Shirley Jump - Kissed by Cat

She’d rescued so many animals over the course of her lifetime—kittens, puppies, even a lost turtle once. It had become her mission, she supposed, which was ironic given that all the trouble in her life had started with saving one black cat.

Still, she wanted to find those kittens. If she could reunite them with their mother, she hoped it would give her a little more closure. Make it easier to accept the inevitable end of Catherine’s life.

And then, just maybe, she’d find a taste of what she was seeking when she came to Indiana in the first place. The ordinary life. No castles. No kings. Just a house with a white picket fence and cookies in the oven.

The problem was getting away before her “rescuer” took her home and made her over into his pretty pet by stringing pink ribbons and a silver bell around her neck.

“Here we are,” he said cheerily a minute later, as if he’d just pulled up outside Buckingham Palace. “Your temporary home.” She hissed, but he just chuckled again. “Ah, give it a chance, little one.” He came around and opened the door. He lifted out the cage, hefted it awkwardly into one arm and carried it toward the building.

Tall and well-built, he had the muscles of a man who had worked hard in his life, not one who bench-pressed his way to perfection. The scent of him—a dark, very human scent—teased at her nose. Wood shavings, pine, a bit of sweat. And warmth. Like a blanket she could cuddle into.

She would not feel any kind of fondness for this Humanitarian Harry who’d interrupted her quest. Once he put her down, she’d find a way to escape and be on her way faster than he could say, “God Save the Queen.”

He opened the door, letting it shut behind them. There was a moment of total darkness as they traveled down a hall and into another room. He flicked a switch, sending the room into light. Catherine blinked until her eyes adjusted. The man laid the cage on a metal table in the center of a small, austere, white room. She peered through the bars, then shrank back. The sheen of stainless steel glinted back at her. Instruments. Medicines. Needles.

Panicking would do nothing but put her at a disadvantage. She held herself steady, focused on escape.

“Let’s get you more comfortable, shall we?” He bent and peered into her cage.

Those eyes. Brown like a river of coffee, so kind they seemed to take her into his heart and hold her there, the way she’d always hoped home would be, but never had been, even two hundred years ago.

Catherine leaned forward, nose to the metal bars.

“Ah, there you go.” He reached in a finger and stroked the bridge of her nose.

She lashed out, catching him good with one nail before he yelped and pulled back. That would teach him for kidnapping her.

Do it again, Buster, and I’ll show you nine more like that one.

He chuckled and wagged his injured finger at her as if she’d been an errant child. She hissed and spat and yowled her frustration, but he merely smiled.

“You’re really going to make me work to get your affection, aren’t you?” He reached for the latch.

Catherine stilled. Finally. A chance to escape. She lowered her body, feigning acquiescence. He unlatched the door and reached inside, two broad warm hands at once encircling her and drawing her out of the cage. His grip was firm, secure.

Inescapable.

Catherine fought against him anyway, but he cradled her close, within the soft comfort of his sweater. A well-worn wool, washed so many times it felt rather like down. He ran a hand along her head, crooning again, saying nothing at all really, but sending a sense of calm rippling through her veins.

Against every instinct she’d honed in the last two centuries, Catherine relaxed, snuggling into that warmth, allowing herself to relax.

Such a long, lonely road I’ve traveled. How nice it would be to let someone else take care of me. For just one tiny, blissful minute.

And then, she’d go back to her life. To finding the kittens. To worrying about the curse, the deadline looming over her.

A low, quiet, strange rumbling started in her throat. Catherine jerked upright. The sound stopped. The man kept stroking her head and again, she relaxed. A second later, the curious sound started again, vibrating through her as gently as the wash of a tide.

Why was that sound coming from her throat? What did it mean? And why did it feel so good?

“There you are, little one,” he whispered, touching every nerve with what seemed such intimate knowledge of the best-feeling places, “I knew I could make you purr.”

She closed her eyes and forgot momentarily about escape. Absorbing simply this man, his touch, his kindness.

A few more seconds, that’s all. Then she’d—

There was a squeak. Catherine opened her eyes only to see a second, bigger cage. He’d betrayed her. She shrieked but couldn’t stop him from placing her inside and shutting the door.

“I’ll be back, don’t worry,” he said. “Sleep tight.”

Catherine hissed and swatted at his retreating form. A second later, the room was plunged into darkness.

She settled onto the newspaper-covered floor and let out a heavy sigh, ignoring the bowls of food and water beside her. Oh Lord, she was tired, more tired than she could remember feeling before. Maybe because the end was near. Six more days and her fate would be sealed. For better or worse, this half existence would be over.

She only had those few days to get a taste of what life might have been like—had she been able to go down a different lane. A life that could have included a husband, children. A home of her own. She’d missed out on all of that, thanks to Hezabeth’s rather warped sense of revenge. If only—

Enough self-pity. Catherine got to her feet and paced the length of the metal container, clean newspaper crunching beneath her paws. She was in a bit of a sticky wicket, to say the least.

