Free Brave the Storm, Season 2, Episode 3 (Rising Storm) by Lisa Mondello

window and immediately was taken aback by what she saw. It was a little kitten, probably no more than a couple of months old. Her heart melted.
    “Yours?” he asked.
    “What? No. We don’t have any cats here. Where did you find him… her… whatever?”
    He picked up the kitten and pressed his lips to its nose. Then he inspected its parts before placing it back in the cowboy hat. “I think it’s a her. But I’m not sure. I found her running back and forth in the road a little ways down the street. If I’d been driving any faster I would have hit her.”
    “What was she doing in the road?”
    “Chasing a field mouse that was intent on not being caught. She wasn’t paying attention.”
    Anna Mae’s irritation gone, she opened the passenger side door and inspected the little kitten who was curled up inside Chase’s cowboy hat.
    “Is that bottle of water for me?” Chase asked.
    “Uh, yeah, I brought it out for you. I thought maybe you were… Oh, it doesn’t matter. Here.” She handed him the bottle of water, which he opened right away. But instead of taking a sip of the water himself, Chase poured a few tablespoons in the palm of his wide hand and offered it to the kitten. The kitten stood up inside the overturned hat and went straight for the water, lapping at the liquid until it was gone.
    “What are you going to do with her?” Anna Mae asked.
    “I don’t know. Why don’t you take her?”
    “Me? I can’t have a cat here. Some of our guests are allergic to cats. Beside, Rita Mae will have a fit if she starts scratching the furniture.”
    Chase poured a little more water in his hand and offered it to the kitten. “Well, I guess I’m just going to have to take you home with me, little one.”
    Feeling the sun beating down on her head, Anna Mae said, “You? What do you know about taking care of another living creature?”
    He glanced up at her and smiled. “I grew up on a ranch, didn’t I?”
    She shrugged, feeling slightly foolish for her quick judgment. “It’s been years since you worked on a ranch, Chase. Did you have a dog or cat when you were in Nashville?”
    He shook his head. “I couldn’t. The hours I kept were too crazy to know when I’d be home to take care of a pet. Maybe my brother’s grandkids will have fun playing with her out in the barn. I’m sure they’d like that.”
    Chase picked up the kitten again. She looked impossibly lost in his hands. She was so tiny. So vulnerable. And he held her so gently.
    Oh, Lordy, Anna Mae, he was just holding a cat.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked.
    He put the kitten on his shoulder. “I should think it’s obvious. I came to see you.”
    “Again? Why do you keep doing this, Chase? I don’t know how to make myself more clear than I’ve been. What we had was over a long time ago and there is nothing left for us to say to each other. We’ve lived a lifetime without each other. I don’t want to see you.”
    His smile was slow in coming, but when it finally took hold, it spread wide across his face. “If you don’t want to see me, why did you come out here?”
    She opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it quickly. She didn’t have an answer to that. Well, not a good enough answer.
    The truth was, ever since Chase had come back to Storm, it wasn’t that Anna Mae didn’t want to see him. She feared seeing him.
    Over the years it had been easy to blame Chase for his leaving even though she’d given him her blessing to go. But deep down, she hadn’t believed he’d stay away. And then when he was gone and she found out she was carrying his child, it made it all the harder to call him and ask him to come home.
    The anger that had built up over the years, that had replaced the heartache of losing Chase and their child, had kept her going. She knew that now. It was a bitter pill to swallow. But now that Chase was standing just feet away from her, she couldn’t ignore it. She’d never stopped loving him. All those feelings