Lex, though, was more studiously casual with their tightly curled, close-cropped hair and fitted flannel shirt and jeans. They could be the cover model for an L.L.Bean catalog, while Marty looked poised to step into any boardroom and take charge of a high-powered meeting. The two were point and counterpoint—one down-to-earth and the other destined for press conferences and power lunches.

  “You’ve done beautiful work,” Lex said as they sat down, startling Taryn out of her mental observations. “And such a variety.”

  Taryn smiled her thanks. “No two couples are alike, so why should all weddings be the same? I love making dreams come true, no matter how nontraditional they are. So, how can I help you plan your perfect wedding?”

  As always, she added the slight emphasis on the word your, implying with one word that yes, those photos were nice, but the only wedding that mattered now was the one they were about to plan together. That sentence, delivered just the right way, triggered the expressions of excitement she loved seeing on her clients’ faces. For someone who prided herself on planning unique weddings, her work from start to finish on a project followed predictable and consistent patterns. The details might change, but the process stayed the same.

  “We want to get married in the cat café in Sumner,” Marty said.

  Taryn nodded, careful not to repeat the phrase. She had learned early in her career that clients responded defensively when she did that, even if she didn’t intend to sound disbelieving or critical. They seemed to hear the word really? even when it wasn’t spoken, probably because most everyone else they had told about their idea had questioned their choices. A cat café? Really? Or A turtle? Really?

  He smiled at Lex. The warmth in the glance they shared transcended the conspicuously balanced images they portrayed. They were simply two people in love, and Taryn would never stop feeling proud and honored to be invited to share in these moments with her clients. “It’s where we met.”

  “Where we all met,” Lex added with a laugh.

  “All of you?” Okay she repeated that one, but she needed to know how many people were involved in this wedding if she was planning the event.

  “The two of us, and our two cats,” Lex clarified.

  “Ah, of course.” Two humans and two cats. She might have more conversations with vets in her future. “And will they be part of the ceremony?”

  “Oh no,” Marty said. “They wouldn’t enjoy it. You know how cats are.”

  “Yes, I sure do,” Taryn agreed. She didn’t, but she’d take Marty’s word for it that they didn’t enjoy weddings as much as turtles did.

  “We’ll have a public reception at the Town Hall,” he continued, “but later, after we’re back from our honeymoon. We want the ceremony to be more intimate, although the local press will have to be invited. My campaign slogan called Sumner the City with Heart, and this cat café is a business with heart. This is a way for us to celebrate our relationship, and at the same time honor my role as Sumner’s mayor by highlighting one of the city’s most cherished locations.”

  Taryn glanced at Lex, but they didn’t seem upset by the idea that Marty saw a political angle to their wedding. She was glad, since this constant blending of personal and public life was going to be a way of life for the two of them if Marty’s career took him to state or federal offices. She would do her best to make sure this wedding incorporated as much of the personal side for both of them as possible and let Marty and the press handle the political aspects.

  They spoke for a while longer, until Taryn felt their vision for the wedding start to gel in her mind. Decorations and menu choices, seating arrangements and other logistics for moving the couple and their guests comfortably through the day—those more concrete plans would have to wait until she saw this cat café in person. Right now, she concentrated on the more ephemeral vibe of the wedding, how they wanted the event to project who they were.

  She got as many details as she needed for the first stage of planning and eventually said good-bye to Marty and Lex, reminding them to ask about cat allergies when they interviewed prospective officiants. She was relieved that they hadn’t bothered to ask her, as their wedding planner, that same question. She had no idea whether she was allergic to cats—or really, any animals—or not.

  She searched for the café online but didn’t find a website or any information beyond a listing on the Sumner Chamber of Commerce site, which at least gave her an address. She didn’t know much about cat cafés beyond the fact that she was pretty sure they had cats in them and not on the menu. It didn’t sound very sanitary, but she didn’t need to eat the food.

  She just needed to plan the wedding and get a cute kitty photo for her wall.

  She jotted down the café’s address. She had some work to do here at the office in the morning, so she’d head out to Sumner after she finished and get the details ironed out with the owner. They’d probably be thrilled to have the mayor and all his publicity take over the café for one day. She’d surely be done with that by lunch, so she continued scrolling through the Chamber of Commerce site, searching for a non-pet-related restaurant to try while she was in Marty’s beloved City with a Heart.

  Chapter Three

  Bonnie’s cell rang at five thirty in the morning, triggering the usual groggy panic she experienced with too-early calls. She flung herself across the bed, her mind racing through panicked scenarios of fires or robberies, and grabbed the phone, causing a small avalanche of cats as the three that had been sleeping on her legs toppled off. Her two older cats leaped off the bed in a huff, but her little striped kitten merely curled into a ball next to her and went back to sleep.

  Bonnie saw her mother’s name on the screen and flopped onto her pillow with a groan. Yes, someone might be dying, but more likely her mother was too excited to wait until a reasonable hour to call Bonnie and tell her about the latest pregnancy or promotion in the James family. She had four siblings and six cousins who routinely churned out either babies or ginormous pay raises, each one widening the gap between their lives and hers. She didn’t want those things, but her mother seemed to think that hearing about them constantly would somehow be inspirational for her.

