Spring Fling Kitty: The Hart Family (Have A Hart Book 3) Read online

  Spring Fling Kitty

  Have A Hart Series #3

  Rachelle Ayala

  Amiga Books

  Contents

  Copyright

  Have a Hart Romance Series

  Description

  Praise for Spring Fling Kitty

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Many Thanks

  Reading List

  Meet Rachelle

  Copyright © 2016 by Rachelle Ayala

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real events or real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All trademarks belong to their respective holders and are used without permission under trademark fair use.

  Contact Rachelle at:

  http://rachelleayala.me/author-bio/contact/

  Join her newsletter at:

  http://bit.ly/RachAyala

  Have a Hart Romance Series

  Christmas Lovebirds, Book #1

  Valentine Hound Dog, Book #2

  Spring Fling Kitty, Book #3

  Description

  Heartbreaker Connor Hart, one of the youngest fire chiefs in the country, is planning on marrying Dr. Elaine Woo, a woman who pretended to cheat on him with his best friend many years ago. She bought him a Dalmatian puppy, he gave her a ring—and the women of San Francisco are about to lose their most eligible bachelor.

  Artist and poet Nadine Woo is down on her luck. The cast-off half-sister of Dr. Elaine Woo, she doesn’t measure up, according to her strict and distant father. When Nadine and her mother are about to be evicted from their apartment, she gets an interesting offer from her sister. Seems she’s in need of a little help concerning her relationship with Fire Chief Connor Hart.

  As soon as Nadine meets Connor, she knows she’s in for a rough ride. Connor is the fireman who rescued her and her little gray kitten, and she’s never forgotten how safe she felt in his arms.

  When Nadine takes her sister’s place at a spring fling weekend with Connor, love ignites, and there’s no going back.

  Can a spunky little kitty show Connor and Nadine that doing the wrong thing is sometimes right, especially when it comes to love?

  Spring Fling Kitty is Book #3 of the Have A Hart Romance Series. It can be read standalone, although characters from the previous books appear here in supporting roles.

  Praise for Spring Fling Kitty

  “A beautifully exquisite and unapologetically inspirational plea to listen to your heart above all else.” - Amber McCallister

  “A story about how a kitten can create love and sister rivalry at the same time.” - Angelica Berglund

  “The best two people find love that is long overdue! Glad Connor and Nadine found happiness. A GREAT story.” - Christina Whelan

  “A small kitty can tie two Harts together.” - Kris Woltzen

  “Where there is smoke there is fire. True Love really does exist.” - Terri Merkel

  “To make it right you have to be wrong along the way.” - Yomari Rivera

  “Soul deep love is not always found, but here you'll feel the love through the words on the page as the story comes to life.” – Corissa Palfrey

  “Nothing has a chance when true love prevails.” – Jessica Cassidy

  Chapter One

  Perpetual college student, Nadine Woo, loved springtime, especially springtime in San Francisco with its riotous weather clashes—rays of sunshine, cherry blossoms, and gentle breezes sparring with blustery rain, gale force winds, and thick hair-frizzing fog.

  Spring won every year, of course, but winter’s damp grip never loosened entirely, especially in the foggy hills and crags of Golden Gate Park, her favorite spot on earth.

  Nadine was a painter and a poet, or according to her father, a dreamer, which was why at twenty-four and a half, she was still without a bachelor’s degree, living with her mother, and struggling up the crooked branches of one of the oldest remaining California coastal oak trees in San Francisco.

  Her scampering kitty, Greyheart, a stray she’d rescued only a week before, was bravely climbing the spidery tree whose branches jutted and twisted in different angles like a gnarly three-dimensional maze.

  So much fun for a tiny kitty mewing his way up the tree. Not so much for a gangly and slightly klutzy young woman trying to navigate her way through the tangle of contorted branches as a noisy puppy yipped and barked below.

  “Greyheart, darling,” Nadine called. “Don’t go up too high.”

  Too late. The cat skittered after a squirrel to the upper branches, too thin to bear Nadine’s weight, where he was lost in a thicket of glossy dark-green leaves.

  “Greyheart! I can barely see you.” Nadine shoved aside branches laden with spiny-toothed leaves.

  “Mew, mew, mew.” Greyheart’s high-pitched squeaks changed into cries of panic as he hung onto the fluttery twigs in the canopy. His front legs clutched one branch, his back legs were crossed on another one, and the wind blew them in opposite directions.

  Nadine flattened herself against a section of trunk and reached for the kitty, but the swaying branches kept him from her grasp.

  The squirrel teased the kitten, chittering and scolding above him, before scurrying down the trunk head first. The brat!

  Greyheart forgot his predicament, lunged after it, and lost his footing. His paws and claws flailed for a hold without finding any.

