Accidentally Catty Read online

  “Ah, but, I’m awesomely skilled in the ways of bedside manner.”

  “You do know how to work a Band-Aid.”

  “Right! Not just that, I can tranq your ass in two flat.”

  “An uncommon skill, no doubt.”

  “I’m a good problem solver—logical—well, unless I’m with child and in shock. Then I become irrational and over-the-top stupid. But minus the hormonal shifts, breasts that feel like they’re preparing for homogenization, and the ever-present nag in my lower back, I’m pretty laid back.”

  His blue eyes glittered. “Your feet are huge.”

  “Thanks. The Abominable Snowman let me borrow his boots, but I have to return them next week. He has a rash of igloos to raid. Can’t do that without boots, you know.”

  “Katie?”

  “Shaw?”

  “What made you get on a plane and come halfway around the world when you’re so far along in your pregnancy?”

  “You.”

  “Really? I’m open to expounding on that notion.”

  “You don’t want to miss this, do you? I mean, c’mon. We’re having a baby. There’s all sorts of goodies to be had. Water breaking, dilating, screaming pain as Junior rips from my swollen, disfigured body. And afterbirth. I hear that’s a kick.”

  “Katie?”

  “Shaw?”

  “You don’t really believe I’d have allowed you to do this without me, do you?”

  Relief, though fleeting, began to settle her jarred frozen nerves. “Now you tell me? Now? After I sat on a plane with Britain’s answer to the Jonas Brothers wannabes, this according to them, of course, flew nine million miles and a hundred time zones with twenty layovers in places I can’t even pronounce only to be served a crappy postage-stamp-sized bag of pretzels and a Diet Pepsi? With Nina. Did I mention the vampire’s with me? I won’t even go into the drive out here to the wilds of whatever the name of this town is with a cab driver that beat me up verbally because I had the nerve to tell him how to drive.”

  Shaw propped against the weathered door to his cottage, pointing to his suitcase. “I didn’t get the memo that you were coming to my neck of the woods. I might have sent you a message via smoke signal and tom-tom, had I known. Don’t you read your email? Or for that matter, the note I left you? I don’t have a landline and I lost my cell phone when I first came to see my grandfather. I didn’t have time to replace it with all that I’ve been trying to get done.”

  A tear stung her eye. Her smile trembled. “I’ve been on a plane too long to read anything but Wanda’s romance novels. Which, I might add, are quite good. I don’t understand all those mean reviews about them on Amazon . . .” She scratched her head. “Anyway, no. I didn’t read my email, and I didn’t get any note. Did you send me gushy love notes about how life wasn’t worth living without me?”

  He popped an eyebrow upward. “Um, nope. I just said I was coming back to Piney Creek, and you could suck it, if you didn’t like it.”

  She gave him a flirty smile. “You and all that charm.”

  “It’s an Eaton trait.”

  Katie moved closer to him, as close as her belly would allow. “So here was my plan. If you were going to be difficult, I was going to beg. But please, if you make me beg, and I have to do it on my knees, you’ll have to help me up when the begging’s done. I’m like some beached whale. If I roll on my side in bed, I need a strong captain and some anchors to roll me back over.”

  Shaw laughed. “You were going to beg?”

  “I was going to do whatever I had to do to convince you that I’m the girl for you as your twilight years approach.”

  He trailed a finger along her cheek, brushing the strands of her hair from her face. “Will you push my wheelchair? Rinse my dentures? Cook me soft-boiled eggs and toast?”

  “As long as you’re down with putting my walker together. Teeny’s was work.”

  “You were pretty dismissive—even in all that shock. I’m not sure I’m willing to suffer that kind of rejection again. That hurt.” He made a mock face filled with pain.

  “I was afraid. I was afraid we had come together in a dire situation and once the direness of it had passed, you’d realize what bonded us was a tragedy. You know, like disaster victims.”

  “Well, disaster isn’t far off the mark, but it wasn’t a disaster that’s had me missing you since I left.” He hauled her into his arms with a chuckle.

  She placed her hands on his shoulders, right where they belonged. “About that.”

  “What?”

  “The leaving thing. Reasons?”

