He stopped cold for a moment, his beautiful face turning toward the sound of her voice.
Her breath came in raspy pants. She held up a hand in semisurrender. “I just want to help you. Let me help you,” she soothed, hoping the sound of her voice would comfort him while she rounded on him.
But Shaw’s eyes filled with suspicion when they landed on her, and his heavy paws began to lift off the ground, clunky but still capable.
She circled him, speaking while she regained her breath in order to rush him. “Damn it, Shaw! Don’t you dare ignore me!” She waved a finger at him, haughty and arrogant. “I will take you out! Do you hear me? Don’t you think for one second, because you’re the father of my child and a fine specimen of wonk, that I won’t take you down like a ton of bricks!”
Once more, his eyes followed her movements, desperate to find a path around her.
And they circled, like some bizarre square dance, facing off, Shaw snarling, foamy drool dripping from the corners of his mouth, Katie moving from foot to foot, too fearful to even blink.
She made her move when a sharp crack of thunder rolled over their heads, distracting Shaw and making him look to the sky.
Katie landed on his back with a clap so solid it knocked the breath out of her. Still, she clung to his neck, raising the needle high and jamming it into his shoulder with a cry of success.
Shaw bucked like a mechanical bull, trying to shake her off; the force of him throwing his weight around was so ferocious, her legs swung in wide circles.
And then he fell to the ground, panting and gasping.
And she clung to him, whispering, “I’m here. I would never hurt you. I promise we’ll figure this out.” She stroked his hair, plastered to his head as he grunted one last grunt before succumbing to the tranquilizer.
Katie lay on top of him, half man, half cougar, sprawled on his back, forcing air into her lungs and clinging to this man she’d come to care so deeply for.
“Katie,” Wanda said, kneeling down to brush the tears from her eyes. “We have to get you back, honey. It’s cold and you’re soaked. That can’t be good for the baby.”
Katie’s chest heaved a sob. The baby. What kind of mother would she be if she didn’t even take her pregnancy into consideration while she was stomping out rabid, dangerous cougars? “You know?”
Wanda’s smile was gentle and filled with irony. “Well, you did just screech it. Plus, I smelled it on you. What can I say? It’s a gift, and you’re clearly disoriented. Now please, let me get you to the truck where it’s warm. It’s freezing out here.”
She let Wanda lift her up, giving her a critical once-over. “Are you okay?You took some beating.”
Wanda chuckled, her hair a soggy mess, her clothes torn and filthy. “No kidding, eh? That man of yours is quite the warrior, but we heal quickly. I heal in double time because I have two forces of paranormal nature running through my veins.”
Katie found she couldn’t leave Shaw, who lay in a crumpled heap of distorted limbs. “I can’t leave him. He needs me.”
“I’ll get him to the truck. Nina, too.”
Nina. That was someone who was not going to be singing her love songs when she woke up. “Oh, my God! I didn’t mean to tranq her, but everything was such a mess, and I couldn’t see.”
Wanda hooked her arm through Katie’s as they made their way to the truck. “A thought. Would you consider payment for some of that sedative?”
“Payment?”
Wanda laughed, light and carefree, like they hadn’t just wrestled a saber-toothed cougar in the middle of a thunderstorm. “If I had a dart gun with a tranquilizer in it for every time Nina mouthed off—my world would be all kinds of shiny.”
Now Katie laughed, too, and Wanda helped her into the truck and dragged a rough blanket they used for the truck bed to haul flowers over her legs.
While Wanda went back for Shaw and Nina, Katie sat. Wet, cold, determined.
This couldn’t go on. She couldn’t put off the inevitable. Not at the expense of Shaw’s safety.
No matter what happened, it was time to stop stalling and find out where Shaw belonged, and how she could fix whatever had just happened.
No matter what.
"I don’t fucking get it.” Nina’s comment made her turn her head at the sound of her voice. She tucked the blankets under Shaw’s chin, smoothing them over his wide shoulders.