  “Grey!” Nadine screamed as the kitty fell, a streak of gray fur tumbling toward the ground below.

  “Got him.” A man materialized from nowhere and caught the fluff ball in his large hands.

  Nadine’s heart jumped to her throat, but settled for plain old throbbing when she spied Greyheart peering up at her, safe and sound, while a Dalmatian puppy leaped and pranced around the man’s legs.

  “Is he okay?” She had an awesome view of the man’s broad shoulders and the top of his head. He and his deep, heroic voice, along with a cleft chin and rugged face screamed superhero.

  “He’s doing just fine,” the man said with a chuckle. “Do you need any help getting down from the tree?”

  Oh, yeah. A real live hero type. Nadine blinked through the foliage, not quite believing he wore no cape.

&
nbsp; “I can manage,” she said. Except she hadn’t realized how high up she was, and looking down at the ground was making her dizzy.

  “It’s easier climbing up than coming down,” the man drawled in that delicious deep honeyed voice of his. “By the way, my name’s Connor. I’d say you’re three to four stories up.”

  “That high?” Nadine hugged the branch she was on tightly.

  “Yep, and that branch you’re on is too thin to support your weight for long,” Connor taunted.

  “I’m not overweight.” Nadine gingerly extended her foot to the crotch of two branches.

  “I didn’t say you were, but if the wind were to gust …”

  “Stop it.” Nadine wished she could plug her ears, but she needed both hands to clutch the tree.

  She shifted her weight to her lower foot and tried to extract her other foot which wedged in between two criss-crossing branches. Wearing cowgirl boots wasn’t exactly conducive to tree climbing.

  A twig snapped and she slid about a foot but managed to hook her arm around the branch she was on. Looking down, her stomach lurched. The next foothold was way below. Taking a giant step up was definitely not the same as finding the same step on the way down.

  “I think you need help,” Connor said.

  By then, a crowd of school children on a field trip had gathered below, pointing and chattering.

  “I said I’m fine,” Nadine insisted. She’d just have to find another way down. Maybe if she reached to where the branches crossed, she could select a different route.

  A gust of wind made the tree creak, chilling Nadine through her thin tank top and skinny jeans. Twigs and sticks scratched her bare arms, raising welts, as she stretched toward the alternate branch.

  “I’m coming up after you,” Connor said. He handed her kitty and his dog’s leash to one of the onlookers and rolled up his sleeves.

  “No, don’t,” Nadine shouted. “There’s no way this tree can hold your weight.”

  “It’s an oak tree, thick and sturdy. This sucker’s been here since the 1906 earthquake.” Connor hefted his large body up onto one of the low hanging branches.

  There was still a long distance between them, and Nadine didn’t see how he was going to reach her.

  “Move your right leg to the left,” Connor said. “There’s a foothold.”

  “I can’t reach it.” Nadine tapped her foot, trying to feel something solid.

  “You have to stop hugging the branch you’re on,” Connor yelled over the sounds of a siren.

  Don’t tell me he called the police, Nadine muttered to herself.

  She closed her eyes and reached with her foot, letting her body arch away from the branch for a moment before landing on something solid.

  Sweat trickled down her face, and she let out a breath of relief. She put her weight on the new foothold, testing it, and loosened her other foot to find another hold.

  A strong wind gust shuddered through the tree and Nadine lost her balance. She grabbed wildly at the branches and bounced off one before slipping into a crotch where three branches jutted different directions.

  Great. She was wedged in the valley of the crotch at a horrible angle. She couldn’t free her knee which was stuck in the bend between the crooked branches, and her weight was off-balance so that she was hanging at a precarious forty-five degree angle to the ground.

  Down below, a bright red San Francisco ladder truck pulled up the paved trail. Connor jumped to the ground. He directed the children to stand back and cleared the area as the truck maneuvered itself into position.

  All the noise attracted a larger crowd of people who turned their phone cameras toward Nadine. Behind them was a news van with a satellite hookup.

  Sheesh, this was going to be embarrassing. Yet another example of No-Good Nadine and the trouble she’d gotten into. Her father was sure to lecture her, and her half-brother and half-sister would have a field day while her mother would hang her head in shame and scold her for being an oddball.

  The ladder extended upward from the firetruck. Nadine could only hold on and wait. Sure enough, a man climbed the ladder—actually, it was Connor.

  Why was he coming up while the uniformed firemen stood to the side watching him?

  His smirk reached her before his hand did, and he chuckled. “You’re quite a sight, young lady. I’m Connor Hart, Fire Chief.”

  “F-fire ch-chief?” Nadine stuttered. The man in front of her was much too young. She pictured fire chiefs as grizzled older men with salt and pepper hair and leathery skin. This man had short cropped brown hair, movie star looks, and was as brawny as a lumberjack. His blue eyes churned like the depths of a stormy lake, and his face was smooth and unlined, with a straight nose and a strong jaw which made his grin both annoying and heart-melting at the same time.

