Chapter 2
Savannah
It’s not the crash I heard a second ago that worries me most.
It’s the silence.
People always say there’s nothing more terrifying than a quiet toddler, and until a month ago I thought it was just a funny thing to say. Not a real thing. I’m not sure the saying applies to cats like it does to children, but…
I’m practically elbow-deep in ground turkey as I stand frozen in my kitchen, straining my ears for any sounds coming from the bedroom. “Beef?” I say loudly when the silence continues long enough to make me truly nervous. My giant cat is never quiet like this, and that can only mean disaster.
A glance at the clock kicks my heart rate up another few notches.
I do not have time for this! I need to get a week’s worth of meals prepped for a delivery tomorrow morning, and it’s never a good thing if I work two overnighters in a row.
Groaning, I shut my eyes tight and take a deep breath.
It’s almost nine. I’m still at least three hours out from finishing this job, and if I have to pause to deal with a crisis, the night will just keep stretching longer.
I can’t miss tomorrow’s delivery. Not when this client is still in their trial period.
If they don’t hire me more permanently to make oven-ready meals, I most likely won’t be able to afford rent next month.
And then what? Then I’ll have no choice but to head back home to South Carolina and admit that my parents were right when they told me I was an idiot to start a business on the West Coast.
“Beef!” I shout again.
A tiny sound, like a little whimper, is the only reply.
Cursing, I peel off my gloves and hurry down the hall, praying I’m not about to rush into a horror scene. “Beef Wellington, so help me, if you’ve gone and gotten yourself killed, I’ll…”
I’ll cry, for one. Sob. Going to the shelter when I’m barely keeping my business afloat was a terrible idea from the start, but I’m sure not ready to face the heartbreak of losing my Wellie. I only just got him.
Stumbling into my dark bedroom, I scramble to find the light switch, illuminating the disaster. I curse again as I take in the bookshelf that five minutes ago was upright and full of books but is now propped against the bed, all of the books strewn across my bed and floor.
“Beef!”
A mewling comes from under the bed, and I have to dig through the pile of books before green eyes meet mine. My lungs deflate at the sight of him sprawled just beneath the frame, unmoving. Not even his fluffy tail is twitching.
Tears prick my eyes. “Beef Wellington, what did you do?” Reaching under the bed, I grab hold of his shoulders and drag him out as gently as I can.
I have no idea how he managed to knock over a giant shelf full of cookbooks and textbooks, and I don’t want to think about him getting pelted by those monstrous things.
Thank goodness the bookshelf landed on the bed and didn’t crush him.
Except, I’ve never seen my cat this still before. Not even in his sleep.
With a few more curses for good measure, I poke around his body, trying to see if anything is broken. He growls when I touch his hip, and I freeze. “There? Is that where you’re hurt?”
He looks at me like I’m an idiot—he is exceptionally expressive—and seems to be trying to tell me something else that I can’t understand. This cat and I speak different languages and haven’t yet learned to communicate, no matter how hard we try. But I’m pretty sure he’s hurt.
Though I have way too much work to do, I grab my phone, pulling up the number of my vet, who, at this point, should be added to my favorites because I text him so often.
That’s what he gets for giving me his cell phone number and saying I’m welcome to reach out with any questions.
I’ve only had my cat for five weeks, and already I’ve been to the clinic four times.
“You are going to bankrupt me sooner than I expected, Wellington,” I grumble as I type out a text with shaking fingers. My mom would love that, using my lack of money to guilt me into going back home.
Savannah:
It’s Beef. An emergency. Please help.
As I wait for a response, I look up the closest emergency clinic in case I’ve called in one too many favors with my regular vet.
Like when Beef swallowed half a dozen hair ties and had to get his stomach pumped.
(I’m down to only one or two hair ties now because I haven’t had time to buy more.) Or the time I called in the middle of the night because I thought my cat was choking to death.
(He apparently is just obnoxiously loud when it comes to hairballs.) Or the day I brought Beef into the clinic at lunchtime and begged three different appointment holders to let me cut in front of them because my absolute unit of a cat ate an entire bag of cat treats in one sitting after I didn’t lock it in the pantry quickly enough. (He was fine.)
