Chapter 39 My Cat Knew
Jackson, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed scrolling on his phone, stood without a word and slipped out, leaving the door cracked.
I listened.
“Hey, you two. Good trip?” Jackson asked, voice easy.
A short pause.
“Jackson?” Talia sounded surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“Harper’s been pretty sick since Saturday,” he answered smoothly. “Nasty flu. I’ve been staying with her so she doesn’t have to be alone.”
Mira’s voice came closer. “Oh no, poor thing. Is she okay? Do you need us to pick up anything?”
“I’ve got it covered, thanks.”
I raised my voice, making it sound hoarse and weak. “I’m alive. Barely. Stay back unless you want this plague.”
Talia laughed softly. “You sound awful. We’ll leave you two alone. Text if you need soup or medicine or anything.”
“Feel better,” Mira added.
Their footsteps moved down the hall toward the kitchen. A moment later the door opened wider and Jackson stepped back in, closing it behind him. His eyes met mine.
“They bought it,” he said.
I gave a small nod. “You’re scarily good at lying.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
The next few days slipped into a strange, careful rhythm.
By Monday my body was repairing itself. The worst bruises had shifted from deep purple to a sickly yellow-green, though my arm and the bite on my leg still throbbed with every movement. Shifter healing worked, but it wasn’t nearly fast enough for my liking.
I texted Coach Miller.
Me: Family emergency. Going to be out for the week. Will update Friday.
Coach: Take care of yourself, James. We’ll adjust the schedule.
I locked my phone and set it aside.
“Done,” I said.
Jackson glanced over while pulling on a clean shirt. “I already emailed my professors.”
“You’re not staying the whole week.”
“Yeah,” he said, voice even. “I am.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again. There was no point. He wasn’t asking. So he stayed.
He read in the chair by the window while I dozed, worked on his laptop beside me on the bed, or disappeared into the kitchen and came back with food without making a production of it.
On the same day Jason dropped off a bag of his clothes so he wouldn’t have to keep cycling through the same few shirts.
The days fell into the same quiet pattern. By Tuesday, the surface bruises looked worse than they felt.
By Wednesday, I was climbing the walls. I wasn’t built for lying in bed. The restlessness had me twitchy and mean, like my skin didn’t fit right anymore.
That afternoon I pulled the laptop onto my thighs and started flipping through files, half-reading, half-plotting, anything to burn off the itch under my bones.
I was deep in Thomas’s routines, security patterns, the little gaps I’d been mapping for weeks, when I felt Jackson’s stare.
He’d given up pretending to read his book ten minutes ago.
“You can ask,” I said without looking up.
“I don’t need to.” His voice was calm. “You’ll show me when you’re ready.”
I stared at the screen a moment longer, then exhaled.
“This isn’t something you can undo. Once you see it, you’re all the way in.”
“I’ve been in it since I buried a body for you.”
Fair point.
I turned the laptop toward him. For the next hour I walked him through the shape of the plan, not every detail but enough for him to see the bones of it.
Thomas’s routines. The weak points in his security.
The openings I had been waiting for. Jackson listened without interrupting, then started asking sharp, practical questions.
There was no hesitation in his voice. No attempt to talk me out of it.
He just leaned in closer and started making the plan tighter.
By the time we finished, we had closed several gaps I hadn’t even noticed. My cat purred low in approval.
I closed the laptop but didn’t move. One loose thread kept nagging at me.
Jackson watched me for a few seconds. “What?”
“I have to go back to John’s house.”
“Why?”
“I put cameras in there. Hidden ones. Before…” I trailed off. “Before I made my move on him.”
His eyes narrowed with that same dangerous focus. “To watch him.”
I nodded. “Learn the routines. See who came and went. Make sure no one would walk in at the wrong time.”
“And they’re still sitting there.”
“Yeah.” I looked away. “I always pull them afterward, but with everything that happened…”
“I’ll get them.”
I met his gaze. “You don’t know where they are.”
“Tell me where.” His hand settled on my thigh, heavy and warm. “I’ll have them out before anyone even notices he’s missing.”
Later that night the room was lit only by the desk lamp. Jackson lay behind me with his arm across my waist, careful of my ribs, his chest warm against my back. Neither of us was sleeping.
“Tell me something about your mother,” I said.
