Bonnie looked torn for a moment but seemed unable to resist joining in until they were both wiping tears from their eyes. Their laughter had a slightly hysterical edge to it, as Taryn was waiting for Bonnie to get mad at her for finding the clip funny, and Bonnie seemed as if she hadn’t allowed herself to see the humor in it for far too long.

  Their mirth finally subsided, and Taryn reached for the phone. “I have to watch it again,” she said.

  “No,” Bonnie said, snatching the phone from her and tossing it across the room and onto an armchair. “Trust me, it gets more appalling the more you watch it.”

  “This might not have fit the high-end image of that purebred group, but it’s perfect for your café, you know,” Taryn said as they settled back against the coffee table, shoulder-to-shoulder.

  “Really? Because my café is humiliatingly ridiculous?”

  Taryn heard the laughter in Bonnie’s question and slapped her lightly on the thigh.

  “No. Because it’s a little bit silly and not mainstream or normal at all. You have to admit, having dozens of cats in a café is odd. You have more cat trees than customer chairs, and you have friends who smuggle cats in purses. But that’s why people love it there, and that’s why the thought of it being a place to find love is so appealing to a lot of people. You give them permission to be who they are, to be a little eccentric. And they get excited at the thought of finding somebody who will appreciate those traits, and maybe even share them.”

  “I guess I hadn’t thought of it exactly that way before,” Bonnie admitted, leaning gently into Taryn with her shoulder. “I was more focused on keeping that side of myself as far from the café as possible, but when I look at Lex and Marty, I can see what you mean.”

  “At least you didn’t let this episode take you away from the rescue world completely. You seem born to do this.”

  Bonnie smiled at Taryn. “I’ve always loved cats because they’re soft and they purr, and the people I knew in the rescue community were some of the best human beings I’d ever met. I love baking and being around other animal lovers. Plus, it’s a way I can feel like I’m making a difference in the world.”

  Taryn felt Bonnie’s words wash over her like an icy wave. She had been thinking she and Bonnie were from different worlds because of the feline equation, but maybe the gap between them was based on something far deeper and harder to bridge.

  Values. Meaning.

  Even in the face of what Bonnie saw as a horribly humiliating experience, she refused to give up those qualities in her life. Taryn wasn’t devoting her life to rescuing helpless animals, and she certainly didn’t qualify as the best human being in anyone’s world. She loved what she did for a living and she was very good at it, but she wouldn’t qualify as selfless in the same way Bonnie and her rescue friends did.

  Bonnie reached over and slid the back of her hand gently down the curve of Taryn’s cheek, and the light touch wrenched Taryn back to the present before she was able to drown in her depressing thoughts.

  “Thank you for this. I’ve never once been able to laugh at that GIF or the ad. I still think it would make me sick to my stomach to have to watch it again, but maybe I don’t feel as much dread at the thought of anyone else seeing it. You were right when you said I was sabotaging my café’s success, even though my reasons were more to do with self-protection than anything else. It’s been good to start letting go of that and putting the café and cats first instead.”

  Taryn caught Bonnie’s hand before she moved it away, interlacing their fingers and resting their joined hands in her lap.

  “I’m glad you’re open to that, Bonnie,” she said. “What you do at the café is wonderful already. Once you remove those limits you had placed on yourself, your creativity and energy are going to turn it into something even more special.”

  She paused for a moment, just relishing the feel of Bonnie’s hand, the closeness of her, before she was going to have to pull away.

  “It’s good that you’re open to making more money,” she continued. “Especially if you’re going to have fifty hungry little mouths to feed.”

  Bonnie laughed, but it faded away as Taryn carefully extricated her hand and stood up. “I really should be going,” she said, bending to gather her notes and stuff them into her bag. “I think we have the plans sorted.”

  Bonnie lifted Pepper off her lap and set him on the couch before following Taryn to the door. She reached over Taryn’s shoulder and held the door shut as she was starting to open it.

  “What’s wrong, Taryn? You changed so fast. Something changed.”

  Taryn turned around. Bonnie was very close, and she didn’t move away. “It’s nothing. I’m fine,” she said, although she doubted Bonnie would let her get away with that. Bonnie just watched her silently, and Taryn sighed, looking over her shoulder and not directly at her. “It’s just what you said about how amazing the rescue people are. What good people they are. I just don’t fit in with—”

  “Stop, please,” Bonnie said. “Don’t think you’re not good enough for anyone just because you don’t rescue cats or save the whales or whatever. The work you do is meaningful, too.”

  She rested her hands on Taryn’s shoulders, her thumbs making small strokes along her neck until Taryn was barely able to focus on what she was saying.

  “I remember something you said the first night you were here for dinner,” Bonnie continued. Taryn hoped she wasn’t about to use any long or complicated words, because her ability to comprehend anything beyond the feel of Bonnie’s fingers on her skin was rapidly slipping away.

  “You were talking about why you chose your job, but you said you didn’t have personal experience with the kind of relationships you hope are possible, ones that were healthy and empowering and wonderful. I think you’re wrong, and that you experience it every day, even if it’s not romantically. Those are the gifts you give your clients when you give them the freedom to be themselves. It’s a different kind of meaning you’re bringing into the world than what I do, but without question, no less important. It’s exactly what you just told me people want to find at my café—a place where they’re honored for being who they are. You offer that, too, in a unique and beautiful way.”

