In addition, a full-grown cat—especially a feral one—might actually challenge the local shifters, which could result in instant death, a raw deal for both the cat and the human.

  So perhaps a kitten instead.

  After all, shifters were very protective of their young, a protectiveness that might extend to the young of all species.

  So, Bygul turned his attentions to selecting the perfect kitten companion for Maggie Winters.

  Unfortunately, the human was uncooperative in the extreme.

  Bygul found three different candidates along the journey toward shifter territory—three!

  He placed each of the kittens in the human’s path at a different location each time, but did the human do anything Bygul expected in response?

  Did she scoop even one of the kittens up into her arms and snuggle him?

  Did she carry even one of the kittens home with her?

  No, she did not.

  Instead, she called the local humane society and informed them of a kitten abandoned in this parking lot or roaming that park.

  Bygul supposed he should be grateful she recruited help for the kittens at all and that she waited until someone showed up to trap them, but all he could really think about was how she left immediately upon the rescue worker’s arrival without even a “Goodbye, hope you have a nice life,” to the kitten left behind.

  This human was most unusual and Bygul was getting desperate.

  As the hours passed, she got closer and closer to shifter territory without accepting a single one of the companions he’d specifically chosen for her.

  Clearly it was time for new tactics.

  Especially when he overheard the human saying to the third candidate, right before she called the Humane Society (again), “Don’t look at me with those pathetic little eyes. I’m not the right family for you. You’ll find one though, so don’t worry. You’re cute enough, you’ll be adopted right away.”

  Great.

  As much of a risk as it would be to bring a full-grown cat into shifter territory, Bygul was back to thinking this would be the best choice.

  So off he went on the hunt for yet another companion for this human who was turning out to be a most difficult human to match indeed.

  The human was barely eighty miles from her destination when Bygul finally found the perfect cat.

  He was a big, lean tom cat, full of attitude and arrogance.

  He’d been in a number of fights over the years. One ear was partially gone and he had a scar and a small, bald spot toward his hindquarters, where something bigger than him had taken a bite.

  He wasn’t cute and he definitely wasn’t adoptable.

  He was also quite independent and rather cranky.

  He liked living on his own and wasn’t exactly looking for companionship, which meant convincing him was no easy task.

  It was only when Bygul mentioned living in shifter territory that the cat finally showed a bit of interest, in the form of one good ear perking up.

  From there, it was a simple matter of enticing the cat with the promise of endless treats and bright patches of sunlight.

  When the cat finally deigned to agree, Bygul transported them both, with seconds to spare, from the alley where he’d found the sad-looking feline to the rest stop along I-70 where Maggie was currently using the restroom.

  Bygul hoped this match did the trick because if it didn’t, he’d be stuck bringing a slew of cat candidates into shifter territory and that had disaster written all over it.

  Maggie exited the building at the rest stop and froze.

  A giant, raggedy looking gray cat lay stretched across the sidewalk directly in her path.

  “For goodness sake!” Maggie set her hands on her hips. “Are these rest stops breeding grounds for cats everywhere?” She looked around, but saw no one who might claim responsibility for this cat. The same thing had happened at the last three stops she’d made.

  The only difference was this was a full-grown cat.

  One who looked rather the worse for wear.

  She inched closer and he didn’t move.

  He just blinked up at her as if to say, “Well, move around me if you want, but I’m quite content to stay right here.”

  Maggie crouched down beside him and reached out a hand.

  He eyed the hand, but made no aggressive moves, so she gently pet him on the side, then scratched his head, noting one mangled ear and some crusts in his eyes.

  “Poor love,” she murmured to him. “Has no one been properly caring for you?” She could certainly relate to that.

  A rumble started in his chest as she pet him and she couldn’t help the tiny thrill of delight that raced through her at the sound.

  He was purring!

  She really needed to be moving along, but then again, she wasn’t exactly on a tight schedule.

  She was free.

  Free to do whatever she wanted.

  No jobs.

  No bosses to report to.

  No customers to try and please.

  It was just her and the open road and the eventual house that had belonged to her aunt Becky, whom she’d never met or even knew existed.

  Perhaps her aunt Becky’s house needed a cat.

  And perhaps this cat needed a house.

  Maggie had never considered getting a pet before, mostly because she lived in a series of low-rent apartments that didn’t allow for pets, but if she’d ever thought to get one, she’d definitely have chosen a cat.

  Maybe even this gray one here.

  “Well, then, what do you think? Would you like to come with me? It’s your choice. I won’t make you.” She stood and waited.

  The cat let out a rumble, then slowly climbed to its feet.

  “Right then.” Maggie grinned and led the way to her car. She opened the drivers’ side door and the cat jumped inside.

  It padded its way across to the passenger seat, where it sat on a mound of clothes and stared out the passenger side window.

  Maggie climbed into the car and started it.

  She reached to put the car in drive, then hesitated. She really needed to figure out her next steps.

  As much as she wanted to get to her new home as soon as possible, she also needed a few things for the cat—a litter box and food, at the very least—and the cat definitely needed medical care.

