by Celeste Hall
He couldn't find a single hint or hair of the creature.
It was almost eight and he hadn’t showered or eaten dinner. As much as he hated the idea, he’d just have to wait for his furry intruder to reappear from whatever mystery spot it had found to hide in.
He relocked the garage door and went ahead with his plans for the evening.
Dwelling on the possibility of waking up to a cat mess on his carpet, he showered and ate quickly, then stayed up half of the night reading in bed, hoping the feline would finally make an appearance. But he was beginning to suspect it wasn’t going to happen.
Wherever the cat was hiding, it must intend to wait out the storm there.
With a sigh, he gathered up the files he’d been studying and stacked them in a semi-orderly fashion on the bed table. The old grandfather clock downstairs was just striking midnight as he crawled under the covers and reached out to turn off the lamp.
Yet before his hand could reach the cord, a movement captured his attention, drawing his gaze quickly towards the bedroom door.
He’d left it partially open, giving him a shadowy view of the dark hallway beyond. But the hallway was no longer empty. A small, graceful figure was slowly creeping towards him through the shroud of night.
As if sensing his gaze, the creature paused and looked up, its golden eyes reflecting the light and seeming to glow in the dark.
It was the little red tabby cat.
He hesitated, not wanting to spook it back into its hiding place. Maybe if he waited until it came into the bedroom, he could close the door and trap it in a smaller area. That might make it easier to catch the critter.
So he held quiet and still in his bed, praying the feline wouldn’t change direction and pad off into his office or the guest bedroom – which were currently doubling as secondary storage areas.
Both rooms were filled with boxes and stacks of paperwork. If the cat got into either of them, it could cause a lot of havoc before he caught it. He really didn’t relish the idea of sorting all those pages back into their proper stacks and files.
To his great relief, the cat continued down the hallway and paused just inside his bedroom door.
A few of the farm cats were tame enough to enjoy being held and petted, but after the way this one had scrambled to escape him earlier, he didn’t think this was one of them. Which left him with a dilemma. If the cat didn’t explore deeper into the room, away from the doorway, he’d never trap it inside.
He was scowling down at the cat in growing frustration, when everything that he’d ever believed in was abruptly turned upside down and inside out. All sense of reality warped right before his eyes.
One moment the cat was staring up at him with softly glowing eyes. The next moment it gave a long, luxurious stretch, as if it had just awakened from a lengthy summer nap. But it just kept stretching, longer and larger.
Its delicate little muscles flexed and glided into new positions as it abruptly reared up onto very human legs.
Red fur appeared to fade away, revealing creamy soft skin, and he immediately recognized the spritely figure and angelic features of the creature now standing before him.
Her curly red hair hung just over her breasts, giving her a small measure of modesty that was helped by placing trembling hands down over her pubic area. But a pink blush still stained Miranda’s cheeks as she offered a shy grin.
“Hello, Scrooge. I’ll be playing the part of your Christmas ghost this evening. Are you ready for a glimpse of your future?”
O Holy Night!
Matt had to be dreaming, that was the only explanation for the stunning, naked woman now standing in his doorway. But if this was only a fantasy his mind had conjured up, why had he imagined her as a cat?
He shook his head. Who cared? Miranda looked incredibly beautiful and nervous as she chewed on her lip and waited for him to do something other than sit and stare at her like a damned fool.
His mouth opened a closed a few times as he fumbled for a voice.
“I really need to read that Charles Dickens version,” he at last managed, in something between a hoarse moan and a growl. “If this is a preview, those movie adaptations really didn’t do it justice.”
Her laughter sounded relieved and happy, awakening a fierce need in him to see that she remained that way.
Never in his life had he seen a woman appear so vulnerable and so determined at the same time, he could hardly pull his eyes away from her long enough to crawl out of bed and fetch a long soft bathrobe from the closet.
“As much as I’d love to just sit here and stare at you,” he grinned, holding the robe open towards her. “It’s pretty cold tonight. You look like you might appreciate this.”
She stepped forward into his robe, and into his arms, and he quickly closed both around her. This might be a dream, but it felt incredible to be holding her again, making him wonder why the hell he’d let her go the first time.
“Thank you,” she murmured, looking up at him with hopeful eyes. “You’re really taking this a lot better than I expected. I was prepared for a lot more shouting and throwing of nearby objects. People can be a little hesitant to accept the existence of shifters.”
“Shifters?” He was only half listening to her as he tried to memorize every detail of her beautiful face. It was as if he were really looking at her for the first time. And maybe he was. He’d done everything but throw a wall up between them these last few days.
“Rachel calls us werecats,” Miranda shrugged. “But both terms pretty much mean the same thing, right?”
Rachel? This fantasy was taking an unpleasant turn. He usually preferred that his dream women didn’t mention family members, business deals, or other mundane subjects.
"Oh," she looked uncomfortable, like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "She didn't tell you... I mean, of course she didn't. I guess that's not exactly something you just blurt out at Thanksgiving dinner, right?"
