Accidentally Catty

by Dakota Cassidy

  Nina stooped down and scanned her eyes, reading her mind. “Antiseptic, Wanda. We have to put some on before the bandage.”

  Cool hands began a soothing ministration of cleansing and slathering a silky gel on her rib cage. She let out a whimper when the cold cream met her wounded flesh.

  Vaguely, Katie heard Beck burst through the door. “What the bloody hell are you doing to her?” The worry in his gruff voice made her smile sleepily. Then she remembered he’d seen her naked.

  Twice.

  “Chill, Fancy Feast,” Nina scolded, the sound of her feet shuffling ringing in Katie’s head. “It’s just a flesh wound. We’re fixing her up. Shut it.”

  Beck’s strong presence, one that apparently had the balls to defy Nina, came to warm her right side. He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere until I know Katie’s okay. Deal,” he said, tight and tense.

  Soooo sexy.

  Soooo young.

  Soooo.

  Wanda’s laugh was breathy and Katie was almost sure, giddy. “Quiet, Nina. He’s just being a gentleman. You’d think by now you’d recognize the signs with Greg for a mate. Beck, if you could just get her to the table, we can lay her down so I can get a better look at what I’m doing.”

  Strong arms swung her upward, and Katie found her nose nestled in the crook of his sinewy neck. Her sigh was of contentment. Nice. Beck was super-duper nice.

  Someone had considerately thrown a blanket on the cold metal where Beck set her down with a tender touch, his hands adjusting the towel and hoodie with such care, it made her sigh once more.

  So yummy was the last thought she had before a drugged-like sleep pulled her into its velvety blackness.

  SO who was responsible for the freight train that had not just run over her body but had been put in reverse and had run over her again just to make sure she was in extra agony?

  A groan slipped from her lips when Katie attempted to stretch her legs beneath the cool sheets on her bed.

  Cougar might not beat vampire, but it damned well beat Shaun T’s Hip-Hop Abs.

  “You’re awake,” a husky, accented voice said, making her almost purr in appreciation.

  Her eyes popped open to find Beck, head on his raised arm, lying next to her on her bed and staring down at her with those blue penetrating eyes always so full of deviltry. “You’ve slept’round the clock.”

  She made a move to sit up but unsuccessfully flopped back on the pillows when her abs screeched a protest. Rolling her tongue over her teeth, she also realized she was naked beneath the thin sheet, and Beck was only mere inches from her. “What time is it?”

  He grinned and pointed to her bedside clock. “Midnight. Almost a full day since we made our daring escape from the animal park yesterday.”

  Katie made another attempt to rise and remove herself from his freshly showered scent. “Tinkerbell. She has to be fed and at least cuddled. Jesus, she must be frantic.”

  Beck placed a solid hand on her bare shoulder, pushing her back on the bed and tucking the blanket back around her with the other. “Kaih, Ingrid, and I took care of everything. Tink is fine, if not still as vocal as ever. Everything’s quiet.”

  She skimmed her fingers over the surface of the king-sized, rose-colored pillow above her head where the mob usually slept. “The mob . . . Where are they?”

  “They’re with Auntie Nina. I confess, hearing Nina coo at those three little yapping monsters while she throws a ball for them is a stark contradiction to the woman who threatened to break my fucking legs if I came up the stairs one more time to check on you. She’s quite an animal lover.”

  Forget Nina—he’d checked on her? Katie ran a hand over her tangled hair to distract herself from the warmth coiling in her belly. “Aunt Teeny, is she okay?”

  “In your stead, I took her smokes from her first thing this morning.”

  “How’d that go?”

  “There was a struggle. She went left, I went right—we danced for a minute or two until she couldn’t catch her breath—which I dutifully reminded her was due to her smoking. Otherwise, I have no doubt she could take me. She’s one tough bird, Teeny is. But then I promised to have Nina rub her feet and soak her dentures. She folded like a house of cards.”

