Accidentally Catty

by Dakota Cassidy

  “Penis patch! Ohhhh, Jesus, I love that woman!” Nina squealed her delight, aiming her mockery right at Angus Guthrie before strutting off with Wanda.

  At the truck, Shaw held the door for her. “I had no idea, Katie.”

  “That Angus Guthrie bought the penis patch and slept with Teeny?” To tell the truth, neither had she. Teeny was all “I am woman, hear me roar.” She’d always been as free with her opinions as she was her sexuality. Maybe that was why her declaration, in front of everyone, hadn’t come as a huge surprise to Katie.

  He brushed her windblown hair from her face with eyes that held sympathy. This time his words were neither teasing nor light. “No. How cruel they are to you and Teeny. I’m sorry I’ve only made things worse.”

  And he was sorry. She could sense it in him because of this ironic twist of fate. Emotions, especially those of weakness and fear, were easily smelled on another, heightened by her cougarness. She sensed his sympathy, his regret. As she climbed in the truck, she put a hand on his arm and said, “I’m not sorry, Shaw. Not even a little.”

  Once her tantrum had passed, and the pregnancy thing had sunk in, something else had, too. Shaw offered more than she’d given him credit for. He’d brought with his arrival respite from days that had begun to bleed into one another. He’d brought a reason to get up each day. A reason to smile again. A reason to want more than just a cave to hide in. And he’d punctuated that in this very moment.

  “So you ready to pick those pumpkins?”

  “Is there really another patch?”

  “Strangest thing. As I was listening to Angus tell us we were unwanted, I remembered the road that led me here to Piney Creek. I have no recollection of how I got here, but I do know I passed a place on the way in here. They had a big sign advertising pumpkin picking and cider doughnuts. Which means I couldn’t have arrived that long ago. I think I remember how to get there. If you left the house more often than to just pick up supplies, you’d know that.” His reprimand was gentle but observant.

  More memories. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be long before he had a fuller picture.

  Or not so hopefully.

  Katie’s smile was a wistful one. “Then let’s do it.”

  Shaw climbed in behind her as Teeny took the wheel, covering her hand in his. Slapping the back of the driver’s seat, he said, “Let’s roll, Teeny.”

  INDEED, there was another pumpkin patch five miles down the road, and to Teeny’s delight, they’d found plenty of pumpkins.

  Shaw was loading them into the truck while Katie sipped mulled cider and watched him, in a deep state of lust from over the rim of her cup. Shaw was all the things little girls dreamed of when they giggled about their princes at slumber parties: considerate, sharp, kind, gentle. Sigh-worthy.

  And he claimed he loved her.

  Which was ridiculous, but so tempting to reach out and cling to. How could he possibly make a declaration like that when his life was in such turmoil? It was one of those disaster-time statements—like telling someone you owed them your life and never expecting them to come asking for payment. Their situation was shrouded in too much mystery to make such a life-altering statement. Maybe he was excited about the baby and his mouth had moved before his brain had fully caught up.

  But oh, those words from his lips still made her tingle and smile.

  “You like him.”

  Her focus left Shaw and the delicious way he moved in his jeans to settle on Ingrid. “He’s likeable.” And lickable, too.

  “He’s been good for you, Dr. Woods.”

  He’d undoubtedly been good to her lady parts. “How so?”

  Ingrid’s smile was sweet. “He makes you smile when you think no one’s watching. He’s funny and good to Teeny. He loves the animals, and they love him back. Even the mob likes him. He’s handy. He’s smart, and he’s taken that frown full of worry off your face. You’re super pretty when you’re not back in New York in your head, letting that asshole stick it to you. I know your ex did some crappy things, and I’m sorry that, no matter where you go, people will always associate you with him and his shady dealings. But Shaw changed that.You smile more than you frown these days, and that’s cool.” She capped her statement off with a dreamy, wistful sigh.

  Foreboding settled over her. Instead of comforting her, Ingrid’s words reminded her that Shaw was responsible for many changes in her life as of late, and he’d take them all with him when he left. Which he was bound to do if he ever got his memory back. He belonged somewhere, and if that somewhere was far, far away . . .