Matt frowned. He hadn't gone to Thanksgiving dinner. His subconscious knew that, so why...?
"This isn't a dream, is it?"
She didn't need to answer, because it really wasn't a question. But Miranda still slowly shook her head and eyed him as if she expected the top of his head to suddenly explode.
Matt took a good hard look at the situation bearing that possibility in mind.
The woman he'd spent the last week both fantasizing about and tormenting, was actually wrapped in his arms wearing nothing but his bathrobe.
However, she'd gained that position by disguising herself as a cat and hiding until he was preparing to go to sleep.
A cat shifter... A werecat.... He tried spinning it a few different ways, but his cynical lawyer's brain found it extremely difficult to accept.
"I'm really not sure what to say," he admitted, but he didn't let go of her either.
"I wanted to tell you that day in the library," she murmured softly, hesitantly, still trying to gage his response. "When I was explaining about my grandmother's records of all the witches in her coven."
He shook his head.
"I don't understand. Is this some kind of curse?"
Miranda scrunched her nose a bit.
"Kind of, but not in the way you think," she explained. "What they did was cast a spell to bring handsome strangers to town, who would instantly fall in love with them. But they unwittingly used a feline shifter as their model."
"They turned him into a cat?" Matt struggled to understand.
She shook her head.
"He was born a shifter, just like I was. But the spell guides creatures like him and I to seek out and fall in love with members of the coven...and apparently their grandsons."
What she was saying sounded like an extremely twisted version of predestination and love at first sight, both notions best left to fairytales and lonely hearts. But he'd just watched a cat turn into a woman, which was a whole lot harder to believe.
"So you're saying that we were destined to fall in love, th
e moment you walked through the office door and into my life?"
Her lips curled up into a wicked smile that sent a flood of heat racing through his system.
"When I suggested Christmas ghosts visiting you tonight, I bet you never expected to see anything like this."
Matt just shook his head and tried to force his lungs to breathe again. When she smiled that way, he found it hard to think of anything but the need to touch and to taste. He'd managed to keep his hands off from her at work - at least for the most part - but she was in his bedroom now, and all bets were off.
She must have sensed the change in him, as her eyes darkened slightly and she licked her lips. He groaned harshly, unable to resist that wet invitation. His arms tightened around her waist as he pulled her closer, lowering his head to capture her mouth beneath his.
The breath escaped her in a tremulous gasp. The sweet scent of her filled his lungs.
At first slow and seductive, he tasted her mouth, nibbling and teasing until she opened just enough for him to slip his tongue inside. Then he devoured her, plunging and thrusting, a heated glimpse of the passion he’d been holding back for so long.
All of the emotions he’d been hiding, all of the desires that he’d suppressed, now clawed their way to the surface with a ferocity and a hunger that threatened to destroy them both.
Her nails raked his shoulders as she sought for more, reaching up to clasp her arms around his neck. A shivery moan escaping her lips as he eagerly accepted all that she was offering and then demanded more.
Matt kissed her until the world was spinning and his hands trembled against her skin, then he withdrew and rested his forehead against hers, allowing them both to catch their breath.
“I don’t deserve you, Miranda,” he sighed, already craving another taste. “After all that I said and all that I’ve done to chase you away. I don’t know why you would still want to be with me.”
She grinned up at him in a devilish way that made his heart clench in his chest.
“I’m stubborn,” she answered simply. “Just like you. We were made for each other. Even if there were not some element of magic in the way that we came to be together, I think I would still have fallen in love with you.”
His hands trembled as he cupped her cheeks and pressed kisses to each of her eyes, the tip of her nose, and then full upon her mouth.
After days of being alternately consumed by pain, anger, and desire, he felt as though he had died and been reborn. Now all that he felt was an overwhelming amount of joy and completion, as if she had made him whole once more.
Magic or not, werecat or not, he was madly in love with this woman.
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Matt awakened to the heady aroma of fresh brewed coffee and a hot breakfast being prepared. It took him only a moment to remember everything that had happened the night before, including the elusive red tabby cat.
Miranda. He could hear her softly singing Christmas carols as she cooked. She was slightly off tune in a few areas, but to him it was like listening to a choir full of angels.
She was his salvation. His Christmas miracle.
Quickly scrambling out of bed, he pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt before heading down the stairs to meet her.
“Good morning,” she beamed as he entered the kitchen.
She was wearing a pair of his sweatpants with the drawstrings tightened up so far it created a small balloon of bunched up material around her hips. Last night he'd even dug through all of his drawers to find the smallest t-shirt he owned, but the clothes swam on her tiny frame.
With the baggy outfit and her bright red hair forming wilds curls around her face, she looked like the most beautiful clown he'd ever seen.
“You’ve got amazing timing,” she informed him. “I was just about to come wake you up. You saved me a trip up the stairs.”
