“Taylor Johnson?”
“Yes. Ty, please.” He rose and continued his once over of Dr. Hill’s nurse? No, maybe assistant? She didn’t have on scrubs. It didn’t matter. She was stunning. Probably 30-ish. Curvy with mahogany-colored hair that fell in curls to her shoulders. And he did appreciate a stunning view, whether it be nature or a woman.
The nurse frowned. He’d been too blatant. This whole thing had him so off his game. Ty assumed a bland demeanor. Apologizing would probably be over the top. He’d pretend he hadn’t been a jerk.
“I’m Dr. Hill.” A smirk of a smile replaced her frown.
He looked at the top of the doorway behind him. This was Dr. Hill, the head of the Mental Health Department at the center? He’d pictured her as a motherly looking middle-aged woman, who’d be easy to talk to. Someone he wouldn’t need to impress. He mentally kicked himself for not checking out the staff photos on the center’s website.
“I … I … thought … expected …” He tamped down the now overwhelming urge to apologize. Then again, why as a doctor would she deserve an apology any more than a nurse or assistant. He plunged ahead. “Sorry, I was expecting someone older, different. And to be fair to me, you must know you’re a beautiful woman.”
“Thank you and notice I didn’t roll my eyes.”
Ty choked out a laugh and gave a shot at starting over. “Hi, I’m Ty Johnson, your 10:00 appointment.”
“Nice to meet you.”
Good, she was giving him the do-over he wanted.
“I’m Julianna Hill. Please come across the hall to my office.”
Pretty name for a pretty lady. With the lightning speed he was famous for as a bobsledder, Ty put a clamp on his tongue before his thoughts ran rampant again.
He followed her into the office, which looked more like someone’s living room than a medical office. A lot nicer than what qualified as the living room in his apartment. Natural light came thorough a wide panel of windows augmented with soft lighting above.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she said.
Ty approached one of the cushy chairs that circled a centerpiece table and stopped. His gaze locked on the table.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Julianna said.
“Yes, if I do say so myself.” He chuckled. “It’s one of mine.”
“What?”
The expression that went with her outburst again made Julianna look too young to be the director of mental health.
“You’re part of A Cut Above Custom Furniture? I love the stuff.”
He sat and tried not to look too smug. “I am A Cut Above Furniture. Me and my mother, who’s my office manager.”
Julianna sat across from him. “Sorry for the fangirl moment.”
“No problem.” He was used to fandom but from his bobsledding accomplishments, not his custom furniture. “I mean, I’m glad you like it.” He had a bad feeling this counseling wasn’t going to work if he kept apologizing for everything he said.
Not to mention that if he was going to get over his thing about cats, he was going to have to admit to weaknesses and tell her things he never told people—especially women.
Julianna—Jule to her friends—thought his name had sounded familiar when she’d read the forms he filled out prior to this appointment. But she hadn’t associated Taylor Johnson with Ty Johnson of A Cut Above Furniture. She took her tablet from the table, letting her hair fall across her face as she turned it on. A momentary shield from the intensity and unease she’d picked up in him right away. A behavior he’d been covering with blatant charm, a male tactic she was only too aware of, and not overly fond of.
When his form opened on the screen, she looked up and verbally ran though his answers to the first panel of questions. All his answers were within normal ranges. And he smiled through the whole exercise. So what was his inadequacy? This was one of the parts she loved most, getting past the façade to the real person. Who was Ty Johnson? She relaxed back in her chair and went to the next question.
“Your reason for coming in is cats? She couldn’t control the squeak at the end of her question. Was this some kind of prank? Jule cleared her throat. “Would you care to elaborate?”
His gaze bounced furtively around the room and settled on something over her left shoulder. “You’re a doctor, right, even though you’re not a medical doctor.”
She nodded.
“So we have like . . .” He dropped his gaze to the floor. “Patient-doctor privilege? The reason I came to the Ticonderoga clinic is that I tho ught I’d be less recognized.”
Not exactly a resounding endorsement of the clinic’s care. And why would he not want to be recognized?
“Yes, our meeting will be confidential. And I call the people I work with clients. Client-counselor privilege.” His avoiding eye contact with her made Jule’s stomach churn. What about cats? She might have to refer him to a psychiatrist, if any of the things that her avid love of crime suspense novels was feeding her mind were true.
He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “It’s important, considering who I am.”
Did he have illusions of grandeur in addition to whatever this was about cats?
He finally made eye contact. “You don’t know. Good. That’s why I came here instead of seeing someone in Burlington VT, near where I’m from.” His eyes narrowed. “Be honest. You didn’t do a computer background search on me?”
“I’m always honest with my clients. And I like to meet my clients with a clean slate. Then I may look into their backgrounds if I find it necessary.” She drilled her gaze into his. “Such as when I think they are purposely keeping information from me that would help me help them.”
“You really don’t know.”
The wonder in his voice made her curl her toes so she could avoid fisting her hands.
“The US bobsledding team,” he prompted. “The champion bobsled team. I recently retired as its captain and brakeman.”
So that’s where the biceps his t-shirt couldn’t hide came from. Jule clicked her mind back to business. “I don’t really follow the winter sports teams.” At least not anymore. Not since Ezra. “It probably comes from growing up so close to Lake Placid, where so many train.” She smiled. “But this is your session, not mine. What about cats.”