  She briefly considered letting the call go to voice mail, but she’d only be delaying the inevitable. She swiped to answer, ending the insistent ringing. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Good morning, darling,” her mother said in a breezy voice, as if it wasn’t still dark outside. “I hope I didn’t wake you, but I couldn’t wait to share the news. Jonah’s getting married!”

  Bonnie rubbed her eyes, trying to force her mind into a more alert state. Jonah. Her oldest brother, a stay-at-home dad with four kids and a wife who beamed her way into thousands of homes every day as one of the hosts on a top Seattle morning show. He’d been held up as an aspirational ideal for her since high school, when he had married the former Miss Washington. Bonnie didn’t recall there ever being a divorce, but she probably wouldn’t get a call about one of those.

  “Isn’t he already married?” she asked, stifling a yawn. Once the initial panic about the ringing phone had been eased, her body just wanted to go back to sleep. She climbed out of bed and scooped up Pepper, taking the kitten with her into the kitchen.

  “Of course. He and Mayu are blissfully happy, of course. They’re renewing their vows.”

  “Why?” The obvious answer was that he was doing this to make her look bad. She could imagine this tacked on to her aunt’s litany of laments next time the family was together for a holiday. Look at Jonah. He’s had two weddings now, and you haven’t even had one.

  “To celebrate their fifteenth wedding anniversary, of course.”

  “Hmm…” she said, unconvinced. She had a more cynical explanation. She loved Jonah, but he was addicted to their parents’ approval. He thrived on it to the same extent that she stubbornly rejected it. She figured he needed some big event to fill the gap between the birth of their fourth child and the arrival of the first grandkid, so why not recycle the wedding furor?

  She fed her cats and struggled to get dressed with her phone in her hand while her mom chatted on about bridesmaid dresses and a harpist, since apparently this was going to be another exhausting full wedding, and not just an intimate Let’s renew our vows on a beach in Barbados as an excuse for a fancy vacation kind of thing.

  She had been on the periphery of wedding planning eight times now. The only other two in this generation of her immediate family not to be married were her older sister who traveled extensively as a financial analyst for an international corporation—Bonnie had always been a bit hazy on the details, but she thought her sister was currently in the UAE—and her cousin who was a professional baseball player and had enough women available for dating not to be interested in settling down with just one of them.

  Her family seemed to believe those were better reasons to not be married than having a lot of cats.

  “Sounds great, Mom,” she interjected eventually, breaking in on the monologue about reception halls. “I’ll call Jonah later and congratulate him. Again. I should go now, though. I need to get to the café and take care of the cats.”

  “Oh yes. The cats.” To her mother’s credit, she didn’t add the comment Don’t you wish they were babies instead? She might as well have, though, because Bonnie knew it was hovering in the air, unsaid this time but too often spoken out loud.

  Bonnie left her house and quickly walked the six blocks to her café. She was happy to have found a place to rent that was close enough for her to check on the cats before bed, but she would feel more comfortable once she was living on the property. She almost had enough saved to expand into the backyard, creating a dedicated room for the afternoon teas and opening up the main bedroom suite for her original plan of moving into it. Today, though, she was glad to have the walk, with time to clear her head after her mother’s call and before she started her workday.

  She loved her family, as frustrating as they could be sometimes. She adored her nieces and nephews and her numerous little first cousins once removed, and they always seemed excited to come visit her café where they spent hours eating cookies and playing with the cats. She was proud of her siblings’ and cousins’ accomplishments, and they seemed to genuinely care about her and want her to be happy and fulfilled, too.

  The problem was, she didn’t fit her family’s idea of fulfillment. She had been raised in a household that measured success in terms of either large broods of children or prestigious careers—and having both was a bonus. She had chosen a life path that offered neither when she took a job with a nonprofit when she graduated college. No one in her family had known quite what to make of her.

  She liked it that way. She was proud of herself for rejecting the goals she had been told since childhood that she should seek—not because they weren’t wonderful things for people who wanted them, but because they were wrong for her. She had forged a path for herself on her own terms. Sure, her time in the nonprofit sector had been awkwardly cut short, but she had bounced back and opened her café. The journey had sometimes been a lonely one, but she had plenty of love in her life, human and feline.

  She exhaled, letting go of the residual stress from the morning’s conversation before she entered her café, and got swept up by the busyness of the day.

  * * *

  Bonnie wiped down the counters and tossed the tea towel she was using into the basket full of linens that needed to be washed. The ovens were full of baking trays, and the lunch sandwiches were wrapped and ready to go for the afternoon. She looked around, for once rather desperate for another task to demand her attention.

  Nothing. Damn.

  She stepped out of the kitchen to the counter area. The café was quiet, with only two tables occupied—both by people who were reading books with cats in their laps. The breakfast rush had finished, and lunch customers would be arriving soon. Jerome had swapped his afternoon shift for Isa’s morning today, and he was walking through the café, gathering scattered toys and messing with his phone.

