Cattitude (36 page)

“No, Mom,” Ted was saying. “Yeah, sure.”

A prickle of hurt throbbed dully inside Max’s
chest, slithering under his barriers. He put his palm to his
forehead, as if physically pushing the pang back.

“Good,” John said. “You’re finally listening
to my advice.”

Max shot him a glance, dropped his hand and
turned pages without making a pretense of reading. Finding the
signature line, he scribbled his name. John showed him two more
sheets to sign and he scribbled his name on those as well.

Ted held out the phone. “Mom wants to talk to
you.” He smiled innocently at Max’s glare. “Hey, in a few hours,
you’re out of here. I’ll be the one who has to stay and listen to
her bitching.”

Max grabbed the phone and put it to his ear.
“I can’t believe you’re actually going through with this,” she
said, her voice screechy with fear. “What about your brother and
sister?”

“Everyone is taken care of, Mom. I’m not
going through this again.”

“What about
me
?” Her voice shook. “I’m
not talking about money. Ted’s not like you. He hardly visits me.
I’ll be all alone.”

Max closed his eyes. “You’re not alone. You
have friends. I’ll still call you, but you’ll do just fine without
me. It looks like Tory is staying, and Ted will be there for you if
you need him.”

Ted’s sock on his shoulder stopped him, and
he ignored the punch even though it hurt. Just as he ignored a few
more prickles creeping under and over and around his mental
blocks.

“Maxwell, you can’t—”

“Goodbye, Mom. I’ll write.” He pressed the
End Talk button and handed it back to Ted. “I’d advise you to turn
it off for at least an hour.”

Ted pressed a button. “Done. You handled that
well.”

Max shrugged and passed the pages to Ted. It
was past time for his mother to get a life. “Sign this. Here and
here and here. Apparently this is the biggie.”

Ted pursed his lips into a whistle. “How’s it
feel to be a free man?”

A free man.
Max sat back. Ted was
right. He was free.

But he didn’t feel free. He felt...sad.

Even as he admitted it, the mental blocks
evaporated, but the pain didn’t flood back. Instead darkness
possessed him, filling his mind, his cells, his heart, his soul,
drowning him in sorrow. And a cry rose inside him.
Sorcha!
Sorcha, Sorcha, Sorcha.

He pictured her, he smelled her, he felt her.
He saw her stumbling toward him in the road, he saw her in his arms
after she’d fallen from the tree, he saw her in the bathtub, he saw
her eat ice cream sandwiches like a child, not caring that
chocolate smeared her face, he saw her naked on his bed and in his
arms.

“Something wrong?” John took the papers from
Ted. “I still have to sign this. If you want me to rip up the
papers—”

“No, go ahead.” Max stood, his chest full of
emotion, constricting his breathing, and he realized what he hadn’t
seen in those images.

Belle.

To him, she was Sorcha. Unusual and unique,
with no pretenses, no lies. Unlike no woman he knew. And if that
came from Belle, he accepted it and even welcomed it and was
grateful for it. Just as he accepted his height came from his
father and his eye color from his mother. But the man he’d grown up
to be was self-made, starting when he was fourteen.

It didn’t matter what Sorcha had been before
the day she’d stumbled into his arms and he took her into his home
and gave his bed. She was a woman now, a woman he loved. He could
live without her, but even on the sunniest days life would always
be grayer, duller, darker. She made him laugh, made him light up,
made him crazy, and he was an idiot for thinking he should leave
her.

Exultation hummed through him and he saw her
in his mind again, haloed by sunlight as he drove past her. Saw her
sad expression, saw the resignation, and in that instant he knew
what she planned to do. He stopped himself from crying out, even as
shards of fear sliced through his exhilaration, stealing his breath
and freezing his heart.

Without a word, he pushed back the chair and
strode out of the office.

“Hey! Where you going?” Ted shouted.

Instead of answering, Max ran to the car. His
breath gasped and his heart pounded, but was still frozen at its
core. He didn’t want to waste one second talking.

Ted hurried outside as Max stepped on the
gas. “Wait for me!” Ted called.

Max tore out of the parking lot. He wasn’t
waiting for anyone. He loved Sorcha and needed to get to her before
she changed back into a cat.

