Jingle Bell Wolf by Terry Spear
Chapter 11
When they reached the lodge, Gabrielle took the stairs up to her room and Landon changed in the storage room. He came out of the office and saw Gabrielle running to join him, still wearing her warm clothes. She was waving frantically at him, appearing out of breath. She must have gone up to her room and run back down the hall and then the stairs. She was definitely worried about something.
“What is it?” He was wearing his board shorts, sandals, and a shirt, and he hoped they didn’t have some kind of trouble out of doors that was an emergency and needed to be taken care of right away, though she had been inside the whole time, so maybe not. Unless she’d seen something out her guest-room window that was cause for alarm.
“I heard kittens meowing in a room I passed on the way to mine. I just turned around and came back down here, figuring you could get a key to the room and check them out, if the guest isn’t in the room.”
“Okay, which room?” he asked, heading to the check-in counter.
“Two-oh-two.”
Landon got the skeleton key. “I’ll take care of this while you go to your room so you can get changed.”
She glanced down at his bare legs.
He smiled and shrugged. “Always on call in this business, no matter what I’m in the middle of doing.”
“Unless you’re in the shower at home, right?” she asked as they headed up the carpeted stairs.
“Then one of my siblings could take care of it. At least I’m not soaking wet from having been in the pool already.”
“True.”
They reached the second floor and headed in the direction of Gabrielle’s room. She was supposed to walk on past, but she whispered, “I’m a vet, and they might need looking after.”
He nodded and figured she was just as curious as he was about the kittens and had to see them. He knocked on the door. “Management!”
No one answered.
Landon knocked again. He didn’t hear anyone in the room talking, a TV going, shower running, or anything else that indicated someone was in the room. “Management!”
Still no answer. He unlocked the door and heard kittens meowing in the bathroom where the door was shut.
He called out “Management” one last time, just in case someone was in the bathroom and hadn’t heard him.
Gabrielle held the door to the room open. No one was in the room, unless they were in the bathroom hiding. Landon knocked on the bathroom door. No one responded. He turned the door handle, expecting it to be locked, but the door opened with ease.
A calico momma cat with four kittens the same age as Princess Buttercup ran out of the bathroom, making their escape.
Gabrielle quickly closed the door to the room so the kittens and their mother wouldn’t flee down the hall.
Landon got on his phone and contacted Blake. “We found the cat and kittens.”
“At the pool?” Blake asked, since that was where Landon and Gabrielle were supposed to be.
“In a room close to Gabrielle’s. She heard the kittens crying.”
“Oh, okay. Good. What’s the room number?” They could access the lodge computer with their own at their homes, thankfully, so Blake wouldn’t have to run in to check on it.
Landon hoped he hadn’t interrupted anything going on between his brother and Nicole, but he figured their sisters were still at the tavern and wouldn’t be able to access the computer as quickly. “The room number is 202.”
“Okay, I found the guest’s name. Mr. Adam Jeffries checked out half an hour ago.”
Landon shook his head. “Well, he left a calico cat and four kittens behind. Can you call him on his cell phone and ask if he left the cat and kittens behind on purpose? We don’t want to find homes for them if he just made a mistake.”
“I’ll do that, Landon. What are we going to do with them in the meantime?” Blake asked.
“We’ll have to have Roxie and Kayla take them home to Rosco. Hopefully, the momma cat will be all right with Rosco watching over all of them at home.” Though not all cats were okay with dogs. The kitten didn’t seem to know any better, but the momma cat might take exception.
They ended the call but Blake called Landon back a few minutes later while Gabrielle was checking the momma cat and kittens out, talking away to them as if they were her own babies. “Yeah, Blake.”
“Mr. Jeffries won’t answer his phone. I’m afraid since we all have the name Wolff on our caller ID, if he left the cats on purpose, he might not answer our calls. All except for—”
“Gabrielle.” Landon glanced at her.
She looked up at Landon.
“Can you text me his number, and I’ll see if Gabrielle can try calling him? Since she’s a vet, she could learn if they’ve had their vaccinations if he doesn’t intend to keep them,” Landon said to Blake.
“I’ll do it.” Gabrielle was cuddling one of the kittens. She set it down with the other kittens, all of them rubbing up against both Landon’s and her legs.
“Okay, she’s going to give it a try,” Landon said.
“I texted Roxie and Kayla and they’re heading to the lodge, disappointed they had to free up their table but excited to pick up the cats. They will meet you at the room. Did he have a carrier for them? Or do we need to get one from someone?” Blake asked.
“He has a cat carrier, litter, a litter box, cat food, and some toys.”
“All right, sounds good. Roxie and Kayla will be up in a few minutes.”
“Thanks, Blake. At least we know now where Princess Buttercup came from. Though not how she became separated from the others. We’ll talk later.” Landon ended the call with his brother and sent a text with the number of the guest to Gabrielle. At least Princess Buttercup had to be from this batch. He couldn’t imagine more of them running loose in the lodge.
* * *
Gabrielle got out her phone and sat on the floor to let the kittens climb on her lap. “They’re not wild at least.” She was glad for that. They were adorable, and hopefully they could find homes with the wolf community. She called the number and an older man answered.