  Katie laughed, even though it hurt her stomach to. What didn’t hurt was Beck’s hand on her shoulder—warm, callused, distracting while he lay on a bed so utterly a dichotomy to the man he was. “I’m glad I missed the fireworks when you shared that with Nina. Did she ask questions about what I was doing in bed all day? It’s not like me, and Teeny isn’t known for her subtlety.”

  Beck’s fingers began to lightly massage her skin. “She did. We told her you had a twenty-four-hour thing, and then we kept her busy all day long. We even let her make us creamed beef on toast for dinner. God-awful stuff, by the way. No worries. You’re covered.”

  Then his face went from playful to serious. “How do you feel? I’d have been in a state of panic if not for Nina and Wanda assuring me that this kind of sleep after your first few shifts was normal. There were times when I couldn’t visibly see you breathe.”

  Her heart sped up. He’d been panicked? Over her? The notion left her giddy. Then it made her panic. “I feel like someone ran me over, but otherwise okay. How do you feel?” As in, how do you feel about remembering a woman who’s clearly not from this century just happens to be your mother?

  His head cocked. “Is this the point in the conversation where I tell you about what happened at the animal park?”

  The memory of last night and his reaction to that sketch came rushing back to her. She decided pressuring him, when his reaction had been so emotional and verging on angry, was unwise. Instead, she opted to nudge. “If telling me something personal is uncomfortable, then no. This isn’t the point. But if it’s something that will help both of us, then I’d appreciate whatever you know.”

  “Very PC, Dr. Woods.”

  She half smiled, sleep still making her eyes grainy. “I’d curtsy, but I think my legs would collapse.”

  His smile was brief. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell you, Katie. I just needed to process it.”

  “Fair enough. So you’ve had twenty-four hours. Enough process?”

  “I think my name is Shaw.”

  “You got that from a sketch?”

  “No. I got that from Daniel Green’s office. Just as we were about to become felons, I had the strangest vision. I think he was talking to me, and I think he was doing it while I was in cougar form. He called me Shaw.”

  “Does that feel comfortable? Or is it still a blank?”

  “It does, in fact, feel comfortable. Much the way Spanky and Beck felt uncomfortable. It feels like putting on an old hat or a worn pair of faded jeans.”

  Now she rose on her elbows to catch a glimpse of his eyes, searching to see if he was hiding anything. “So you remember being a cougar?”

  His gaze became distant as he looked past her shoulder and out her bedroom window, but his fingers continued making scintillating patterns over her skin. “That vision I had was so damn real. I felt Daniel Green’s hand on me, but it wasn’t me—not looking like this anyway. I heard him speak, and when he did, he apologized and called me Shaw. I can’t be sure I was who was on that table in his office, but it felt like it was happening to me.”

  Shaw . . . For whatever reason, it fit him. It was strong and confident. Stately, but sexy. “Did he say anything else?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know it was Daniel Green doing the talking?”

  “You know, that’s a valid point. I just assumed, because he was in Dr. Green’s office, that’s who it was.”

  Katie’s look grew thoughtful while she continued to fight a sigh of pleasure at Beck’s fingers on her now-heated skin. “Describe him to me.”

  Beck’s description matched that of the man who’d come to the clinic the night this all began. “That’s him. Did this vision tell you how you came to be at the an
imal park?”

  “Not a single clue as to my origins. Though, Dr. Green apologized to me in that vision. He said, and I quote, ‘I won’t let them hurt you.’ I can’t get a clear fix on whether he knew I could do this shift thing or not. The only thing I do know is we know each other. Or rather, I know him. What our relationship is, is anyone’s guess.”

  Katie groaned when his fingers dipped under the sheet, hoping to hide it with a disappointed look. “Did you look through those stacks of computer printouts?”

  Now his face grew grim and dark. “All five of us spent a grueling eight hours trying to piece that mess together. We’ve come to the conclusion that those notes aren’t in a foreign language; they’re in Daniel Green’s own special language. His handwriting is, in Ingrid’s words, ‘a hot mess,’ and almost indecipherable.”

  Katie nodded. “I had a professor like that in college. A genius. A genius who couldn’t spell and whose handwriting resembles that of a kindergartner. So nothing of any use? Damn.”

