Walk on the Wild Side

by Christine Warren

  Her escort's eyes widened. "You grew up on a farm? Like with cows and chickens and everything?"

  "And the occasional horse. And pigs, too." Kitty tried to keep a straight face, but the shock and wonder on Ronnie's face was too much to resist. The other woman looked astounded that such places existed outside of reruns of Green Acres. "One of my chores growing up was collecting eggs. I helped with the milking, too. Papaw didn't run a dairy herd, but he and my grandmother liked to keep a cow or two for fresh milk and butter."

  "Oh, my gosh! You, like, took the eggs right from the chickens? Didn't that make them mad? Do they bite?"

  "Well, they didn't love it, but I learned pretty quick how to slip in and out before they really noticed. They'll peck if you make 'em mad, but they aren't the brightest leaves on the tree."

  "Wow. I can't even imagine that. I was born right here in the city. I grew up in a twelve-story apartment building. The closest I've ever gotten to a farm was singing 'Old McDonald' in kindergarten."

  Kitty couldn't help it. That was when she laughed. "They're not as dangerous as they sound. I promise. We only kept a few animals at home. Mostly, Papaw grew sorghum and peach trees. In fact, I learned how to drive when I was twelve. On the tractor."

  Shaking her head, Ronnie slowed to a stop and reached out to push open the door of a small, quiet store. "The only wheel I got behind at twelve was on a bumper car at the amusement park. If you'd put me on a tractor, I'd likely have leveled a small city."

  She grinned and motioned Kitty into the cafe ahead of her. They slipped into a booth and gave their orders to a prompt, cheerful waitress. While they doctored cups of strong, black coffee, Ronnie kept up her easy patter about anything and everything, drawing Kitty more and more into the conversation by asking questions about her childhood, her family back in Tennessee, and her opinion of the new trend for skinny jeans. Remarkably, Kitty found herself relaxing and laughing as if she'd known the other woman forever. They had a lot in common, including the opinion that skinny jeans looked good on absolutely no one.

  By the time they dug into the omelets, which were truly spectacular, Kitty realized that talking so much really did work up an appetite. She needed a break, so maybe she should take the opportunity to ask Ronnie a question or two of her own.

  "Um, do you mind if I ask you something?"

  Ronnie smiled over the rim of her coffee cup, "Sure. Go ahead."

  "Have you always been part of the pride? I mean, you said you grew up in the city, right?"

  "Yes and yes." Ronnie slathered jam on a slice of toast. "My mother's family joined the pride right when your father formed it. She and my father had been affiliated with a small band of the others in the area, but there were a few of them in those days. Your father was the first one to pull them all together into a real pride."

  "Oh, I didn't know that. I thought all Leos belonged to one pride or another."

  Ronnie shook her head and chewed her bite of toast. "Most Leos do belong to a pride, partly because it's historically been more secure for us to stick to our own kind to avoid the torches and pitchforks routine, and partly because that's just how things have always been done. We call Leos not affiliated with a pride 'nomads,' but they're a lot more rare than the rest of us, and they're almost always male."

  "Why's that?"

  "Girls tend to live with their parents' pride longer. That's where our families and our friends are, so we don't really have any incentive to leave. The guys are different. Some make a place for them inside their family pride, but a lot of them get bent out of shape knowing they'll never get to the top of the heap unless they fight their way there."

  That had Kitty blinking. "Fight?"

  Ronnie nodded, her expression understanding. "Yes. We have a hierarchical system, Kitty. The Felix is the Felix because he's the strongest male in the pride. If another male wants to be his own boss and he's not the strongest in his birth pride, he has to leave. He can either find a pride with a Felix he can beat or he can try to find other nomads or Leos dissatisfied with their situations and form a pride of his own."

  It sounded like something out of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, but Kitty didn't think her new friend would appreciate hearing it put quite that way. "That sounds very… uncompromising," was what she settled on instead.