“Sorcha, Sorcha,” Belle called in a
conversational voice, not putting her usual energy into it. Instead
of marching through the undergrowth like a woman on a mission, she
strolled. A squirrel darted up a tree, and she didn’t get her usual
thought of how easy it would be to leap after the furry thing and
sink her teeth into its neck. If she were in her right body.

But which body was the right body?

“Sorcha,” she said listlessly. She’d been
ready to remain in this human body, but Max didn’t want her as a
human. So she may as well be a cat. What else was she to do? If he
stayed, she might try to change his mind. But he was leaving and
she wasn’t going to leave with him, that was for sure.

She stopped.

Or was she?

***

Sorcha ran up a tree to escape a Sumo-sized
raccoon. She dug her claws into the thick branch and scanned the
woods around her. She hated herself for being such a fraidy cat. If
she’d been brave, her life might’ve been different.

But wasn’t she being brave now? Searching for
Belle so they could switch bodies?

The raccoon kept going, out of sight. The
minutes stretched and Sorcha still waited. Since the change, Belle
had been walking through the woods every day, searching for her. If
Sorcha stayed in the tree, sooner or later Belle would find
her.

A rustling noise caught her attention. Her
ears pricked up. Another animal?

Looking straight ahead, she saw Belle step
over a fallen tree, and a notion struck her. Since her car had
crashed and she’d prayed to God to take her instead of the cat,
never once had she looked at Belle and thought, “That’s me. That’s
my body.”

Why not? Belle was using her body. The image
she used to see in the mirror. Yet she never felt ownership. The
woman she saw in the body was always Belle.

She blinked. If she thought of Belle as being
a woman, what did she think of herself? As a cat?

Another noise came from the other direction.
Someone walking toward her and Belle.

Stretching her neck out, she looked to the
left, straight at the blond woman who’d tripped Belle. The woman
she suspected of throwing Belle at Sorcha’s car.

Sorcha trembled.

Another noise came from the other direction.
Sorcha whipped her head to the right.

Oh God, it couldn’t be. Deavers and his
brother. What were they doing here?

Her trembles deepened to shudders. Her front
legs wrapped around the branch to keep from falling off, her claws
digging into the rough bark. Inside her chest, her small heart
thundered. A bud on the end of a twig tickled her nose and she
shifted.

She should warn Belle, but fear paralyzed her
vocal chords.

They were all after Belle. She just wasn’t
sure which one would kill her first.

***

Deavers ducked to avoid a low branch. He
hated tramping through the woods. When he was a Boy Scout, he paid
another boy to build a fire for him, then got caught and was kicked
out of his troop. Every time he thought about it, his ears stung.
His father never hit him, but he’d shot words like “stupid” and
“lazy” and “coward” at him like they were bullets.

A half step in front of him, Phil strode
easily, a regular nature boy. Bob sneered. Phil looked like the
original cowboy with his lean physique and even-featured face, but
he hadn’t been able to shoot Sorcha yet, had he? That made him a
coward.

Phil had told him that Sorcha had amnesia.
His excuse for not shooting her. Even if Bob believed it—which he
didn’t—her memory could return. Before that happened, he needed to
eliminate her.

Phil’s step faltered and he halted. To avoid
walking into him, Bob hitched to the side and saw Sorcha. He
stopped next to Phil. Her profile was to them and she walked
slowly, her spine bent. Defeated.

Yes! Soon she’d be gone and no one would
know.

He stepped forward, his shoulder knocking
against Phil’s hard bicep.

Almost no one. He glowered at Phil, jabbing
his thumb in Sorcha’s direction.

His eyes dazed, Phil stepped forward, his
foot coming down on a branch. It cracked like a gunshot. Sorcha’s
head swiveled, and Bob could tell she spotted them. But instead of
running, she stood still and peered at them, her brows slightly
together, as if she were puzzled.

She really did have amnesia. Bob smiled. His
luck was in today.

But, wait. What the hell was that?

A blond woman, looking as if she’d walked off
the cover of a catalog, was coming up behind Sorcha. She stared at
Sorcha’s back, apparently not aware of Phil and Bob.

What the hell was she doing in the woods,
getting in Bob’s way?

“You bitch,” the blond said.

Sorcha pivoted.

Phil stopped. So did Bob.

