Chapter 18

The trick to getting through the week is always having a package on the way.

— Keely’s secret thoughts

KEELY

“ Ohhh !” I heard called from somewhere behind me. “ I have all of this to take over to Apollo , too!”

I looked at the massive amounts of stuff that Nastya had run out of her house with and blinked.

“ What is all that?” I asked curiously.

“ That is everything that I’ve been given to test in the age range of seven to ten in the last few months. There are tons of clothes, toys, games and room essentials. I’m not going to be able to do anything with it past giving my general thoughts on it. So I figure, why not donate to the little boy that hasn’t had much in a while?” Nastya explained.

Nastya was an Amazon reviewer when she first met her husband, Haze . Then Haze’s adult daughter, Desi , and Nastya had turned it into something much more with the power of social media.

She’d gifted me quite a bit of her ‘testers’ in the short time that I’d known her, and I was loving it.

Getting new gadgets and things that I didn’t have to pay for sounded like a grand plan for me.

“ Are you going there after or before?” Nastya asked both Milena and me.

Tonight there would be a celebration at the Truth Tellers MC clubhouse celebrating Tavi’s return. Though Apollo hadn’t offered up much hope that he’d be staying for more than a few minutes. Tavi was still very much wary of everything, and he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to handle a huge, rowdy party.

“ We’re definitely going to go look for the kitties first, then run by the clubhouse,” I responded. “ Milena went to buy out the Pet House of their animal carriers.”

“ Then I’ll ride with you,” she confirmed. “ And take your car back since Dima’s meeting you there.” Nastya smiled.

“ That sounds perfect,” I admitted. “ Have you ever driven a standard, though?”

Nastya snorted. “ Shasha has this thing about the females in his family knowing how to escape in any situation. He taught us all self-defense and advanced defensive driving before we were fifteen. I could drive a tank if I needed to.”

I grinned and started heading down the road, and Nastya started to mess with my radio stations.

“ I’ll bet you anything, though, that you won’t be driving this for long.” Nastya hummed along to a tune by Cody Johnson when she got to the station she wanted.

I frowned as we took the turn that would lead us out of the lake subdivision that the Semyonovs lived in. “ What do you mean?”

“ I mean that this is an older, unsafe car, and he’s going to have you driving a new one as soon as he can.” She rolled her eyes. “ Not that I think it’s a bad car or anything. It’s great from what I can tell. It looks like you just rolled off the lot with it thirty years ago.”

I laughed. “ It was my grandmother’s newest car. When she died, my grandad kept it in tip-top shape. Still keeps it in tip-top shape, really. Or my brothers do. I don’t think I’ve had to do anything but fill it up with gas in my entire life.”

“ What is it about guys and cars? Dima , Shasha , and my husband all know how to keep them running. How is it that you can talk to almost any guy, and they know exactly what needs to be done? Even if it’s only a cursory knowledge of it? If something went wrong besides the battery on my car, I wouldn’t have a single clue what it was.” She shook her head. “ I was driving my car the other day when I went to pick up Haze from work, and felt nothing wrong with it the entire drive. When Haze started driving home, he immediately noticed something was wrong. When he got back home, he fixed it. Meanwhile , I was still trying to figure out what it was that he was feeling that I wasn’t.”

We chatted for another fifteen minutes as we drove to the parking lot that would lead to the trail that would then lead to the field that Dima had found our four hellion cats.

When we got there, Milena , Maven , and two of Maven’s sisters-in-law, Athena and Bindi , were already waiting on us.

“ Hey !” we all chirped as we waved and caught up.

“ So are we thinking they’re gonna be here?” Maven asked as she carried a package of cat treats under her arm.

We walked and chatted, all of us having a great time catching up and making new friends.

Bindi , who was blind, walked slowly, her K9 companion at her side guiding her way.

Though she couldn’t actually look for the cats, she was here as moral support.

I absolutely adored Bindi and Athena , and only then realized that maybe if I met friends outside of work every once in a while, I might find that I have more women friends.

We made it to the field and started looking around.

“ Oh , hey, Officer Assman !” Athena called. “ What are you doing here?”

This Officer Assman smiled at Athena and said, “ Looking for the congresswoman’s shooter’s location.”

I kept my mouth shut, smiling faintly while simultaneously trying not to freak out.

“ What are you doing here?” Officer Assman asked.

“ Oh , we heard a kitten when we were walking by here last, and we came with reinforcements,” Maven said, talking to the officer like she knew him just as well as Athena . “ We want to catch the kitty.”

Officer Assman nodded and said, “ What kind of cat?”

“ The kind that is skittish and I only saw the tail end of.” Maven shrugged. “ We’re gonna try to catch him. The thought of him being out here without food and water is breaking my heart.”

Officer Assman nodded and said, “ Good luck to you all. I have to keep looking around.”