  Ronnie grinned. "Most of us like to stick with 'traditional,' but you're not far off the mark." She shrugged, and her smile dimmed slightly. "I suppose it must sound insane to you, but for us, it's the way things have always been. Humanity may have given up invading other humans' territories and using physical strength to gain power—in some parts of the world—but we aren't human. The Leo in us still has a lot in common with our animal cousins."

  It wasn't like Kitty could argue with Ronnie's point. Leos, at least, weren't committing genocide, like humans in the Sudan were doing, she didn't think. And she'd never heard about Leos starting World War II. The idea that Hitler had been a Leo struck her as faintly curious. Only a human being could have possibly been so insanely evil.

  She laid down her fork and reached for her coffee. "Okay, so does the fact that you're still in the pride you were born in mean that you aren't married?"

  "Nope, it means I married a man in my own pack who had no desire to be in charge of everyone else's problems," Ronnie said, her eyes twinkling. "I always told my mother I'd only marry a man with a good head on his shoulders. My mate is an accountant and he says running his own life and raising a family is more than enough responsibility for any man."

  Kitty looked up. "You have kids?"

  "One." Ronnie's expression softened subtly and glowed with obvious pride. "A daughter. She's three and a half and grows out of a pair of shoes about every four or five hours, which is why I'm psyched you want to check out Tobin's. That's the shoe store I told you about. Are you done eating?"

  Kitty nodded.

  "Cool. Then let's get our check and get out of here. Before my little hellion outgrows the sneakers I haven't bought her yet!"

  WHEN THEY WALKED OUT OF THE SHOE STORE AN HOUR later, Kitty was wearing a brand-new pair of white and gray tennis shoes and carrying a bag containing her old sandals and a pair of strappy black heels that Ronnie had insisted she couldn't do without.

  The slim black dress Ronnie had insisted on in the last store had already been sent back to the hotel as the concierge had suggested.

  "I have no idea where I'm supposed to wear these things," she said, shaking the bag and turning with her companion back toward the Savannah. "Or the cocktail dress. I'm not going to be hitting the nightclubs, for heaven's sake. The only things I brought to wear are jeans and more jeans."

  "You didn't pack a single dress?"

  "Why would I? I'm only going to be here for a couple of days, and it's not like I was planning on a big Welcome Home' celebration or anything."

  Ronnie shrugged. "You can wear them to the introduction."

  "What introduction?" Kitty frowned.

  "The introduction to the pride. You don't have to get dressed up, of course, but a lot of people do."

  "What on earth are you talking about? I feel like we suddenly started speaking different languages," Kitty said with a nervous half-laugh.

  When Ronnie joined in with a chuckle, her amusement sounded much more genuine than Kitty's. "Sorry. I guess Max didn't mention it to you. You don't need to freak out. It's not like a huge thing, but every new member of the pride has to be officially introduced by the Felix."

  Kitty just stared.

  "It's kind of like an initiation, only a lot less complicated," Ronnie continued, talking faster now, as if hurrying through the explanation before Kitty, you know, passed out. "Basically, he just tells everyone he accepts you as a member of the pride and that means everyone else has to, too. It's like two minutes, but the whole pride gets together infrequently enough that a lot of people still use it as an excuse to get all dressed up." She wriggled her eyebrows to lighten the mood. "Partly because so many of them use it as an o
pportunity to hook up with someone new."

  Kitty shook her head. With unnecessary force. "I don't think that's going to happen. I didn't come here to join the pride. Not even close. This so isn't a permanent thing. I'm only here for a few days. Maybe a couple of weeks at most. I'm not trying to become like y'all are. That's for sure."

  That made Ronnie frown. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

  "Don't worry about it. I just assumed Max explained."

  They each offered the other a forced smile, then turned and continued their progress back toward the hotel. For several minutes, silence stretched between them, tense and timid.

  Kitty mentally cursed herself for ruining what had seemed almost like a burgeoning friendship by slamming on the brakes as soon as the other woman mentioned joining the pride. She hadn't intended to insult Ronnie or any of the local Leos, but she also didn't want any of them assuming she was here to stay. Especially not if that misinformation could make its way to Martin Lowe. She anticipated their meeting would be awkward enough without that kind of assumption barging its way between them.

