A miracle of modern medicine, brought on by antihistamines and the desensitization shots he’d just begun at the allergist’s last week.

Painstakingly, inch by inch, he extracted himself from her warmth. Cosette, looking highly offended by his movement, jumped down and hit the wood floor with a soft thud.

Tessa didn’t move. Thank goodness. Because if she woke up, he’d never live this down.

He’d gotten himself away from her warmth, her scent, her lovely curves, just in time.

“I made coffee,” Juliet said as soon as his foot hit the bottom stair, pointing to the coffeemaker. She was wearing one of Tessa’s T-shirts, judging by the big Bonjour! across it, and a pair of running shorts. “Thanks for letting me stay last night. Tessa doesn’t think her old apartment is rented yet, so I’m going to go talk to her landlord right away.”

“No worries if you need to stay longer.” Please don’t stay longer, he thought. It was only spooning this time, but who knew what another night with Tessa in his bed would bring?

He’d just taken his antihistamine and was shuddering at that thought when the cat somehow managed to whiz by his feet and claim her freedom out the sliding door.

“Oh, sorry,” Juliet said. “I came in to get more coffee and I accidentally left the door open.” She followed Leo out into the backyard.

“Cosette! Come back here!” He had a busy day ahead, and he needed to find this cat now. Plus, he wasn’t going to be responsible for losing Tessa’s number one creature.

“You do know Cosette is a cat, not a dog, right?” Juliet asked from the edge of the patio, where she was sipping her coffee.

All he knew was that if this animal ran away, Tessa was going to kill him. “Cosy! Cosette! Cosetta! Come here, girl!” He bent over and patted his thighs. The cat looked at him from atop the gnome’s mushroom in the middle of the garden and gave him what he swore was an eff-u look before disappearing into the ground cover.

The desensitization therapy might be working, but he was a little nervous about touching the cat so soon. But what else could he do?

“Cosette is fine. But now that we’re out here, I have something to say.”

“Okaaay,” he said, wondering if Vivienne was this bossy, too. Because there was a giant hole in the fence he hadn’t gotten to fix yet, and if this cat bolted, Tessa would never forgive him.

And whatever Juliet was about to say was definitely going to affect whether or not he made those pancakes.

“Tessa’s always taken care of us,” Juliet said. “And she never asks us to take care of her. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have her back.”