“Ronald, I don’t have time to talk. Now take your hands off me, I have to go!” I yanked harder on my arm which he still refused to relinquish. We were beginning to attract attention, some of the secretaries were staring and a few of the Bardine reps were poking their heads out of the conference room to see what the commotion was about.
“Dean, there’s no excuse you could give me right now that would be good enough. You wrote that damn Bardine Ad campaign and you’re going to stay and sell it to them.” There was a sadistic kind of glee on Phelps’ freckled face—he was really enjoying this opportunity to assert his authority.
I was getting frantic. Already I might be too late. I twisted in the punishing grip Ronald Phelps was applying to my arm and kneed him sharply in the groin. His red, freckled face turned a strange, dusty shade of purple and he crumpled to the floor, finally releasing my arm.
“I told you, I didn’t have time to talk,” I tossed over my shoulder as I beat a hasty retreat. Well, so much for my job. But losing my job didn’t seem remotely important compared to what was going on at the moment.
I got in my little silver bug and was on the road already when I realized I didn’t have the slightest idea where I was going. With all this talk of dropping Shadow off and picking him up at the vet’s, nobody had actually told me which vet he was scheduled to be at.
I got on my cell and managed to get Barb out of a very important conference by assuring her secretary that it was a dire emergency.
“Barb, the vet—where is it? What time was the surgery scheduled for?” I demanded, driving like a maniac in what I hoped might be the right direction.
“Angelina, calm down. What are you talking about?” The maddeningly practical tone of her voice nearly drove me crazy.
“Where is the vet? Give me directions right now,” I demanded.
“Geeze, Okay, Okay,” she muttered. “It’s The WeCare Animal Hospital on West Fifty-fourth and Indian School but what—?”
Great, I was headed in the wrong direction. “When was Shadow scheduled to get…” I couldn’t make myself say the word. “When was it scheduled?” I ended.
“I don’t know. Sometime in the afternoon, I think. Maybe around two.”
I glanced at my watch. It was one fifty-five.
“What—?” Barb started again but I cut her off.
“The minute I hang up with you call them and tell them to cancel it.”
“Jelly, listen, you’re not making any sense. What’s all this about, anyway?”
“Just do it,” I said, swerving across three lanes of traffic to make a U-turn. “It’s important, Barb, all right?” I hung up without waiting for her answer.
The afternoon traffic was sluggish and my car was burning up despite the best attempts of my AC. Any other time I would have started the car and let the air run for a while to cool things down inside before I took off, but even though my steering wheel was so hot it burned my hands and I felt like I was breathing in pure desert, all I could think of were his words to me the night before.
This is my last chance. I need you to believe in me, he had said. But like a fool, I just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t believe that something so preposterous could actually be real. And now while I was sitting in traffic the man of my dreams might literally be having his nuts cut off. “Oh, God,” I moaned out loud. Did I really have to put it like that?
I got lost twice and by the time I pulled in to the WeCare parking lot it was ten past two and I was frantic. Had Barb been able to get through? Or was it too late?
The receptionist at the phone was a bored-looking middle aged woman in pink scrubs decorated with pastel kitty cats. “Yes, I see that,” she was saying into the phone, not bothering to look up as I rushed in. “But the surgery has already started and we can’t just stop…”
She must be on the phone with Barbara that minute. I decided to bypass her and go straight for the back. I ran behind the counter and zig-zagged around her desk to get to the swinging metal doors that lead to the back of the building.
“Hey, wait a minute! Miss, you can’t just…”
But I was gone, leaving her gaping behind me. I was a woman on a mission. Please God, don’t let me be too late, I prayed frantically. I ran down the long corridor, pushing open doors to exam rooms as I went and not bothering to close them afterwards. There was a commotion behind me as a cat and several dogs got loose but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered except finding Shadow.
Believe in me, he’s whispered in my ear the night before and I did, with all my heart. I just hoped it wasn’t too late.
