Chapter 17 #2
Adrenaline shot through her, like when an ambulance arrived at the trauma bay, that moment you were suspended between knowing and not knowing, touching the patient and not having that connection.
The suspension between two realities.
“Something’s wrong with Sandwich’s butt,” she heard her mom yell across the compound.
“Could you repeat that?” Kylie called out, her voice incredulous.
“NO!” Luke shouted. “No one needs to repeat a sentence like that.”
Colleen heard footsteps pounding up the wooden steps, and Luke appeared in the doorway, Kylie on his heels, carrying their coffee mugs. Both looked down at the cat, then at Colleen.
“What’s wrong with her?” Kylie asked sweetly as Sandwich bore down and–
“What the hell?” Luke said in a low, shocked voice. “How is that poor cat alive?”
“I don’t see anything wrong–”
The… thing came out of the cat again.
Crouching, Colleen rested her hand on Sandwich’s back.
Sick animals were part of choosing to have pets, of course, but her range of animal crises was limited to cats fighting with squirrels, cut paws, and that one time her old cat, Hearty McHearterson, had drunk some Gatorade everyone thought might be antifreeze and Darren had lectured them all on proper storage of equipment fluids in the garage bay.
And leaving containers of electrolyte drink laying around, too.
“I just got off the phone with Darren,” her dad said, invoking the name of the town veterinarian, Darren Chassi. A longtime friend of Luke’s, he was cranky but fair, compassionate but blunt.
And he was their only option.
“He’s on his way. Happens to be about ten minutes from here.”
“If that poor little thing’s intestine falls out, it won’t have ten minutes!” Deanna worried.
“Please stop talking about Sandwich like that!” Colleen hollered, her voice carrying throughout the loud, echo-y room. Sandwich reeled back slightly, turning in a half circle, her body tensing and–yep.
A tan-colored, translucent ball popped out of her butt, then went back in, like a bubble-blowing contest gone horribly wrong. Sandwich moved about two feet away from Colleen with tight, painful-looking steps, then hissed when she tried to touch the cat again.
“The poor thing,” her mom whispered, voice shaking with emotion. “That must hurt.”
Shuffling at the main door caught her ear, then the sun was blocked by Kell’s massive body.
“Why is everyone staring at the cat?” he asked, walking over to Sandwich, who arched and looked at him like she wanted to turn him into Kell coleslaw.
Kellslaw.
Her brother was a cat owner and knew instantly to back away.
“Her intestines are falling out,” Luke said slowly between sips of coffee.
“I think she ate a balloon?” their mom suggested.
Dean looked at Luke’s steaming mug and asked, “Got more of that at your place? Looks like we’ll be here a while.”
“I do not need,” Colleen said, performing a head count, “six adults plus Darren to help me with a sick cat.”
“I am just so curious to know what that thing is!” her mom said.
“That thing” made its appearance again, a clear bubble emerging, then contracting back in.
All six of them were staring intently at Sandwich’s butthole when Rachel walked in, halting quickly on her heels.
“Um, what are you all–OH, WHAT IN THE UNHOLY MESS IS THAT?”
“A balloon,” Deanna called back.
“Intestines,” Luke announced.
“We need a grid. Luke’s got five dollars on intestines, Mom’s got five on a balloon,” Kell called out to her as Rachel skittered backwards to get away from the cat.
“Don’t joke about this!”
“Can’t think of anything else it might be,” Kylie said in a contemplative voice.
“Broken amniotic sac?” Dean mused, reaching for his wallet and pulling out a five-dollar bill.
Deanna and Colleen looked at him with identical withering expressions.
“Cats don’t give birth out of their butts, Dad,” she finally said.
“I know that! I just thought–”
The crunch of rubber on gravel made them all turn, Darren Chassi’s beat-up old work truck driving right to the front door. Why not? There was just gravel leading up to the building, and in an emergency, you do away with niceties anyhow.
“Thank goodness,” Deanna said with a long, relieved sigh. “Whatever’s wrong with Sandwich, Darren can fix it.”
“Don’t turn me into a god, Deanna,” Darren said from the doorway. “I haven’t even touched the cat yet.”
“Good luck with that,” Colleen announced to him. “She won’t let any of us near her.”
“She’s spayed,” Darren muttered to himself. “I did the operation. So no worries about pregnancy. Dean said something’s coming out of her–”
Voice trailing off, they all watched as the thing re-emerged from her poor kitty’s butt.
