The rattle of tin cans behind him caused the tall man to turn around just in time to see Casper mount his dirt pile and jump around like the friend that can’t handle their alcohol.
“What’s that?”
“Casper.”
Kara chuckled before Chase even caught the meaning behind the name. The fact that Casper was white made it even funnier. The only thing he’d come with from his past life was his comical name.
“That’s hilarious.”
Pen nodded. “I know. His former owner had a warped sense of humor. Too bad some patience about destruction of his perennials didn’t go along with that humor. Casper has a huge appetite for blackberries. Leaves and all. He doesn’t get to leave his pen without complete supervision from Mr. Oats.”
Kara kept right on laughing. “Let me guess. Mr. Oats is a horse.”
And the horse in question had just stuck his velvety nose over the split rail fence for Kara to stroke.
“Hi, Mr. Oats,” she murmured as she slid her fingers across his grey muzzle. “You’re such a pretty boy.”
Seeing how good the other woman was with the equine caused Pen’s body to melt and relax in a deep way. If Kara wanted another cat, she’d get one today. Chase on the other hand? His demeanor was a little stiff. Either from shyness or the man was trying to hide something. I aimed to find out what that might be with a little help from my fine feathered friend.
Time for the dive bomb.
I didn’t even need to entertain the thought because by the time it had flittered across my kitty brain, Sage was already soaring ever downward to come within about a foot of Chase Reynold’s head of thick, dark hair. I watched his eyes. Stared at them if the truth be told. He brought his hands up to his head in a defensive posture as if to protect himself, but he didn’t get angry. Okay. He’d just passed the first test. But then Lola chimed in.
What if he’s telling the truth and we’re being mean and rude to him?
Lola. Well … she had a point. But where Penelope was concerned, I was willing to embarrass Chase Reynolds and anyone else.
Pen narrowed her eyes at Sage who had flown back skyward. “I’m so sorry, Chase. I wonder what’s gotten in to Sage tonight. He’s usually not so aggressive.”
“No worries. It just startled me when he got so close to my hair.” Then he grinned. A wide and spontaneous smile that reeked of sincerity. “It takes hours in front of the mirror to get my locks to look this messy.”
Hey, Owlvis. I think this guy’s on the up and up. He’s not a warlock.
Righty.
After showing all the available cats and dogs to Kara and Chase and giving them the grating third degree, Pen must have thought both of them passed the test because she agreed to let them both adopt animals from the shelter. Kara chose the cat originally tagged for Jessie Plunks and Chase chose a lab mix that he said would be perfect for his mom’s large property in Santa Fe.
“Would you like to grab a cup of coffee this weekend before I head back home?” Chase had turned to Kara with a lovesick look in his eye.
Oh, no. Here we go. I’d blown it again.
***
The chocolate lingered before her cherry red lips like a succulent morsel. They parted slightly and a breath escaped before she wrapped their fullness around it and bit. Get your minds out of the gutter people. I’m hardly watching kitty porn. Dr. Luke and Penelope are sitting in the middle of Sugar Rush on their date and feeding each other random chocolates from a grab box.
Are you kidding me? If I ate that much sugar my bowels would be backed up like a ballpark toilet. Then I’d die. Dogs and cats are not supposed to have dark chocolate. It’s toxic. Lola had to stay behind because it took morphing in to my human form to be Pen’s shadow on this date. I’m afraid of Chokecherrys and Shadow Watchers. And evil doers and spirits that still haven’t shown themselves in the bright light of day.
I grabbed an ensemble from a homeless dude outside the candy store and I stink. Worse than the litter box in the shelter before garbage day. I think he might have pissed his pants. Twice. So far, Penelope hasn’t noticed me so I’m going to just sit here in this obscure booth and sip my water until I morph back in to kitty Talisman. Then, I can head back home because Dr. Luke has this one under control.
“Hey, Penelope,” Ami gushed as her and Eldris blew through the front door. Why did she have to crash Pen’s date just when Dr. Luke had started to get romantic? Didn’t she understand about True Love’s Kiss?