  “At your service,” Connor said. He reached out and she took his hand. “Put your arms around my neck and I’ll get you out of that tree.”

  As she hung onto him, he grabbed her around the waist and plucked her from the tree. His muscled shoulders were hard and warm, and the woodsy scent of the tree mixed with the sensual tang of his male musk, giving her a heady case of the swoons. If she wasn’t already dizzy from being three stories up, she was now positively lightheaded at being pressed against this man, who was tall enough for her to look up to. Not an easy feat to find with her six foot height.

  A cheer sounded from the crowd below as she clung onto Connor’s strong shoulders and looked into his eyes. They were in the perfect position for a kiss.

  Except Connor turned his face, and, all too soon, he set her feet on the ladder. With one hand, he guided her as they both climbed down.

  Wow. Despite the embarrassment, this was a red letter day. She’d never been rescued by anyone before, and now she would get to commemorate this event with either a poem or a painting. She had a real life hero in Connor Hart.

  Once she was on solid ground, she looked for her cat. The little boy who was holding Greyheart brought him to her side. The crowd surged around her, and a paramedic asked her if she had hit her head.

  By the time she finished answering his questions, the ladder truck had departed, along with Fire Chief Connor Hart.

  Nadine hadn’t gotten a chance to thank him and give him the opportunity to ask for her number. Oh well, easy come, easy go. A man like that belonged to another woman, no doubt about it. It was only a chance encounter—the exact type fate teased her with—dangling something so delectable only to remove it.

  Rubbing her fingers through her kitty’s fur, she headed back to the apartment she shared with her mother just south of Golden Gate Park.

  For a brief moment, she’d thought Connor was flirting with her, but no, he was only doing his job, rescuing damsels in distress, usually from burning buildings. It shouldn’t matter that she hadn’t introduced herself, or that she felt as if her prom date had ditched her, or even that her heart was a deflated birthday balloon tangled in a tree.

  She was a poet and an artist. She felt things more intensely than normal people. She wore her emotions on her sleeve. She was, as her mother explained to relatives, sensitive.

  Was it wishful thinking or intuition that was telling her that she and Connor would meet again? Her field of vision darkened and thunder rumbled in her inner ear. It would be a rocky ride, not a bed of roses. She should cut fate off while she was still ahead.

  Chapter Two

  Connor Hart dropped the woman he’d rescued at the base of the firetruck and avoided the questioning glances of his men. He was a stickler for safety rules, and he should have let one of them go up for her since they were dressed and on duty. But this wasn’t a fire, and he was the one who’d spotted her first.

  Correction, his dog, Cinder, who was busily getting petted by all the children and passers-by, had been the one who’d sounded the alert after she spotted the kitty scampering up the tree. She was only a puppy, but she already had the instincts of a true firehouse dog. Not to mention she was fa
st on her feet and alert, but oh, so sweet and lovable.

  “Chief Hart, a statement.” A news reporter shoved a mic in front of his face. “Who was that woman and why was she on top of the tree? Do you think she was protesting something?”

  “Not that I know of,” Connor said, waving them off. “If you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to.”

  “Why did you go up yourself?” the reporter persisted. “Weren’t you off duty?”

  “I’d already established a rapport with her.” Connor picked up his puppy and held her in front of him. She obligingly licked the microphone, fogging it with doggy breath.

  “So, she was protesting. What was the cause? Environmental or political?”

  Connor wanted to blow off the media, turn his back and walk away, but as fire chief, he had to appear congenial.

  “You know? I never got to ask her.” He ran his hand behind his neck and gave a self-deprecating grin. “She was probably protesting me and my dog here who chased her and her cat up the tree.”

  While everyone laughed, Connor slid through the crowd. He glanced down both directions of the trail, but the pretty lady and her gray kitten had disappeared.

  A shade of disappointment colored his vision, but he shook it off. He was engaged to his high school sweetheart, well, sweet was an euphemism when it came to Dr. Elaine Woo, but nevertheless, he was in no position to find out more about the tree hugger—all arms and legs, and long dark hair, with eyes of whiskey and a voice like silk—low and smoothly mellow—relaxed like a lazy river.

  Connor shook his head and quickened his pace, heading for the firehouse. He’d no business thinking about her, or the way she’d felt in his arms. It was a simple rescue, and if he’d really been a hero, he would have carried her all the way down the ladder.

  He should have, but then, her body, all limber and long, melty like a soft wax candle and her scent of honeysuckle and lemons would have made her even harder to forget. Especially since her tall, lean frame fit so perfectly beside his six-foot-five height. How wonderful it would be to kiss a woman in the same altitude without having to hunch his back and bend down past his armpit.