  Bonnie sighed. He hadn’t been working for her long, and she loved how wonderful he was with both cats and customers, but he spent far too much time on his cell. He never failed to put it down and give patrons his full attention, but she still felt she had to say something about it. She was dreading this conversation more than nail-trim weekend.

  He noticed her standing by the register and nodded at her, coming over and dumping the toys into some bins by the counter, where afternoon customers would be able to find them. “Do you mind if we sit for a minute?” he asked. He gestured at a small table along the back wall. “We need to talk.”

  Wasn’t that her line?

  “Um, sure,” she said, pulling out one of the chairs. Maybe he wanted to tell her how much he loved working here, and that she was the best boss ever. If so, she’d say screw it, and let him stay on his phone as much as he wanted.

  “You need a website,” he said instead. “Why don’t you have one yet?”

  She sat down, and Sasha, a small white cat with a few scattered spots of striped gray-brown fur, leaped onto her lap and started kneading her legs, purring loudly. She looked like a tabby who was dressed as a Halloween ghost with a couple extra holes cut out of the sheet. Bonnie absently scratched behind the cat’s ears as she considered the unexpected question.

  “I started to make one a few weeks ago,” she said, then frowned as she considered her answer. Was it months, not weeks? She remembered the trees being covered in fall-colored leaves. “Anyway, I got busy, and when I got back to it, a lot of cats had been adopted. It seemed to be too much work to keep up with how often the cat population here changes, so I just focus on getting their photos on the adoption sites.”

  He shook his head as if her answer was woefully inadequate. “You need to advertise the café, not just the cats. You can maybe have a page highlighting a few of them, so it’s easier to update, but you also need to have the menu online, with some info about the seasonal specialties. People will come here for the cats in general and the chill atmosphere and the food, and then they’ll fall in love with a specific cat. Or two or three.”

  Bonnie sighed. He was right, of course. This was the reason she had started building the site in the first place. She’d just need to make the time to get it done. “Okay, I’m convinced. I’ll do it.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’ll do it. It’ll be my class project for my intro to web design course, just like Isa is doing your books for her business class.”

  “She’s not doing my books. She’s just using the café as a real-life example for her assignments.” Unless she proved to be really good at it. Then she could do the books. And Jerome could make her website. And when the two of them graduated and left the café, she’d hire a construction student who could build her a tearoom as his class project. Or maybe an engineering student who could design a really good self-cleaning litter box.

  Jerome handed her his phone, breaking her out of that particularly enticing daydream.

  “Look,” he said. “I’ve been getting tons of photos for the site, plus making notes on all the cats. I’ve even got some quotes from customers that we can put on the different pages.”

  Bonnie took the phone. The first picture was of the woman sitting across the café from them—the image was a peaceful one, with the mug of coffee and book resting on the small wooden table, and the sleepy black cat Kip curled on her lap. She scrolled through a series of photos, smiling at the way Jerome had captured the personalities of the different resident cats.

  “I thought you were texting all this time,” she said, relieved that she hadn’t reprimanded him before he had a chance to call her out on her lack of online presence.

  “At work?” he asked in an indignant voice. “Of course not. We should get at least a basic site up and running now because it might take me most of the quarter to do it right. I’ll have to work in sections, so I can turn in each step as an assignment for class. But you need to have at least a home page ASAP with some pics and the café’s hours to post in response to the mayor’s Tweet.”

  Bonnie looked up from the photo of the small ginger cat Kumquat peering down from the highest post on a cat tree. “What Tweet? And what mayor?”

  “Sumner’s mayor—Marty Hannah. It’s gone viral. Well, as viral as something in Sumner can go, which means about thirty people have Retweeted it.” He took his phone back and pulled up his Twitter account before handing it back to her. “Still, lots more have written comments. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it. What have you been doing all day?”

  “Making chocolate croissants,” Bonnie said, glancing at the screen. Playing around online was usually reserved for evenings for her, or the occasional break after the lunch crowd. “Oh, how sweet. He found love at Sumner’s cat café. He did—he and his partner adopted two tuxedo cats. Tango and Rumba.”

  “He doesn’t mean the cats,” Jerome said, rolling his eyes. “He means his partner. Keep reading.”

  Bonnie read the post again. Marty and Lex were getting married. That was nice. She had met with the two of them several times while they were going through the adoption process and she had liked them. She hadn’t realized they had met each other for the first time here, though.

  She started reading through the comments and felt herself getting more tense with each one. They started with generic messages of congratulations, but sprinkled among them were comments that were more worrisome.

  “I want to meet a man who will like my three cats. Maybe I should look for him at the café,” she read. “And this one says they thought the grocery store was the place to pick up women, but this café sounds even better. Jerome, this is awful.”

  He shrugged, not seeming to share her concern over the comments. “They’re potential customers, and then potential adopters. The mayor just gave you a bunch of free advertising, and you should take advantage of it. Play it up.”