Accidentally Catty (23 page)

“In fact, that was exactly how it happened, Nina,” Katie remarked, dry and surly.

Nina was just pulling off her jacket when Kaih and Beck flew up the steps.

Kaih shrieked in horror just before Beck had the chance to throw one hand over his mouth and the other over his eyes. “Jesus. I just saw my boss naked,” he struggled to say around Beck’s hand. “How am I ever going to be able to look her in the eye again?”

Katie’s eyes narrowed at Kaih’s back. Oh, c’mon. She looked hella fine naked, according to the reflection she’d seen in the mirror tonight.

Yet Beck’s eyes remained glued on Katie’s awkwardly sprawled, naked body.

“Hey,” Nina snarled, throwing her hoodie over Katie and tucking it around her. “Turn your ass around, pal. This ain’t a peep show for pervs.”

Beck immediately followed Nina’s orders, but an amused chuckle escaped his lips anyway. Until his eyes fell to the drops of blood on the slate gray porch floor. “You’re hurt.” His eyes held concern, deep, blue, warm. “Let me look.” He moved toward Katie, but Nina stopped him.

“I got this. You take the mouth inside and make some tea for her.”

Beck went with a terse grunt, shoving Kaih in the front door, and letting it close behind them.

Nina helped Katie up, slipping her arms into the hoodie. “You need to take a look at that cut, Doc. You’d know better than I do if you’re gonna need stitches, but it looks pretty deep.”

Katie nodded, too dazed to answer. Whatever happened to your body when you shifted, it was exhausting. Her legs were like jelly rolls and her knees, butter.

Nina took her in through the kitchen and directed her straight to an examining room where she could see the damage, giving Kaih and Beck the finger as they passed them. “One word from either one of you, and I’ll snatch your fucking tongues out of your heads and beat you about the head and shoulders with ’em,” she warned over her shoulder.

Nina flipped on the light and settled Katie on a chair. The glare made Katie wince. “Lift your arms so I can see.”

Katie obliged, so tired, her eyes fought to stay open, despite Nina’s prodding, yet gentle fingers. A brief knock on the door, and Wanda was there. Sweet, concerned, speaking softly to her. “Oh, Katie . . . You’re injured.” Wanda was like an Afghan, Katie mused at finally finding the right dog-to-human definition, regal and dignified in any situation.

Katie’s head lolled back, but firm fingers gripped her chin, eyes brown and full of worry searched her grainy ones. “Katie, honey? Tell me what I need to do. I know you’re exhausted. The first few shifts will do that to you, but you have to let me tend this wound. It’s deep. Tell me what to do first.”

“C . . . Clean it . . .” she offered, her throat sore and scratchy, her words dry and croaking.

“Right. Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Nina, antiseptic and cotton balls. Now, please. And one of those towels to wrap around her waist.”

The sharp, cold sting of the antiseptic smarted, making her suck in a gulp of air.

“I’m sorry,” Wanda fretted, running a hand over Katie’s tangled hair. “You need to take a look at this. I don’t know if you need stitches, Katie.”

Katie’s head fell forward like it was made of lead, forcing her eyes to focus on the placement of Nina’s hands on her sore flesh mid-rib cage. The skin was puckered and pink, but it was a clean cut. Just a flesh wound, not deep enough for stitches, but very close. Her lips stuck together when she attempted to convey that, but instead, her head fell forward like some sad imitation of a lifeless rag doll.

Wanda forced her chin back up again. “Take my hand, Katie, and pay attention. Squeeze once if you need stitches, twice if you just need a bandage.”

Katie felt Wanda’s hand encompass hers, warm, soothing. She was like warm milk when you couldn’t sleep. Tums when you had an upset stomach. Compassionate, kind—nuts to hang around a tight ass like Nina. Katie gave two weak squeezes.

“Get those big bandages, Nina.”

“Anti . . . stuff to stop . . .” Everything was beginning to grow hazy. Her words slurred, fading in and out. She was aware it was happening even as her eyes warred with her brain.

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 animal 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.”