Stranded With The Snow Leopard

by Jade White

  She sat down on the futon and smiled as Keith busied himself in the kitchen. During one of their dates he brought over a bunch of new cookware, and threw out her old dented pots and pans.

  After a few minutes of watching the evening news, Kim got up to check on Keith in the kitchen.

  On the table there were two steaming bowls of home-made wonton soup. The delicate flour and water wrappers were filled with ground rabbit and venison, seasoned with a delicate mix of ground five spice powder.

  The broth was a clear fowl based broth. It tasted like a gamey chicken broth. Not quite turkey, not quite duck, she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Its rabbit. You had some frozen rabbit stock in the freezer. Figured I would make some of this. It’s light enough to not make you sick, but hearty enough to fill you up.”

  “Mmm, it’s delicious,” Kim said, digging on in, savoring the taste. “Thanks so much. I mean it.” Emotion filled her eyes as she thanked him between bites.

  “It’s nothing,” Keith said bashfully. “I mean, like, I am trying to impress you, but even if I wasn’t, I would be doing this.”

  Kim took a sip of water. “Really?” she asked. “That’s just...”

  Keith nodded. “Yeah, people have taken advantage of me a few times. I try not to let it happen, of course, but there are people in town who aren’t as nice as they seem. Sometimes the predatory nature really comes out in some people.”

  Kim nodded, feeling kind of sad for Keith. His kind, generous nature was what really made him as a person. She felt he didn’t want to possess her, but to share life with her. Tony had a possessive streak a mile long. She still didn’t have her mind completely made up yet, but she was definitely leaning towards Keith now. The thought of being with Tony didn’t really appeal to her much. What if her distracting him was what caused him to lapse this time? What would happen in the future? She promised she would give herself time to decide, and she had been. The thing was, Keith had been there emotionally for most of the shit. Tony had a habit of pulling away when things got hairy.

  They ate their soup in silence. Kim relished the combination of sweet and savory flavors as they played in her mouth. The heady scent of the rabbit broth that cradled the unconventional wontons made her head swim. She felt the throbbing of the returning headache begin between her temples and saw floating lights in front of her face. Nausea gripped her as she experienced a full blown migraine attack. It was her first ever migraine, but her mother had them often enough that she knew exactly what she was experiencing.

  Keith saw Kim grit her teeth in an attempt not to vomit. He rushed to her side and helped her up to the bathroom where she promptly rejected the delicious soup he had prepared for her. He held her hair up as she retched into the toilet, and rubbed her back soothingly with his free hand. “Do you need anything?” he asked.

  “Painkillers....pills...migraine,” she managed to gasp out between heaves.

  Keith helped her up after she was finished. As she cleaned herself up, he went to the living room to find the orange prescription bottle on the coffee table. He read the dosage and grabbed the recommended two pills. He brought them into the bathroom and handed them to Kim. She swallowed them with a gulp of water.

  “Thanks,” she said, wincing at the light. “I need to go lay down. Can you help me to my room? Pull the blinds as closed as you can. The light hurts my eyes.” There was a bright orange streetlight just outside her bedroom window. Usually she didn’t mind it being there, the brightness gave her a feeling of security. Smiley wouldn’t be able to sneak into her house without being seen due to the overly-bright light, but during a migraine, it proved to be a major pain.

  “Sure thing,” Keith replied as he went to pull the blinds closed. “Do you have any towels or anything? I can at least put a few over the windows to block out more of the light.”

  “In the bathroom closet,” she replied wearily as she sunk down on her bed. “Can you bring a bucket in, too? Just in case I have to puke again.” Kim wrapped herself up in her duvet, head and all, in abject misery. The splitting agony in her skull was almost too much for her. Tears streamed down her face as she counted down the minutes until the medication kicked in.

  Keith finished covering the windows as best as he could, and left the room, closing the door gently behind him. He silently walked to the living room, as to not disturb the suffering Kim.