His cheeks colored and he scuffed his foot across the floor. “I’m afraid of them, have been since I was a child.” He hung his head.
“I see.” Relief cleared her head of any sinister thought left there.
He didn’t say anything more.
“Is it getting worse? Is that why you’re seeking help?”
“No.” He scuffed his foot again.
The silence after his answer sucked the oxygen out of the air until Jule was on the verge of “I can’t help you, if you don’t help yourself.” She talked herself down. He wasn’t acting the strong silent jock enough to justify the level of her impatience. Then brilliance struck. “Someone you care for has a cat.” She resisted a smile of triumph.
He sighed. “Not really. I’ve had several women friends who had cats and got by with a claim of being severely allergic to cats to avoid them. The cats, not the women.” He grinned. “It’s something my mother came up with when I started school. In case any friend I made had a cat. Dad was 100% behind her, so I wouldn’t come across as a wimp. Even kittens trigger my fear.”
“Okay. Would you say the need to manage your fear has come up because of some new threat to your masculinity?” Which he seemed to have his quota and some to spare. “You seem to have had this fear for a long time.”
“Yeah,” he said after losing the frown that had taken over his features when she’d said masculinity. “Since I was a toddler and a rabid half-grown cat attacked me in our yard where it backs up to the woods.”
“A housecat.”
The frown reappeared with less intensity. “A feral domestic cat. Even as a preschooler, I could tell a domestic cat from a wild animal, like a racoon or something.”
Jule pretended to study something on her tablet. Where was her professionalism? She did work primarily with women but saw some male clients. Why was Ty affecting her so adversely? Because none of them look like Ty Johnson, a little voice said.
She skimmed the medical section at the bottom of the page before looking up, more composed. “Yes, I see it here, you were treated with a rabies injection regimen at the age of three. We’ll get back to the details of that. But why are you here today, rather than last year, or ten years ago?”
His mouth went stony with what she perceived as irritation. At her. But she wasn’t a mind reader. It would make her work so much simpler if she were.
“Because when I retired from bobsledding, I was offered a big endorsement deal. With Your Kitty.” He spit out the name. “It would let me give back to bobsledding some of what it gave to me, not to mention cash to expand my business.”
Jule noted that he mentioned giving back to others before his personal gain. “Tell me more.”
“All the gory details?”
Jule jotted down his effort to lighten the conversation and the way he nervously tapped his foot. “Whatever details you think are important for me to know.”
Ty rubbed his forehead just above the bridge of his nose. “Accepting the endorsement means that I have to be around cats. Touch them. Hold them.”
Jule kept her expression as placid as she could at the worse-than-death tone in Ty’s voice. He was responding to her seriously now with more detail about his childhood trauma and continued terror. Opening up to her. Normally, this would be just what she wanted a client to do. But somehow he was different. She almost wanted to block out his confidences.
Jule followed his gaze to the clock on her office wall.
“It looks like my time is up,” he said.
That was a first. “Technically sessions are 45 minutes, but I can give you a few more if you have something else.”
He fidgeted in the chair. “Not really. Except can you help me?”
“We should be able to. If you’d prefer to meet with a man, you can make your next appointment with one of my two colleagues.” Jule opened the desk drawer to pull out her partners information sheets, while she weighed why she’d said that. There was no good professional reason she couldn’t continue to work with Ty. But there were personal, emotional ones.
He took the sheets and stood. “No, I’m good with you. But I’ll read these and call back for an appointment.”
Jule stared at the door after it had closed behind him. While Ty hadn’t exactly bolted from her office, he hadn’t used any extra steps. This was the first time she’d discouraged a client from coming back to her at a first visit, except for times she’d referred people to psychiatrists because they’d needed more than she could give them.
She couldn’t explain to him that she couldn’t work with him because, as a man, he hit all her buttons good and bad.
CHAPTER 2
Ty turned off the sander and watched the sun set behind the Green Mountains from the window of his workshop. Correct that. His father’s old workshop where Ty had started his furniture business so he could juggle making an income and bobsledding. The workshop that he had an efficiency bedroom in, rent free. Him, a 33-year-old man still essentially living with his mother. There was a name for that, wasn’t there? Arrested development?
He ripped off his safety goggles. Had Julianna picked up on that yesterday? Even if she had, what did it matter? He was looking for a counselor, not a new woman. It was just another psychological thing she should be able to help him with. And it wasn’t as if he had any definite plans to be permanently based here. In fact, he had appointments to look at workspace in both Ticonderoga and Burlington tomorrow.
And a plan to call tomorrow for his next appointment with Dr. Hill. It wasn’t that both the guys she worked with didn’t have good qualifications, too. He walked across the workspace and opened the door to his apartment. Despite what Julianna may think, he’d have a harder time confiding in one of the guys. His father had never been someone he could talk to. That had been Mom’s job. As a teen, Ty just plain didn’t talk. He didn’t confide in his teammates. And, as a man, if he needed to talk, he talked with one of his woman friends, or the woman he was currently involved with.
Ty grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, along with the sub he’d had delivered earlier, and kicked back in the recliner to watch the Red Sox game. He wasn’t currently involved with anyone, and he needed professional help if he wanted to plow ahead with his post-bobsled life. Julianna was a professional. She’d been as easy or easier to talk to as anyone else he’d confided in. And there wouldn’t be any chance of what he told her getting out.