At some point, I’m going to have to consider going back to school and getting at least a vet tech degree, or I’m going to be the most hated pet owner in Sun Valley.
If nothing else, my wonderfully wonderful vet is going to block my number and instruct his receptionist to lock me out if I show up without an appointment again.
While Beef Wellington keeps glaring at me and making that terrible growling sound—I honestly can’t tell if it’s anger or pain—I scratch him behind the ears and give myself thirty more seconds before I bite the bullet and take him to the nearest emergency clinic.
One that likely won’t take my pet insurance that I’m so glad I bought.
Ouch.
My phone buzzes, and I hold my breath as I open it to find the most wonderful text I’ve ever read.
Doc Ox:
I can be at the clinic in ten.
“You beautiful man,” I breathe, which isn’t a lie because he’s not only a kind and friendly vet but he’s incredibly attractive.
And single, as far as I can tell, though I haven’t made a move because, one: that feels very gauche when I adopted a nightmare of a pet and disrupted what I assume was his otherwise peaceful life, and two: in no way do I have time to date.
Beef mews, blinking up at me with his yellow-gray eyes.
“Savannah Blair,” I mutter to myself, “you are too soft for your own good.” Groaning, I bend down and press a kiss to Beef’s head, ignoring the hiss he returns.
Normally he swats at me too, which makes me more convinced than ever that he was seriously hurt in the crash.
“Don’t move, Beef,” I instruct as I stand, pointing at him to emphasize the order.
He blinks at me again, still completely motionless.
With an aching heart, I grab the cat carrier and head back to the bedroom, whimpering when I find Beef Wellington in the same spot I left him. “Oh, baby,” I mourn, petting his head. “Is this one for real?”
For the first time since I saw him at the shelter I shouldn’t have walked into, Beef doesn’t fight me when I put him in his carrier, which sparks more tears, and by the time I get to the clinic, I’m practically sobbing.
It’s a miracle I made the drive without crashing, and I’m so glad to see Dr. Auxier waiting by the front door that my tears fall harder.
He must see that I’m in full breakdown mode because he comes over to my car and opens the door, crouching down and rubbing his hand along my arm. “Take a breath, Savannah,” he urges me. “What happened?”
I explain in incomprehensible stutters and through gasped breaths, but he gets the gist of the situation, grabbing Beef’s carrier from the back and saying something about “mean books” and “gravity gets the best of all of us sometimes” as he heads into the clinic.
He pauses at the door and looks back. “Do you want to come inside or wait out here?”
I’m embarrassed that he’s seeing me in all my blubbering glory, especially now that I’ve finally calmed down enough to notice his nice button-down shirt and dark jeans.
With my luck, I interrupted a date or something and am quickly becoming his nemesis.
But Dr. Auxier has a way of making people feel at ease with that warm smile of his, so I take a deep breath and slip out of the car.
The door’s already unlocked, and as we step into the dark lobby, I jump when I catch sight of a large, muscular man sitting in shadow in one of the waiting room chairs.
“Give me a few minutes,” Dr. Auxier says to him.
The man grunts in reply.
Wildly curious about who he is, I stumble a bit as I follow the vet to one of the exam rooms.
“I think we’ve been in this one a couple of times,” I say stupidly when he flips on the light. But I need something to fill the silence as Dr. Auxier grabs a white coat and a pair of gloves.
He smiles as he slips on the gloves. “It’s possible. Hopefully we can get you to be less of a regular.”
“I’m so sorry for texting you, Dr. Auxier. On a Friday night? You were probably…” My mind strays to the man in the lobby. Could that be Dr. Auxier’s date? “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“You didn’t.” He opens the carrier and bends down to peer at the motionless cat inside. “I was out with a teammate, but he’s fine to be on his own for a minute. He isn’t very social anyway. Just like this little guy, huh?” He reaches in and pets Beef’s head.
I snort. I can’t help it. Beef Wellington is almost twenty-five pounds and three and a half feet long.
Sometimes I think he’s half bobcat, especially when he chooses to sleep on my chest in the middle of the night and makes it nearly impossible to breathe.
“There is nothing little about my cat, Dr. Auxier.”
“Moxie.” He glances at me, a hint of a smile on his lips. “At this point, the formality is getting painful.”