Yeah. Katie didn’t fucking get it, either. She gazed in wonder at Shaw, who now lay on his pink-and-purple ruffled bed like he’d never been a rabid, half-shifted lunatic. “Something’s definitely wrong. I’d bet that’s what Daniel Green was doing—trying to figure out what was happening to Shaw. What I don’t understand is why my transition was so much less traumatic. This was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.” Just remembering how horrifying he’d looked, how broken and confused amidst all that snarling rage, made Katie’s stomach react with a heave and her heart ache.
Nina leaned into the doorframe. “Dude, that was some shit. That was worse than what went down with Wanda.”
Wanda had explained about her turning. Due to her lack of response from Marty’s bite, the women believed they’d done something wrong, and Nina bit her again to ensure the change and save Wanda from her ovarian cancer. Unfortunately, it sent Wanda’s chemistry into overload, and she’d gone rabid. The only cure for that was the blood of a human. Thankfully, Heath, her husband, had been willing to sacrifice his life for Wanda’s, and he’d allowed her to bite him.
Somehow, though Katie was still fuzzy, everything had turned out all right for the couple, and Heath had lived. However, Shaw’s shift hadn’t been complete, and it clearly, at least at this point, wasn’t irreversible. “What if that happens again and he doesn’t shift back, Nina?” The fear she’d lose him in human form forever overwhelmed her. Even if he had a life somewhere else, if she knew he was safe, happy, she could stand losing him.
Nina came to stand at the edge of the bed where Katie sat and placed a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll figure it out, Doc. C’mon. You need rest, and so does Three Names. It’s been a craptacular day. Plus, you’re preggers. You need eight and a field full of cattle if you hope to keep up your strength. Wanda’s cooking so come with, okay?”
Katie shook her head. Nina was a conundrum—a total contradiction at every corner. She rose, reluctant to leave Shaw, but her stomach rumbled. “So does this mean I’m forgiven? I swear I couldn’t see who I was ramming that needle into.”
Nina chuckled on her way down the stairs. “It means I’ll have to wait to beat the living shit out of you until after Junior arrives.”
The scent of steak and eggs made her mouth water. Wanda had set the table for her, waving her to a chair. “Sit, young lady. You need nourishment and bed. In that order.”
Katie dragged a chair from under the table wearily, smiling gratefully at Wanda when she placed a full plate of food in front of her. “Where’s Teeny? Is she okay?”
Nina plopped down on her right side. “Chicken Little took her out to dinner and put her to bed. I give the kid props for saving me from the pressure sock thing and The Rockford Files. I’m so over James Garner.”
Katie giggled. “Did she wonder where we all were?”
Nina shook her head. “Ingrid told her you had a livestock emergency and you needed a few pairs of hands. She might be a pansy, but she’s a quick thinker. No worries about Teeny. We got you covered.”
Katie looked down at her stomach. “I can’t tell you how appreciative I am of the two of you. I’m going to have a lot to explain to her very soon. I’m not sure where to begin.”
Wanda sat next to her, dismissing Katie’s compliment. “We’re here to help, and thank God we were able to stop him. So, let’s take one issue at a time. Speaking of, I’m just going to cut to the chase. How do you feel, Katie, about the baby?”
Her fork stopped midair. “I’m petrified. I’m no spring chicken, Wanda, despite this reversal of wrinkles and perky boobs. I’m
forty-one years old as far as my biological clock goes. And then there’s always the worry that we don’t know what this pregnancy means. Will my gestation be normal, like a human’s? Or is it going to be three months like a cougar’s? And I can’t even think about what’s going to happen when I give birth. What will I have? There must be a reason no shifters in the cougar community have been born in sixty years.”
Wanda took her hand and tucked it against her side. “You’re afraid.”
Katie toyed with the yolk of her over easy egg. “I’m scared spitless, and Shaw’s behaving as though we’re like any average couple, instead of a man who can’t remember who he is and the woman he scratched who’s now a cougar. It’s all insane.”
“Do you love him, Katie?” Wanda’s glance was thoughtful.
Today had revealed many things. One of which was not just her attraction but her attachment to Shaw. She’d feared losing him. Feared for his safety and not just on a humane level.
On every level and some she hadn’t known existed.
