Shirley Jump - Kissed by Cat

He pulled up in front of the small white building decorated with a simple sign: Garrett McAllister, DVM. The sky was beginning to turn from gray to light pink as the sun edged up the horizon.

Charlie settled onto a padded dog bed by the front door. Garrett made his way through the darkened office, knowing the path without the help of a light. He’d worked here most of his life, first with Doc West, then by himself when he bought the practice from Doc three years ago. There’d been a year when he’d lived—and worked—somewhere else, but his life had always been here. These rooms were more like home than his own. More familiar, more comforting. The place where he most belonged.

He unlocked the door to the exam room. Last night, the shelter had been full, so he’d kept the tabby here. What he’d do with her once patients started coming in and out at nine, he didn’t know, but he’d figure something out. A freezing rain was predicted for tonight and he had no intentions of letting the cat wander Lawford’s streets.

He flicked on the light. She was sitting on her haunches, every sense on alert. As if she’d been expecting him.

“Good morning,” he said. “Did you sleep?”

She glared at him in response.

He laughed. “Neither did I.” Her food bowl was untouched. “Didn’t like the selections on the menu? Let’s try some canned food then.” He pivoted, reached for a can on the shelf and opened it into a bowl. The first signs of morning orange sky peeked through the blinds. The tabby let out a howl that sounded almost panicked. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said, turning back toward her.

She was frantic now, pawing and gnawing at the bars, shrieking in frustration.

“It’s okay, little one. It’s okay.”

She began to toss herself against the door of the cage. Was she in pain? Sick? Garrett rushed to unlatch the lock and thrust his free hand inside to catch her.

With a howl, she leapt past him, missing his grip by millimeters, dashing across the room and out the door he’d left ajar. She was gone in the space of a heartbeat.

“You won’t get far. Not unless you can open doors, too.” Garrett picked up the bowl of food and left the room, following the cat’s path. The office was small and most of the doors were shut. He’d find her soon enough.

One more second and it all would have been over. Her secret discovered—in one heck of a big way.

Nothing like making a grand entrance.

She darted out of the room, down the hall and through the first open door she saw. Just in time. She could feel it beginning to happen. The tingling, the stretching and expanding of her body from cat to woman.

She braced herself, hugged against the wall, knowing the pain was coming, yet jerking away in shock when it did. It was always like this when the change started. She’d never gotten used to it, even after two hundred years.

“Here kitty, kitty,” came the man’s voice. She heard him tap against the plastic food bowl. “Shrimp dinner. Come and get it.”

By day a woman, by night a cat. The curse can only be broken if you find a man who loves you as both a woman and a cat. Every day, Hezabeth the Witch’s screeching voice echoed in Catherine’s mind.

Her arms and legs began to lengthen, the cat’s furry hide transforming into pale skin. Catherine closed her eyes and envisioned a quiet meadow, songbirds, blooming flowers, anything but the hideous half-animal, half-human creature she was for the next few seconds.

There was another momentary protest of pain from her body and then, finally, it was over.

Before she opened her eyes, Catherine ran a hand over her face and skin. As the end of the curse drew nearer, she worried one day it would all go horribly wrong, leaving her stuck between the two worlds and looking like some fifty-cent sideshow in the carnival.

Not today, thank God. Everything felt as it should. Human. Womanly. And then, she realized—

Naked.

“Here kitty, kitty.” His voice again, closer. A few feet away.

Catherine scrambled to her feet, her eyes still unseeing—the last part of her body to adjust to the switch. In a second, she’d have her vision, but right now she was essentially blind.

How could she be so unprepared? The first time she’d transformed, she’d been caught naked in a marketplace in London during the bustle before the holidays, with vendors scrambling to set out their wares in the early morning.

When an unclothed woman had suddenly sprung up in the middle of the square, the fishmonger had dropped his mackerel, the butcher nearly chopped off his index finger, and the ladies readying the dress shop for the day had swooned, silly bats fainting as if they’d never seen a woman without clothes before.

Ever since, Catherine had made sure she was ready for the change, whether it meant stealing clothes from a washerwoman’s line or diving into a charity donation bin.

But this time, she hadn’t had a second to grab anything. She stood naked and cold against the wall, her vision now a blur of colors. How would she get past him? How could she explain being here at six in the morning?

Not to mention the nudity thing.

“Kitty?” The door across the hall clicked open, then shut. “Kitty?” Closer, on the other side of the pine door. This pine door. And then, the knob turned.

A miracle would take more time than Catherine had.

Garrett flicked the switch for the overhead light in his office, bending over as he did so he wouldn’t miss the cat zipping by. His gaze swept the space in front of him, to the left, then the right. Beige carpet, the leg of a cherry desk, several crumbs from yesterday’s cookies baked as a thank-you by Mrs. Crane and…one woman’s naked foot.

He stood there for a second, blinking. One woman’s naked foot.