“Huh.” Darren approached the cat like the pro that he was, and Sandwich let him. Placing one already gloved hand on her back, he reached for the thing and tugged gently.
“He’s disemboweling her!” Rachel said in horror, turning away to bury her head in Kell’s chest.
“I’m doing no such thing.” With a gentle, tender touch, Darren tugged.
Some of the tan tube emerged.
Tugged again.
The cat arched her back.
Slowly shaking his head, mouth twisted in his signature curmudgeon look, Darren pulled one more time. A long, thin string emerged, like folded skin with a rimmed edge.
It was not an intestine.
“Balloon! Told you!” Deanna crowed.
Colleen felt all the blood in her head migrate to her toes.
Because it was not a balloon.
“Nope,” Darren said, his mouth curling up in amusement. “This isn’t a balloon. Not exactly.”
“Intestine?” Dean asked, confused.
“No. It’s a condom.”
The entire room went silent, as if the word itself were cursed.
Luke looked slowly around the room, like he was interrogating murder suspects.
“Who here uses condoms?”
Kylie began choking on her coffee.
“Because we don’t,” Luke said for the whole world to hear.
Kylie smacked him.
“What?” He seemed genuinely mystified by her. “We don’t!”
Dean shook his head lightly as Deanna laughed and said, “My ovaries closed up shop two years ago, so we’re good.”
“Ugh, Mom,” Luke said as Kylie snorted.
“So it’s gross when your mom talks about it, but not when you do?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
Kell’s eyebrows went up and he said nothing. Rachel began peeling herself off him. Darren picked Sandwich up and stroked her, walking over to a trash can, tossing in the obstruction, and stripping off his gloves.
Sandwich just purred in his arms the entire time, occasionally rubbing her chin on his arm in apparent gratitude.
As Luke turned into the Torquemada of errant condoms, Colleen quietly pulled out her phone and texted to Moore:
When we slept together here at my house, what did you do with the condom?
I… wore it ;) he replied.
She let out a low growl, earning a strange look from her mom.
I mean after! Did you flush it?
Why?
I’ll explain later.
Of course I didn’t flush it. Your camp runs on septic. I threw it in the trash.
A thin headache, clear and growing, began right between her eyes.
Thanks.
Why are you asking me about a condom from two weeks ago?
I’ll explain later.
Is it–are you worried it broke? Are you pregnant? Because I inspect condoms after I use them, and it was intact.
She looked away from the screen. Ah, the details Moore was revealing to her. Of course he did. After what happened to him at seventeen, he’d learned young–and the very, very hard way–how a single broken condom could change his entire life.
The car accident had led to some wounds that had some signs of infection. She’d gone on antibiotics, which could neutralize the birth control pills she was on. So that day, Moore had worn a condom.
Which, apparently, seemed like a tasty snack at some point for poor Sandwich.
“Who’re you texting, Colleen?” Luke demanded to know, damn near making her drop her phone in surprise.
“None of your business. Work stuff.”
Bzzz
She ignored the text, knowing it was Moore, likely very curious after her odd question. She’d probably sent him into a panic thinking she was pregnant, and that was the last thing she needed to do to the poor guy.
“Darren, give me my cat,” she insisted, walking away from Luke, hands outstretched. Sandwich was transferred and, turning around, she found herself the object of everyone’s attention. It was almost like she was onstage, and they expected her to entertain.
“What? Sandwich found a condom somewhere in the woods. You know teenagers roam out there and–”
“Sandwich is an indoor cat,” Luke pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest and giving her a pointed look. “At most, she walks between the buildings here.”
Darren shot Luke a sidelong glance that said he knew something was up but not the details.
Good. That meant Luke hadn’t told him about her and Moore. As of now, Darren was the only person in the room who didn’t know.
“Then whatever, Luke. Someone here is having great sex and using a condom.”
“How do you know it was great?” Kell asked, earning a rib poke from Rachel. She and Kylie wore open looks of sympathy aimed straight at Colleen.
“Aidan Forsythe’s pet beaver needs its anal glands cleaned out, so I gotta go,” Darren declared. The look on city-girl Rachel’s face as she processed that sentence was enough to make Colleen crack a smile.
But it faded quickly under Luke’s steady, flat gaze.
“Thank you so much, Darren,” she said, knowing he’d bill her later. “I appreciate all you did.”
“I spent ten seconds pulling a condom out of your cat’s butt, Colleen. It’s not like I earned a Nobel Prize.”
“Do you need to examine her more?”