Katie dropped the fork and rested her forehead on the heel of her hand. “I’m so close I can’t even tell you, but let’s remember the circumstances. Me, us, we’re all he has while he waits around for his memory to return. Doesn’t it seem even remotely possible he’d latch onto us due to the epic nature of his circumstances? What if, when this passes, when Shaw gets his memory back, he finds out where he comes from, he realizes we were just a port in a storm for him? Somewhere to rest while he caught his breath and all the intense emotions we’ve experienced due to the craziness of this whole thing fade. There is such a thing as bonding over extreme circumstances.”
“There’s always that possibility, Katie, but anything’s possible. Why couldn’t it be just as possible that you’re an addition to his life rather than a lifeline he clung to and can’t cut loose from because he feels an obligation to you for taking him in? There’s no doubting he loves you. Just ask Mouth.”
“Yeah, just ask me,” Nina cackled, running her feet over Dozer’s back.
“Maybe he loves what I represent, something solid when everything around him is falling away. It makes sense he’d cling to me—you—us.”
Nina came and sat next to her, nudging her thigh. “Yep. He loves that, too, but it isn’t the motherly shit you keep thinking it is. I’ve been in his head a time or two these past couple of weeks. Just so I know he’s not bullshittin’ us about this memory thing. Like maybe hiding regaining his memory so he can milk us. His thoughts aren’t like any teenager’s head I’ve been in, Doc.”
“Like you’d know an adult thought, Nina. Really,” Wanda chided fondly.
Oddly, Nina didn’t rise to Wanda’s bait. “Look, I just know he’s no liar. He’s not thinking about how he’s going to sell candy bars to feed this kid. He’s trying like hell to figure out how to find out who he was so if he was really a big boy before this, with a big boy job, he can take care of Junior here. His plan is to get on the fucking computer, screwing with my tweeting time, so he can look at all sorts of ways to safeguard the house and strollers and crap. Teenagers, even kids in their twenties, don’t spend a lot of time giving a shit like that.”
Her heart rushed with warmth at the thought that Shaw was in so deep. So much warmth, a tear formed in her eye.
Nina wiped it with her thumb and forced Katie to look at her. “Either way, Doc, you’re in this together. Kids do that whether you want them to or not. So how about you cut him just a little slack and let this play out. No guarantees, that’s sure as shit, but maybe ease up on him. He’s trying. Wouldn’t hurt for you to try, too.”
Wanda reached around Katie and pinched Nina’s cheek. “My baby’s maturing, right before my eyes. I feel like you’ve grown so much because of my influence.”
“Fuck you, Wanda.”
“One step forward, three hundred back,” she said to Katie out of the side of her mouth.
Katie laughed a snort, feeling a bit of relief for speaking her fears out loud. While it brought some comfort, they were still valid issues.
Wanda gave Katie a pat on the back. “I say we talk to Marty about this pregnancy thing. Maybe she can offer insight to a paranormal pregnancy. I do know, her gestation was somewhere in between human and wolf time frames. But I think both Nina and I can tell you, it felt like a lot longer than the four and a half months she put in.”
“Oh, Lawd,” Nina commented, smoothing her hands over the tablecloth. “Do you remember the fucking endless whine about how being such a whale wasn’t in anyone’s color wheel? Jesus. We should have taken her out right then and let me raise poor Hollis.”
“Oh, definitely,” Wanda agreed. “She’d have been cursing and knocking out preschoolers before she was even potty-trained. Who are you kidding here, Nina?You shouldn’t be allowed to raise a hermit crab.”
Nina stretched with a lazy smile. “Larry doesn’t complain.”
Wanda wrinkled her nose. “Larry can’t complain. He can’t speak. He’s an unwilling hostage in your plight to make him submit to you.”
Katie grew silent, her thoughts focused on nourishing the baby and saving Shaw.
Nina leaned in on her hand and eyed Katie. “I hear shit cookin’ in your head, Doc. What gives?”
She took her last bite of steak before wiping her mouth with a napkin. “We have to figure out what’s happening with Shaw. We need to see Daniel Green.”
“And how is seeing a man in a coma going to help Shaw?”Wanda pondered out loud.
“Nina,” Katie replied.
Wanda scoffed. “Oh, every man in a coma needs a Nina. Has the cougar thing addled your brain, Katie? Nina’s the last thing a man who’s in a coma needs. Did you see her bedside manner with Shaw when he was in that cage and wouldn’t wake up?”