  “Doc!” someone roared from the truck, making both Katie and Ingrid look up and at each other.

  Nina was at her side in a flash. “We got trouble. Ingrid,” she ordered. “Put Teeny in your car—tell her Katie and Shaw need to borrow the truck—make something up. Just keep her busy. Take her back to the house and wait for us there. Doc? You come with me. Move it!”

  Wanda came to a skidding halt in Teeny’s truck, pulling up beside Katie as Ingrid made a dash for her car and a bewildered Teeny. Nina threw the door open, literally lifting Katie off her feet and shoving her in the truck on top of Shaw.

  Her eyes went to his body, shaking and lying sideways on the backseat. His skin was hot to her touch, and his eyes were rolling back in his head. He jerked in small spasms, writhing as though something hurt.

  Katie’s frantic eyes sought Nina’s who sat in the front passenger seat. “What happened?”

  Wanda blew out a breath. “We have a problem,” she said with such urgency, Katie experienced a cold stab of fear. Wanda gunned the truck out of the pumpkin patch’s parking lot with a jolt.

  “Why?” Katie asked, forcing back panic.

  Nina’s gaze compelled her to look deeply into her troubled eyes. “Dude, our boy is about to become a kitty cat.”

  “He’s shifting?” she squeaked.

  Nina nodded as Wanda tore off onto the side of the road about two miles away, spewing gravel in the wake of the truck’s big tires. “I’ve only seen this once, Katie. So I need you to just let me do my thing, okay?”

  Alarm shivered along her spine. “He’s going to shift?”

  “Like no tomorrow,” Wanda muttered under her breath, throwing the truck in park and jumping out to hit the dirt road with a clap of her elegant feet.

  Katie followed suit, fear rippling along her arms in waves of goose bumps. She flew around the truck, watching as Wanda lugged Shaw out, threw him over her shoulder as though he were a grocery sack, and headed into the thick of the pine trees.

  “Wait!” she yelped, fear making her voice rise in terror. The wind picked up, screeching with a yowl as leaves whipped into the air. “What’s happening? If he’s shifting, shouldn’t we just let him do his thing? Like we did with me? Just let it happen?”

  Nina latched onto her shoulders, her eyes like two black chips of ice. “I need you to hear me, and hear me well. Doc, this shit ain’t right. Shaw’s not shifting like you. Something’s wrong. I’ve seen this before, and I know what to do. Now we’re going to take him into the woods. If you fucking have to follow us, do me a favor—no goddamned screaming like some Mary. Stuff your fist in your mouth, bite your tongue, do whatever it takes, but do not scream. It hurts my fucking ears.”

  Katie’s heart began an erratic pounding she heard in her ears. Rain began to pelt at her face like sharp needles. She swiped at it as she grabbed for Nina’s arm to stop her. “What are you going to do? I can’t just let you take him without telling me what the hell’s happening!”

  Nina grimaced, gripping Katie’s chin with strong fingers. Water dripped from her hoodie, soaking it within seconds, the ever-darkening skies casting an eerie glow on her pale face. “Shit’s gonna happen. Not pretty shit, either. So get a grip. Pretend this is some medical doggie emergency where you have to keep your shit together. Keep. It. Together. Now back the fuck off, Katie. I’ve got to go. It’ll take two of us to get ’er done.”

  The wind picked up with a
roar, bending thick tree branches in a sway of leaves and bark as Nina took off so swiftly, she was like a blur of soundless motion.

  She dove into the thick cover of trees with a rebel yell to Wanda.

  And the wind howled, mournful and high.

  Katie stood in the mud, a puddle forming at her feet—her thoughts frazzled and disconnected.

  The only thing she could piece together was Nina’s last words.

  Exactly what, in the woods no less, had to get done?

  OH, and snap.

  Katie stood deep in the woods, rain dripping from her hair in streams of cold splashes that fell off her now-soaked jacket and plunked at her feet.

  Watching.

  In immobilized horror.

  Terror kept her feet glued to the sticky mud of the woods’ floor.

  Fear, and Nina’s string of harsh curse words, kept her in a rigid state of frozen shock.

  Words flung between Nina and Wanda while they battled not only the elements but Shaw.