  He sat down on the couch, grabbed the TV remote and adjusted the volume so it would be at the lowest, yet still audible, setting and turned his game console on. He grabbed the fully charged controller and began to play.

  After twenty minutes of playing, he was startled by a knock at the door. He peeked out the window and saw his cousin Tony standing there holding a case of beer, with Rusty by his side.

  Keith slowly opened the door. “What do you want? Kim’s in bed with a migraine...she can’t see anyone right now.”

  Tony nodded, and Rusty looked concerned. “Can we come in to hang out with you, at least?” Tony asked.

  Rusty nodded. “I would like to see her just for a moment, even if she’s sleeping. I might be able to at least help with the migraine.”

  Keith grunted and let the two men in. Rusty’s wizened face looked at him and smiled. “Don’t worry. It’ll work out just fine.”

  Tony plopped himself down on the futon. He reached in to the case of beer and grabbed a bottle. He cracked open the top and handed it to Keith. “Here, looks like you might need this soon.”

  Keith looked confused as he took the beer from his cousin. “What do you mean?”

  “Let Rusty do his thing and we’ll find out sooner or later,” Tony said while opening a second bottle for himself.

  While the two cousins were chatting and drinking beer on Kim’s couch, Rusty made his way to Kim’s bedroom. He looked on the bed and saw the bundled up form of the woman sleeping soundly.

  He walked up to the suffering woman and placed his hands over her head and chanted softly as to not wake her up. A warm flow of energy emerged from his hands and disappeared into Kim’s raven head. Hopefully, that would alleviate the migraine she was suffering from, and heal whatever damage she sustained from the concussion, he thought.

  Rusty then shifted silently into his mountain lion form. He placed his grizzled head on the mattress and sniffed around. He then padded to the bathroom, and sniffed around a little more. He opened his mouth a bit in an attempt to pick up more of the scent he was attempting to pin down.

  He padded out of the bedroom, leaving the woman to sleep off her migraine. He didn’t want to wake her just yet. In the hallway, he shifted back to his human form and went to join the boys in the living room for a beer.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kim rolled over in bed, noticing the sunlight peeking through the edges of the makeshift curtains Keith had put up the night before. She felt a pang of sadness waking up with Keith not next to her. She got up out of bed and felt a little unsteady.

  She put on her bathrobe and made her way out to the living room. She looked around and saw an empty case of beer next to the futon. She hoped Keith hadn’t been wrecked in her house. He wasn’t like that. Maybe Tony came over to see her and, finding her in bed with a migraine, he and Keith had a few beers. That’s probably what happened.

  She looked in the kitchen and found Keith. She wasn’t surprised at all. He was puttering around making her a mushroom omelette. “Hey, good morning! How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” Kim replied. “How did you know I loved mushroom omelettes?”

  “Eh, wild guess,” he said with a broad grin. “The toast and bacon are just about ready, too. Hope you can keep this down.”

  Little did Kim know, Rusty used his magic to help heal her head injury while she slept. He was head shaman after all, so he had a few tricks up his sleeve. He also gave Keith some herbs to use in her omelette. He didn’t bother asking what they were for. He just naturally assumed they were to help ward off another migraine attack, so he put the
m in.

  “Thanks, I’m famished. I really do think I can hold this down. My head isn’t hurting at all today.”

  Keith’s smile brightened. “That’s great. Here you go, eat up.” He placed the plate on the table.

  The earthy smell of mushrooms punctuated with the salty smell of bacon wafted into her nose. Kim’s mouth began to water at the thought of this delicious breakfast. Keith sat down across from her with his own loaded plate.

  “So, last night, Rusty and Tony came by to see how you were feeling. Obviously you were in bed, but they stayed around. We had a few beers, watched baseball on TV and shot the shit while you were out. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Nah. I’m okay with that. I figure I’m safer with all three of you here.”

  Keith laughed. “That’s true. They do care an awful lot about you, you know.” He looked at her with love in his eyes.