  She looked up the closest vet and headed that way.

  It turned out the cat was long overdue to be neutered and those surgeries were only ever scheduled for the morning hours, so Maggie ended up checking them into a motel room for the night.

  “I wish I knew your name,” she said to the cat as they drove to a local pet store.

  Gray Cat was what they’d put on the intake form, but Maggie knew she’d have to come up with something better than that.

  She spent an hour at the pet store buying and shoving cat things into the tiny bits of space left in her car, all while the cat watched her from the front passenger seat.

  Not once did he attempt to leave the car, which struck her as rather odd, but she was terribly grateful all the same.

  Eventually, she carried the cat into their motel room, where she set up a litter box and food and water bowls for him.

  He snarfed down the food, then settled on her chest as they watched a documentary series about big cats.

  She fell asleep with him curled there, his purr a soft rumble that filled her heart with joy.

  Three

  WITH THE MATCHING of Maggie to a companion cat, and fairly quickly if he did say so himself, Bygul knew he’d be hearing from the trio goddesses, demanding his immediate return.

  He’d ignore them, of course, as no match was complete until he deemed it so.

  He’d hold them off by claiming he needed to make sure the cat was adjusting to shifter territory and would be healthy and happy there.

  Everyone would know it was just an excuse, of course, but that was okay. Excuses worked.

  He’d be using the extra time to match Maggie again, this time to her mate.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t cooperative when it came to mate-matching either.

  Maggie might have a truly excellent wardrobe and impeccable fashion sense, catching eyes everywhere she went, but unfortunately, she also had a way of offending people that was truly epic.

  The first evidence of this was when they visited the vet, whom Bygul thought might be a good candidate. If not the vet, then perhaps his assistant.

  However, neither one seemed to appreciate Maggie’s arched eyebrow and acerbic, “That’s rather highway robbery, now isn’t it?” when paying the bill.

  Then he thought perhaps the trucker when they stopped for gas, but Maggie didn’t even notice the man was checking her out and before Bygul could somehow manipulate the situation—cause her to trip and fall into the trucker’s arms or maybe have the cat escape right in front of the trucker—Maggie was back in her car and driving away and it was too late to arrange anything.

  The rest of the trip was spent with Maggie asking the cat over and over again how it felt about this name or that name.

  Of course, the cat never had a response in return, though Maggie didn’t seem to hold that against him. She seemed to believe that no response meant he didn’t approve, which must be why she kept suggesting new names.

  Finally, Bygul could take it no longer. “For goddess’ sake, just call him Max!”

  “Max,” Maggie repeated, startling both the cat and Bygul. “What do you think of that name, Mr. Gray Cat?”

  The cat, as far as Bygul could tell, had never had a name before and wasn’t quite sure what to make of all this naming nonsense. As far as the cat was concerned, he was a cat and that was that.

  “I’m not really quite sure about Max. It seems a little common,” Maggie told the cat, who simply yawned in response and didn’t seem that interested in the conversation at all.

  “It’s a perfectly good name and he’d be lucky to have it,” Bygul snapped. He’d mate-matched a shifter named Max once, quite by accident.

  It was a rather convoluted story. He’d been trying to match a cat with a human and a couple bear shifters in the area kept scaring the cat away, so he’d made the shifters go away, sent them on a new quest.

  Who knew they’d end up on the other side of the country, opening a Shenanigans right in between cougar and wolf territories, and that one of the bears would mate a wolf named Max?

  He hadn’t even been trying and he’d managed to set into motion a sequence of events that had not only resulted in the matching of a cat companion with a human, but also the mate-matching of not just the one bear and one wolf, but eventually the other bear with his mate plus a whole slew of paranormal matings after that.

  That was when Bygul decided he was a matchmaking genius who needed to get serious about expanding beyond just matching companion cats to their human counterparts.

  Thus he added mate-matching to his services.

  His humans were always quite grateful, though the goddesses didn’t exactly appreciate his initiative and the other matchmakers thought he’d lost sight of the mission.

  He knew the mission, he just knew his cats would be happier if their companions were happy too.

  Happily Furever After — wasn’t that what they guaranteed? He was pretty sure it was.

  “I’m just not feeling Max,” Maggie said. “And since you don’t seem to love it either, Mr. Gray Cat, I think we need some help.”

  “For heaven’s sake, woman!” Bygul exclaimed. “Just call him Cat then!”

  “Cat’s not a name. Nor is Gray Cat, nor is even Mr. Gray Cat. We need something better than that.”

  How the human was even hearing him, Bygul had no idea, especially since he was only visible to the cat population and she didn’t seem to realize someone was talking in the first place.

  This Maggie woman was the strangest human he’d ever tried to match and he’d had a few really strange matches in his time.

  “You look like you’ve been in a few battles there, my friend,” Maggie said to the cat. “So I’m thinking we need a warrior’s name. It’s really unfortunate the vet confirmed you’re a boy. I kind of wanted to call you Bastet.”

