Dropping down onto the bench next to him, Emily unpinned her stewardess cap, and started taking out her bobby pins one by one.
"This is why I hate Mondays," she sighed, shaking her champagne tresses free. "Imagine going to work one day, thinking it's going to be just a normal day on the job and everything's going to go as planned. And then suddenly everything goes horribly, and you can do nothing but cross your fingers and hope you come out ok. Can you even understand how that feels?"
"Of course not, miss," James muttered dryly. "Not I."
Emily passed him a narrowed side-glance as she collected her locks again and wrapped them up into a messy bun.
The realization finally dawning on her that out of all people, the Titanic officer was probably the only person in the world who could understand that feeling best.
"Oh, right," she took back her pity parade. "Sorry."
"Did you get the sack then?" James asked her, holding nothing back. "God knows you deserve it. You're much too high-and-mighty for any kind of people-work. I've still a mind to write your 'customer complaints' for the lousy service by which I was abused."
"What are you going to tell them, huh?" Millie mumbled back to him. "Return Service Requested to the RMS Titanic?"
They both sighed.
The lady, out of ill humor, and the officer, out of hopelessness.
And after taking a moment to consider how she never asked for this as much as he hadn't, James's tone softened into a murmur, "It's not you I'm angry with, really."
Millie glanced over at him again, her eyes catching the harmonica in his hand.
"Impressive," she remarked, changing the subject. "You've got this sailor act down in true Little Mermaid fashion. The harmonica's a nice touch."
"It's a wonder what you pick up when a storm is passing over you at sea, and you've nothing else to pass the time," James answered. "I shall never forget the storms. First time I got brayed over by one, I was going up with another apprentice, and about 10 other men to take in the main sail. Oilskin suit and heavy sea boots on, as well. The mast swaying till the end nearly touched the water. The sea crashed onto the decks like an avalanche, sweeping everything away and all off their feet. Until we crashed like a ton of bricks right into the scuppers with a white wave, and perhaps 5 or 6 men on top of ye. Not for the faint of heart, the sea is...And so, looking after this kittlin here was no trouble at all, I'd say."
Captain Wentworth's ears twitched, still perfectly happy to stay cuddled up at the officer's side for an eternity.
"He's gonna hate me for this," Emily said reluctantly. "First, I couldn't even get him to go with anyone else. Now he's all puddy in your hands."
"He's a particular devil, he is," James agreed. "Cats being intuitive as they are about their people, maybe he's picked up on something that's caused him alarm."
"That's what I was afraid of," Emily confessed. "He isn't really mine, I mean. He's my brother's cat."
And noting the look of worry on the Miss's face, James couldn't help but ask, "Is everything right with your brother?"
"He's missing," Emily said. "I woke up one morning, and he just wasn't there anymore...No goodbye. No explanation. Just vanished...I haven't seen or heard from him in months."
"Forgive me," James quickly apologized. "I didn't mean to push in."
"Anyway...it's late," Emily safely moved on from the troubling topic. "I should probably get home before traffic gets worse."
And once she held out the cat carrier to James, the officer gently coaxed the cat from his nap.
"In you go, you bugger," James encouraged a sleepy Captain Wentworth out of his coat, ushering the kittlin into his awaiting carriage. "Goodbye, old man."
And with the cat securely zipped inside, Millie flashed an awkward smile at James. Unsure of whether to walk off and leave him alone, or wait around a little longer to make sure he'd be ok.
"Be reight now, love," James assured her with a confident nod, so she wouldn't look at him in that guilty way anymore. "Things will turn out right for us both. They've got to. The rain can't come down on us forever."
"But what are you gonna do...about Titanic, I mean?"
"I can't say for sure," James admitted quietly. "I've a lot to sort out in my mind from here...But I know I will find my way. We sailors always do somehow."
"Well...good luck with everything."
"Same to you, miss."
And thinking that answer was probably enough to leave him behind, and still get to sleep ok at night without feeling guilty about it, Emily walked on.
Making it only half-way back to her car before she stopped again.
A battle raging in her head with a tempest of emotions eating away at her, as she thought about how clueless and vulnerable he really was out here in this shady neighborhood. What if he was robbed? Or stabbed? Or locked up in the same place she'd been in a year ago, because he couldn't remember who he really was?
Glancing back over her shoulder at the bus stop, Emily stood caught between "He's really not my problem" and "But can I really just leave him here?"
Her hardened resolute brow slowly melting with the heart she damn well knew she still had, as she watched Moody wrap his coat tighter around him and gaze into the rain, hunkering down for another long hard night at the mercy of the elements.
"Dammit," Millie sighed.
Turning around and marching her way back to the officer.
"How about a trade?" Millie offered him. "Seeing that we're both in a place of figuring things out, maybe we can help each other."
"How do you mean?"
"You need somewhere to think things through, and my cat needs somewhere to go while I'm at work," she laid out the terms of her proposed agreement with him. "And as your luck would have it, I have room and board. And as it would seem, no one gets cats the way you do."
"And in doing so," James gradually worked around to her meaning. "Are you asking me to be your cat-nanny?"
"Why, I suppose I bloody am," she winked at him. "For a little while, at least. Until I find him a permanent cat-sitter. Enough time to get your memories back about Titanic, I mean."
"I'll have to think on it," he said.
Emily furrowed in puzzlement.
After being the first one to extend the olive branch between them, sprinkled with all her blessing and kindness, what kind of answer was that for a person so down on his luck?
"I'm sorry?"
She swore she must've heard him wrong.
"I'll think on it, is what I said," James gave her the same answer.
Emily's bottom lip dropped slightly.
The impossibility of this man!
"Well, I don't see exactly what other choice you have," she informed him.
"Only any other alternative in the world, I imagine," James remarked. "Count 'em on both my 'ands, I could."
"Well, that's just great for you."
"It's not the cat, you see," James explained. "I'm just not so sure how I might get on with you being my employer, is all. Not after you nearly took me eyes out back there."
"Fine," Emily withdrew. "Freeze out here, for all I care."
"I was doin' that anyway."
"Suit yourself then."
And whipping back around, Emily marched yet again for her car parked on the other side of the museum.
Leaving James to glance up at the sky again, just as a rumble of thunder erupted through the indigo storm clouds above him.
It couldn't be so bad, could it?
Just a few days of shelter from this storm, looking out for the Miss's cat, and then he could be on his merry way.
Even if Ms. Amberflaw was as tart a mademoiselle as they come, it was the cat he'd be keeping company with.
So long as she was away working her shop most of her day, what were the chances that they'd even be troubled oft to bump into each other?
And at this point, what more did the officer have to lose anyway?
"Wait, miss, I've changed my mind," James called after her, hurrying down the sidewalk to catch up with Ms. Amberflaw.
Who, alas, seemed to only pick up her pace as he jogged behind her.
Blimey, a fast little rabbit, she was.
But if nowt else, the sailor was a gentleman of persistence.
"I'm just the man you need," he called out proudly to her. "Let me tell ye why no man like I, James Paul Moody, would make a proper cat-nanny indeed."