His gaze traveled up. A naked foot, attached to a naked leg. Garrett jerked upright and found himself looking at a twenty-ish blonde who filled out a lab coat—his lab coat—in ways that should be illegal.

His jaw dropped open. Not a word came out.

She, however, didn’t seem so surprised to see him. She smiled, a soft look that took over her face and reached into her gray-green eyes. A strange feeling of connection zipped through Garrett, which was odd, because he knew he’d never met her before. And yet, he felt as if he should know her.

“I’m so pleased to meet you, Dr.—” her gaze flicked to his desk, then back. She sounded slightly out of breath, which caused a weird hitch in Garrett’s own breathing. “Dr. McAllister. I’ve been anxious to talk to you.”

“What are you doing in my office? Wearing my lab coat?”

“I told you. I wanted to talk to you.”

He could barely get his mind around any of this. “What? Why?”

If she had on any clothes at all, they were very short and hidden by the knee-length white jacket. Either way, he couldn’t focus on anything but the creamy length of her legs and the way the oversized jacket dipped in front, giving him a too-brief peek at the rounded pale curves of her breasts.

“I, umm…I wanted to talk to you about ah…a…job.” She gave a quick, firm nod.

He quirked an eyebrow. “A job?”

“As your…assistant. You know, helping with the animals.” The smile again, secure, confident.

Had he been in some kind of fugue state yesterday and forgotten he’d hired her?

No, impossible. He’d never forget hiring a woman like her. Besides, people didn’t exactly clamor to work for him. His last two assistants had said he lacked any kind of people skills before they’d slammed the door and left for good. Not to mention that most of his annual budget was poured into keeping the shelter up and running.

Although he needed the help, he preferred to work alone. Dealing with people was a hell of a lot harder than dealing with animals. People asked questions. People stared. People, he’d found, could disappoint you and let you down when you needed them most.

He’d already been down that road one painful time too many.

“I don’t have an opening for an assistant right now.” Another glimpse of her legs, then his gaze traveled up to her lean, heart-shaped face and deep gray-green eyes. “At least, I don’t think I do.”

A slow smile spread across her face like peanut butter on toast. Her gaze locked on his, and she took a step forward. “A busy vet can always use more help, I’m sure.”

He gestured at her, a hundred questions in the movement of his hands. “How did you get in here?”

“That’s rather a long story,” she said.

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb. “I have time.”

“Well…” Her voice trailed off. She bit her lip and took a step back, settling on the corner of his desk. When she sat, the lab coat rode up, exposing more of her thighs.

His heart rate leapt to five times the normal rate. Garrett swallowed and forced his jaw to stay in place this time. Maybe this was one of those reality show pranks where someone had set him up with a gorgeous woman pretending she wanted a job.

“I…” she glanced around the room again, then back at him. “I was here late yesterday to talk to you about a job, but you’d already left. Your receptionist said I could find you here early in the morning. I got ah, turned around when I went to leave and accidentally got locked in.”

“It’s a small building. Not exactly full of halls and wrong turns.”

“I was nervous.”

She looked like the kind of woman who never got flustered. Her story had more holes than a cheap pair of socks. And yet, he sensed a vulnerability about her, as if she wasn’t used to asking for help or relying on others. Much like himself, he realized. And for some odd reason, that made him want to help her.

He needed more sleep. Clearly, he wasn’t thinking straight.

“I didn’t see you when I came back late last night,” he said.

“I fell asleep in your chair. When I’m asleep, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade could come by and I’d never hear a thing.”

“Must be nice to sleep that deeply,” he said quietly, then drew himself up. He wasn’t here to confess his insomnia problems to a stranger, especially one without any clothes on.

The way the coat drifted over her and peaked above her breasts, he suspected she was nude. Completely nude.

Oh boy, was he going to have a lot of fantasies running through his head over this one. He’d never look at that coat the same way again. “Do you, ah, always dress like this for a job interview?”

“I…I spilled some coffee on my clothes last night and washed them out in the sink. I slipped on this to wear until they dried. I didn’t expect you to be here so early. I hope you don’t mind.” She crossed one leg over the other, which only served to hitch the coat up farther.

He gulped. “Uh…no.”

She smiled again. “Good.”

“Did it hit your shoes, too?”

“Shoes?”

He looked pointedly at her bare feet.

“Oh, ah, yeah. Coffee all over them.”

“Must have been a hell of a big mug.”

She nodded quickly. Too quickly. “Huge.”

He should send her packing. Mentally, Garrett started ticking through the inconsistencies in her tale. “Why—”

“Well, let’s get to work,” she said, interrupting him with an enthusiastic clap. “I bet the animals are starving.”

“I don’t need an assistant.”

“I find that hard to believe. There are lots of animals here. You definitely need help.”

“I can’t afford an assistant. I can barely afford me.”

“I’ll work for peanuts.”