  Bygul choked and almost hacked up a fur ball.

  What a wonderful idea!

  How he’d missed this opportunity in the past, he had no idea.

  Why, he could encourage all his humans to name their companion-cats after the gods and goddesses. Imagine the uproar!

  “Catphrodite would be hilarious,” Maggie continued. “Or maybe Cleocatra.”

  Bygul was laughing so hard, he almost fell off the dash where he’d settled early in the trip. He was completely shielded from human sight, but the cat could see him and kept an eye on him the entire time.

  “Actually, I don’t see why I can’t go ahead and give you a girl’s name,” Maggie said. “We could push those gender barriers, right?”

  The cat lurched to his feet and hunched over, beginning to gag.

  “Oh, no, don’t hack up a furball in here!” Bygul exclaimed. “She might decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

  “Okay, okay,” Maggie said. “I guess Purrsephone’s out of the question. Settle down. I’ll come up with a boy’s name for you soon enough.”

  With a satisfied air, the cat walked in a circle, kneaded the chair a moment, then flopped back onto his side, a smug look on his face.

  “You’re not as dumb as you look,” Bygul informed him. “Nice job.”

  “I’ve got it,” Maggie announced. “And just in time because I think we’re here.”

  Bygul looked out the windshield and saw that they’d pulled up to a large farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors in sight.

  “Come along, Genghis Khat.” Maggie turned off the car and scooped the cat into her arms. “Let’s go explore our new home!”

  The house seemed to be in pretty good shape.

  Maggie walked up onto the porch and found the keys under the doormat, just where the lawyer had said they’d be. It seemed a little trusting to leave keys under the doormat, but Maggie wasn’t going to complain, especially since it meant she didn’t have to socialize.

  The first day in their new home Maggie spent cleaning and unpacking.

  The second day she did a lot of online shopping, arranging for Amazon to deliver everything from canned goods to a cat tree. She then went exploring.

  The third day, she had an appointment with her aunt’s lawyer, a Mr. Wilson, to get all the paperwork signed and to take final possession of her inheritance.

  The worst part of that entire experience was having to actually talk to people. First his assistant, who looked rather surprised to see her, then the lawyer himself, who looked utterly stunned.

  She had no idea why. She’d told him she’d never met her aunt, so she couldn’t imagine why he seemed so surprised.

  Mr. Wilson asked a couple questions about her parents and where she’d grown up and where she’d gone to school and seemed a little disturbed at her answers.

  He asked if she was planning to stay or to sell the house and he seemed even more disturbed when she said she’d be staying. He seemed to feel it would be better for her to go, but that wasn’t happening. “I’m good here and that’s that,” she told him and he nodded, though the look on his face said he did not agree with her decision.

  Why it mattered, she had no idea.

  He then asked if she planned to look for a job in town and she said, “Absolutely not.”

  He looked relieved at that—weird—then asked if she already had a job.

  At this point, Maggie was done with the entire conversation so she just stared at him.

  He waited for her to answer and she waited for him to realize she wasn’t going to.

  The silence stretched on long enough that Maggie wondered if it was an awkward silence. It didn’t seem awkward to her, but she’d come to realize over the years that her definition of awkward was not everyone’s else’s.

  Silence didn’t bother Maggie, but wasting her time did, so she eventually broke the silence by asking, “Are we done here?”

  A look of surprise flashed across Mr. Wilson’s face—again—but he just nodded and said, “We are. Good luck with everything.”

  Maggie, though, was already striding out the door, quite relieved to have this last bit of required socializing behind her.

  She was famished after the meeting and desperately needed food. She really wanted to just go home, but wasn’t looking forward to yet another dinner made up of canned green beans.

  Unfortunately, her only other options were to eat out somewhere, which would involve dealing with people, or to go grocery shopping, which would also mean dealing with people.

  However, if she went grocery shopping, she’d have more options than green beans for tomorrow’s meals as well.

  She’d been severely disappointed when she’d discovered the town of Greensboro only had one grocery store and they did not deliver. She’d already found a meal subscription service and had placed her first order, but it wouldn’t arrive for another week and she’d never survive that long on green beans.

  So, though she dreaded it, grocery shopping it was.

  She hurried through the grocery store, avoiding people and trying not to notice as they stopped and stared every time she came near. It had to be because it was such a small town. They probably didn’t get many strangers here, that was all.

  Still it was unnerving and by the time the cashier had finished ringing up her groceries, Maggie was exhausted, especially since the woman insisted on asking invasive questions.

  “Why are you here?”

  “How did you find us?”

  “Where are you staying?”

  Maggie really wasn’t in the mood to answer any of the cashier’s questions, which meant her responses became increasingly curt as time went on.

  “To get groceries.”

  “You’re on a public street.”

  “None of your business.”

  It was the last reply that finally stopped the litany of questions.

  Maggie paid and helped bag the last of her groceries. She then grabbed the bags and muttered, “Have a nice day,” before hurrying out of the store.

 

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