Free Beautiful Stranger by Ruth Wind Page B

comparison to the rest of her, they were quite pretty. Happily she moved on.
    Waist, better but not tiny. B. Belly…well, only a C. Maybe even a C–. It wasn’t anywhere close to flat, and in fact, that was a target area for the next few months, now that her arms were looking so much better.
    Hips, good enough. Thighs—well, kind of sturdy, but not bad.
    She stepped back, narrowing her eyes, and turned from side to side, seeing herself, liking most of it, not blurring her eyes over what she didn’t like.
    A body she’d finally learned to treasure, to take careof, to honor. If Robert ever saw it—if they ever got that far—she didn’t have to be ashamed.
    Was that what she wanted?
    Yes. But see reason number one: she could not hurt Crystal just because she had the hots for the girl’s uncle.
    For that reason, she would sublimate her desire for him. She liked him a lot, liked his sense of humor, his wickedness. She often liked men with those qualities— Lance Forrest, for example, was one of her best friends. Robert could be her friend, too.
    Healthy sublimation. Hmm. She had to attend a fund-raiser in Denver tonight. Maybe she’d go into town early and go shopping first. Or even better, see if her buddy Mark was free to fly her in and hang around to fly her back. He usually enjoyed it, and she paid well for the pleasure of it. Flying was one of her great joys, and there was nothing quite like a bright blue Colorado day at two thousand feet.
    Happily she got dressed and went to make a call.

Chapter 5
    R obert and Crystal had lunch at a little Mexican spot he loved—one thing about living in “Tourist Central” was the wide variety of restaurants—then headed for the animal shelter. Crystal started out cheerful and happy, but she seemed to tire as the day ran on. Outside the shelter, he peered at her in concern. “You feeling all right, babe?”
    â€œI’m fine,” she said with annoyance, but she looked very pale to him. “Let’s go find our cats.”
    Inside the pound, she perked up. The felines were housed in a room with humanely sized cages—tax money here extended even to the animal shelter—and there were not a great many of them. A skinny female who’d not long ago given birth, with a lone black kitten worrying her tail, a cage full of various sizes of kittens, and a battered-looking tom who gazed at them sorrowfully. Robert stuck his fingers through the bars with the mom and baby, and the rowdy black kitten rushed over,stood up on his back legs and gave Robert’s index finger a sharp, one-two punch. Crystal, petting the mother, giggled. “He’s cute.”
    On the other side of her, the tom stuck a paw through the bars, snagging her sleeve, and meowed with a low, plaintive sound. “Oh, he’s so sad,” she said. “What’s wrong, guy? Somebody go off and leave you?”
    He gave her the same sad sound, turning to put his body against the bar. His gray-striped fur was grease-stained, and one ear was nearly folded over with war wounds. Crystal bent her head close to the cage and murmured to him softly, words Robert couldn’t hear.
    Then she talked to the others. Touched every single one, talked to them, petted their heads or played with them through the bars. “I used to go to the pound to pet the cats when I could in Albuquerque,” she told him. “Me and…this friend of mine. We rode the bus down there, all the way, and just hung around, petting the cats. It made them happy to get the attention, and after a while, they put us to work sometimes when we showed up.”
    â€œThat’s great. You could probably volunteer over here if you wanted.”
    She nodded without enthusiasm.
    â€œWho was your friend?”
    â€œJust this guy.”
    He let it go. Another tiny clue.
    He wasn’t surprised when she chose the battered tom as her own. He was slightly more