At the far end of the hall was another set of metal doors and since there was nowhere left to go, they had to be it. As I neared the doors, my heels clicking frantically on the tile floor, I heard voices drifting out into the hallway.
“I can’t find a vein when he keeps thrashing like this,” complained one.
“Give him a little more. He’s really fighting it,” said another, deeper voice. “He’s a big guy but I’ve never seen anything…” a third voice began.
“Let him go!” I yelled, bursting through the doors into what was obviously a surgical suite. Three people draped in mint green scrub gowns turned to face me, their eyes looking shocked above the paper masks they wore. The wildly swinging doors knocked over a tray of silver instruments that fell to the ground with a loud clatter.
“Lady, this is an operating room and…”
“Who are—?”
“What the hell?”
They all spoke at once but I only had eyes for the furry head sticking out from under the green surgical drapes. There was a nozzle clamped over the long muzzle but even from where I was standing I could see that the muzzle was whitish-brown, not black.
It wasn’t Shadow.
“Where’s my dog? What did you do to him? Where is he?” I babbled. I kicked instruments out of the way and they skittered across the hard tile floor. Behind me the middle-aged receptionist, no longer looking very bored, burst into the room.
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Katzenberg,” she said, giving me a very disapproving look. “I don’t even know who she is. She just barged right in.”
“My dog, where’s my dog, Shadow?” I insisted, feeling like my heart might burst at any second.
“Shadow?” One of the surgically draped people, (it was hard to tell male from female in that get-up) looked at me quizzically. “Was that the big black wolf-looking mutt?”
“Yes, yes that’s him. That’s him!” I said. “Where is he? Please…”
“Already in the recovery area.” He or she gestured with a mint-green arm.
“Oh no. No, no, no,” I whispered, feeling like my legs were going to collapse. “Oh my God. Oh no…” I crumpled to the cold tile floor and put my hands over my face.
I was too late.
Chapter 12
“…Dean, are you Angelina Dean?” someone was asking me.
I looked up and nodded vaguely. It was one of the mint-green people. She had pulled off the paper mask she was wearing and was plainly a woman. Large gray-green eyes looked into mine with an expression of cautious sympathy.
“I’m Dr. Kate Katzenberg,” she introduced herself. In lieu of shaking my hand she helped me off the floor. “Come on,” she said, putting an arm around my trembling shoulders. “Let’s go see your dog, Shadow. He wasn’t harmed, you know. He’s very much alive and doing fine.”
She started to lead me towards another swinging door but I balked, not wanting to see.
“I … I can’t,” I whispered, feeling the words catch in my throat. “I can’t face him … not after what I let happen to him…”
“Shadow is fine,” the vet emphasized again, as though to a small child. “Come on. Let’s go take a peek at him.”
I would have to face him sooner or later, I reasoned. Taking a deep, trembling breath I forced myself to go the way her arm around my shoulders was urging. We walked into a small, sterile-smelling room filled with wire mesh cages. In a bottom
cage that was a little too small for him Shadow lay curled in a furry ball with his long muzzle buried in the bushy fluff of his tail.
“Oh my God.” I turned away, unable to look at him after the way I’d betrayed him. “When will he wake up?” I asked the vet, trying not to start crying again. “When will he realize what’s been … what’s been done to him?”
She gave me a confused look. “Wake up? He’s awake now, Ms. Dean.”
A sharp bark from behind me confirmed her statement.
I turned back to stare at the eager brown eyes that were staring at me through the bars of the cage. Oh God, how would I ever explain?
“I just … I thought it took a while for the anesthesia to wear off,” I said, staring at Shadow’s eager face pressed against the bars. The taffy-pink tongue was lolling out happily and he gave every indication of being overjoyed to see me. If only he knew…
“Anesthesia?” Dr. Katzenberg looked confused for a moment and then her face cleared. “Oh, I see what you mean. Well, Ms. Dean, Shadow was scheduled to be neutered today but there was a mix-up in the paperwork. You see, the free certificate from the Animal Shelter was misdated and if anything’s out of line we don’t get compensated.” She shrugged apologetically. “I’m sure you can understand how it is.”
