Accidentally Catty Read Online Free PDF Page B

quiet. Don’t say another word. Don’t even breathe.”
    “I already don’t do that, Wanda,” was her reply in that tone laced with devilish delight intentionally meant to poke at Wanda.
    In that moment, in the midst of all this chaos, Katie made a strange, completely unwarranted, totally unexpected observation. Often, due to her love of animals, she matched human personalities with the traits found in dogs. Nina was a Rottweiler. Just looking at one could inspire bone-chilling fear for some. Yet they were loyal, fiercely so, and incredibly loving once they knew they could trust you.
    Nina, in your face and totally without inhibition, didn’t know how to be anything other than truthful to the point of excruciating. She was what she was, and she owned it. She enjoyed pushing your hottest button, but she didn’t do it to hide some insecurity. She didn’t do it to deflect her own faults. She did it from a place that was as honest and, while painfully brutal, cut to the chase.
    For a moment, Katie admired that gem of a quality. If only she’d spent more of her life using brutal honesty as her armor . . .
    Then she frowned, capturing Nina’s black, fiery eyes with her own, undoubtedly, panicked ones. “You don’t do what?”
    “Breathe,” Nina said with satisfaction, dragging a chair from the corner of the examining room and straddling it backward with a casual lift of her long, shapely leg. She pulled out her BlackBerry and chuckled to herself.
    Katie looked to Wanda. “She doesn’t breathe? That’s impossible . . .” Yes. That was definitely an impossibility. You couldn’t be vertical and not be breathing.
    Nina never glanced up from her BlackBerry when she said, “Just you wait until you find out how possible your impossible really is, Doc. Hoo boy, you don’t know, but you will.”
    “Oh, look, Marty. Nina’s already welcoming poor Dr. Woods into the paranormal fold with her usual grace and elegance.” Yet another woman, short, curvy, with medium brown hair pushed back with a stylish hair band, poked her head around the door, glaring at the top of Nina’s head. Katie was able to note, she bore a striking, if not fuller in the face, resemblance to Wanda. “Did you remember to shake her up real good and show her your fangs, Mistress of the Dark? Maybe you decided to take the gentler approach and just uproot a skyscraper with your pinky finger instead, huh?”
    Nina’s eyes lifted to meet the smaller woman’s, menace lurking in them. “You wanna go?”
    “You wanna be bald?” the shorter Wanda look-alike challenged.
    “You both wanna be my lunch?” a pretty blonde with a small, white poodle tucked under her arm asked. “Both of you, just this once, let Wanda do the talking. No fighting, no interruptions, no insensitive comments if we’re not moving at a pace that satisfies your lust for full-on hysteria, Nina. Please. I’m exhausted, my feet are killing me in these new shoes, and my Spanx are too tight. Now quiet.”
    She sauntered into the already packed examining room and held out her hand to Katie. “I’m Marty Flaherty. This is my dog, Muffin, and the missing link that came in before me is Casey Gunnersson, Wanda’s sister. It’s nice to meet you, even if the circumstances are difficult. And lovely area, by the way. Very rural and quaint.”
    When Nina and Casey remained quiet under the watchful blue eyes of Marty, Wanda turned back to Katie, her eyes filled with concern. “So where were we?”
    “Shifting,” Kaih chimed in, a gleam of anticipation in his eyes. “I’m so totally down with that, too. I can’t even believe all those crazy stories I was raised on at the reservation are true.”
    No. They weren’t true. The half of Katie that was still a veterinarian, a woman who believed in science, resurfaced. She shook her head with a vehement no. She didn’t understand what was happening, but this was not true. “They’re not true, Kaih.” Not true. It was all myth, folklore,