  Kind of like this meeting.

  Kitty gave a mental wince. "I feel like I should explain that," she began when the silence became too heavy to bear.

  "No, don't worry about it," Ronnie cut her off and offered a weak smile. "It was my mistake. No one actually said you were moving out here or anything. I just assumed. And you know what they say about assumptions and asses."

  "No, really," Kitty insisted, reaching a tentative hand out to touch the other woman's arm. "I feel like a jerk. I swear I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I just meant—" She broke off, took a deep breath. "What I was saying—" Again she stopped herself. "I was only trying to let you know…" She closed her eyes and moaned. "Lord have mercy, I am such a jerk."

  She heard Ronnie snort and peeked out from between her lashes.

  "I think that's why we've gotten along so far," Ronnie said and her mouth twisted into a genuine, if wry, smile. "My brother tells me the real reason my mouth is so big is because I spend so much time with my foot in it."

  Kitty laughed weakly. "I think I just choked on my kneecap." She stopped and stepped to the side of the pavement to get out of the flow of pedestrian traffic. And because the building behind her made a good support structure for her to lean again while she was weakened from her own idiocy. "I'm going to lay it out for you here, because subtlety is obviously not my strong suit, but neither is laying my problems on people I don't know all that well, so bear with me."

  Ronnie nodded, her expression turning curious.

  Bracing herself, Kitty started again, this time focusing not on how she sounded, but on telling the truth. It was the strategy her grandparents had always taught her to use. "I'm twenty-four years old. Until two weeks ago, I thought my father was a human kid who got drunk and died when he wrecked his car on prom night. I had no reason to think he was anything else, until I got into a wreck of my own and crawled out of it on four feet instead of two. So I'm still in something of a state of shock here."

  Ronnie nodded cautiously. "That's… understandable."

  "The thing is, I already have a family," Kitty said, "one I really love and admire, so I didn't come here trying to find that. My grandparents raised me like their own daughter, and my papaw was the best father to me any girl could ever have. No offense to Mr. Lowe, or anything, but it seems kind of late to me for either of us to pretend we're going to be like family now. It feels like a lie, and I don't like to lie." She grimaced. "Especially since I'm not real good at it."

  "Well, if you didn't come here looking for your family, why are you here?"

  "A question I ask myself every three and a half seconds." Kitty sighed. "I may have just found out I have a Leo for a father, but the rest of my family is human. They know even less about what I am than I do, and that's saying something. I came out here so I could learn how this shapeshifting thing works. I need to get control of it, because right now, I can't even choose when it happens. The couple of times I've changed, it's just happened, without me even thinking about it. And the last time I shifted, I got stuck. I'd still have a tail if Max hadn't been there to help me out of it."

  She saw Ronnie smile and stifled a surge of pique. Maybe one day she'd be able to laugh at her own ineptitude, too.

  "Basically, it comes down to fear," Kitty continued. "I'm afraid that if I don't learn how to be a Leo the right way, I could end up hurting someone, and I'd rather die than see that happen. So I'm here for a few lessons. Once I pass my finals, I'll be heading back to Tennessee where I belong. It's not because of you, though," she assured the other woman. "I just don't belong here."

  "Yes, you do."

  Ronnie's voice was quiet and firm and rocked Kitty back on her heels like a volcanic eruption.

  "You're half-human and half-Leo," Ronnie pointed out softly, but her brown eyes fixed grave and intense on Kitty's. "To me, that means you belong with us just as much as you do with them. You just haven't given us the same chance to prove it to you."

  Feeling helpless to explain herself any more clearly, Kitty's shoulder sagged. "You don't understand."

  "Sure, I do. You're the one who's having trouble," Ronnie said, smiling and giving Kitty's shoulder a squeeze before linking their arms together and tugging the other woman back into the flow of traffic down the sidewalk. "You already are what you are, Kitty. Focusing on one part isn't going to make the other go away, and vice versa."

  Another frustrated moan escaped Kitty's lips. "What if I try really, really hard?"