She pointed over at me and I slinked down even further in to the cushiony leather of my pink booth. “Isn’t that flag dude? Stalk much?” She was referring to the time she caught me morphed without my clothes on and I had to rip off an American flag to cover my admirable assets.
I glanced up underneath my lowered eyelashes just in time to see Pen let out a gasp of surprise. Then fascination. No. I didn’t want her distracted by me. I was just here trying to protect her and making sure Dr. Luke was on the way to getting the job done.
Ami didn’t even stop to draw a breath but stomped to my booth to tower over me, leaving Eldris standing at Pen’s table with his mouth agape.
“Hot dude,” she said as she took a giant step backwards and pinched her pug nose with her fingertips. Her next statement sounded like a female version of Kermit the Frog. “When’s the last time you showered?”
I stared. Not because I couldn’t speak. Well … that too. How droll.
By this time, the rest of their foursome had approached to stand behind Ami. Dr. Luke stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Have we met?”
I shook his hand and then crossed my arms over my chest. Ami continued to squint and fan herself from the stench. It couldn’t be that bad. Could it? Next time I needed to morph, I had to come up with a better plan for a wardrobe. It didn’t need to be Armani but it needed to be clean and not smell like the local sewage plant.
Since this might be the only time in the near future that I had the two of them together, I took the opportunity to point back and forth between Pen and Dr. Luke. I started to see stars and I had to get my message across before I had to escape to the men’s room. I glanced down at my amulet and the jade green color had faded to citrine. I didn’t have much time.
“What the hell are you trying to say, cutie patootie?” Ami asked. “You’ve never been very articulate. Are you the victim of some tragic vocal cord calamity?”
I nodded. Best they think that my muteness was the result of some type of medical issue. I puckered my full, lush, human lips and make some loud smacking kisses as I pointed at Dr. Luke and Penelope. Then I made the universal signal for speed with my right hand.
Ami cocked her head to one side and flung a hand on her ample hip. “Pen, I think he wants to kiss you.”
No. No. No.
Dr. Luke puffed his chest up like Feather Locklear, Pen’s pet chicken. A residual effect of the Melrose Place years. Poor damn bird. He wasn’t even a female. Crowed his displeasure at his ridiculous name each morning at precisely five-thirty when handsome cats need their beauty sleep.
Pen peered around Dr. Luke and before he could put out a strong arm to stay her, she slid next to me on the booth’s bench and kissed me on the cheek. Then, she stood up and fled the store with a confused look on her beautiful face.
Backfire. Again.
Dr. Luke looked like he wanted to kill me while Ami and Eldris laughed together. I shrugged my shoulders as I stood, shook my head in the negative and ran to the bathroom before my secret became front page news for the Elias Stout client newsletter and my kitty carcass hung from the nearest cactus.
Chapter 9
“What in the hell did you do to my nail tech, you incompetent bitch?” Bianca Chokecherry stamped a tiny, Jimmy Choo-clad foot as she snorted fire out her plastic surgery enhanced nose. She held out her crimson red claws. The color of The Scarlet Letter. Perfect for an evil harlot such as Bianca.
“Bianca,” Pen replied with a shocked look. “I have no idea what you’re
talking about.”
Pen sat outside the Coffee Hut, nursing her Hazelnut Latte while Lola and I basked in the early morning sun. Before it got too hot for any kind of life form that wasn’t from the plant family of Cactaceae.
“Kara Moir.” Bianca stood there waiting as if we were all addled and should understand her confused ramblings.
“Bianca,” Pen said as she hissed a breath through her teeth and gripped her plastic coffee cup like she wanted to smash it so hard the iced contents would shoot through the air. “I haven’t seen Kara since she adopted a cat from me last week.”
“Right, Penelope,” Bianca spat. “She adopted that damn cat and now she’s following some stranger around town like one of your stray dogs. She cancelled my standing appointment this week and now my fingernails look ragged. Do you know what men think of single women who don’t take care of themselves?”
I wonder what your conquests would think if they knew you were a witch. An evil one who casts spells on them daily in order to keep them around.
