Craved Mate: Cybermates Ayers, Candace (books suggested by elon musk txt) 📖

miserable days? A reality, I might add, which is far more frightening than being elderly and single.” Her heavy exhale shot a staticky rattle through my phone. “I should have told shark-mummy and guppy-boy to sod off and hopped on the plane with you.”

That had been our original plan, until Ingrid was unable to get the time off. “Selfishly, I wish you had.”

“Well, there is a silver lining. Arriving the morning of the wedding gets me a seat on a flight next to Pierce.” Her wistful little sigh was almost sad. “Do you think your brother will ever notice that I grew knockers and an arse?”

Gag. “I hope not.”

“Hey! You’re supposed to be in my corner and want the best for me.”

“I am and I do. Which is why I don’t want you hooking up with Pierce.”

“I wouldn’t allow it to get messy. I mean, other than in the bedroom—no holds barred there.” The toilet flushed in the background. “I guess it’s back to the grind for me. His Royal Man-Baby and Queen Stick-Up-Her-Bum await their overworked office peon. This job will be the death of me.”

“You’ll die faster of starvation.”

“I’ve got a little meat on my bones.”

“Bye, Ingrid. Love you. Call me later.”

Something about Ingrid’s mix of perpetual pessimism and dry humor always lightened my mood. I felt horrible that she was stuck in a job she hated, and I would never tell her, but another reason I continued to make my relationship with Adam work was for her sake.

As petty and vindictive as he and his mother were, a messy breakup between Adam and me would surely involve Ingrid. They’d use her to retaliate, and I had no wish to see her become a victim of collateral damage.

Our band gigs were sufficient income for me, since I had a decent-sized investment portfolio and a low-key lifestyle. Ingrid, however, lived from check to check with little leftover at the end of the month. She needed that job.

I hung up, slung my small crossbody bag over my shoulder, and headed out to do the touristy thing. A stroll down the road running through the center of town and bisecting the island revived me. Blue sky, salty ocean breeze, small shops lining Main Street, this was what a vacation should look like, but the sun’s rays were fierce.

The road split at one point to accommodate a massive oak tree and the small grassy patch of earth around it. It was the first non-palm tree I’d seen on the island, and a wooden bench beneath it looked welcoming. The old tree offered shade from the blazing sun.

I stood near the bench and aimed my phone at the underside of the branches, intending to capture the tree’s beauty from a unique angle for a vacation photo album I planned to put together when I returned to Syracuse.

That was when I heard a tiny, little meow.

So helpless, so despondent, the sound made my heart ache. I blinked against the rays of dappled sunlight streaming through the branches and searched until I spotted calico fur. There was a cat stuck on one of the branches. It was bigger than I thought it would be, and not up excessively high, although to say I was no fan of heights was putting it mildly.

I called out to it.

“Here kitty, kitty…”

I made kissing sounds.

I cooed and cajoled and coaxed, but it didn’t budge. Standing back to judge the distance from the ground to the cat’s perch made me shudder.

Nope. No way. Not happening, little kitty.

I tried again. “Here kitty, kitty. Please come down if you can.”

It didn’t work.

Poor cat. It was probably terrified.

And who could blame it? Climbing a tree was not the best idea I’d ever had either, but I was a bleeding heart where animals were concerned, and I could not in good conscience walk away from a cat stuck in a tree. Even if that was what I probably should have done. What I definitely should have done.

I scanned the area, but most people were smart enough to either be on the beach or to have taken cover from the midday island sun somewhere air-conditioned. I was the only other living being nearby. Me and the cat.

I blew out a rough breath, stepped up onto the bench, and tried not to think too hard as I clasped the lowest branch and hauled myself up.

Don’t look down. Think of the poor kitty.

I hauled myself a little higher, then higher still, and just a little higher until I was close enough to almost touch the cat. We looked into one another’s eyes for a shared moment. Then, while I watched, its agile body leaped from branch to branch, as easily as breathing, until it hit the ground.

From the ground beneath the tree, as though mocking me, the furry devil had the audacity to look up at me and meow.

I tried to climb back down, but it was quickly and embarrassingly evident that my limbs were frozen.

I was petrified.

I was going nowhere.

4

Mac

“She’s stuck?”

Jay’s voice held a note of amusement as he fielded the call on the emergency line.

I perked up. I’d been living and working in Sunkissed Key for several months now and, save for a couple of kitchen fires and a few out-of-control bonfires on the beach, the job was dull as dishwater. Not that I wanted more fires, but something other than sitting at the station twiddling our thumbs would be nice.

“In a tree? If this is another prank by the police department—”

A couple of the other guys came over and listened in. A woman was stuck in the old oak in the center of town.

Jay hung up, grinning wickedly. “So…is it terrible if I make a joke about a pussy stuck in a tree?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes. It is terrible. Let’s go.”

We piled into the one and only firetruck the island of Sunkissed Key owned and pulled up to the curb on Main Street next to the oak I