Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
“What’s wrong with you? You can’t shoot the fucking gremlin!” I shout.
I end up on the floor with Kitty, my body covering her much smaller, softer one. Her thick, wavy auburn hair is in my mouth. Her body is under mine.
She raises the hand holding the weapon, and I nab it from her while she sputters from under her hair and me. “What the heck! It’s a water gun.”
Realization dawns and horror slowly seeps in as I fully process the fact that I’ve tackled a woman to the ground.
I roll off her and pop back to my feet, glancing down at the baby-blue water gun in my hand. It’s leaking on the floor, the stopper having popped free. I’m missing the net, as far as first impressions go. It could also be considered assault.
As I’m about to speak, the cat yowls loudly. He launches himself off the mantel, lands on the coffee table, skids across several magazines, hits the floor, and rushes down the hall.
This introduction is not going great. “How was I supposed to know it was a water gun?” I replace the stopper and toss it on the couch before I turn back to her and belatedly extend a hand.
She glares at me and ignores my offer of help, using the edge of the coffee table to get to her feet instead. “It’s baby blue!”
“Handguns can be baby blue. My great-aunt Gerdie won one at a fair when I was kid.” It’s not the best color for a handgun. A little too enticing for kids, as far as I’m concerned, but Great-Aunt Gerdie thought it was very fashionable.
“A baby-blue handgun? That’s . . . ” Kitty looks appropriately appalled by this revelation, but she bites back whatever opinion she might have. “Why in the world would you think I’d bring an actual gun to a kitty care introduction? How in the meow would I be able to run a successful business if I went around pulling firearms out of my pocket every time a cat misbehaved?”
I can’t decide if I heard that incorrectly or not. “I don’t know. The whole pulling any kind of gun was unexpected.” I run a hand through my hair and notice that she’s once again missing her glasses. And my horror is compounded when I notice that aside from the pink hue to her cheeks, she also has rug burn on the right one. I couldn’t make a worse impression if I tried. And I really need to get home so I can watch the game and take notes because Coach Davis is concerned about Parker, our rookie player, and we’re playing against Ottawa next week.
Parker O’Toole started with the team only this season, but he’s already showing a lot of promise. He grew up not far from where my family used to spend the summers on the lake. He’s a small-town transplant, and the big-city life is a whole lot of culture shock. We’ve already bonded over our mutual love of the butter tart shop in his hometown and ATV trailblazing in the summer and snowmobiling in the winter.
But Parker’s game performance needs to take a back seat, because I can’t afford to lose this cat sitter. I don’t have time to find another one. She’s still staring at me with something between disbelief and irritation. Her eyes are huge and wide and a deep, rich, forest green. Her hair, which was already wavy and voluminous, is now a wild mess, thanks to me attacking her.
Her top lip is thin and bowed, her bottom one full and pouty. Her nose is small and cute, her chin narrow. Her face is almost heart shaped. She’s curvy and soft, and I should not be noticing any of these things right now, because I just tackled her. Checking her out makes me creepy on top of being a grade-A jerk.
“Look at me!” She motions to her rumpled shirt with THE KITTY WHISPERER written across her chest and her leopard-print cardigan. “I love cats! Why in the world would you think I’d shoot one?”
She makes a good point, not that I’m willing to admit it aloud. “Well, you were actually planning to shoot him.”
“With freaking water!” She points to the still-leaking water gun sitting on the couch. It’s very much a glaring beacon for my idiocy in all its baby-blue glory.
“I’m still not wrong.” I don’t know why I’m so committed to being a giant d-bag, other than I don’t want to be here and I don’t have time for this or my mother’s pain-in-the-ass cat.
She makes a noise that sounds somewhere between incredulity and frustration. Then drops to her knees again, searching under the table for her glasses. Which I knocked off her face. When I tackled her to the floor.
“Sorry,” I mutter belatedly.
She grunts and almost bangs her head on the table, nearly knocking over one of the many otter figurines covering the surface, but they teeter back into place. Unfortunately.