Accidentally Catty

by Dakota Cassidy

  The walls of the corridor were lined with colorful pictures of the cats, elephants, a rhino, and even a camel in their performance costumes. Each was labeled with a name and the date they’d been brought to the park. Larry, Curly, Mo, Abbott, Costello, Alfalfa, Laurel, Hardy, Martin, Lewis . . . “Someone liked slapstick comedy,” she remarked.

  Then one picture in particular stopped her cold.

  There was a framed photo of Spanky, sitting by a beach ball, a pink, fluted collar around his neck. In cougar form, he almost stole her breath away in the same fashion he did when he was in human form.

  Beck let his chin rest on her shoulder, making a wild pattern of goose bumps scurry along her arms. “Me, I gather?”

  “Definitely you. That’s what you looked like before you shifted.”

  “I can see why you found me so irresistible. Though, I’m not sure I’m fond of the pink,” was his dry remark so close to her ear, her nipples beaded when his hot, minty breath skittered over her skin.

  She shooed him from her shoulder before she threw him to the ground and insisted he fix her estrus by way of wonk. “I think it makes you look approachable.”

  “So I was one of the animals who performed then?”

  “You know, that’s what’s strange about all of this. Usually, when Mr. Magoo gets a new exotic, he slaps more announcements up all over town than Craigslist has. I don’t get why he didn’t do the same with you.”

  “Maybe I was untrainable—one of those diva performers who has to have only yellow M&M’S and Evian in a stemmed glass that’s been chilled in the freezer for exactly two hours waiting for me backstage.”

  Katie fidgeted with the ends of her ponytail in thought. “Maybe. Or maybe that’s not what you were here for at all.”

  “Maybe we’d better get looking so we can find out why I was here. Time is of the essence,” he commented, pointing to her wristwatch.

  A persistent vibration grew in her head when they stopped in front of a sanctuary, leading to glass enclosures filled with cats of prey. A cougar-topia of slumped, sleeping exotics all wearing identical collars to Spanky’s, though none of them looked terribly undernourished to her physician’s eye.

  She rubbed her fingers over her forehead to assuage the pounding in her head.

  Beck knocked shoulders with her as they stared into one particular glass window meant for the staff’s viewing. “Aren’t cougars nocturnal?”

  “Asked the cougar of the cougar.”

  “Now who’s not being serious here?” he accused.

  “You’re right. Sorry. From the little I know about them, not necessarily. They hunt from dusk till dawn, but are known to nap on their journeys. They like thickly wooded areas to hide in while they hunt, but I imagine, given their circumstances here”—she couldn’t fight the disgust in her voice—even if the place was clean as a whistle—“it seems appropriate they’d adjust and sleep at night because there’s nothing to hunt and nowhere to roam. Which makes my stomach turn, in case you were wondering.”

  His look of sympathy warmed her insides—whether she liked it or not. “Defender of animals without a voice, are you?”

  She’d been called worse. Her heart melted when she gazed upon the fierce beauty of so much restricted mammal. “I love animals. I always have. I like them better than most people, which is why I became a veterinarian to begin with. I was always the kid who brought home the stray, stopped by the side of the road when I saw one injured, wanted to save them all. My heart aches for the abused and neglected. I take in as many as I can because I can.”

  “You’re a good person,” Beck said, his tone held admiration she heard but refused to wallow in. She didn’t deserve his respect.

  “But these animals”—she tapped the glass with a finger—“exotics who should be free to roam and let Mother Nature do with them what she will, are the ones I feel most sorry for. They’re not meant to be gawked at through glass enclosures or paying for someone’s fancy BMW by filling bleachers full of people who want to see some fool stick his head in a tiger’s mouth. And while I realize some are in captivity to prevent extinction, or they can’t survive in the wild, I don’t agree with putting them on display, and Mr. Magoo knows it. That’s why there’s that restraining order.” Her speech ended on a growl of pent-up frustration.

  Beck brushed some stray strands of hair from her face with the tip of his finger in a gesture of familiarity she didn’t attempt to shoo away for the comfort it brought. “Easy there, killer. Tell me about the restraining order.”

