Free The Bachelor Takes a Bride (Those Engaging Garretts!) by Brenda Harlen

sound that was a cross between a wheeze and a rumble from deep in its belly.
    “What is that?” he asked cautiously.
    “Gryffindor.”
    “But
what
is it?” he asked again.
    “He’s my cat.”
    A cat.
    Marco narrowed his gaze, finally nodded. Although it didn’t look like any cat he’d ever seen, he could acknowledge that it fit the general description, except—
    “Where’s its tail?”
    Jordyn laughed. “He’s missing an eye and half of one ear, and you notice his tail.”
    “If he had a tail and it was twitching from side to side, I’d be less convinced that he was planning to attack me.”
    “He’s a Manx,” she said. “They don’t have tails.”
    “Are the eye and ear also characteristic of the breed?”
    She shook her head. “No. He’s been through a lot more than I want to imagine.”
    “How long have you had him?”
    “It would probably be more accurate to say that he has me,” she said. “And it’s been almost seven years.”
    “Did he come with the name?”
    “No. He was a stray—battered and bruised and about three years old when I finally managed to convince him to give up his life on the streets.”
    “A stray with the heart of a lion,” he guessed.
    She nodded, surprised that he immediately recognized the origin of the name. “He’s loyal and affectionate. And very protective of me,” she added, when Marco squatted down to get closer to the feline.
    But he didn’t reach out to the cat—which would likely have earned him a swat or a hiss. He just kept talking to Jordyn and let Gryffindor approach him.
    Except that Jordyn knew he wouldn’t. There was a very short list of people that Gryff tolerated being near, and none that he’d known for less than three years.
    Marco held perfectly still while the cat moved closer, his one gold eye narrowed suspiciously as he sniffed the stranger’s trousers. Jordyn took the bakery box from him, certain the scent of the sweet pastries was the reason for the cat’s interest, and set it on the counter.
    But Gryff’s attention didn’t shift away from Marco. “Do you have catnip in your pockets?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Gryff hates strangers.” She frowned at the cat. “Usually.”
    “Maybe he senses that I’m not going to be a stranger for long.”
    “Or maybe he’s being kind because he senses that you’re delusional,” Jordyn suggested.
    The cat rubbed its cheek back and forth against Marco’s thigh, leaving a few white and orange hairs on the dark fabric. He didn’t complain; he didn’t even attempt to brush them away.
    She removed his cup from the drip tray. “Cream? Sugar?”
    He shook his head. “Black.”
    She made a face as she handed him the cup, then set another in its place and popped in a French vanilla pod. Gryff wound between Marco’s feet, emitting some kind of noise that sounded suspiciously like purring.
    “When I was a kid, my grandmother on my father’s side had a cat—a fluffy white thing that was spoiled and mean.”
    “Gryff can be plenty mean,” she told him. “And there’s no doubt he’s spoiled.”
    “And loved.”
    She shrugged. “I’m a sucker for a sad story.”
    “Should I tell you about the time my grandmother’s cat clawed my arm when I was twelve?”
    “Did it leave a scar?”
    “Actually, it did,” he said, unfastening the cuff of his shirt to roll it back.
    His forearm was muscular, the skin tanned and dusted with dark hair. But she could see the trio of barely visible lines, all that remained of what had once been nasty five-inch gashes. As if of its own volition, her fingertip touched the top edge of one line, slowly traced the length of the scar. His muscle tightened beneath her touch, and her blood pulsed, hot and heavy, in her veins.
    She pulled her hand away, swallowed. “Looks like it was a nasty scratch.”
    “Bled like crazy,” he told her, unapologetically milking the incident for every ounce of sympathy he could get. “And I had to get a tetanus