“I’m sorry, Bianca,” Pen sighed. “But I really had nothing to do with it. Kara and Chase happened to come to the shelter to look over the adoptable pets at exactly the same time. They must have really hit it off. It happens.”
Bianca stepped closer to Pen’s table and towered over her. She stared like she knew something. Knew that Pen had cast that love spell on Kara and Chase and she didn’t like it. Probably didn’t like it enough to cast another one tearing the new couple apart. Bianca’s powers were stronger right now and I wondered why she hadn’t just done that in the first place instead of stomping over to the coffee house to make a public scene. Unless … a public scene was part of Lucinda’s master plan. If Lucinda started feeding rumors around town then Elias Stout would do her dirty work for her.
As if the bird man of Alcatraz had been summoned from the latest shit hole, Stout appeared at the stoplight on the corner of Cactus and Lime and hit the button to cross. If only that same sex-crazed driver that had flattened me would come careening by right now all our problems would be solved. But alas, his crane-like legs carried him safely across the street and right in to the line of sight of Bianca and Penelope who were still in the middle of their stare-down.
“Why, Miss DeLacroix and Miss Chokecherry,” he said as he approached Pen’s table to stand beside Bianca. “What a pleasant surprise on such a beautiful morning. The company is even more glorious than the weather.”
Pen took a quick sip of her latte and Bianca rolled her eyes to the beautiful blue sky that Stout was pontificating about as if she wanted those same heavens to swallow her up to escape him.
“Elias.” Pen acknowledged him with a slight nod of her head.
“Can I join you?” Stout asked.
Lola took that opportunity to snuggle in closer to me. Since I’d told her that Stout was bad news, she tried to keep her distance.
Pen stood. “Actually, we were just leaving.”
“We?” Stout looked from Penelope to Bianca, surprised at the reference. Then his beady little eyes narrowed as he noticed Lola a few feet away from the table, laying in a spot of shade that she’d found in order to protect my black coat. “Ah, I see. You brought your feline friends with you again. I’m surprised those cats are so obedient. One would think they might wander out in to the road and get struck by an errant vehicle.”
Stout’s speeches sometimes were so dead on, you had to wonder if he had some type of warped intuition. But I knew he was a mere mortal and had no idea I’d already been hit by two trucks in the space of a month.
“They’re very obedient, Elias,” Pen replied. “And they’ve learned over the years to stick close to me or they won’t be allowed to leave the property. I’d be devastated if anything ever happened to one of my pets.”
Stout glanced over and locked eyes with me. I felt Lola shiver. “Yes, that would be … devastating.” If I stood still long enough, I could almost hear Vincent Price’s diabolical laughter echo off the red rocks and slice back in to my soul like an errant boomerang.
“I’m heading back home because today is house cleaning day,” Pen said. “See you later, Elias and Bianca.” She gave the two her back and Lola and I trotted behind to jump in to the SUV. Right before I was about to hop up in to the cargo hold, I glanced back over my shoulder. Stout was still standing on the curb glaring. I need to be on high alert and there was no doubt about it.
Chapter 10
“Are you sure that goat isn’t on speed?” Chase shook his head as he leaned against Casper’s pen with his arms crossed. “It’s acting like it has a screw loose.”
Kara chuckled as she watched Casper parkour tight circles around the dirt pile, every few steps jumping straight up in to the air. During the next loop around his beaten path, he stopped mid-air and grabbed a tin can in his bearded mouth to crunch it between his teeth.
You look like you need a haircut, missy. Lean any closer to the edge of the fence and I’ll parkour myself straight through the air to grab myself a delicious mouthful of long blonde curly Qs.
Goat, you are a boil on the ass of all polite society.
“Look, Chase,” Kara pointed. “There’s that gorgeous owl again.”
“I just hope this time he doesn’t dive bomb my head,” Chase laughed as he crouched low and pretended to tuck himself into the defense position for incoming fire.
As the coupled chatted, Chase’s new dog, Trainor, romped about the property until Mr. Oats lifted his head and let out a disgusted nicker.
Miss Penelope needs to get ‘er behind out here and stop this infernal racket. Between the dog and the goat, it’s upsetting my equine sensibilities.