  She shrugged, the crinkle of her jacket harsh to her sensitive ears and her pounding temple. “It’s not that big of a deal. I didn’t break in here like Ingrid and Kaih did to help you. I came in as a paying customer. I did make my objections about what appeared to be some shoddy care very clear. Looking around now, I feel a little stupid. I only saw the one tiger, and he didn’t look well to the naked eye. So I objected. Okay, so maybe I jumped the gun because I’m an animal rights activist, and maybe I was a little loud when I did it, but I offered free vet services as a way to ensure they were getting at least the bare minimum. I don’t know a great deal about exotics, but I can handle simple things. I mean, I handled you, right?”

  “You drugged me and put me in a cage with no clothes on.”

  “Exactly. Handled, no?” She chuckled, her grin genuine.

  “I concede. So this Mr. Magoo turned you down?”

  She paused, remembering the angry scowl and the ensuing insulted expression Mr. Magoo had given her. “Come to think of it, with a vengeance. The next thing I know, we’re being served a restraining order like I’m some rabid zealot who pickets for PETA. I’m not against eating a steak or a chicken leg. I’m against puppy mills and . . . and . . .”

  No, she wasn’t going there. Not tonight. She’d revisited that nightmare on many a night. Tonight wouldn’t be one of them. With a shake of her head, she said, “Forget it. I swear to you, I left when I was asked to and I haven’t been back since. I made it a point to stay put at Aunt Teeny’s and never come back so I wouldn’t have to see what was going on here. I even take alternate routes to town to avoid this place.”

  Beck nodded his head in understanding. The eerie glow of the exit signs showed off his angular face to its best advantage. “Ah. So, see no evil, hear no evil.”

  “Do no evil. But now, looking at their living conditions, they don’t appear to be neglected at all, and I admit, I can be oversensitive.”

  “An understatement,” he said on a laugh as they stood side by side, peering at the sleeping cats.

  The moment struck Katie as peaceful, despite the still increasing throb in her head. They both noted movement coming from the dark shelter of the cat sanctuary. Katie cocked her head in awe when she realized she could actually identify the sound of soft paws, moving with stealth across the grassy terrain.

  Without warning, a cougar had stretched upward to press its face and wide paws against the glass, making Katie gasp and startle backward.

  But not Beck. He stared back into the soulfully deep eyes of the cougar, pressing a hand to the glass to meet the cat’s outstretched paw, appearing almost mesmerized.

  The cougar wore a collar, just as Spanky had, that read “Lucille.”

  Katie stared in rapt fascination when the big cat’s head tilted as though in question, taking in Beck, languishing a long moment while they faced each other. The animal’s eyes roamed over his face, scouring every inch of him, clearly savoring Beck’s arrival.

  Yet, there was no threat involved in its stance. No low growl of warning to caution him to back away. Only a sadness Katie felt to the deepest recesses of her soul. She leaned in, hoping against hope to hear something in her head, words, mumbling, something, anything like she had with Tinkerbell and Delray.

  There was only a deafening silence.

  The spell appeared to break for Beck, who placed his forehead against the glass, but then the big cat did the strangest thing.

  Its long
tongue licked the place on the viewing window where Beck’s forehead was pressed to it. Its eyes were that of the wounded—deeply so, bringing a shiver to Katie’s spine.

  Finally, the cat jumped down, in a gesture so closely resembling defeated resignation, Katie almost sobbed.

  Beck backed away, bumping into her when he did.

  “What just happened?” she asked him, breathless with wonder after what she’d seen pass between them. The compulsion to touch him grew heavy and to such an extreme, she jammed her hands into her jacket pockets.

  His face was a mask of emotion more in keeping with the hard granite of his rakish facade and in total dichotomy to his normally playful personality.

  Katie sensed his discord. Understood it and couldn’t identify with it all in one sweep of confusion. She couldn’t stop herself when she placed a hand on his arm, an arm stiff and unyielding. “Beck?”