  Then Bonnie’s lips were on hers, as if she needed to physically impress what she was saying into Taryn and make her believe it. Taryn wound her arms around Bonnie’s neck, holding on desperately as she started to lose herself in the sensation of having Bonnie pressed against her. The kiss was sweet and sexy and right…

  And utterly, utterly terrifying.

  Taryn planned. She organized. She didn’t feel, and everything to do with Bonnie was about feeling. Like this kiss, which Taryn struggled to analyze and notice instead of letting it sweep her away.

  Or the way Bonnie made her feel worthwhile and cherished and trusted on a very deep level, and the fear Taryn felt at the thought of those emotions being taken away.

  It was suddenly overwhelmingly too much.

  She pulled back, and Bonnie let her go. “That was…thank you for what you said. And you feel…” Taryn closed her eyes and exhaled, then looked at Bonnie again. “You feel so good. Maybe we can…after the adoption event is done…I just need things to be slow.”

  She didn’t want slow—her body was protesting loudly that it wanted nothing to do with slow and everything to do with fast and hard and right now—but kissing Bonnie, being with her, was more than just the typical physical relationship Taryn engaged in. Or, as Angie would remind her, that she used to engage in, but hadn’t for a very long time. Bonnie brought out too much intensity in Taryn, but maybe, if given a little space and patience, she could find a way to handle the excess emotion. She really wanted to try.

  She stepped forward and wrapped Bonnie in an embrace, trying to let her know that even though she was leaving, she wasn’t running away.

  She didn’t want to run away, did she?

  They broke apart and Bonnie smiled at her. “Slow is fine. We’ll just…just wait and see where this goes.”

  Taryn nodded and left the house, walking down the sidewalk to her car without looking back and wondering why the warm spring air left her feeling so chilled.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bonnie discovered the best way to keep her mind off her confusing romantic life—hold a fake speed dating adoption event and invite a bunch of cats.

  In the days leading up to Finding Furever, she had few spare moments to think about anything beyond the event, but those moments were devoted mostly to Taryn. Just talking to Taryn about her past and showing her the humiliating social media moment had been more momentous than Bonnie had thought possible. Partly because she had felt a shift in her own perspective because of Taryn’s reactions.

  What had seemed huge and horrible suddenly was just goofy and a little embarrassing—maybe even, someday, entirely insignificant. Having Taryn there to share her story had made it more manageable and less awful. The thought of them sharing even more made Bonnie feel about as red and romantic as the pet toys she had bought.

  Bonnie thought about their kiss, too.

  She had been trying so hard to help Taryn see how worthwhile and amazing she was, and the kiss had seemed like a natural extension of the conversation. Then it had exploded into something far more arousing. For her, at least. The other thing she thought about far too often was Taryn’s reaction to it.

  Bonnie couldn’t figure out what Taryn thought of the kiss.

  She hadn’t seemed repulsed, which was good, although she had also asked for them to slow down when they hadn’t exactly been moving at cheetah speed up to that moment. Slowing down was basically returning to their non-kissing state, which meant keeping everything the same as it had been. Taryn hadn’t seemed enthusiastic about much except for leaving the house.

  In their short working relationship, Bonnie had felt more of a connection with Taryn than she ever had with anyone. It had worked both ways, too, with each of them seeming to understand the other’s emotions and motivations on an intuitive level. Now, Bonnie sensed nothing from Taryn. They were friendly with each other, and they still had playful, joking moments. They weren’t stiff and uncomfortable around each other, but they weren’t exactly the opposite of those things either. Bonnie had no idea what was going on in their relationship or in Taryn’s mind. They hadn’t had another chance to talk about much beyond the event or to try a slow approach to another kiss.

  Bonnie might have worried that Taryn was avoiding her if she hadn’t been so busy that she really didn’t have the time for either talking or kissing. She seemed to have a million details wrestling each other to get to the forefront of her mind. She was preparing food and guest packets for the event while still running her café and taking care of her cats. She fielded nearly constant calls from the rescue groups involved, asking if they could swap one cat for another or bring just one or possibly four extras, or checking if they had remembered to tell her that one of their animals inexplicably hated all calicos, so could they please not be put in the same room with one. And no, they hadn’t remembered to tell her.

  She had been correct when she told Taryn that the best laid plans didn’t stand a chance in hell against a horde of cats.

  Bonnie was relieved when the day finally arrived, and she was able to drive to the rec center with the few cats she had brought. The café was closed for the full day since she had needed to get to the venue early to oversee the decorations for the rooms and the setup of the area where guests would register and later have dessert. Then she had had to hurry back to the café and finish the prep work for the appetizers before bundling her cats into carriers and packing everything in the van she had rented.

  They had planned for all the cats to start coming hours before the attendees would arrive, to give them a chance to acclimate to their temporary environment and to give Bonnie a chance to do some last-minute rearranging in the case of personality conflicts.