“Shut the fuck up, Wanda. I didn’t hurt him—just shook him up.”
“If you shake up Daniel Green, he’ll break, Annihilator.”
Katie found herself in the role of peacemaker. “No, no. That’s not what I’m saying at all. Look, Nina can read minds, right? Didn’t Darnell say that he was mumbling all sorts of things? Maybe if Nina can get in his head and read his thoughts, we can find out what he isn’t mumbling.”
Nina thumped her on the back. “You know, that would make sense if it wasn’t for the fact that we can’t go anywhere near Daniel Green because, oh, wait, we’re wanted for attempted murder, brain surgeon.”
Shit, shit, shit.
“We are most certainly not wanted for attempted murder. We’re suspicious persons of origin,” Wanda corrected with a peevish tone. “Big difference, miss.”
“You say tomato, I say, fuck you. We still can’t be anywhere near the wrinkly dude.”
“But wait,” Katie interjected, a plan forming. “Didn’t you say you can fly, Nina?”
Her nod was smug. “Yeah. How do you think I haven’t killed the lot of you? Because I’ve been holed up with you bunch of morons, well, except, Teeny, instead of home with my man? I have needs. So I hit the friendly skies every night for a couple of hours.” Her grin was naughty.
“Hospital rooms have windows, right? Why can’t Darnell hover, or whatever it is he does, open the window, and let you in? With me, that is. Your superior strength could hold me, right?This way, if he says something medical, say names a procedure, thinks about a chemical, a drug or whatever, I stand a better chance of knowing what it is, right?” Her adrenaline soared. This could work.
Wanda’s face lightened a shade. “It could work.”
Nina looked doubtful. “Are you a screamer?”
Katie’s brow wrinkled. “What?”
“Like afraid of fucking heights, a crier, that sort of shit? Marty’s a crier. The last time I let her put her fat ass on me piggyback style and took her up, she sobbed and screeched the entire time. I have sensitive ears.”
“Oh, Nina, that’s horse puckey, and you know it. You took off like Iron Man and you did it on purpose because you live to razz Marty.”
“Like she doesn’t deserve if for all the girly shit she drags me through? I’m sure you remember Nieman Marcus and the dressing room incident, don’t you, Wanda? Fucking bullshit. The hell I’ll let Marty do some fashion intervention on me with some fruity guy named Johan who wears pink ties and white shoes. I owed her.”
But Katie wasn’t listening to the women bicker. She was formulating a plan. “I promise not to scream, Nina. Okay, so let’s call Darnell. Or summon him, er, think about him. Whatever, let’s just do it. Wanda, you’ll stay with Shaw? Check on him?” She was halfway out the door with Nina behind her.
“No worries,” Wanda called. “I’ll take care of the patient. Be very careful. Both of you. And, Nina? If you drop her, I’ll suck you dry!”
Drop. Her?
Oh, dear God.
SHAW woke to the sound of rain against the windows. Soft, soothing. A dim nightlight shone from the corner of his purpleand-pink room.
His attempt to lift himself out of bed brought a wince of pain that shot through his ribs and wrapped around the muscles of his neck. Jesus Christ, he felt like hell.
Katie and the baby were his first thoughts after that. He needed to see to them—her. Something had happened to leave him so beaten down. He found himself praying she hadn’t seen whatever that something was.
Again, he made the effort to lift his pain-riddled body, making it almost to his elbows before he gritted his teeth and fell back to the soft pillow.
“Whoa there, big guy. Stay put,” Wanda ordered from the doorway, her arms crossed, her smile sympathetic and Wanda warm.
Shaw scrubbed a hand over his face. “What the hell happened?”
Wanda’s sigh was jokingly tortured. “Oh, there was mud, wind, rain, just about every element known to man. It was me, you, and Nina locked in a death grip in a fight to the finish for supremacy. Kind of like cage fighting. Werevamp and vamp versus cougar.” She huffed a breath on her nails and smiled at him. “We won, of course. There was no question, but it was a little dicey there for a minute or two.”
Accidentally Catty Page 24