  “I told you in the no—”

  Katie’s cell phone jangled, she dug in her pocket for it and saw it was Teeny. “Hold that thought. It’s Teeny. She’s on a cruise. I worry she’s bedded the captain and taken the male passengers as her sex slaves.” She held the phone to her ear while Shaw drew her inside to sit by a warm crackling fire. “Hello?”

  “Katie?”

  “Aunt Teeny?”

  “I’m not a weenie. I just made a mistake.”

  Katie looked at the phone, confused. “What?”

  “I said—”

  “No, I know what you said, Aunt Teeny. What mistake did you make?” she shouted, making Shaw smile.

  “I forgot to give you the letter your big, strappin’ man left you just before I left on my cruise. Oh, Lady Jane—did I ever blow it. I remembered it when we were in the Mayan ruins. Let me tell you about boring, girly. My eyeballs near fell out of my head with boredom. Anyway, I was looking at some stupid statue, and it was lookin’ me right back, square in the eye, I tell ya, and I remembered the letter.”

  Katie burst out into a fit of giggles. “What did the note Shaw left say, Aunt Teeny?” She eyed him from her place on the couch as he yanked her boots off and rubbed her swollen ankles.

  “Said he had to go home to get his stuff, but he’d be back as fast as he could, whether you liked it or not.”

  Her heart soared, her smile broadened. “He said he was willing to be my slave for life, Aunt Teeny? How could I pass an offer like that up?”

  “Whassamatter with you, girl? I’m the one with the hearin’ problems, not you. The note didn’t say anything about livin’ in a cave for life. He said—”

  “I heard you, Aunt Teeny,” she shouted. “I’m with Shaw right now—in England.”

  “You ain’t havin’ that baby there, are ya?”

  Katie shot Shaw a worried gaze. “You knew?”

  “ ’Course I knew, Katie-did. You were as mean as a bear caught in a trap who hadn’t eaten in days. It runs in the family. Your mother was the same way as you. I know all the signs. So you comin’ home to birth that grandniece or -nephew a mine? Or am I gonna have to come over there and getcha?”

  Katie looked to Shaw, who reminded her of his packed bags and pointed to all the boxes in the sitting area. She grinned, her heart tight with joy. “Yes, Aunt Teeny! I’m coming home—with Shaw.”

  “Good girl!” she shouted. “Make sure he brings some of those tight jeans he’s so fond a wearin’ so’s I got somethin’ to ogle. Gotta go, girl—they’re doin’ the conga line!” The phone went dead.

  Shaw knelt on the couch, pulling her to him and placing a hand on her belly. “I’d better pack my skinny jeans, no?”

  Katie laughed, letting her lips finally touch his with a sigh of completion. “You’d better pack it all, cougar man. All of it.”

  EPILOGUE

  Eleven Months Later—Five and Counting Freaky-

  Deaky Paranormal Accidents—and Not One but Two

  Additions to the Paranormal Neighborhood Fondly

  Dubbed “Mutual of Omaha” . . .

  Shaw smiled down at Katie, who smiled up at him while burping a squirming Alistair Junior, now covered in the frosting his auntie Nina had snuck him on his pacifier. He was only eight months old, but he loved chocolate frosting, as did his brother, Daniel the Second.

  Nina took Daniel from Shaw and cooed, swinging him
high in the air while her mate, Greg, tickled his ribs. “Who loves his auntie Nina?” she asked, garnering a toothy drooling grin.

  “Nina!” Marty gave her the evil eye from across the kitchen of Teeny’s house where she and her pack mate, Keegan, rocked their daughter, Hollis, who was sound asleep after too many hamburgers, courtesy of Auntie Nina. “Stop jarring him by swinging him around.You’ll make his tummy upset. He’s not a toy.”

  “Oh, look,” she said to Daniel. “It’s Auntie Marty. The stupid Tummy Police.” She held Daniel up to face him toward Marty. “See that face, squirt? That’s the face of a meanie butt, buddy. You stick with Auntie Nina—she knows chocolate frosting.”

  “Give that child to me, Nina,” Wanda demanded, leaving her husband Heath’s embrace to take Daniel and cuddle him close. “Oh, the beautiful children the two of you produce. And thanks to me, you can both enjoy them.” She shot her husband a pointed glare. When Heath had gotten wind of Wanda’s spur-of-the-moment choice to save Shaw, he hadn’t been happy. He was quick to remind her of the disaster she’d once experienced.

