Black Cat and the Accidental Angel (Black Cat Mysteries Book 3) (3 page)

He stared into her enchanting face—the angle of her teasing whiskers—the slant of her taunting ears—her voluptuous eyes, tinted ever so slightly with green, glittered in the early morning light. The rims of her eyelids were dark, like circles of onyx around a citrine gemstone. Her fur, like rows of buttercups set in a field of marigolds. Her teeth were small and straight. All her curves were all in the right places.

“You don’t know me? I’m your soul-mate, the one you promised to love and cherish till
death do us part
,” she whispered, the faint whiff of tuna on her breath. “Though, I must have heard that line a dozen times.” She patted his foot with her paw. “I suppose I’ll forgive you since you did get quite a clunk on your noggin. I expect everything will be clear soon and you’ll remember the accident—”

“Accident?” His heart pattered a bit quicker.
Yes, the falling, the darkness, and then the nothingness.

She stood, stretched, and shook her body, giving him a better glimpse of her fetching figure, and then lay down again beside him. “You really don’t remember anything?”

Over the next half hour, she told him all the gory details of the accident. “Now, aren’t we just the poster children for exactly why riding without a seatbelt is a bad idea, even for animals? In the confusion, the ambulance left and since no one saw our carrier, we were left behind.”

He lowered his eyes. “I don’t remember much about it. I can’t even recall my own name…much less yours.” He pulled his ears down and twitched his whiskers. She’d think he was a real basket case. Not a very good impression on a first date.

“Give it time. It will all come back to you.” Her voice was soft and reassuring. “In the meanwhile, you can call me Angel. I’m here to take care of you.”

He jerked back. “Angel? So, that’s it? I’m dead.” He closed his eyes and shuddered. Wasn’t it just too good to be true?
Left behind on a deserted road with a beautiful female and he was already dead.
Just my luck.

“You’re not dead, silly. Don’t worry.” Her laugh tinkled like a silver bell.

He sighed and glanced up at the rock-covered embankment. The whoosh of a car passed, out of sight beyond the weeds. It was time to take control of this miserable situation, if he could just hold his head up straight.

He stepped out of the carrier, his black legs wobbly and weak. “There’s a road up there. Maybe someone will stop and help us.”

“I don’t think so, dear. It’s not safe up there. You’ve lost a lot of blood and I’m tired. I doubt we’d even make it up the hill and I’ve no intention of leaving you here alone.” She snuggled next to his side. “Just stay close to me. I’ll keep you warm. Let’s wait. They’re bound to miss us and come back pretty soon.”

Why
hadn’t
someone missed them and come back already? He must have a
person
, although, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t think if it was a
man person
or a
woman person
. Or was it because his
person
was dead? He shuddered at the thought.

The cool morning air rippled across his face as he lay beside her, licking the back of her ears. He tried to remember something, anything before the accident, like, his name or his
person’s
name. But, his eyes were heavy and his head felt like a chunk of lead.
What is my name?
Too tired to ponder the problem further, he rested his chin on his white paws and fell asleep, lulled by the sound of Angel’s purr.

“Let’s stop on the way to the animal shelter and pick up some breakfast.” Brett sipped his Styrofoam cup of motel coffee. He grimaced and set the cup in the rental car’s cup holder. The sun had yet to burn through the cloud cover, as he and Amanda drove across town. “The pets won’t mind waiting a little longer.” He glanced at his watch.9:00 A.M. “The shelter may not even open until 10:00 A.M.”

“I can’t wait to see Thumper.” Amanda bounced in her booster chair.

Thirty minutes later with a cup of Starbucks coffee in hand, Brett parked in front of the pink brick building where stray and unwanted animals waited, in hopes of finding a forever-home and establishing a mutually rewarding relationship with a human.

Amanda stopped to point. “Look at the doggies.”

Several dogs dragged human attendants around shrubbery, trees and trails, frequently stopping to mark a bush or squat and do their business. Obliging, subjective
two-leggers
knelt and gathered up the canine’s deposits.

Brett took Amanda’s hand. “Yes, I see them. Let’s go in and get Sam and your kitties.” He pushed open the door. Off to the right, faint barking and an occasional meow echoed down a corridor. Off to the left, a glass window opened into a room where a lady sat on the floor with a couple of kittens, leaping and pawing at a feather tied to a stick.

Posters covered the walls, advertising dog and cat food. Other posters advocated the joys of pet ownership.

A woman behind the reception desk looked up from her computer and smiled. “Good morning. Can I help you? Are we here to adopt a puppy today?”

“Yes…no…I mean…no puppy. I’m Brett Clarke. We’ve come for our pets. We were in a car accident yesterday afternoon. They told us our pets were brought here.” He glanced at a poster over her head depicting a happy family with their newly adopted dog. Wasn’t it just like the SPCA to take every opportunity to encourage pet ownership?

The woman checked her computer and picked up the phone, dialed a number and waited. She nodded. “Will you bring up the Clarke rescue dog?”