I turned to her, a feeling of hopeful disbelief growing in my heart. “So then you didn’t … didn’t operate on him?” I asked, my voice quavering so hard it was a wonder she could understand a word.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient, but we’ll have to reschedule for another…”
“No—No rescheduling!” I yelled. I fell on my knees in front of the cage, heedless of what she might think. “Shadow,” I said, tears wetting my cheeks in a warm flood. “I don’t know if it’s too late or not and I’m sorry it took me so long but … I believe in you. I do, I believe!”
I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the veterinarian standing behind me, but as the words left my mouth, Shadow’s shaggy black coat started to roil and churn, like a pot coming to a hard boil. A look of pain came into the deep brown eyes.
“Oh my sweet Lord!” Dr. Katzenberg started to go towards the cage but I held her back with one arm.
“Wait,” I whispered, more to myself than her.
The strange bubbling of the black hide became even more violent until it looked like something was trying to get out from the inside. Shadow threw back his head and voiced a long, eerie howl that prickled my skin into goosebumps and made the hair at the back of my neck stand up in an anxious bristle. At last, with a low ripping noise, his hide split open and melted away.
There, curled in a ball on the floor of the much-too-small cage was a naked man with broad shoulders and cinnamon-bronze skin. He had shoulder length hair that was licorice-black and, when he looked up at me, the deepest brown eyes I had ever seen.
“Hello, Angelina,” he said. “You mind getting me out of this cage?”
Dr. Katzenberg shrieked and ran from the room, but I could only kneel on the floor and stare at the man of my dreams.
“Shadow?” I whispered, unable to believe my eyes.
“James, actually. James Redhorse,” he said.
I just stared at him.
“Angelina?” he said again. “Little help here?”
* * * *
“Tell me again,” I demanded, over a hot pot of coffee at my kitchen counter. “Why didn’t you just change in front of me and tell me right away?”
Shadow, or James, as I supposed I would have to get used to calling him, was lounging against the counter dressed in an old pair of my ex-husband’s sweatpants that were much too small for him. He sighed and took a sip of his coffee. I tried to pay attention to his words instead of the way his bicep rippled when he lifted the coffee mug, but it wasn’t easy.
“Looking back that would have been the easiest thing to do,” he said. “But you don’t think that logically when you’re a dog. At least, I didn’t. Don’t know what the average mental capacity for that kind of thing is. Somebody should draw up a chart.” He laughed, a deep rumble that seemed to run through the counter and up my hand and arm straight to my heart.
I smiled back, unable to help myself.
“Well, at least you could’ve spent some time explaining instead of just…” I shrugged and blushed, remembering exactly how we had spent our time.
“I know.” He grinned incorrigibly, the expression a white slice of teeth in his bronze face. “Believe me, I know. Don’t think I wasn’t thinking about it, as well as I could anyway, while I was sitting in that damn cage at the vet’s. Talk about not managing your time wisely.” He laughed again.
I winced. “Shadow, I mean James, I’m so sorry…”
He held up a hand to stop me. “No, we’ve been over all this twenty times already. I don’t want to hear it anymore, okay?”
I nodded, reluctantly and took a small sip of my coffee.
James sighed again. “I know I should have explained myself and my predicament a lot better but I only had a certain amount of time—until the moon set. And, Angelina,” He put down his mug and tilted my chin until I couldn’t help looking into his eyes. “When I was with you, I couldn’t think of anything else except how much I wanted you. Everything else just kind of got … swept away, forgotten.”
I could feel myself blushing from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. Even my fingers were blushing when I fumbled my coffee mug up to my lips for another sip to hide my embarrassment.
“Hey,” His touch on my cheek was gentle but it burned me just the same. “Why so shy all of a sudden?”