“For what? To see if she ate the wrapper? Drank a bottle of lube? You said you thought she found it in the woods. Anything you want to tell me?”
Now it was Luke’s turn to grin.
“Nope. Thanks.” Colleen followed Darren out the door, her face aflame but her cat soft and happy in her arms.
“Watch her. Any more strange behavior and just bring her in. I can x-ray her if we have to, but let’s go the low-intervention route and wait and see.”
Darren climbed in his truck, waved, and took off. Luke was on her heels, his hand on her shoulder. She brushed it off and kept walking.
“Colleen.”
“What?”
“Come on. It’s obvious. Sandwich ate a condom in your cabin.”
“I see why they made you police chief. You really know how to dig into the complex, nuanced details of situations.”
“That’s two. Better stop there.”
“Huh?”
“Two times you’ve slept with Moore.”
“How would you know how many times we’ve slept together?” She wasn’t about to admit he was right. Once in the cabin in New Hampshire and that one afternoon here, before Jordy flew in.
“I’m guessing. But stop now.”
“You can’t tell me who I can and can’t sleep with.”
“I can warn you, though.”
“Warn me away from your own best friend?”
“More like warn him, now that I think about it. Don’t sleep with him a third time.”
“Stop trying to control my life!”
“Remember what happened to Tim. Gerry. Slicer.”
“You really think if Moore and I sleep together a third time, he’ll end up in my emergency room?”
“You are Third Date Colleen, after all. Moore doesn’t have some magic exemption.”
Her hand itched to slap her own brother.
But she didn’t need to add assaulting a police officer to her list of problems right now. That list was long enough on its own, thank you very much.
“You are such an ass.”
“You only say that when I’m right.”
“You seriously think something bad will happen to Moore if he and I are together? Do you hear yourself, Luke? Do you know how much that hurts?”
“Truth often does.”
“What truth? You’re suddenly superstitious? You think I’m really, actually cursed?” Walking away from him, she went into her cabin, dropped Sandwich off, and turned back to her stupid brother, who was almost in her house. As she descended on him, he took two steps back, both of them on the porch.
Her finger went straight to his face, wagging like his golden retriever’s tail.
“And before you make some snarky comment, let me tell you what a jerk you’re being. You have no idea how important Moore and I are to each other. You have no business being up in our business.”
“I do when I don’t want to see either of you hurt.”
“That’s not your job!”
“I know damn well what my job is, Colleen. I’m not policing you two. I’m trying to warn you both.”
“Both? Have you warned Moore away from me?”
He didn’t answer that. Instead, he responded, “Moore’s been married and divorced twice. It didn’t work with Cammie, and Gia was a train wreck. You two are sneaking around like you’re addicted to the secret.”
“We’re being private because Jordy isn’t ready yet.”
“That’s why you haven’t gone public? Oh, sure,” he said, his voice dripping with derision.
“It’s true! You of all people should understand.”
“Me? Since when have I snuck around town hiding a relationship?”
“You won’t let Kylie move in until the wedding.”
“We’re doing that out of respect for Harriet! Easing her into having Kylie as a stepmother.”
Colleen gave him a triumphant look.
He gave her a disgusted grimace.
“You’re comparing you and Moore to Kylie and me?”
“No. I’ve been daily friends with Moore all these years. I’m already very close to his son. Jordy’s been expressing a lot of feelings about not wanting stepfathers and stepmothers as things get thorny for him back home. Moore was just about to tell him and his parents, but–”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. You know my feelings. I think the two of you are bad for each other. You’re deluding yourself about not going public.”
“Which is it, Luke? We shouldn’t be together at all because we’re bad for each other? Or we should be totally open about being together? You’re not making sense.”
“Because your relationship doesn’t make sense!”
“TO YOU! Not to us! Can you for once try to be happy for me? For Moore? Can you think about the fact that the same happiness you had with Amber, and now with Kylie, might be what I want in my life, too?”
“And you think Moore will give that to you?”
“I’d like the chance to find out!”
“I wish you were right, but I have a bad feeling about this.”
“No man will date me because of this Third Date Colleen nonsense. Moore can’t go public about us because of Jordy and YOU. What am I supposed to do, Luke? You’re making it so my only option is to leave Luview!”
“I never said that!”
“You didn’t have to!”
With that, she stepped back into her cabin and slammed the door in her little brother’s face.
He didn’t come after her.
Just as well. If she were really going to have to move away, she’d be the one leaving.
Might as well start practicing.