He took a moment before answering. “When I was young, my mother used to sing in the kitchen,” he said, voice low. “She was terrible at it. Genuinely awful. She’d turn the radio up and sing along at the top of her lungs, and if she caught me watching she’d only get louder on purpose.”
His thumb moved slowly across my side.
“She knitted me a sweater once. It was too small, the wrong color, and it itched like hell, but she was so proud of it that she made me wear it to school anyway. I think I still have it somewhere.”
“The stupid things stay with you,” he murmured.
I stayed quiet for a long moment, his words stirring something deep in my chest. For once, I didn’t fight the memories when they rose.
“My mother served herself last,” I said. “Every meal after my father died. She always gave us the bigger portions and ate whatever was left.”
Jackson didn’t interrupt. His hand stayed steady on my waist.
“She had these old pink slippers that were falling apart, but she wouldn’t replace them. Dad had given them to her, and everything he gave her she kept like it was sacred.”
I swallowed.
“Harmony hummed when she read. Constantly. She didn’t even realize she was doing it. She tried to teach me how to braid my hair once and gave up after twenty minutes. Told me my hair was made of rope and there was nothing she could do for me.”
A dry sound, almost a laugh, escaped me.
“She laughed at her own jokes. Every time. She’d get halfway through the punchline and crack up so hard she couldn’t finish, then try again while everyone else was already laughing at her. She never cared.”
The silence that followed felt heavy.
“Sometimes I think she’d be ashamed of me now,” I whispered.
Jackson turned me gently onto my back. His hand cupped my jaw, thumb brushing my cheek.
“No,” he said. “She wouldn’t.”
I searched his face for any trace of doubt and found none. Something in my chest loosened. He kissed me softly, then settled beside me again with his arm curled around my waist.
We lay there a long time.
“My parents were fated mates,” I said eventually.
Jackson’s breath hitched.
“My mom always said her cat knew before she did,” I continued, staring at the ceiling. “The moment they saw each other, it was done. No questions. No hesitation.”
His arm tightened around my waist.
I remembered the way she used to tell that story, the absolute certainty in her voice, the way she always smiled when she talked about my father. Then I thought about Jackson. About how my cat had practically launched herself at him from the very first moment while I had spent weeks making excuses.
"My cat knew," I realized.
My cat seemed entirely unrepentant.
“She knew and didn’t tell me,” I muttered.
Jackson brushed hair from my face. “Maybe she thought you weren't ready.”
I thought about all the times I had pushed him away and called it strategy, about the fear that had been sitting underneath every excuse. Maybe my cat had known exactly how that conversation would have gone.
“I spent a long time convincing myself I couldn’t have what they had,” I said. “That whatever part of me was supposed to feel the bond got burned out.”
“But these last few days…” I turned in his arms. “You burning a body for me, taking care of me, looking at my plans instead of running. I think I’m finally catching up.”
His expression softened.
“I’ve known you’re mine since the night in the forest,” he said. “I was willing to wait until you got there.”
I drew a slow breath. “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel it exactly the way my mother did. But there’s only one way to find out.”
Jackson searched my eyes for a long moment. “There’s no hurry. We have time. We’ve got the rest of our lives to find out.”
I wanted that. More than I was ready to admit. But wanting a future and getting one were two very different things, especially with a man like Thomas Black standing in the way.
“Thomas won’t accept this,” I said. “He won’t accept me.”
“He doesn’t get a say. Not anymore.”
I touched his face. His eyes closed briefly at the contact, then opened again.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
I knew what he meant. The mating. The claim. All of it.
“Yes.”
He leaned in and kissed me, deep and slow, then eased me onto my back and rose over me, settling between my thighs with his weight on his forearms. One hand slid into my hair while the other braced beside my head.
My cat surged forward, greedy. A low needy sound tore from my throat.
Jackson chuckled darkly against my lips. “Soon.”
He pushed up onto his knees and stripped my shirt off carefully, then worked my shorts down, lifting my hips with one hand so the bite wound on my leg wasn’t jostled.
For a second he just looked at me. The heat in his eyes made my pulse jump.
Then he stripped out of his own clothes, tossing them somewhere onto the floor without looking.
The second there was nothing left between us, I reached for him, but he caught my hand and pinned it to the mattress by my head.
“Not yet,” he growled.
He kissed his way down my body, then hooked my good leg over his shoulder and put his mouth on me. There was no teasing. He just devoured me until I was shaking, fist tight in his hair, hips rolling against his face. When I came I bit my own arm to stay quiet.