Brett raised an eyebrow.
Dog? What about the cats?

He picked nervously at his fingernail. How many times, over the years, had the SPCA wheedled donations from him? When he wrote the checks, he never thought that one day he’d be on the receiving end of their services.

Amanda walked to the glass walled room where the lady and the kittens cavorted on the rug.

A side door opened and a young man came into the lobby, pulling a dolly holding Sam’s large carrier.

“Here he is, Mr. Clarke. He’s a great dog and so well-mannered. He made quite an impression on the staff.” The young man hefted the carrier off the dolly and set it in front of Brett.

Sam wiggled inside, likely relieved to see a familiar face.

Brett leaned down and scratched Sam’s nose through the wire. “Great. Will the cats be here soon? We had two cats with us, too.” He glanced up at the attendant.

“Cats?” The attendant peered into Sam’s cage, as if looking for some elusive cat, maybe hiding under Sam’s feet. His brow furrowed and he glanced at the lady behind the counter.

She shrugged, her face a shade paler than before. She rifled through her paperwork. “They only brought the dog to the facility. There weren’t any cats.”

A muscle in Brett’s clenched jaw twitched. It didn’t make any sense. How could they have overlooked the cats’ carrier sitting right in the back seat next to the door?

Brett ran his hand over his face, trying to erase the terror he’d felt with his family trapped, the car crunched and broken, and him—helpless. He closed his eyes, visualizing the scene of the accident. The grind of metal as the rusted flatbed slammed into the rear of the SUV. Sparks flying across the pavement as the SUV careened across the road and flipped onto its side. The sound as the truck struck the bottom of the SUV. Kimberlee lying crumpled against the door. Amanda’s car seat hanging sideways. The smell of gasoline…

His forehead prickled with perspiration. He couldn’t forget how the firemen forced open the door with the jaws-of-life, pulled Kimberlee from the car, unconscious, her head bruised and bleeding… Dorian hunched over the seat, her shoulder jutting at an odd angle and…
the empty seat beside her!

The cats’ carrier must have fallen from the car and rolled down the embankment!

How had they not realized it was missing? Just before they left, he spoke to the fireman. ‘By the way, what’s the plan for the animals?’ and he’d answered. ‘Don’t worry. I saw the carrier. The local animal control is sending a truck. They’ll be taken to the SPCA. Here’s their card.’
He’d seen Sam’s carrier, the only carrier in the car and must have assumed it held several animals.

“Oh, no!” He’d been too worried about his family to notice the missing carrier.

“Daddy Brett? Where’s Thumper and Noe-Noe?”

Three pairs of eyes swiveled toward the little girl.

“There’s been a terrible mistake.” Brett knelt beside her and gripped her shoulders. “Thumper and Noe-Noe…” What could he say?
Were they dead? Or, were they trapped inside a fiberglass prison, somewhere over the embankment, twenty miles out of town?

“Where are they, Daddy Brett?” Her gaze traveled around the reception room.

“I think they’re lost, sweetheart, but we’re going to find them, okay?”

He stood, pulled out his wallet and tossed several large bills onto the counter. “Is that enough to cover Sam’s expenses?”

The receptionist nodded. “I hope you find your cats, Mr. Clarke. I’m sure sorry about the mix-up. We had no way to know—”

“Thanks again.” He hefted Sam’s carrier through the front door, opened the van’s tailgate and shoved it inside.

He lifted Amanda into the booster seat, jumped behind the wheel and gunned the engine. The tires spun in the gravel as Brett’s rental van turned onto the road. “Ready, Amanda? Let’s go find us some cats!”

The sun peeked through the apple trees and reached across the patch of dirt where the carrier lay, warming the side of his face. He lifted his head.
Where am I? Oh, I remember.
He rolled his head from side to side, holding it in a relatively upright position. Thank goodness, the pain in his head was almost gone.

The little orange female still snuggled close to his side. She’d kept him warm through the night. God bless her. If he had to be left for dead in the middle of nowhere with a lump on his head
,
he couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather be with than this lissome creature. She said she was here to take care of him. If anyone was going to be doing any
taking care of
around here, it would be him, not some mysterious female claiming to be his bride. Just exactly how and when did that happen? He felt as if he was a determined bachelor, though one could not be sure, in his present state.

He stretched, stepped outside the carrier and licked his left paw.

She woke, came alongside and shook herself. “Good morning.”

“Looks like it.” His gaze traveled the length of her golden body.
What a body.
Whoa! Better keep his mind off the babe and on more important things. “So, where did you say we met and why did you say you were my bride?”

“Oh, never mind all that now. Plenty of time to talk about such things later. We should try and find help. It doesn’t look like anyone is coming back and I’m starved.”

“My thoughts, exactly. I think I’m feeling well enough to travel.” He twisted his neck from side to side, lifted his left foot, then his right.
Good! Legs still work. Head doesn’t hurt.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go this way. I feel as if home is north.”