  “Maybe you’ll see something we didn’t, you being a doctor, but none of us could even make out two letters in a word to copy and Google. It was an incredibly frustrating process. I sent Ingrid to bed to rest and Kaih home, both exhausted. Nina and Wanda are watching John Wayne movies with Teeny and the mob as we speak.”

  Katie smiled at how unbelievably kind Nina and Wanda were, kind and obviously much more tolerant than she’d given at least Nina credit for. Watching television with Teeny was much like sitting in the epicenter of a tornado because of her partial deafness. “And the sketch? How do you know it’s of your mother?”

  “I just know. I can’t explain how, and I already sighed a thousand of your exasperated sighs about it, so you don’t need to bother. Look, all I know was that when I looked at that sketch, I knew she was my mother like you know Teeny is your aunt.”

  “Did you happen to see the way she was dressed, Beck? That wasn’t something from this era, or several gone by now.”

  “Shaw,” he corrected with a smile. “I think, anyway. And I know that, too. I just don’t have an explanation for it.”

  Her mind spun with the possibilities this created. “Do you think it’s the eternal-life thing? Maybe cougars have the same gift of eternity vampires and werewolves do.”

  “That’s what Nina and Wanda suggested.”

  “I just remembered something.”

  He nodded his head. “Esmeralda Hunt, right?”

  “What the hell was she doing there? None of this makes a lick of sense,” Katie said. “What could she have to do with the animal park, and why didn’t Delray know about it?”

  Shaw laughed. “He was too busy obsessing over cheese? We need to talk to her as soon as possible. She never mentioned a word about Daniel Green when she came in with Delray, and you’d think, with the way things spread like wildfire here, she’d know you and the ladies are involved. So she’s either hiding something or at least knows something.”

  Sympathy flooded her veins at the look of aggravation he gave when his lips thinned and his brow furrowed. “This must be very frustrating for you.”

  His hand ran over his stubbled jaw with long fingers she imagined were on her instead. “I can’t even begin to tell you.”

  “And it’s not helping that I’ve done nothing but breathe down your neck about it.”

  “I don’t mind the breathing on the neck. That was actually kind of nice. It’s the hint of suspicion I find insulting.”

  Fuck the suspicion. Who cared about suspicion when there was neck breathing that was kind of nice. Oh, you Flirty-McFlirt, Katie Woods. “Kind of nice?”

  Now his eyes glittered with amusement. “As old women go, yes. It was kind of nice.”

  “I’m not old. I’m older.”

  “I noticed.”

  “That I’m older.”

  “No. That you’re not old. Naked, you don’t look old.”

  Her face flamed with embarrassment. “I forgot about that.”

  Shaw pressed a fingertip to her hot cheek, leaving the flesh of her shoulder cold and lonely. “Me? Not so much.”

  “It’ll pass.”

  Out of the blue, he asked another astute question. “Who made you feel this way, Katie?”

  “What way?”

  “That you’re not young enough, attractive enough?”

  Her eyes skimmed the top of his shoulder to avoid his gaze. “I didn’t realize that’s how I came across.”

  “Sure you did. You joke all the time about your age, and mine for that matter, but it’s never without that sarcastic edge to it.”

  “That was hardly a joke. I am older than you, if we’re counting appearances. Almost forty-one.”

  “And?”

  Katie twirled the end of her matted braid. “And what?”

  “Why is that such a deal breaker for you? What if I am twenty? Though I doubt it, not after seeing that picture of my mother.”

  “Who we don’t know for sure is your mother—yet,” she reminded him, “and there’s no deal to break. I just don’t date younger men—especially if I could have been the one responsible for setting their bedtime.” But she might reconsider if he kept pressing his thigh against hers and filling up her frilly bed with his manly-man-ness.

  “I’m going to go out on a ledge here. Have you tried dating younger men and had a bad experience?”

  “It’s never been my bailiwick.”

  “I have to tell you, if I were a lesser man, all these big words would intimidate me. But seeing as I’m a strong, self-assured, confident teenager, I’m just going to ask. Your who?”

