The Inn, the Black Cat, and Two Halves of the Same Heart

By Kari Kilgore

When the Cat Knows the Heart

Lloyd Fletcher loves the holidays at his grandparents' house. Full of comforting joy and cheer.
Until an unpleasant surprise changes things for the worst.
Suzie Bivens gets a great job at the new inn in town. A fun chance to earn money and start her own life.
Her grumpy new co-worker threatens to spoil everything.
But Lafayette the cat knows when all the pieces fit, as cats often do.
Will Lloyd and Suzie heed the real expert in matters of the heart?

 

Also available in the collection A Kaleidoscope of Cat Tales: Five Stories of Cats and People Who Love Them

 

An excerpt from The Inn, the Black Cat, and Two Halves of the Same Heart

Sometimes a Change in Perspective Makes All the Difference

"I'm here to help you, but I'm terribly late. Suzie Bivens. I'm sorry I didn't call. By the time I thought about it, I figured it would be faster to just change the tire than to run back inside to the phone. You must be related to the owners? They hired me to take care of the bookkeeping in the new year. I'm just supposed to help out with the open house today."

Suzie took a deep breath, realizing she'd blurted out way more nervous chatter than she'd meant to.
Lloyd blinked, then shook her hand with a warm, strong grip. He didn't look much taller than her five-foot-two, and his roundish face looked like it could be pleasant.

Friendly. Handsome, even.

If he ever actually smiled.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiral Publishing, Ltd
• Release date: Dec 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201982027

Kari Kilgore

Kari Kilgore started her first published novel Until Death in Transylvania, Romania, and finished it in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where Stephen King got the idea for The Shining. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction. Kari’s first published novel Until Death was included on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel in 2016. It was also a finalist for the Golden Stake Award at the Vampire Arts Festival in 2018. Recent professional short story sales include three to Fiction River anthology magazine, with the first due out in the September issue. Kari also has two stories in a holiday-themed anthology project with Kristine Kathryn Rusch due out over the holidays in 2019. Kari writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, and contemporary fiction, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods with her husband Jason Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about. Kari’s novels, novellas, and short stories are available at www.spiralpublishing.net, which also publishes books by Frank Kilgore and Jason Adams. For more information about Kari, upcoming publications, her travels and adventures, and random cool things that catch her attention, visit www.karikilgore.com.

Book preview

The Inn, the Black Cat, and Two Halves of the Same Heart

For Lafayette

---

Our delightfully sweet black cat

with entirely too much tail

THE INN, THE BLACK CAT, AND TWO HALVES OF THE SAME HEART

KARI KILGORE

SPIRAL PUBLISHING, LTD.

CHAPTER 1

Lloyd Fletcher sat, chin in hand, glaring at the most awful holiday stationery ever devised by a human and delivered by the print shop across town.

Twisting green holly wrapped up with red ribbon all along the top and the left side. A Christmas tree with little dots of silver foil tinsel in the upper left-hand corner, a pile of presents underneath. A black cat with big golden eyes and a much-too-long tail sitting by the presents. An annoyingly jolly Santa beside the cat, hands beside his plump red cheeks so he could shout out the headlines spelled out in swoopy gold leaf.

Merry Christmas and Happy 1988!

From Everyone at the Hidden Springs Inn!

Gag.

It wasn’t so much the design, really. Lloyd thought the tree and the presents and even the shouting Santa-man were cute. Kinda merry, if he were capable of merry this year. The cat was perfect, of course. And the thought of 1988 filled him with a gut-whirling storm of excitement, fear, and anticipation. He’d be hitting the world as a freshly minted college graduate in the spring.

No, what had Lloyd about a thousand miles away from any trace of holiday cheer was that whole bit about the Hidden Springs Inn. Where he sat right now in Hidden Springs, Virginia, sulking at the registration desk.

In what had been, up until a few months ago (and still should be, dammit), the sitting room at his grandparents’ beloved old sprawling house.

What they were calling the registration desk was actually Lloyd’s