  “I don’t know what just happened, Katie,” was the only offer he made in the way of explanation, and it was done between tightly compressed teeth. “I know my amnesia is a burr in your cute butt, but you’ll damn well have to accept my answer. I don’t know.”

  Instantly, Katie backed off. Instinctually, she knew she shouldn’t push him to define where his head was. “Okay. I’m sorry. Let’s get to moving so we can figure out where Daniel Green fits into this.” This time, she took the lead in order to give Beck a chance to process whatever had just gone down between him and the cougar.

  She stopped with a stutter of feet at a door with a name plaque on it. Daniel Green’s name.

  Dr. Daniel Green.

  BECK let a hiss of a breath escape his throat when he came up short behind Katie. Staring at the name on the door, an image flashed through his head—sharp, and almost as though it was happening right before his eyes.

  He saw Daniel Green, knew it was him without any other means of identification. He was a mussed mass of gray hair on his head, standing up on his scalp in some places. His glasses were tipped at an awkward angle to the left, and hanging by a thread on the right. He scowled as he entered what Beck was sure was his office, shoving a piece of paper into his lab coat pocket.

  Beck’s nostrils flared at an odor he couldn’t place while his eyes caught a quick glimpse of stacks and stacks of computer printouts on a metal desk cluttered with what he assumed was laboratory paraphernalia.

  The old man looked tired, frustrated, and woefully defeated. His white lab coat was covered in stains, and Beck couldn’t tell if they were from fallen food or something he wasn’t sure he wanted to classify.

  And then he felt hands, warmly aged and gentle, run over his spine, moving to chuff him under the chin before he heard Daniel Green speak in a voice he knew—a voice that hitched and faded in and out while the speaker paused to think, then spat words at a rapid fire pace. “Shaw . . . I’m sorry. So . . . sorry, son. I promise you, I’ll find the answers. I won’t let them hurt you. We just need to keep you safe.”

  Katie broke the vision when she latched onto his arm, her weight leaning into him, limp, her breathing ragged. “Beck,” she panted. “I can’t . . . something’s happening.” There was panic in her tone, controlled, but identifiably frightened to his ears.

  Gathering her up, he gazed down with rapidly growing concern, a concern he realized in that moment went far deeper than a man who’d just met a woman he wanted to sack. His hand went to her cheek, running it over her smooth skin, hot as an oven. “Katie! Talk to me. Tell me what’s happening!”

  Her voice grew breathy, distant, her words broken and jagged as she began to sink against him, sliding away, slipping to the ground with soft mewls no matter how hard he tried to keep a grip on her.

  And then he realized what was happening.

  Well, if he was honest with himself, he didn’t realize exactly what was happening due to the nature of her state.

  That nature was brief.

  It was but a mere blip in time.

  But it was.

  Oh, was it ever.

  And it was of the naked nature.

  But he owed himself a paw to the back for getting it together so quickly, despite the searing image of Katie’s lush, full breasts and the sexy swell of her hips encased in creamy flesh he wanted to devour.

  Of course, that paw would have to wait until he knew what to do about what happened next.

  Katie charged him, tackling him with a hard crash to the ground and an “oomph” of a grunt whooshed from his lungs.

  Then she was there, hovering over him, standing above him like some she-goddess—proud, fierce . . . furry.

  Really furry.

  KATIE Stared down into Beck’s face, chiseled with disbelief, his eyes wide, his jaw clenched with tension from the brunt of the fall he’d taken.

  His mouth was moving . . . all yummy and schmexy. Ahhh. Beck in all his Beckness. Insidiously delicious—totally off limits.

  Then words shot from between his lips. Words she was at first having trouble processing.

  Strangely, Katie noted, the words Beck spoke registered, but they took a moment for her to understand them. It was as though he spoke, and his sentences hovered in the air for mere seconds before coming together and landing in her ears with a soft glide of his accent. She cocked her head at him when she made out his question.

  Did she plan to make him a snack? He wanted to know.

  She’d smile—if she could. Instead, Katie opened her mouth and yawned, wide, so he could see her teeth, teeth that were like an entity all unto themselves. As snacks came and went, he wouldn’t be a bad deal come time for a side of prime beefcake. The blood rushing through his half-human veins called to her with a siren song of a deep hunger, nestling in her belly with a growl.