  But clearly, he’d given up hope of ever quashing Wanda’s romantic bone because Heath threw his hands up in the air. “I can’t hear you, honey.”

  What Wanda said was true. Because of her, Shaw was indeed, a cougar werevamp—which made for some very strange, but overall successful, shifts. Though there was that shedding problem—in stereo.

  “Hey, Wanda,” Shaw asked, muttering under his breath to her. “How’s OOPS going anyway? Still just a bunch of quacks tweeting you?”

  Wanda chuckled. “You know, interesting you should put quacks and OOPS in the same sentence. Actually, we had a very promising tweet from someone today. Someone Ingrid knows through a friend of a friend—or something like that.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m convinced,” she whispered, “that there are more of us out there. Lord only knows what species, but I’m convinced more exist. So I’m not giving up. OOPS is alive and well and open for business.”

  “Here, here!” Marty said on a wink.

  Teeny took the towel from her shoulder she’d been using to dry dishes after a late afternoon gathering of the paranormals she still didn’t know existed, and that was just how Shaw and Katie planned to keep it.

  What Teeny did know were men.

  And she had her eye on every one of the OOPS women’s mates.

  She thwacked Clayton’s backside with it and snickered when he jumped. “How come you never told me you had all these fancy friends with men who’re prettier ’n I am, Katie?”

  Casey threw an arm around Teeny’s thin shoulders with a laugh. “Oh, Teeny. I wanna be you when I grow up.”

  “Then you’d better work on payin’ closer attention when a pretty woman like me’s flirtin’ with yer man,” Teeny joked, patting Casey’s cheek. She reached out and grabbed Alistair’s hand from behind Katie, nibbling it with a toothless grin. “Can you even believe how healthy these babies are after bein’ premature?”

  “That just goes to show you what a good mother Katie is, Teeny,” Shaw said with a grin, resting his hand on Katie’s shoulder, reminding her of the total completion he’d brought her life. The premature thing was the best excuse they could come up with for Katie’s three-month gestation period.

  Katie’s heart filled with love when Alistair rubbed his blue eyes with chubby fists. Esmeralda held out her arms to Katie and smiled from the other side of the table where she sat beside her new husband, Daniel Green. “Give him here. I’ll rock him to sleep,” she offered.

  Katie handed Alistair over with a kiss on his raven-haired head to the tune of a disgruntled moan, coming from Esmeralda’s feet.

  Can a dog not get even a little love here? I like to snuggle, too, Delray complained.

  Katie hid her smile and reached down to scratch a discontent Delray’s head. “So who’s up for coffee?” she asked, her heart warming at all the smiling faces that now shared Teeny’s kitchen. A kitchen that had once only held her, Teeny, and forgotten hopes.

  Now it teemed with life—often.

  “I’ll get it, Boss,” Ingrid offered. “I’ve gotten really good at brewing a strong pot since I have to get up at the butt crack of dawn to drive to school. I need coffee just to keep me from passing out. Not to mention it’s what keeps me awake all day long while I deal with all this new clientele.” Ingrid was studying for her degree in veterinary medicine and interning for Katie while taking parttime duties for OOPS, answering phones.

  Katie’s heart swelled at the mention of her booming practice and Ingrid’s pending degree. The people of Piney Creek, once Seamus Magoo had put a good-natured bug in their ears, had finally decided she was worthy of more than just boarding their pets.

  Oh, and Dr. Jules deciding it was time to retire hadn’t hurt, either.

  Month after month, the fine folk of Piney Creek began to bring their animals in. At first it had just been emergencies, but after a time, and the ladies’ love of her handsome, charming foreign husband, she’d managed to earn their trust. Now their hands were full with the twins and animals in need of medical attention out the wazoo.

  Daniel Green chucked his namesake under the chin with affection. “That was a wonderful brisket, Katie.” He rubbed his belly, looking healthy and happy. Esmeralda had changed Daniel’s life by bringing something more to his world than vials and lab equipment and his tireless research.