First on the agenda was escape. She’d deal with figuring out how to get back to the kittens and the alley where she’d stashed her small reserve of cash for safekeeping later. She’d had two hundred years to ponder her fate and hadn’t reached any answers yet. Better to stay busy with the things she could change.

There had to be a way out. Finding a twenty-five-year-old blonde busting out of the locked two-by-three cage where he’d last seen a pale orange tabby would undoubtedly shock Humanitarian Harry into cardiac arrest. As appealing as that idea was, Catherine pushed it aside and went back to trying to figure out how she could pick a lock with four paws and a spattering of whiskers for tools.

The clock on the wall ticked along at a steady pace. Catherine had four hours to find a way out. Four hours until she changed from a cat…and became a woman again.

She had until sunrise to pull off a miracle.

Garrett couldn’t sleep. Charlie, his chocolate Labrador, snored loudly at the end of the bed. In a corner basket, Ferdinand and Isabel, a pair of muddled-blood cats, lay stretched out and quiet. Garrett, the only human in the room, lay on the bed, eyes open, arms crossed behind his head.

He’d come back to the house he shared with his Aunt Mabel at one in the morning. As always, he’d stopped to check on his elderly aunt, turning off the blaring TV and covering her with a blanket before heading to his own room. Up until a couple weeks ago, when Aunt Mabel had come down with a bout of pneumonia and temporarily needed more care, he’d lived in a cottage that sat on the back of her land.

When her home had been part of an estate, the little house had been the gardener’s home. Ten years ago, Uncle Leo had converted it into a rental property. But when Leo died, leaving a grieving and frail Mabel alone, Garrett had moved into the cottage. Just at the right time, too, given all that had gone wrong in his life then.

Garrett rolled over and punched his pillow into a new shape, but it didn’t make him any sleepier. His thoughts went back to the stray he’d found that night. She was such a tiny thing, all spit and fire. Despite her temper, she was a beautiful cat—short-haired and petite, with a pale orange coat, almost blond in color. He chuckled. Whoever took her home would need a lot of patience and cat treats to win over that grumpy girl.

Exhaustion weighed on him, but not enough to grant him sleep. His mind refused to quit, to give in and stop the reminders.

Garrett hadn’t slept for more than two hours at a stretch in three years. Every time he closed his eyes, the nightmares returned, tearing at him, making him relive that horrible night again and again.

To hell with it. He got to his feet. The Monday morning sun would be up in an hour or so and then sleep would be pointless. As he’d done a thousand times before, he decided to go to the office before the rest of the world woke up. There was always work.

Ever since his last assistant had quit, he’d been running himself ragged, trying to keep up with the appointments, the shelter and the day-to-day of running his practice. Dottie, his receptionist, was a big help, but what he really needed was a second pair of hands to work with the animals. Problem was, he’d been through three assistants in the past six months.

Either he couldn’t hire good help or he didn’t have the personality to keep good help. He had a feeling it was the latter.

Standing around thinking about the problem wouldn’t get it solved. He needed to work on plans for expanding the shelter and hopefully come up with a strategy to convince the Lawford Community Foundation to finance his dream. Their support thus far had been barely tepid, which, admittedly, was partly his fault. He wasn’t exactly a great communicator. If he was going to make his dream happen, he needed a miracle before Saturday night.

Without looking in the mirror, Garrett showered, shaved and dressed. He avoided his reflection, slipping into jeans and a light blue button-down shirt, stepping into loafers and combing his hair into the same pattern as he had for almost twenty-eight years. Minutes later, he’d fed his cats and dropped them off at the cottage for the day, then set off for the office. Charlie panted in the seat beside him, eager for work.

First thing, he’d see how that cat was doing. After tangling with her last night, he’d put off an exam until today. No sense igniting her temper more than he already had. Once she was deemed healthy, he could find her a home.

He’d miss her, despite her cranky personality. He missed every animal that left his building. You can’t keep them all, his mother always told him, or you’ll be running a zoo instead of a veterinarian’s office.

He already had three pets, more than enough for the cottage and for his aunt’s home. And here, in the office, there was always a dozen or so waiting for his attention. Between the shelter and his veterinarian practice, hundreds of animals came into his care each year.

He loved them all. Well, except for Miss Tanner’s giant Doberman. What he wouldn’t give for a little help with Sweet Pea, whose name had nothing to do with her description or her personality. Even Dottie feared the dog, a nearly maniacal barker who ate almost everything in sight. Garrett had to admit he dreaded Miss Tanner and Sweet Pea’s annual appointment. Not to mention her continual “emergency” visits with the dog.

Where her Doberman was concerned, Miss Tanner was a canine hypochondriac.

But the rest of the animals had a piece of his heart. Maybe because they never looked at him with a touch of revulsion in their eyes, never stood there with a question they dared not ask on their lips. They responded only to his touch and his voice, as if they were blind to everything else the world judged about Garrett McAllister.