A Date on Cloud Nine by Jenna McKnight

as he’d figured she would. Good thing, because he had Mooch set up in the back, curled up in a nest of blanket, his tail wrapped tightly around him. The cat wasn’t in a good mood. One long, low, mournful yowl from him had Lilly whipping around to see what it came from. Jake swiped her checkbook out of her purse and tucked it in the crack beside the seat before she glanced from the cat to him.
    “One of your regulars?”
    “He lives here. Mooch, Lilly. Lilly, Mooch.”
    Mooch was a huge mixed-breed feline who looked as if he’d been tumbled in a dryer with several shades of earth-tone paints, then plugged into an electrical outlet. And his attitude was a prickly Yeah, what of it?
    “He lives in the car?”
    “Yep. I came out one morning, there he was, sitting right where you are. Refused to get out. I tried to pick him up and put him out, but let me tell you, he has all his claws and knows how to use them. So beware. Tomorrow, he’ll probably want his spot back.”
    “Day and night?”
    “Well, he’s started coming into the house with me in the evenings. And he gets out to do his business. Boy, does he hate the snow.”
    “He wasn’t here yesterday.”
    “He was at the v-e-t getting f-i-x-e-d.”
    She snickered. “You’re spelling ?”
    “Hey, animals understand more than you know.”
    “You don’t believe in heaven, but you think he knows he was fixed?”
    Mooch hissed, showing off a full set of pointy teeth.
    Jake started the car. “Try not to rile him too much. I’m supposed to keep him from jumping around for the first twenty-four hours.”
    He thought Lilly looked at him a little differently after that, but she kept her thoughts to herself. They could have been anything from What a nice guy to take in a big, ugly stray to What kind of demented nut lets a cat ride around all day in his taxi?
    Within half an hour, they were headed into the city, all three of them munching on their respective drive-thru sandwiches. Jake was having a damned hard time getting rid of the image of her in the recliner, on top—yeah, definitely on top—wearing a sheer black teddy and tousled hair.
    “You sure that’s okay?” He indicated her sandwich with a tip of his head.
    It was a dumb question, especially since she’d hummed over the first bites as if they were a five-star dinner. But if she talked to him, he’d have to focus on her, here and now, and see that she’d put a nice, thick winter coat on over her snug blouse.
    “Mm,” she said. “It’s delicious.”
    When her cell phone rang, she flipped it open with a smooth skill that could only come from lots of practice. Why hadn’t Brady asked him for a decent phone for Lilly? That standard retail model was okay for everyone who didn’t know better, but a piece of shit for someone like her. He’d fix that tomorrow.
    In the meantime, he was good at tuning people out. You had to be, sometimes, when you drove a taxi. Some people ran on at the mouth and said absolutely nothing of interest, or gabbed about personal stuff he really didn’t want to hear. Fights with boyfriends, girlfriends, wives, husbands, bosses, employees. Sex problems with all the above. Money woes. Nothing he could fix, so he took Uncle Paul’s advice and didn’t try.
    He picked up on Lilly talking to someone about selling her house— Oh, wait’ll Brady’s mother hears about this . He told her so when she hung up.
    “That house has been in the family for years,” he warned, surprising himself with a hint of censure in his voice. “I know, because my dad did the stonework on it.”
    “Is that why you’re being proprietary?”
    He swallowed his last bite. “I’m not.”
    “But you don’t want me to sell it.”
    “I’m just explaining that Brady’s dad had it built special. Same as having my grandfather do the stonework onhis parents’ house. I’m just saying they won’t want to let it go to strangers.”
    “Is that how you and Brady met? Family friends?”
    “I wouldn’t