Chapter 10 - CONCLUSION

Jeff and Rainbow Bonds–along with Brian and the rest of his bounty crew–had been featured on a major crime show for their 1,000th bounty capture the previous week. All had long since healed from the Trey Morton fiasco several weeks before and it had been long forgotten.

Even after tonight's show was over and then after a brief speaking engagement in the morning for Brian, it would be back to business as usual capturing the bad guys.

When they came to the office the day following their return home, they had gotten the surprise of their lives. Surety was there, but he wasn't alone.

Along with a multicolored cat had been six kittens, four of them as black as Surety, the other two marked like the mother cat.

"Oh Jesus," Brian groaned. "Surety, buddy, what did you do?"

Both adult cats looked at him as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Paul, I thought you took Surety to the vet to be neutered awhile back," Jeff said.

"I was going to," Paul replied. "But I just didn't have the heart to go through with it."

"Not exactly the best time to be a softy, Paul."

"Fine, see how you like getting stuffed in a carrier and then having some dude cut your balls off."

"Surety," Britty looked down at him. "You bad kitty."

"Nah, Britt," Brian shook his head. "They were just following what came naturally."

"Well now we go from one cat to eight," Anne pointed out. "Thing is, the kittens will be too young to be separated from Mama here for awhile. Once they are old enough, they're going to have to go to other homes. Now what we do with Mama then is another matter."

"I don't know," Brian grinned. "I think Surety and Mama cat rather like each other. I think I'd like to keep her around."

"Yeah they like each other all right," Britty said. "There's six more fur balls to prove that."

"And there won't be any more after this," Brian said firmly. "She and Surety will both be getting fixed and I'll see to that personally. Now to give Mama a name."

"While we're thinking on that, how about we work on capture one thousand and one?" Jeff suggested.

Brian nodded. "Works for me. What do we have?"

"Anthony Evans. Guy has a long list of auto theft priors and a couple of failures to appear."

"That's it!" Anne spoke up. "That could work for Mama cat's name."

Brian looked at her. "Huh?"

"Forfeiture," Anne smiled.

"Forfeiture and Surety," Paul nodded. "Sounds like a happy couple to me."

"Yeah, and as usual, look who's caring for the babies while the other sleeps in the window," Britty said, gesturing toward where the kittens nursed on Forfeiture while Surety slept on his usual spot on the windowsill. "Typical male."

"Hey, we resent that," Paul replied, "besides, boy cats can't nurse."

"Besides, Surety's probably tired from capturing his new family and bringing them to a safe place," Brian added. "Just like we need to go out and get our next capture right now. Everyone ready?"

"Anytime you are, boss," Jeff nodded.

Just another day at the office of Rainbow Bonds and for Brian the Bounty Hunter.