“How did you manage all of this?” He asked, staring in amazement at the table setting and the incredible smelling food that she was serving onto each plate.
The renovations on the house had been completed only a few months ago, with the original intention of Tanya being the woman using this kitchen. For that reason, everything was designed to be ultra-modern and ultra-efficient. But the blonde had never shown the slightest interest in anything she considered menial labor, including cooking.
The pots, pans and utensils had remained unused in their boxes. Some of the appliances still had new purchase stickers on their doors. Matt hadn’t even bothered to stock the pantry or the refrigerator with anything other than quick read-to-eat meals that he could simply heat up and eat on his way to work.
“Where did you find all the ingredients for this?” Without waiting for an answer, he slid into one of the chairs and greedily devoured several bites before moaning in absolute appreciation.
He could add cooking to Miranda’s growing list of virtues.
“I stole your keys and went shopping,” she admitted. “Which reminds me. There are still some groceries in your car, I couldn’t carry them all across the pasture in this snow. If this isn’t going to be a white Christmas, I don’t know what is. We received at least another foot while we were sleeping.”
She was talking as if carrying an armful of groceries through at least two and a half feet of snow was no big deal. He could only stare at her as he shoveled more food into his mouth, washing it down with hot coffee after she paused to fill up his mug.
“Wouldn’t it be fun if we got snowed in?” She grinned. “I can imagine we will be if it keeps snowing like this. We’ll be stuck here, together, all alone. What will we ever do to entertain ourselves?”
She was teasing him, but he was so astounded by her positive attitude he was finding it hard to keep up, much less reply. He wasn’t used to having a woman around that could not only run his office better than he could ever hope to, but also cooked, and had no qualms about trudging through snow or muck to get what she wanted.
“I’ve been meaning to get the tractor out and clean the driveway,” he finally managed. “But I’ve just been too distracted lately and it was easier for me to just walk through the pasture.”
“You have a tractor?” She pounced on the idea, just like a cat. “Can I drive it? Will you show me how? My parents had one for a while and my dad used to let us steer it around the farm when we were kids. But after they got out of pork production, they really didn’t have a need for it anymore, so they sold it.”
He shrugged, helplessly grinning at her enthusiasm.
“Alright, eat your breakfast and we’ll go play with the tractor.”
Hours later they had rosy cheeks from the cold and Matt could barely feel his toes, but the entire lane was cleared and Miranda had mastered the old farm tractor's sticky clutch.
"Why don't you drive the car up to the house and I'll follow you with the tractor," Matt suggested, fishing keys out of his pocket.
Yet as she backed the car out of his mother's driveway and started up the lane to his house, an expensive black sedan pulled up next to the tractor.
He didn't bother looking through the window to see who was driving, because he already knew. It was either his sister or her millionaire boyfriend.
Matt still didn't appreciate how the wealthy real estate developer had chosen to purchase the decrepit old farm across the road from his mother's home. The man could have afforded any number of larger and more modern parcels available. But he'd already sunk a small fortune into leveling all of the old buildings and begun construction on new, much larger ones.
His crew must be running on overtime too, because Matt had never seen a house go up so fast. Especially one of that size.
"Was that Miranda I just saw driving off in your car?" Rachel's voice asked from within the dark car's interior. But Matt pretended he hadn't heard that question and put the tractor back into gear, steering it up the lane in the direction Miranda had taken.
Rachel had inadvertently reminded him of all the reasons why he’
d been pushing the redhead away, and made him question what kind of future they might actually have together.
From the way Miranda had been talking all morning, she was ready to move in and spend the rest of her life with him. But Matt wasn’t sure if he was ready to commit himself to that kind of relationship, especially after the devastation Tanya had made of his life.
He really liked Miranda. But he’d seen the way she’d been looking at Tyson that day in the office. There had been more than a friendly look shared between them. What if she were only waiting for Tyson to grow tired of Rachel and start looking for a new woman?
Would she leave without even saying goodbye, the way Tanya had?
The thought of Miranda leaving was so painful it nearly gutted him.
Although he’d only known her for a short time, he realized that he cared for her on a much deeper level than he’d ever cared for her predecessor.
By the time he’d returned the tractor to the barn and trudged back across the pasture to the house where she was waiting, he’d worked himself back into a black mood. Yet as he opened the door to the house, Miranda was there to meet him with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate in her hands, and his heart melted into a puddle at his feet.
Ignoring her small cries of protest, he seized both cups and deposited them onto the kitchen counter, heedless of the sticky brown liquid he’d sloshed everywhere.
Then he turned and scooped the girl up into his arms, feeling his chest constrict as she willingly wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed him to carry her back upstairs to the bedroom.
“What’s the hurry farm boy?” She laughed as he plopped her down on the bed and began kicking off his shoes.
“I just realized something,” he told her, grinning down at the baggy outfit she was still wearing, and her rosy nose and cheeks.
“What’s that?”