Then he was gone, leaving me with a racing heart and a nervous belly.

“ Shew ,” Maven said. “ I didn’t want to have to return these cats to that woman that was breeding them. I would’ve had to had he been here when we found the kitties.” She looked around. “ That’s probably why none of the cats have been found yet. This trail is deserted.”

It was.

Which was super sad.

The man that’d dropped the kittens off knew what he was doing when he dumped those cats here. He knew they wouldn’t be found.

“ Shake your treat box,” I suggested.

Maven did, and we all started walking out into the field, calling “here kitty, kitty” in an upbeat voice.

The first one popped up near Brecken .

The second and third popped up near Maven .

“ Whoa ,” Maven cried when more and more poured out of the tall grass. “ They’re everywhere.”

Three of us went back to the cars for the cat carriers.

When we got back, we stuffed them all into eight cat carriers.

They weren’t happy, but they would all find a better home than the fields they were found in.

As we all went back to the cars, I asked, “ Do you think we found them all?”

“ Probably not,” Brecken admitted. “ But we can keep coming back with food and water. Eventually we might get them all.”

Luckily , being in the middle of Dallas , there really weren’t many predators that would take any of the cats out.

After parting in the parking lot and handing off my keys to Nastya , Milena and I climbed into her mom-mobile, a brand new Ford Expedition with huge tires and all sorts of fun features, and headed to the clubhouse.

The cats sang to us the entire way.

“ This place still gives me butterflies,” Milena said as we pulled into the closest parking spot we could find.

I smiled at my new sister-in-law. “ They love you. They’ve all told me so plenty of times.”

She smiled, and a little bit of the nervousness slid out of her shoulders.

“ Let’s get these cats inside and get them some food and water,” I suggested.

Instead of going through the main door, I had her walk with me to the kitchen door that was on the side of the clubhouse.

Mainly , the clubhouse was an open concept place.

But there was a storage room and dirty kitchen off the back of the main kitchen that allowed me to keep the door shut to the main part of the clubhouse. Containing them seemed like it would be a problem if I wasn’t careful.

“ Plus , I can set up a couple of litter boxes in here. The club members work on cars and bikes a lot in the back barn, and there are a lot of oil spills. They have kitty litter in there for such occasions. I’ll steal some of that,” I said as we started carting them inside.

When she started letting them out of their cages, I went for the kitty litter and some spare boxes.

When I got inside, it was cat chaos.

“ We’re gonna have to find something to do with these cats,” I said as I took them all in. “ That one especially can’t be outside anymore.”

It was a Sphynx , and had looked like it’d been put through the ringer over the last few days. The poor little thing had cuts all over her little body from the woods she’d been in.

“ I’ll take that one home with me.” Milena smiled. “ Cutter will love it.”

“ Cutter will love what?” I heard Dima ask.

I smiled when I saw him filling up the door to the kitchen.

“ This cat,” I pointed at the naked black cat.

Dima curled his lip up in disgust. “ Sure , he’ll definitely love that.”

He took in all the cats, and then cursed when one slipped past him and dashed into the main room.

“ That one was a Serval . We could’ve left it behind and it would’ve been able to defend itself and feed itself no problem,” I said. “ Don’t let any kids play with it.”

Dima left and forgot to shut the door, so all of the cats started pouring out of the kitchen and into the main room of the clubhouse.

Squeals of excitement from the few kids that were there filled the air, and I sighed.

“ Holy shit,” someone said from behind me.

I smiled and stood up, looking from Apollo to his son, Tavi .

I waved. “ Hi , Tavi .”

Tavi’s eyes lit up and he said, “ Hi , Kee .”

Kee .

From a young age, Tavi had trouble saying Keely , so I’d been shortened to Kee .

I was so happy he remembered me.

“ Tavi .” I dropped down to my haunches. “ I’ve missed you so much.”

He smiled and his cheeks turned pink. “ I’ve missed you, too. Is that a cat?”

I stepped back so he could see the chaos Dima had just unleashed. “ A lot of cats. My friend, Milena ,” I pointed at Milena who was watching on with a small smile. “ She married Cutter . She and I went to a place where my old man, Dima , found some kittens last night. And we found over seventy cats!”

“ Wow ,” Tavi said quietly. “ That’s a whole lot of cats. What are you going to do with them all?”

I grinned conspiratorially. “ I think I could probably talk your dad into a few.”

Apollo cursed. “ Cats and computer equipment don’t pair well together.”

“ Please , Dad ?” Tavi begged, turning his sweet gaze up to his father’s.

I grinned wickedly at Apollo .

“ Yeah , Apollo . Just one itty, bitty kitty,” I teased.

That’s when the Serval came back into the kitchen, and Tavi gasped. “ That one!”

I left to go find Dima , laughing the entire way as Apollo explained why he couldn’t have that particular cat.

If ads affect your reading experience, click here to remove ads on this page.