  Ronnie laughed. "I can hear the violins tuning up for you, Kitty. Why are you trying to make this into such a conflict for yourself? You don't think you're the only person in the world who's ever had mixed race parents, do you?"

  "This isn't black versus white, Ronnie. It's human versus animal. Those aren't races, they're species!"

  "And you still aren't the only person this has ever happened to. People survive it all the time. You will, too."

  "Those people probably grew up with a pretty clear idea of what they were up against. I didn't. I had two decades to get used to being human. I've had two weeks to get used to being something else. Cut me a little slack here."

  "If you needed slack, I'd cut you miles of it," Ronnie said, still pulling her along toward the Savannah. "What you really need, though, is immersion therapy. I don't know what makes you think any of this will be easier if you fight it every step of the way, but I can tell you that was a dumb idea."

  "Seems like I've been having a lot of those recently," Kitty muttered.

  Ronnie's speech had made Kitty feel like a two year old throwing a temper tantrum. Not only that, but she realized that she'd been throwing it at all the wrong people. For weeks now, she'd been lashing out at anyone and everyone in her path—Papaw, Misty, Max, Ronnie. Her emotions had lumped them all together into the category of targets, and she'd been treating them accordingly, even though none of them had deserved it.

  Misty hadn't been much of a mother to Kitty, but then she'd only been sixteen when she'd gotten pregnant by an older man who left town before he even knew about the baby. What would Kitty have done in her mother's place? And some people just weren't cut out to be parents. Kitty knew that, and she'd realized a long time ago that Misty was one of them. For better or worse, Kitty's pretty, blonde, spoiled mother had neither wanted nor been equipped to raise a child, but at least she'd been smart enough or lucky enough to give Kitty to Lonnie and Lily Beth Sugarman to raise. No parents could have done a better job bringing up a child that Kitty's grandparents had done with her. During her life, Kitty had been too lucky to justify her recent behavior.

  A wave of shame washed over her, and for the first time since her grandmother's funeral seven years ago, Kitty felt gratitude for Lily Beth's passing. At least the woman was no longer alive to witness her granddaughter's selfish behavior.

  Guilt clenched a tight fist around Kitty's stomach, and she felt overwhelmed by the need to
get to a phone so she could call her papaw and apologize for the way she'd treated him just before she left. He hadn't deserved it, and she should have known better.

  "Kitty?" Ronnie jiggled their linked arms a little to get Kitty's attention. "Are you okay? You just went a little pale."

  "I'm fine," Kitty assured her, forcing herself to smile. "I think you just knocked a little bit of sense into me. At least enough to make me realize I owe you an apology. I'm sorry for being such a brat just now. Being a little shaken up is no excuse for bad manners."

  Ronnie laughed. "Sweetie, it is nothing to worry about. I need to introduce you to my daughter. Maybe some of those southern manners of yours will rub off on her."

  "I mean it. I behaved like a jerk. If I'm going to be mad, I should at least try to take it out on the right person. And you are not him."

  Ronnie leveled her an assessing gaze. "Who is he, then? Your father?"

  "He's the one who apparently knew about me for twenty-three years without so much as making the effort to return the favor."

  They traveled another block in silence until the rich, red stone of the Savannah's exterior came into view near the horizon. It took that long before Ronnie voiced her reply.

  "You know, I'm not going to say I wouldn't feel the same way in your position," she said, her tone slow and serious, "but I think you might want to meet Martin before you decide to hate him. He has a side to the story, too, and it just might be worth hearing."

  Kitty shook her head. "I can't imagine how. A lifetime of neglect is a big wrong to make up for."

  "It is," Ronnie agreed, fixing her gaze on the hotel ahead, "but you may find that sometimes people do the wrong thing because it's more right than the alternatives."

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  KITTY'S MIND REPLAYED THE CONVERSATION WITH Ronnie all the way across the lobby and toward the bank of elevators leading up to her room. As she rounded the corner and reached out to press the call button, she collided with an immovable object and let out a breathless grunt.