  “Wanda Schwartz Jefferson, if you don’t fucking hold his legs down, I’ll beat you with that log so hard, you’ll be a human again!” Nina screamed while wind slashed her face and the rain pounded her straining hands, locked around Shaw’s neck in a grip he still managed to continue to escape.

  “Goddamn it, Nina, STFU and just give me a minute! I have heels on, for the love of shit! How do you expect me to get any footing in all this mud?” she roared back, kicking her heels off, revealing her stocking feet.

  Katie fought a gasp, watching Wanda’s shoes soar in a perfect arc across the rain-swollen skies. Wanda almost never swore. Nina joked about how they all tried to get her to cuss. Which made the scene before her clearly very, very bad.

  Wanda lunged her body at Shaw in a spray of rain-tattered clothing and shredded nylons.

  Ohhhh. Katie shuddered a breath, leaving in its exhale a thin mist of condensation. She so wanted to help Nina and Wanda, but her feet refused to move in their direction. What they really wanted to do was head in the direction that was the fastest route out of Dodge. Then she wanted to hide beneath her covers forever.

  Which made her a chickenshit baby.

  Thus, making her frozen state that much more frustrating.

  She was a physician. There shouldn’t be any medical emergency she couldn’t handle, now should there?

  Yeah, but do tell, Dr. Woods, when was the last time you saw an emergency like . . . that?

  True, true, she pondered. She’d seen some shit in her time as a vet. Lots of shit.

  This was like no kind of shit before it.

  Shaw howled—screeching his rage, the noise rocketing through her ears and making the surrounding trees echo his agony, tearing her from her reverie.

  Remembering Nina’s words, Katie stuffed a knuckle in her mouth as more waves of bone-numbing fear took over.

  Lightning ripped across the black-and-purple sky just as Nina was able to pin Shaw to the ground. “Hold him, Wanda! For the love of fuck—I don’t know how long I can keep up my end of the bargain!” she yelled over a clap of thunder.

  Wanda’s shriek of frustration was followed by a grunt when she clamped onto where Shaw’s legs had once been.

  If one was to reflect upon this situation, say, a week or two later, maybe when the utter terror had passed and relief had settled in while they partook of coffee and sugar-glazed doughnuts, one might actually joke about how Gladiator-ish the scene before her was.

  Yeah. But maybe more Gladiator times ten million.

  Except Nina and Wanda were no Russell Crowe, and they sure weren’t trying to contain a tiger.

  Because Shaw wasn’t a tiger. He was a cougar.

  Sort of.

  When you had your human head, and one of your human arms, but the torso of a cougar and like three paws, that only sort of qualified you to be a cast member of the animal persuasion in Gladiator, yes?

  Katie nodded to herself.

  Yes.

  Oh, he’d never do.

  Russell Crowe would never find this acceptable.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Katieeee! Get your cell phone—call Kaih or Ingrid—tell them big drugs—now!” Wanda screamed out in her direction.

  Her hands, chilled to the bone, fumbled in her pocket to find her cell phone. Shaking, Katie forced herself to concentrate on reaching Kaih.

  He picked up on the third ring. “Doc?”

  “Kaih, listen carefully,” she ordered, teeth chattering. “Bring me needles and sedatives. A lot of sedatives. Drop them in Teeny’s truck and turn right back around. Don’t get out to come check on us. Do not ask questions. Just do what I say!” She followed up with directions to where Wanda had pulled off to the side of the road and hung up before he could hear the scream she was about to let loose.

  One more deep breath was what she kept telling herself. One more and she’d be ready to jump into the fray.

  Okay. Two more.

  “Katie, get that shit now! Run!” Nina snarled, rainwater spewing from between her almost-blue lips.

  In a flash, her legs were like a house on fire, zipping up the small incline and driving her way through the thick brush and trees, praying Kaih would drop the meds and wouldn’t linger to check on her. Waiting in a small thicket of trees, she alternately willed time to speed up and prayed Kaih would hurry.

  Ten agonizing minutes later the sharp screech of brakes and the slam of a door made Katie poked her head out, snaking her neck around the limbs. She huffed a harsh sigh of relief when she saw his taillights flash as his compact car took the sharp curve on his way down the road.