  Kim smiled shyly. They aren’t the only ones, she thought to herself.

  She took a sip of orange juice as Keith continued. “Anyway, Betty said you can go to her house tonight to help with the girls. She put it off to let you recover, but she can’t keep putting it off for much longer. Rusty wanted to talk to you about that last night, that’s why he came.”

  “Makes sense.” Kim took a bite out of the cheesy mushroom omelette. The texture melted in her mouth, and the combination of Swiss and Gruyere cheeses accented the mushrooms perfectly.

  All of a sudden, her phone began to ring. She picked it up and saw the hospital’s number on the call display.

  “Hello?” she greeted uncertainly as she answered the phone.

  “Hello, is this Kim Smith?” the lady on the other end asked.

  “Yes, this is Kim, how can I help you?”

  “My name is Doctor Shanahan; I’m the resident obstetrician at St. George hospital. You need to stop taking those narcotics for your head right away.”

  Kim’s eyes widened. “Why...do I need to stop taking them?”

  “You’re pregnant. It’s still new, you aren’t more than three weeks along, according to the levels in your blood work, but you definitely are pregnant. Congratulations. Hopefully, we can come up with a plan to help treat your head injury and keep you as comfortable as possible during your pregnancy, how about it?”

  Kim’s mouth opened and shut in silence, she was completely stunned by the news. Keith looked over at her from across the table, his earnest face creased with worry.

  “Umm, thanks, I guess?” Kim stammered

  “I do have a monthly clinic in Predator Springs. I hope to see you there? It’s next week.”

  “Sure. I’ll definitely be there,” she said in a low monotone voice.

  “I’ll get my secretary to write you in then. Have a good day!” the cheerful woman on the other end replied as she hung up.

  Kim put her phone down on the table with shaking hands. She reached up and placed her face in her palms and started to shake. Keith got up, walked to her, squatted down and tried to look her in the eye.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked as he placed his hand on her leg.

  “I’m... I’m... pregnant,” she stuttered. “I mean...I can’t believe it.”

  Keith’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “You’re... pregnant?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If she really was pregnant, this changed everything. The choice between Keith and Tony was already made for her if that was the case, since the father of the child was considered her mate for life. He didn’t want to tell her that just yet, though. He figured he would let Rusty tell her that bit of news. The fact that she was pregnant was almost too much for her to take in now.

  Kim nodded. “Yeah, the doctor said about three weeks along with the numbers they got on the blood test.”

  Keith let out a low whistle. “Well, you’ll need to tell Tony, too, since you slept with both him and me. Either one of us could be the dad.”

  Kim nodded sadly. “Yep, I’m not really looking forward to telling him, that’s for sure.”

  Keith nodded glumly. He hoped the baby was his. The sad thing is, they wouldn’t be able to find out until the baby was born. By then the autumn equinox would have come and gone, and both Tony and Keith would be cougars forever, and Kim would be left on her own to raise the baby.

  CHAPTER 10

  Kim sat at her kitchen table, looking at Keith. Her blue eyes filled with dread. She looked at her omelette and her appetite vanished.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said, looking at Keith. “Like, really. I didn’t expect to get pregnant so soon.”

  Keith frowned. He was nervous about what her pregnancy would mean. If Tony was the father, she’d have to mate with him. Of course, if Keith was the father...but there was no way of knowing until the baby was born.

  “You’ll have to tell Tony, as well,” he said, looking at her with concern in his eyes. “I don’t think he’ll take it very well. Some of the kids in this village are his, despite their moms being mated to someone else.”

  Kim didn’t know what to say to that, so she sat in silence, moving the once delicious omelette around her plate. Thoughts were racing through her head a mile a minute. How could she have been so stupid? She should have gone to the pharmacy when she had the chance and picked up her pills. All this drama with Smiley caused her to forget about them, and now it was too late.

  What if Smiley found out she was pregnant? What would he do then? He would probably murder her baby while she watched, then leave her to live with the loss. He really was that sadistic.