I huff out an exhale and fold my arms. “It feels weird to call you by a nickname.”
Reaching his other hand into the carrier, Dr. Auxier—Moxie—slowly slides both blanket and cat out until they’re stretched on the counter, taking up the whole surface.
Beef blinks up at him, as still as ever, then closes his eyes.
“You could always call me Malcolm,” Moxie says, a frown on his face as he starts working his hands along Beef Wellington’s body.
“But my teammates started calling me Moxie a few years ago, and it feels more like me.”
“Teammates?” Again my thoughts go to the guy in the lobby—his teammate, apparently.
Both men are of a similar build (AKA pure muscle), but I clearly know next to nothing about my vet other than the fact that he’s one of the few people Beef will let within a yard of him.
Moxie is as calming with animals as he is with people, and it’s only now that I realize he’s talking to me to keep me distracted from the animal suffering between us.
“Do you play, like, community sports or something?”
He chuckles. “Or something.”
Whatever that means. At this point, I should know more about the guy than I do, but my focus has always been on Beef. “He didn’t like it when I touched his hip,” I say when Moxie gets down to Beef’s lower half.
Nodding, Moxie does a more thorough examination, pushing and prodding and moving the cat’s legs. Beef doesn’t react or open his eyes, and fear squeezes my heart. “Nothing seems broken, but we could do an x-ray to make sure.”
I flinch. “How…” I swallow my pride, I finish the question. “How much will that cost?”
Moxie’s expression turns to something akin to pity but leans more toward compassion, for which I’m grateful. “It probably isn’t necessary, but he’s certainly not acting like himself.”
That’s an understatement. Usually when we’re here, Beef does his very best to terrorize the vet techs and make an escape. The fact that he’s just lying there is twisting my stomach into a tight knot.
“Beef, how could you do this to yourself?” I ask mournfully and run my hand through his thick, reddish-brown fur. I linger on his belly, in between his arms, and scratch his favorite place. Could this be the last time I get to pet my cat? I’ve barely had him for a month, and…
I pause at the same time Moxie’s eyebrows pull low. “Did I just hear a purr?” he asks, bending closer to the cat.
I scratch the cat’s armpits again, breathing a little easier when the rumbles in his chest grow louder. More like his usual diesel-engine purrs.
Then Beef stretches his legs out the way he always does when I rub his favorite spot, and he opens his eyes. But as soon as we make eye contact, he flops back into stillness and lets out a low yowl, his purring stopping.
“Hmm,” Moxie says.
“Hmm? What does that mean?”
Instead of answering, he moves to the side of the room, opening a cupboard next to the stainless steel sink. He pulls out a squeeze pouch cat treat, a thoughtful look on his face as he tears it open.
I gasp when Beef hops to his feet in an instant and leaps the six feet from the counter to the sink, landing with a heavy thud as he makes his way to the treat Moxie has waiting for him.
Within seconds, he practically melts into the basin of the sink like he always does at home, a look of pure bliss on his face as he accepts the paste Moxie squeezes out for him.
“That’s what I thought,” Moxie murmurs, rubbing his fingers between the cat’s ears.
What is happening? “He’s okay?” I ask breathlessly. I mean, he certainly looked okay when he crossed half the room in a single bound. “But why was he so…?”
He shrugs. “This is entirely a guess, and it would be smart to keep a close eye on him for the next few days. But I think he was embarrassed.”
I blink. Blink again. Then I turn to the ball of fluff curled up so happily in the sink and give him my best glare. One he seems to find amusing, based on the way he licks his lips and rolls over, showing Moxie his belly.
“Embarrassed,” I repeat in a whisper as the reality of what Moxie’s saying hits me.
Of the hour I’ve lost by coming here, not to mention all the books I’m going to have to clean up and reorganize.
Of the pounds of poultry sitting forgotten on my counter, way outside a food-safe temperature by this point, which means there’s no way I’ll be able to make my delivery tomorrow.
And then all of my emotion from the night comes spilling out in pure, unadulterated anger. “I’m going to kill you!” I snarl and lunge for the cat, ready to stuff him back into his carrier and keep him there until I’ve figured out a way to save myself from ruin.
Beef Wellington must know my plans because he leaps from the sink before I reach him.
And then there’s chaos.