I took that opportunity to jump on the split rail fence and perch myself atop the cedar post. Still. Like a statue. Not only would it keep every human and animal from upsetting the aged horse, but it gave me a really good view of the entire premises in case something strange happened. My fur had been standing on end with regularity ever since the discussion with Bianca outside the Coffee Hut.
There was something brewing and it wasn’t caffeinated. Lucinda plotted something behind the scenes and I could feel it. I knew it. From my seat on the post, I noticed when the door to the house opened and Pen slipped through with Ami lagging behind. Ami had been sticking around more. Like her reporter instincts were letting her know that was a wise idea.
Pen gave a flirty wave as she rushed forward to greet Chase and Kara. “Hello, you two. I’m so glad you came back to the shelter to meet the other animals. It’s too bad it was already dark the last time you were here.”
In the darkness you will only find Shadow Watchers and evil.
Seriously, Beefcake, you sound like an episode of Dark Shadows.
I was so intent on watching Penelope and making sure she was safe, I hadn’t noticed that Lola had jumped to sit on the post beside me and Mr. Oats was nuzzling her silky fur. He let out a horse-sized sneeze.
Why, Miss Lola … yer fur sure is purty.
Thank you, Mr. Oats.
Lola proceeded to give herself a kitty bath with her paws to get the horse snot off of that same silky fur that the aged horse had just admired.
“Hi, everyone.” Dr. Luke’s deep voice pierced the heated air as he walked toward the group. “How’s that new dog doing Chase?”
As soon as Dr. Luke reached him, Chase clasped his outstretched hand in a firm shake. “He’s great. My mom is really going to love him. He’ll fit right in on her property. Lots of room to run.”
“I’m so glad to hear it,” Dr. Luke replied. “Penelope has a knack for matching up people with the right pet. She rarely gets that wrong.”
Pen blushed and cast her eyes down to the red dirt below Dr. Luke’s tennis shoes. “It’s a gift, I guess,” she mumbled.
“Well, I’m really stoked that I heard about this place,” Chase said. “My mom was adamant that she wanted to adopt an abandoned dog and not get a purebred. She takes her volunteering at the hospital really seriously.
I’m really proud of her. I guess that’s why people love her so much. There always seems to be a gathering at her place.”
“I think I’d like your mom a lot,” Pen said. “I hope I can meet her someday.”
“I’m sure she’d love it,” Chase replied. “She usually comes once a year around the holidays to visit her sister. I’ll make sure I come too and we’ll stop by. Maybe I can visit Kara too.”
A fluffy cloud moved across the path of the sun and cast a shadow over the yard. Pen’s face turned skyward, her lips pursed in an oval shape. The sky became even darker. The color of a dead TV and the air crackled with electricity.
“I think a storm’s moving in,” Dr. Luke said. “We better get going and head to the restaurant before the sky unleashes its fury on all of us in the form of a torrential downpour.”
Pen still stood there, like she’d been hit with a stun gun and couldn’t seem to get her limbs to move. The hairs on my back stood straight up. Mr. Oats shied to the left which caused Lola to jump down from her perch next to me.
Pen finally found her voice. Not as strong and clear with her normal melodic tone. No. This Penelope sounded gritty and far away. Almost afraid. “You three go on without me and I’ll catch up in a minute. I want to put Mr. Oats inside the barn just in case it does start raining. You know how he hates it when his coat gets wet. Then he lays down and rolls in the mud and I have to spend an hour with the shedding blade scraping it off.” Her attempt at a laugh ended up sounding like a wounded hyena.
What the hell was going on here?
Hey, Owlcaholic. I think we have a problem. My guess is that the darkness isn’t courtesy of Mother Nature.
I already figured that out, Cat Scratch Fever. Evil is on the air tonight. Something bad is happening but I feel like I’ve lost my owl intuition and instincts. Almost like something cast a spell on me.
But … all the witches and warlocks in this area would have to be present in order to cast a spell over the shelter. Or Penelope. Or us.
Fur Magic Boxed Set: Talisman, Sage, Fawn, Lola: Paranormal Romantic Comedy Page 12