  Keith got up from his chair and walked over to Kim. He put his arm around her and gave her a hug. “Really, it’s going to be okay. I promise.” He tried to lie to himself. He fervently hoped that this baby was his.

  Kim mutely nodded as she stared blankly at her food. It was easy for him to say, it wasn’t his body that had to go through the pregnancy. It wasn’t his body that would blow up to gargantuan proportions, vomit profusely or have to go through unspeakable pain while forcing the baby from her womb. It wasn’t his blood pressure that would go up, or his blood sugar messing up. It was all hers. So yeah, she had a right to be a bit angry at the whole thing. She didn’t really want to become a mother, to be honest.

  She was hoping to be child-free, but it looked like fate had different ideas. This was probably the most devastating news for her to get, next to that of her parents’ murder. Even then, that wasn’t really news since she was right there when it had happened.

  Keith looked at the mute woman and left the kitchen. He knew there wouldn’t be anything to say. She didn’t seem to be too thrilled with the news, to be honest. Maybe she wasn’t ready for a kid? Maybe she was scared. He decided to leave Kim to her thoughts and go play some video games.

  He turned on his console and flopped down onto the sofa. He fell into the video game world with ease, since it was his preferred method of escape. He really didn’t want to think about the possible pregnancy right now. He did want to be a dad, and he really wanted to be Kim’s mate. He shoved that out of his mind as he concentrated on the game he was playing.

  While Keith played his game, Kim sat at the table staring out the window. Her food had gone cold. Thoughts swirled around her mind like smoke. Some lingered, some were fleeting, since she couldn’t make sense of the whirlwind of emotion that she was experiencing.

  She tried to run what she was going to tell Tony through her head, multiple times, and each time it came out wrong. She decided to go over to Betty’s house later, since she had to go over anyway, to help with the girl’s coming of age ceremony. She might as well ask her how to handle all of this. Who knows, maybe Betty will actually answer her questions without needing to be asked, during the ceremony.

  Kim got up from her chair, grabbed her plate and scraped it into the garbage. She felt awful wasting the food, but her appetite was shot. She silently moved to her bedroom and proceeded to get dressed. She peeked into the living room to see Keith completely engrossed in his video game. She decide
d she would leave from the back door as to not interrupt his game, and avoid any unpleasant questions he might ask.

  She sneaked out the back door and checked the garden mounds. She noticed more produce needed to be picked. She hoped Keith would do that for her, since she would be busy all that day with Betty. She’ll send him a text later, she thought to herself. That way he wouldn’t worry.

  The back gate creaked loudly as she opened it. She heard the loud booms and base music from inside her house, and felt confident that Keith didn’t hear her as she left. The sun was shining brightly in the clear blue sky; a few crows cawed out raucously as they chased a large raven from their territory.

  The smaller, louder black birds harassed their larger cousin mercilessly. They dive bombed and whirled around the larger bird in aerobatic precision, trying to cause the poor thing to plummet to the ground. The caws from the crows grew louder and more insistent as they wheeled around the raven. Three more of the smaller birds flew from the trees to keep harrying the bird as it tried to escape. It was like watching a bunch of school children bully a peer for being different. Kim felt a pang of sadness for the large raven.

  As she walked, the drama above her unfolded. The crows and raven were almost following her as she made her way slowly to Betty’s house. She needed time to gather her thoughts for the ceremony so she decided to take her time. All of a sudden the large raven plummeted to the ground as one of the smaller crows landed a lucky strike with its talons. The large bird crashed into a nearby bush, and rustled around, croaking pitifully for someone to help it.

  Kim jogged towards the bush where the raven fell to see if it was injured. She knew they could be dangerous birds when provoked. Their beaks were large and powerful, meant to rip tough carrion from carcasses, and to crush strong nuts. Ravens were scavengers and would eat anything they could find. They were also opportunistic predators if they found an unfortunate enough animal to grab.