“I…” I swallowed hard and made myself look up at him again. “I just never … I mean, I was so sure it was a dream. I’m usually not as … uninhibited as I’ve been the past few nights. You should know that about me—that I’m not the kind of person who just jumps into bed with someone. But I thought you weren’t real.”
“Is this real enough for you?” He pulled me in for a warm, coffee-flavored kiss that turned me inside out.
“James,” I said, breathlessly at last. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to know.
“What?” he said, refusing to let me go though I put my hands against his bare chest and pushed. It was like pushing against a solid wall of muscle.
“I need to know some things before we get … before,” I finished rather lamely, looking down at the contrast of my pale white hands against his copper skin.
“Anything,” he said immediately. “Just ask me. I suppose you want to know about the curse—how I ended up as a dog in the first place”
“Well, yes but…” I looked up at him uncertainly. “Did you … the other night at the park. Did you kill that man? The one that attacked me?”
He sighed and let me go, stepping back to lean against the counter and cross his arms over his chest.
“You did, didn’t you?” I said.
“Well, yes,” he admitted, frowning a little. Then he laughed briefly, a short sharp sound that was almost a bark. “Listen to me, admitting this without benefit of any council. My old Criminal Defense professor, Dr. Wainright, would have a fit.” He shrugged, a rolling movement of the broad shoulders. “I, uh, saw him threatening you and I went a little crazy. If I could have stayed in human form I might not have done it but when I had to change back into a dog, well … I guess the urge to protect you sort of overcame me.” He looked me in the eyes. “Does it bother you?” he asked quietly.
“I … no, not really, I guess,” I said slowly. “I mean, they’re pretty sure he was the serial rapist that had been loose for a while so…” I trailed off, uncertain of how to put what I was thinking into words.
“So then what?” he asked, tilting my chin up to meet his eyes again.
“Well, it’s just that…” I sighed. “The reason I finally believed that this whole thing,” I gestured vaguely with my coffee mug which I had picked up again to have something to do with my hands, “wasn’t a
dream was because I got a call from Douglas—my ex-husband, you know?”
James nodded for me to go on.
“Well,” I set the coffee mug down and crossed my arms over my chest protectively. “He said you threatened him and Justin, his boyfriend, with some pretty awful things. I mean, I guess I just want to know if you’re a … a very violent person?” My voice trailed off into a high squeak at the end of the sentence.
James burst out laughing. “Oh that.” He grinned and shook his head. “Yeah, I threatened them, but I never would have done any of it.”
“Well, what did you say?” I demanded. “I mean, Douglas is a jerk and I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it, but I’ve hardly ever heard him so upset.”
“I, uh…” James tried to hide his grin with his coffee mug and couldn’t quite manage it. “Well, I’m a lawyer, you know? Civil Litigation Attorney.”
I hadn’t known but I nodded my head for him to keep going.
“Well,” he continued. “If I’d had on my three piece suit with my briefcase and the whole bit, I might’ve threatened them with a trespassing suit or something of that nature. But,” he shrugged. “There I was, buck naked in the middle of your backyard without so much as my cell phone handy. It was two against one and I had to think fast. Then your husband, uh, ex-husband said something to the effect that he wasn’t scared of any naked Indian no matter how big I was.”
“Oh my God.” I cringed. “I’m so sorry. Douglas can be such an ass sometimes.”
“So I learned.” James grinned. “Of course his boyfriend, what did you say his name was?”
“Justin,” I supplied, taking another sip of coffee to cover my embarrassment.
James nodded. “Justin, right. So he piped up and said to your ex, ‘Honey, please. Remember—labels disable.’ Well, I figured right then that I could probably just scare the bejesus out of them both if I played my cards right and it wouldn’t have to come to blows at all.” He grinned and poured himself another cup of coffee. “So I told them I’d scalp them and cut off their balls.”
I started to grin. “You didn’t.”
Shadow Dreams Page 8