  Lunging for the truck door, she yanked it open and found syringes and sedatives on the passenger seat. Shoving them under her arm, she slammed the door and lunged back down the hill toward Nina and Wanda, her sneakers slipping on the mud-soaked ground.

  Shaw was writhing now—each crunch of his bones an absolute prison of agony he had no escape from. He heaved under Nina and Wanda, fighting them with the wild desperation of a caged animal.

  Katie had to cover her mouth to keep from screaming her fear for him. What the hell was going on? Her shift hadn’t been like this at all. Why wasn’t he shifting fully? And what would happen if he couldn’t go all one way or the other?

  Nina’s face was a mask of determination as she wrapped her lanky body around his torso while Wanda rode the lower half of his distorted body like a bucking bronco.

  “Katie!” Wanda screeched on a ragged, hoarse cry. “Hit him hard, honey!”

  Her hands trembling, frozen from the cold, she jammed the syringe into the bottle at full throttle, filling it while trying to decide on the dosage. If she went one step too far, if she gave him too much, she might paralyze him. Or worse, kill him.

  There was no time to hem and haw. Shaw had become more rabid, more frightening than anything she’d ever seen in a movie. He snarled in Nina’s face, growling his uncontrollable rage.

  “Goddamn you, Three Names, when you come out of this, I’m going to fucking push you off a roof!” Nina gritted between her teeth.

  “Katie, noooow w w! I can’t hold him anymore!” Wanda screamed.

  What happened next would come back to haunt her in the way of Nina threatening to take her outside and beat the cougar out of her, but only after she pulled out every last one of her “purty blond hairs” from Katie’s fat-ass head.

  Dear God, if at all possible, could we swing this one in my favor? I really don’t want to take the father of my child, and the best damned nookie I’ve ever had, out for good.

  With that prayer, Katie went in for the kill, charging the three of them like a bull—the syringe poised and at the ready to take Shaw down.

  She threw herself on him and fell onto a tangle of limbs and the harsh grunts from his chest. Nina’s head butted hers with a painful crack when he bucked. Wanda’s thigh clamped around her long braid at one point, yanking until her neck arched painfully.

  Katie gripped the syringe, almost losing it du
e to the sheets of water that had begun to fall like someone was hurling buckets of water on them. Throwing her weight into him, fighting the constriction of her heart at his painful reemergence to cougar form and the race of her pulse, she jabbed at the first available pound of flesh she could pinch.

  Katie winced when she looked up and was able to thrust her sodden hair from her eyes.

  Oh and Jesus. Nina was going to kick her ass from here to Kentucky.

  Katie only had a brief moment to ponder how her aim had become so fast and loose, and the quickest escape route from Nina’s certain rage, before Nina slumped forward on Shaw, heavily medicated from the syringe hanging from her neck.

  And then there were two . . .

  The upper half of Shaw’s body reared upright, knocking Katie back and leaving Wanda hanging onto his legs like she clung to the string of a kite. He roared his angry rage, a discontent so agonized in its wail, Katie fought a sob.

  “Get the fucking drugs, Katie! We need more drugs!”

  Katie scurried to her feet, scrambling to the spot where she’d dropped the sedatives and syringes. She tore the plastic from the syringe with her teeth, spitting it on the ground and jamming it into the bottle of meds.

  Just when she was ready to go back in, she heard Wanda scream, “Don’t let him get away, Katieeee!” before her slender form was sent flying across Katie’s line of vision and slammed up against a pine tree with a crack so loud, it made her shudder.

  And then Shaw, in all his deformities, began to rise. His face was a mask of fury, his eyes wild and glazed as he scanned the wooded alcove for an escape route.

  His first attempt to stand on all fours was awkward due to his bizarre, misshapen shift. He used his human arm to push off, only to fall back to the ground with a heavy thump. His second effort had him up and preparing to bolt.

  Oh, the hell.

  Not on her watch.

  Wanda had said they couldn’t let him get away.

  So there was gonna be no getting away.

  “Shaw!” she screamed at him over the howl of the brittle wind. “It’s Katie! Listen to me!”