Elaine Faber

Thumper’s the name. We just got to Grandmother’s Texas horse ranch and I met this babe…a cream tabby vixen with eyes the color of mustard and stripes the color of marigolds. Yowza! It was love at first sight.

Noe-Noe and I were hanging together out by the river and overheard Grandmother’s lawyer and the stable master plotting murder. Seems the lawyer was upset that she plans to change her beneficiary from the Children’s program he sponsors to either my person, Kimberlee, or her cousin, Dorian. Worse yet, we heard him tell the stable master, he intends to frame one of them for the murder!

Well, let me tell you, it was enough to twitch the whiskers off a striped skunk! Noe-Noe and I vowed to keep the old gal safe, even though Grandmother’s reason for bringing the family to Texas isn’t the sweet family reunion she claimed it would be. She had her own ulterior motive and if her plot succeeds, Kimberlee will be devastated. Well, in spite of her wicked agenda, we’ll protect the old biddy from the lawyer. She is family after all, and isn’t it a cat’s duty to protect his family?

This vacation was supposed to be a fun family reunion, but it’s turned into a series of cat-astrophies that shouldn’t happen to a dog. Speaking of a dog, Dorian brought her dog to Texas too, and it’s a good thing she did. He was walking with Kimberlee out on the desert when she almost stepped on a rattlesnake. Yikes! Good thing I wasn’t with her. I’d rather face a killer any day of the week. A rattlesnake? ...not so much.

With the aid of my ancestor’s memories, I could clue you into some of the mysteries around here. If you read Black Cat’s Legacy, you already know that with my ancestors’ memories, I helped Kimberlee solve some of the Fern Lake mysteries. Same thing here in Texas. There’s the stable master, for instance. Kimberlee suspects he might have been involved with her father's murder. And what about Grandmother’s sinister plot regarding Kimberlee’s little girl? Things are going from bad to worse around here and there is only so much a cat can do to ‘fix things.’

can’t wait to go home to Fern Lake. Only thing, when we leave, I’ll have to say good-by to Noe-Noe. Sigh. Why do we lose the things we love and things we don’t love, hang around like warts on end of your tail? It is a mystery, isn’t it?

Black Cat and the Lethal Lawyer will publish about November 1, 2014. Signed paperback copies are available from me for $13.00 (free postage).

In this story, Thumper and his family visit Kimberlee’s grandmother’s Texas horse ranch. Grandmother has promised to choose a beneficiary to inherit her estate. But things aren’t always as they seem.

Grandmother’s attorney is embezzling Grandmother’s money through a false Children’s Society. Someone’s true identity is called into question and he may be involved with a cold case murder. Could things get any worse? Indeed they can. Thumper uncovers a murder plot and most face a killer to save Grandmother. She is family, after all, even though he knows the unscrupulous reason she brought the family to Texas…

The only good thing about wretched Texas vacation is meeting the love of his life, Noe-Noe. (Below is an edited passage from the day they met.)

A delightful scent wafted across the room, teasing his nostrils and making the hair on the back of his neck stand erect. The scent tasted familiar and yet…evocative and foreign.

Oh, moment of discovery, sweet love’s fantasy revealed. He poked his head from beneath the sofa and lifted his nose, drew in the bouquet, rolled it around his tongue and teeth, seeking to identify the tantalizing bouquet. Aha. The flavor of a feminine flower, not a figment of his furtive fantasy.

She drew him as if by magic−teasing, taunting, beguiling, until his senses reeled. He followed the fragrance into the library, his gaze traveling up the bookcases. Their eyes met as the fascinating creature peered down from the top of the bookshelf, her front toes curled beneath her breast. The sun streaming through the window shimmered off her silken ears. Her fur, like rows of buttercups set in a field of marigolds, shot through a summer sunset. Her eyes, midnight slits peeking through golden moons. Her sensuous tail coiled around her nose, rising and falling in a hypnotizing rhythm, matched the thud of his heart.

Electricity crackled. She was not a gossamer dream, but a lissome feline goddess. She stared down from atop the shelf −a living, breathing, challenge to his masterful art of woomanship.
His interest in this golden-haired vixen was both perplexing and titillating.
He’d had his share of lady friends, though he was not obsessed with romance. He fancied himself a diplomatic lover, not given to one-night stands, but more discerning in his treatment of female companions. But, this enticing creature was something a cat could sink his teeth into. This lady begged a more committed long-term relationship.

Now, to put his best foot forward…but which foot? All four of his nimble black legs ended in elegant, snowy white feet with multiple toes. He stretched, raised his rear to display his muscular posterior and tight gluts. He then twisted into a three-point pretzel-like position and licked his inner thighs. These contortions were calculated to demonstrate his strongest attributes and yet reveal a willingness to concede control, a maneuver that had never failed to impress a lady cat yet.

“Howdy, stranger. New in town?” The sound of her voice, like the thrum of a hummingbird’s wings.

He stared into her enchanting face−the angle of her teasing whiskers−the slant of taunting ears−her tantalizing eyes, tinged ever so slightly with green, glittered in the sunlight. Her tiny pointed teeth−perfection.She twitched her tail.

Okay, you’re up, Thumper. Remember, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. “Thumper’s the name. Brought the family to visit the grandmother. Care to show me around?” He licked his bib and stared out the window. “Not that it matters one way or the other if you do or don’t, you understand. Just sayin.’” Please say yes, oh please, please, say yes…

“Thumper? What kind of name is that? Sounds like a rabbit.”

His heart crumpled. There it was again, that silly name. Thumper−like the bunny. How many times had he wished they had named him Butch or Cruncher. But no−he had to go through life as−Thumper. His dream of a romantic fling with this straw-colored vixen had as much chance as a balloon at a porcupine’s birthday party. He sighed.
Might as well leave before things get ugly. He turned and shuffled to the door.

“Wait.”

He stopped. His ears perked, whiskers taunt, and glanced back. “Yes?”

She stood and rearranged her sumptuous body. No question. All her curves were in the right places. “Don’t go yet, Thumper. I like rabbits...”