They were about quarter of a football field
away from Sorcha. Close enough to hit her with a rock.

Or a bullet.

Bob lifted his gun. With his other hand, he
nudged Phil. If Phil fired a shot, even if he didn’t connect, he’d
be just as culpable as Bob. And if Phil ever got the notion to call
the police on Bob, he’d be in jail faster than he could say, “Get
me a lawyer.”

Using both hands, Phil raised his gun. The
damn thing shook.

“Go away,” Sorcha said to the blond. “You’re
not welcome here.”

The blond’s wild laughter splintered up Bob’s
spine. Apparently Sorcha hadn’t spent her time here making
friends.

“You humiliated me!” An arm stretched out and
she aimed a gun the size of a hot dog straight at Sorcha. “Did you
really think I was going to let you get away with it?”

Bob felt his jaw drop. Next to him, Phil
tensed. Bob glanced over, saw Phil’s finger on the trigger.

You stupid jerk! Let the blond kill her!

Two shots rang out as Sorcha dived to the
ground.

The gun tumbled out of the blond’s hand. She
clutched her chest. Staggering, she dropped to her knees. Then she
pitched forward to the ground.

Sorcha made a sound in her throat and
struggled to her feet. She was unharmed. With no weapon in her
hand.

“You!” Bob whispered, glaring at Phil. “You
shot the wrong woman.”

Phil shook his head, looking miserable. “I
can’t kill her. It’s not right. All the money in the world isn’t
worth it.”

“You betrayed me.” There was a buzzing in
Bob’s ears, like a thousand bees. He lifted his gun and the buzzing
grew louder.

Phil stumbled back. “You can’t shoot me. I’m
your brother.”

“Half brother. And I never liked you.” Taking
aim, Bob pulled the trigger.

Still staring at Bob, Phil crumpled to the
ground.

Bob’s excited breaths sounded like a chugging
train.
Who was the better man now?

He stepped over his fallen brother. The blond
was dead and Phil was dead. Once Sorcha was dead, all his witnesses
would be gone.

Sorcha stared at him, her eyes round, her jaw
dropped. “You shot Phil?” she asked. “Why?”

He didn’t say anything. Why talk to a dead
woman? As he aimed his gun at Sorcha, he planned his next moves.
After he shot her, he’d put the gun by the blond woman. The police
would think she shot Sorcha and Phil, and before he died, Phil shot
her. The perfect murder. Everything was going his way. Even the
tree he was standing under shaded the sun’s glare from his eyes. He
was brilliant. Nothing was going to stop him. Nothing. His children
would be safe from ridicule.

And so would he.

***

Turning his Jeep in the driveway, Max heard
the two shots, one after another. He stomped on the brakes.

“Belle!” Instinctively using the name she’d
more quickly respond to, he pushed open the door and jumped
out.

He ran, leaving the door open and the keys in
the ignition, the Jeep beeping behind him.

“Belle!” he cried, his voice hoarse with
desperation. “Belle!”

***

Belle watched the balding man with the pudgy
belly aim the gun at her. None of this seemed real. Caroline was
shot and so was Phil. Even for
The Love Chronicles
this was
a little much.

She balanced herself on the balls of her
feet. She wasn’t letting this human shoot her without defending
herself.

As she jumped, something flew out of the tree
and landed on his head.

Sorcha.

He shrieked. Then Belle barreled into him,
pushing him backward. He stumbled on a tree root and fell on his
ass.

Sorcha squealed, but didn’t fall. He shrieked
again, and Belle knew Sorcha’s four sets of claws were digging into
his forehead and skull.

Belle crouched, but before she could pounce,
Sorcha yowled an attack cry. Belle’s breaths harsh in her ears, she
watched Sorcha scratch the man like she was playing tic-tac-toe on
his head. He dropped the gun, bringing his hands up to cover his
eyes. Sorcha immediately scored her front paws over the backs of
his hands, leaving bloody scrapes.

Belle shook with the need to jump on him too
and start scratching. Still, she held back. Sorcha scratched
because she was in the cat body and that’s what cats did. Belle was
in the human body and humans didn’t kill with their own hands.

Humans preferred doing it secondhand.

Bending, she scooped up the gun. Her human
nails were too thin and puny to do much damage anyway.