“Hello?” He sounded like he was in his vehicle and on Bluetooth from the noise in the background—tires slushing through snow, wind whipping about the vehicle, engine rumbling, and the heater blowing on high.
“Hi, I’m Gabrielle Lowell, a veterinarian in Silver Town”—not a lie since she was a vet and in Silver Town currently—“and I’m checking on the situation with the momma cat and kittens you left in your room at the ski lodge when you checked out. Room 202? Did you leave them behind on purpose or accidentally forget them?”
She noticed the room had been cleaned out. No clothes in the closet. All the dresser drawers were open and empty, all but one that was still closed. The bed was unmade, and two damp bath towels were lying on the floor of the bathroom. It looked like he’d left the cats there on purpose, unless he’d forgotten to check the bathroom for anything he might have left behind. But she doubted anyone would forget a passel of cats in the room when he wasn’t supposed to have them there in the first place.
Since Mr. Jeffries didn’t answer her, she continued, “I need to know if the cat and her kittens had their vaccinations and wellness checks. How old is the momma cat? How old are the kittens? Mr. Jeffries? We’ll find good homes for them. We believe you lost one of your calico kittens earlier, and we have a good home for her already. But we need to know if you’re returning for them so we don’t find homes for them and have to give them back.”
He was human. She suspected if he’d been a wolf, the pack leaders would have taken him to task.
“All”—he choked up—“of their records are in a drawer in the chest of drawers. I’m sorry. My wife and I just adopted a little boy. We didn’t know it when we adopted him, but he’s deathly allergic to cats. We’ve been on a trip in an enclosed car for a couple of days, and his condition has been worsening. We had to take him to the emergency room in Green Valley. We couldn’t take the cats with us. Find good homes for them. Please. Ambrosia is the momma cat and she’s two years old. The kittens are eight weeks old and weaned. I had all their shots taken care of. I…I’m sorry. We didn’t have any choice. If it wasn’t for our son, we would never have given them up.”
“We’ll take good care of them and find them good homes. I hope your son recovers quickly. How did the one kitten get away from you?” she asked.
“I opened the door to the hall to bring in a bag, and they all took off running. The escaped kitten ran down the stairs while I was catching the other kittens and Ambrosia. After I had put them back in the cat carrier, I went looking for the lost kitten but couldn’t find her. We’d stopped late last night at the lodge, hoping to give our son some fresh air to breathe, but he’s just really sick. This morning, we made the difficult choice to leave them as we took him to the emergency room.”
“You should have told us,” Gabrielle said to Mr. Jeffries, her voice stern.
Landon was sitting on the floor next to Gabrielle and playing with one of the kittens with a cat toy he had found in the cat carrier. All the other kittens began chasing after it. Gabrielle thought Landon was cute. The momma cat went over to the window, jumped onto the windowsill, and sat there to watch passersby. Great. Now if anyone saw the cat in the window, they would think it was okay to have pets here.
Roxie opened the door to the room and she and Kayla came inside. Their eyes widened and they both beamed at the sight of the kittens and their momma as Roxie quickly shut the door to keep any of them from escaping.
“Ohmigod, they’re so adorable,” Kayla said. “Can we keep all of them?”
“I left a couple hundred dollars with the shot records to pay for extra cleaning of the room and any fees you might incur for caring for them initially. I also left their food, cat litter, and the cat carrier so you could transport them safely,” Mr. Jeffries said to Gabrielle. “What else can I do to rectify what I did?”
“Just don’t do it again. And like I said, I hope your son gets better quickly. We’ll take good care of the cat and her kittens,” Gabrielle said.
With the network the pack had and because of how much everyone in the Wolff family loved them, Gabrielle knew the kittens and momma cat would find homes for Christmas.
Then Gabrielle and Mr. Jeffries ended the call and she explained to Landon and his sisters what had happened. She went to the one drawer that was still shut in the dresser and found the money and shot records Mr. Jeffries said he’d left behind.
“He left $200 for incidentals and their shot and health records.” Gabrielle looked over the shot records, and it was as Mr. Jeffries said. The cats were all set.
At the window Kayla was petting the momma cat which was purring up a storm. “At least that means we get to keep Princess Buttercup. What about the rest of them?”
“We can send word to the pack about the rest needing adoption. A couple of pictures should do the trick. In the meantime, we’ll take them to our house until they find homes,” Landon said. “Several will love to have them, and we have enough to take care of as it is now. Not that we don’t love pets, but I mean with managing the lodge and restaurant.”
“True,” Roxie said, cuddling one of the kittens, looking as though she didn’t mean it.
She and Kayla gathered up the cat and kittens and put them in the carrier. Roxie took the cat carrier, Kayla grabbed the litter box, and Landon gathered up the money, vet records, cat food, and bagged cat litter.
“I’ll meet you down in the lobby once you’re dressed for the pool?” Landon asked Gabrielle.
“Yes. I’ll be down shortly.” She took off for her room while the others left with all the cats and their things. She was so glad they had resolved the business with Princess Buttercup and the Wolffs could keep her, and that the cats had all been taken care of, vet-wise.