  She made sure Mister Fuzzyboots was relaxed and comfortable in the yellow-themed room for cats that were best suited to child-free homes, then went out to the front desk where Taryn was arranging the information packets. She paused in the doorway, waiting until she had the memory of their kiss tucked as far toward the back of her mind as possible, then walked over to Taryn in the most casual, definitely-not-in-love way she could manage.

  “I’ve had to make a couple more changes to the rooms’ occupants,” she said, handing Taryn her tablet with the updated list. “We have some real divas here tonight, but I think the lists are finally ready to print.”

  Taryn took the tablet over to the small printer she had brought from her office. “The place looks fantastic, Bonnie,” she said. “You’ve done an amazing job here, and the guests are going to love it.”

  “You’ve done as much if not more than I have,” Bonnie said. “Plus, it was your idea from the start.”

  They made a great team, Bonnie thought but didn’t say out loud. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing someone who was going slowly would say, but Bonnie knew it was true. They instinctively understood each other’s strengths, and seamlessly split up and shared workloads.

  “Really, all I did was…Hey. You brought Sasha and Ninja Cat?”

  “Yes. They’re in the red room with Jerome. He’ll take good care of them.”

  “But you said you were only bringing a few cats,” Taryn said in an accusatory tone, looking up from the list she had just printed. “You said you were only bringing some that were going to be more difficult to adopt out and would benefit from the exposure.”

  “Yes,” Bonnie said again. She obviously knew that Salmon and Sasha were the two cats Taryn had interacted with the most at the café, but she was surprised by her response to the news that they were at the event. In the days prior, she hadn’t asked Bonnie which cats she was bringing, and Bonnie hadn’t had any reason to believe Taryn would really care one way or the other.

  Taryn continued, “Sasha should be easy to adopt, so she didn’t need to come here. She’s small and friendly and cute with those spots of hers. And Ninja Cat…well, he’s stealthy and protective.”

  Maybe Taryn just wanted to have their familiar faces greet her when she came to the café to discuss wedding plans? Bonnie wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t keep them from finding forever homes just so Taryn could visit them once a week.

  “Exactly,” she agreed, keeping her voice calm to counter the surprisingly upset tone of Taryn’s. If she didn’t know Taryn ran much more complex events than this for a living, she might have guessed that she was just nervous about the evening and venting some of her anxious energy. “They’re wonderful cats, and they deserve a home where they get more love and attention than I can give them in a café full of cats. The red room is for cats that are bonded pairs and need to be adopted together. It’s always harder to find homes for them, so coming here will give them a better chance at being adopted.”

  “Did you bring Kip?” Taryn asked, sifting through the lists for the other rooms.

  “No,” Bonnie said. She had a feeling young Kip would find his way into a new home without needing the extra advantage of this night.

  “Good, because we need him at the wedding.”

  “He’ll be there. He’s been practicing his rendition of ‘Endless Love’ in anticipation of the big day.”

  Bonnie smiled, but Taryn didn’t. She always laughed at the Kip jokes, but this time she mumbled something about going to find the bathroom and walked away, leaving the pile of lists on the welcome table.

  Bonnie had roughly forty-five seconds to muse over Taryn’s peculiar attitude before a loud yowl had her running to the senior cat room to find that the room’s volunteer had nearly tripped over one cat, but then stepped on the tail of another in her attempt to rebalance herself.

  Once the affronted cat was calmed, Bonnie checked on Tulip and gave her a quick pat before leaving the room again. By the time she got back to the entrance, guests were starting to arrive. She was relieved to see a smiling Taryn at the table, handing out packets and chatting with the early arrivals.

  Bonnie put the incident out of her mind. She and Taryn would hopefully find some time to sit down together and talk things out. Maybe take a picnic to Ben and Daisy’s farm and eat by the river. Or get fudge at the Cannery. Anything, as long as they were together and had a chance to clear up the uncertainty that seemed to have settled between them. But tonight had to be about the cats.

  She went over to her café display and made herself accessible to the people who came by to look at the photos and read about the resident cats. She had made a Come Meet Our Cats! brochure for the café and had put it in the info packets along with a free drink coupon.

  Judging by the enthusiastic responses she was getting to her display, she had a feeling they were going to see a rise in traffic over the next few weeks. And after they showed the promo she and Jerome had filmed…well, she was both excited and a little sick to her stomach at the thought. Mainly the latter, but she wasn’t going to admit it to Taryn. She was attempting to turn over a new marketing leaf, after all. And attempting to meet her past head-on and stop it from continuing to run her life.

  Once the room started filling up, Jerome came in and hooked up the live feed to the café’s webcams. One screen showed several cats grooming or sleeping in the late afternoon sunlight near the main dining room window. The other was the Kitten Room tea party she and Jerome had designed. The event area was already getting more crowded as they neared the start time for her nieces’ big debut, and the guests clustered around the big screen like fans at a sports bar during the playoffs.

  “Oh, Bonnie.” Taryn had come up behind her and was now standing close by her side, her eyes on the Kitten Room screen. “It’s really lovely. I feel like I’m looking through a window to the past, to a real Victorian tea party.”