  Her eyes smiled. “My kind of thing—my territory. I’ve never dated a younger man because when I was still dating, a younger man was still jailbait. And as of late, I haven’t dated anyone since my divor . . .”

  “Teeny told me a little about that divorce today. Quite the dick, your ex, eh?”

  A big, hairy dick—metaphorically speaking. That was George. And leave it to Aunt Teeny to tell anyone who would listen. “What did she tell you?” Katie cringed while she waited.

  He paused in thought while he went back to distractedly drawing circles along her forearm. “Let me get this right—she said, and I quote, ‘That good for nuthin’, dipped-in-money bastard should be hung and shot for what he put Katie through during that divorce. He’s the shit on my goddamned penny loafers.’ Those were her words, I believe.”

  “And that’s her description for him in polite company.You should hear how she really feels,” Katie said on an uncomfortable laugh. This wasn’t something she wanted to talk to Beck about. Shaw . . . whatever. The pain brought when remembering her divorce had eased some in the days since she’d moved in with Teeny. She had no desire to rip the scab off. She was fresh out of Band-Aids.

  “You didn’t let me finish. She said he should be drawn and quartered for what he did to your career. So what did he do to your career? I already know he’s the reason you moved in with Teeny. I just don’t know why. According to your aunt, you had a very successful career as a veterinarian in Manhattan.”

  She’d had many successful things in Manhattan, none of which were real—they were only delusions of what she’d thought she had—and they certainly hadn’t been there for her when she’d needed them the most. “I had a good practice,” was all she offered.

  But Beck-Shaw wasn’t having that. “And what happened to that practice that made you leave and come to Deliverance, as Nina so fondly calls it? Divorces happen all the time, Katie, as I recollect, and save the jokes about my memory. I can remember everything but the personal details about my own life. Anyway, divorces happen all the time. They don’t typically affect your clientele. Teeny said your husband was some rich, influential lawyer. What does that have to do with you as a practicing vet?”

  The pit of her stomach, once warm with his caress boiled now with rage she always had trouble containing. This was a subject best avoided. “I thought we were trying to figure out Dr. Daniel Green and your su
dden appearance at the animal park, not the mating habits of the senior citizen who’s pushing extinction.”

  “Ah, well here’s the thing. I’m interested in you, Katie. I, unlike you, apparently have no inhibitions when it comes to age or expressing my interest. I’m uninhibited by baggage from past relationships because I don’t even know that I had any. Baggage or relationships. I like you. In fact, I like you so much, I want to take you back behind the skate park and knock you up, but not before we hit the malt shop and share a chocolate shake.”

  Laughter bubbled from her throat and spilled out between her lips. “I’m not that interesting, and I can’t get knocked up—I’m infertile.” She gave him a mockingly forlorn sigh. “Thus ends our skate-park, chocolate-malt romance. And just when I had hope.”

  His expression went from teasing to serious. “You can’t have children? Should I say I’m sorry?”

  Katie shrugged. “Children were always a maybe for me to begin with. I was raised by parents who were pretty distant—definitely not an example of how I’d want a child of mine raised. That’s why Aunt Teeny is so important to me. She taught me to bake cookies—even if they were like hockey pucks. She read to me. She encouraged my love of animals. She let me tend every stray I could get my hands on, and she kept them here at the house until I visited again. Teeny was everything my mother, her sister, wasn’t. I spent all of my summers here with her in Piney Creek until I was fifteen while my parents vacationed in Europe or wherever.”

  His smile was warm. “I like Teeny more and more. So, children?”

  Children were a much safer subject than her divorce. “When George and I finally did try without success, we did a few tests and found out my fallopian tubes were blocked. They flushed them out, and still nothing. We were both so busy with our careers; I can’t see how we would have fit a child in anyway. Like I said, I had parents who left me with nannies, and butlers to take me to father-daughter dances. I didn’t want that for my child. So I let it go. I have no regrets, but sure, I wonder sometimes what it would have been like. Though, after my divorce, I’m glad a child wasn’t involved.”