“Robbie said something about a rooster they were missing,” Adalyn explained. “His name is Sebastian Stan.”
Oh. “Well, fuck.” I gave Willow a quick glance. “That’s going to be an awkward conversation.”
Willow mewed and lifted her head, curious about Adalyn.
I stepped closer so the two complex and frustrating females that had been robbing me of sleep could survey each other a little better.
“She’s beautiful,” Adalyn whispered, while Willow sniffed her outstretched hand. “Her eyes are different, just like her face. I’ve never seen a cat like her.”
“Willow’s a chimera,” I explained, my gaze fixated on Adalyn’s face. Her smile was small as she inspected the cat in my arms. I liked that barely there tilt of her mouth. “They’re born after two embryos fuse together. That’s why she looks like that.”
Willow purred, Adalyn hummed, and I felt myself relax for the first time this morning.
That was probably why I went on, “She was blind in one eye when I adopted her, I thought it might have been related to it so I researched.”
“Oh,” Adalyn whispered. “That’s…” Her face turned serious. “Really sweet. You’re full of surprises, Cameron.” Her saying my name so softly did something to my stomach. “On top of having tried every single hobby that has ever existed, you have cats you call family and know about hackles and sickles and peeps. You’re afraid of goats—”
“I’m not afraid of them,” I interjected. “I find them untrustworthy.”
She rolled her eyes but I could see it there, the way she was biting back a smile. A full one. A real one. “Still,” she said. “I wonder what else you’re hiding.”
“Wildlife.” The information toppled off my lips. “Not just farm stock. I find wildlife and nature fascinating. I’ve watched a lot of Animal Planet through the years. It helps me relax. Unwind.” I readjusted Willow in my arms. “The hackles and sickles are nothing compared to what I’ve learned on there.”
She tilted her head, and I knew to brace myself. “Tell me a random fact.”
“You want me to prove it to you?”
“Only if you can,” she said with a shrug. “Knock my socks off, Animal Planet man.”
This woman. Issuing challenges like that at a man like me.
I looked at her straight into those chocolate-brown eyes. “Contrary to popular belief, the rightful king of the jungle is not the lion. Only a very small percentage of them live in the jungle. So small, they’re endangered. A proper candidate for the title would actually be a Bengal tiger, leopard, or jaguar.”
She nodded slowly, but I could tell she wasn’t impressed.
I set the mug on the banister of the porch and held my free palm up. “Koala fingerprints are so similar to ours that they could be mistaken for a human’s.”
Her eyebrows rose in surprise.
I could do better than a brow arch. “The heart of a shrimp is in its head.” I brought my hand to the side of her face and brushed her temple with the back of my hand. Her lips parted at the gentle touch. “And if a female ferret in heat doesn’t mate for a prolonged time, the increasing levels of estrogen in her body can eventually lead to her death.”
A shiver seemed to crawl down Adalyn’s body. I let my fingers fall along hair that had fallen over her cheek. “She would die?” Her voice was soft again, gentle. Sad. “She would die just because she can’t find a mate?”
I stepped closer and gave her a nod.
A small frown appeared. “That’s… That’s really unfair.”
My eyes roamed all over her face, finding great pleasure in the vulnerability I saw in her expression. In how close we were standing.
I should have probably brushed this whole thing off, gone back inside and jumped into the shower so we wouldn’t be late to the game, but something in me had shifted. Changed. “It’s rather cruel,” I said, letting the pad of my thumb flick across her cheek. “Don’t you think?”
Adalyn’s eyes fluttered shut, and when she answered, it was a whisper. “It is.”
I moved my hand, reveling in the effect the gentle contact of my skin against hers had in me. Her. Both of us. “It doesn’t seem like that’s the ferret’s fault.”
Eyes still closed, her throat worked. “Maybe,” she started. And this time, my thumb brushed her forehead, the spot that she’d hit that first day. The urge to place my mouth there was hard to tame. “Maybe, she doesn’t have time to spare to search for a mate,” she continued, a little breathlessly. “Or maybe there’s nothing about her that’s appealing to the male ferrets around her.” She opened her eyes. The brown in her eyes had glazed over. “Perhaps she thought she was fine like that, alone. How is any of that her fault?”