  Yet she had no desire to eat him like she had the deer in the yard today.

  Nay, she wanted to do wicked things to him that had nothing to do with nourishment and everything to do with nekkid.

  Forget the fact that she didn’t have just one paw, but four. Forget the fact that her entire body had felt as though it would incinerate right in Beck’s arms as this thing called the shift discarded her human form for a furry one. Forget that resounding crunch of bones still ringing in her ears—or the prickly pinpoints tingling all over her new body where the follicles of her new hair had sprung up in thick patches.

  Forget the fact that she had whiskers and she was shedding all over Beck’s flannel jacket.

  Shit. He was going to need one of those sticky hair-remover rollers she bought in bulk, for sure.

  It made her forget everything but Beck’s delicious scent and his even more delicious body beneath her rigid stance.

  All reason, all sanity left her. There was only the ability to feel.

  Everything.

  As though she were a toddler—each new texture was exciting—each item catching her attention, nirvana.

  There were no worries—no bills to pay—no ugly divorces—no angry townspeople who refused to accept her—no shameful past to run from.

  She was like one, big raw nerve of nothing but sensory perceptions so exaggerated—each tendon she stretched was like a revelation. Each muscle flexed was sinuous and stealthy in its catch and release.

  This—ohhhh, this thing called shift was euphoric—a rush of senses and enormous overloads of stimuli, followed by an overwhelming charge of adrenaline, pulsing, pounding through her veins until she thought she would explode from the freedom of it all.

  She wanted to run—climb—shed all her inhibitions and experience the bliss this new shape brought her.

  A finger tapped her left paw, drawing her attention once more to Beck’s handsome face scrunched and red.

  “Heavy,” he wheezed, pointing to her large front paws on his shoulders and the other two on his upper thighs.

  Instantly, she leapt off him, sitting beside his glorious length to stretch and adjust to this bizarre metamorphosis. The cool floor beneath her belly was as comfortable as any bed she’d ever slept in.

&nbs
p; Beck sucked in some air and sat up on his elbows to take her in with eyes that no longer held disbelief but hesitant awe. Beck shook his head. “Bloody bonkers.”

  Katie reared her head back in agreement, only to find she had to temper that movement with caution. As a cougar, her flexibility beat any class in Pilates she’d ever taken.

  Beck placed a hand under her chin, gazing into her eyes. “I can’t explain it, but this—you like this—in this form—makes complete sense. I understand what just happened and don’t all at once. No, don’t say it. I know it chuffs you when I repeat that same refrain. Hold on—I’ll do the grating sigh for you.” Beck let loose a disgusted sigh for her, then grinned. “But you know, I just thought of something. You can’t say anything about it, can you?” His chuckle was deep and satisfied to her ears. “I won’t deny I feel a certain affinity for your inability to speak. The quiet is a nice change from your sharp-tongued sniper attacks.”

  She growled her disapproval, pulling her jaw from his grasp and rising on all fours to indicate they should do what they came to. Katie wanted to ask what had happened when they saw Daniel Green’s name on the door—why Beck had appeared so far away in disconcerting thought, but that would have to wait.

  Testing her hindquarters, she reared up to place her paws on the door of Dr. Green’s office, scraping it with sharp claws against the smooth oak surface until she got her balance.

  Beck rose, too, following her lead by popping the door open to an office filled with clutter. Stacks of computer printout paper lined the metal desk—a computer, broken, the pieces scattered, lay in ruin. Clearly, Dr. Green had kept some kind of records someone didn’t want found if the trashed computer was any indication. Which meant the hard drive was probably long gone.

  Damn.

  Beakers, tumbled and strewn across the floor with unidentifiable substances, were everywhere. Gadgets Katie couldn’t identify took up almost all of the tiny space Dr. Green called his office.

  Yellow police tape surrounded a large stain of what Katie assumed was Daniel Green’s blood. She shivered in sympathy, feeling the hairs on her body stand on end.