  He continued to search for the answer as to why his daughter Leticia’s shifts had become so violent, but with Esmeralda in his life, he now took the time out to enjoy some family gatherings and long walks around the animal park—which was thriving. The animals had been returned to Dr. Green’s care, and he spent his days loving the animals no one wanted or had purchased with the mistaken idea they could care for them. They visited the animal park often as a family, and on one particular visit, Katie had learned that while Shaw was in his cougar state, Lucille, the cat who’d held him so mesmerized that night when they’d invaded the park, had a little crush on her man.

  Katie knew, because Lucille had told her herself.

  Daniel and Esmeralda had also come up with an antidote to prevent Katie from ever experiencing what Leticia had. The possibility that her shifts could go awry like Shaw’s had Daniel and Esmeralda up late into the nights creating something to protect them from a potentially violent shift, taking into account that turning successfully was essential to their natures. It came in the way of matching silver bracelets, rich with some sort of herbs and minerals and a dash of Daniel’s genius only he knew the secret to.

  And she wore it around her wrist with an engraving on the inside that read, Shaw, Katie, Daniel, Alistair—Always, and the dates of the twins’ birth.

  Wanda and Nina had recovered what was left of the antidote that night—what Nissa hadn’t consumed to keep her mad revenge alive and well.

  They’d spoken of that revenge and Nissa’s eventual suicide only once when Nina and Wanda had told her of the events of that horrible evening. According to Nina, it had been far worse than what Shaw had gone through in the woods that afternoon—and Nissa had, in a rage, thrown herself off the small cliffs in the wooded area just south of the compound she’d created. Nina and Wanda, along with Darnell, had buried her body with the kind of respect Katie still might not have been able to manage.

  Nina had gotten into the heads of the thugs Nissa had hired, most of them mercenaries, and erased the events and Nissa’s memory from their brains.

  And then, they’d vowed to never speak of it again.

  Several elders from the cougar community had revealed themselves to Daniel. They’d reconnected in their strong belief that if they died out, then so be the fate of their world. No humans would come to harm in order to prevent extinction.

  Shaw came up behind her while she was deep in reflection. “Good day, huh, honey?”

  She spun on her heel, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing herself into his strength. “Are you happy? I mean, living here i
n the States with me and the boys? Teeny, too?” There’d been so many changes in their lives. So much tragedy.

  He brushed his knuckles down her cheek with affection. “What kind of a question is that, Mrs. Eaton? Forget you and the boys. I’m bloody nuts over Teeny.”

  Katie let her head fall to his shoulder, resting it there, where it belonged with a chuckle. “She’s really made strides with those fish sticks. We don’t have to scrape them off the cookie sheet anymore. I can see why she’s so appealing.”

  “Lest ye forget her latest dish, hamburger surprise. She’s really stepped it up a notch. Though I worry about the surprise,” he murmured, kissing the tip of her nose.

  “Hey! You two quit that mackin’, would ya? Me and the boy here’s the only two single dudes in the joint. Why you all always gotta remind us?”

  “Yeah, Boss,” Kaih backed up Darnell. “You know what I think we should do, Darnell?”

  Darnell draped his arm around Kaih’s shoulder, dwarfing him. “Whass dat, little man?”

  “I think we should hit Frannie’s Four Corners and see what’s in the corners.” He gave Darnell a boyish grin.

  Darnell fisted him with his knuckles. “I drive, you buy?”

  “Deal.”

  “Then we out. Good eats, people. Good people, too. Let’s do this a lot. Old Darnell ain’t got nobody ta call family but you crazy bunch,” he said, blowing a kiss to the babies and the women.

  “Yeah,” Shaw agreed, curving Katie to his side. “Let’s do this a lot.”

  “I’ll cook,” Teeny offered, her toothless grin wide.

  “You aiiight, Granny,” Darnell said before planting a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “Peace out. You know what to do if ya get to needin’ me.” He and Kaih disappeared out the front door, slapping each other on the back.

  Katie and Shaw lingered, as they often did, at the back of the kitchen, watching their friends and family from a distance so they could soak up the joy—together. “I love you, Katie Woods. You’ve made me happier than I ever hoped to be. Don’t you forget that.”

  She sighed, raising her lips to meet his. “I love you, too.You, the boys, Teeny, our friends, our practice, our crazy life.”