Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
I blush, too, because it really is. “We’ll get there, okay? Try and be patient for a little while longer.”
Murr, oblivious to our conversation, holds a cat up to me. “Eye? Dakotah, eye?”
I force myself to concentrate on the little calico being held up in front of my face and not the jiggling dong that distracts the eye. Because wow, it really IS distracting. I notice the cat is a younger one, eyes glued shut with yellow gunk. It meows, squirming in his grip.
Okay, this is good. He trusts me to help, and he remembers from before. “Heat some water, Rabbit. I’m going to get a T-shirt. Be right back.”
I gesture to Murr that I’ll help, but he needs to wait. Racing inside the bookstore, I grab my oldest shirt, because it’s also the softest. When the water is warm, I wet a corner of the shirt and instruct (with motions) for Murr to hold the cat still. I gently wipe its eyes clean, even though the cat cries in protest. Tomorrow we’ll try the cream, but I want to read up on it first.
Murr examines the cat and is pleased by the results. He showers it with affection, holding it close and stroking the triangular ears before setting it down.
“Here, baby,” Rabbit says, and holds a tidbit of meat out to the cat. It immediately grabs her hand with its front paws and snags the meat. This delights my daughter and Murr both.
The dragon-man immediately scoops up another cat and checks its eyes, then sets it down. He picks up another, and then another, and when he finds one that needs attention, he brings it over to me. “Eye?”
I nod and wet a fresh corner of the shirt. “Eye cleaning,” I tell him, and then gesture at the tabby in his hands. “Cat.”
“Cat hye cleeeng,” he agrees, pleased.
We clean the eyes of several cats of varying ages while the meat roasts and Rabbit goes through the cart, exclaiming over everything I’ve found. “Vitamins,” she cries. “We’ll be so healthy! And look, shampoo!”
It’s a sad world when your daughter gets excited about vitamins and shampoo. Rabbit reminds me every day to be grateful for what we have, and I want to hug her and squeeze her tight for being so wonderful. I would have given up a dozen times over if it weren’t for her sweet presence. She’s become my family and my everything. “I found a postcard, too. It’s near the bottom.”
Her joy fills my heart, and when I look over, Murr is smiling at me, too. Maybe all he wants is a family, too.
I get it. I really do.
CHAPTER 16
DAKOTA
The next day, Murr brings a dead deer, with small three-pronged antlers. The meat is delicious and we season our portion and roast the larger amount into shreds to feed the cats. Murr doesn’t eat with us, but he never does. He probably eats deer when he’s out hunting.
He hangs around, too. He’s there when I wake up, and while he doesn’t follow us into the bookstore when we head to bed, he’s usually out in the parking lot when we do. It’s like he’s waiting for us to go to sleep before he feels he can.
“He definitely thinks of us as a couple of strays he has to feed,” Rabbit announces to me after a week of this.
I nod agreement, because what else can it be? I’ve never heard of dragons adopting humans as pets, but I’ve also gone out of my way to avoid forts—the human settlements—as much as possible. No one wants a young mother with a daughter unless one of us is willing to open her legs. I’d rather take my chances out in the wild on my own. I just worry it’s not the right choice for Rabbit as a young girl, but leaving her behind in a fort isn’t the answer, either.
Today, when Murr drops a deer for us, I realize immediately that it’s diseased. There’s something wrong with it, the hide mottled and strange. When I cut it open, the organs are discolored and off, and I pull away a kitten that’s trying to climb the hide. “This is bad, Rabbit. We can’t eat this one. It’s sick. I don’t know if the meat is any good or not.”
We examine it together, and Murr arrives while we poke at the deer corpse. I hate to turn down a gift, but I show him the innards of the deer and shake my head. “Meat’s bad.”
“Bad?” he echoes. It’s a word he’s picked up recently. “Meat no good? No cats? No Dakota?”
I’m impressed at his grasp of our language after only a few days. I shake my head. “No, it’s no good for them or for us.”
One of the cats rubs against his leg and meows plaintively. Murr scoops it up and strokes the cat’s head, thinking. He sets the cat down again and gestures at the dead buck. “Meat…” He pauses, trying to find the right words. Through a variety of hand-signals and the few words he does have, he tells us his plan—he’s going to get rid of the bad meat and find something new.