Kat On A Hot Tin Roof

By Maree Anderson

Kat Meyer sleepwalks—buck naked sleepwalking, just to make it even more humiliating. Adding to the stress, her lazy cat Cupcake seems bound and determined to be a cat-burglar extraordinaire. But instead of just leaving "gifts" like house keys and trinkets on her pillow, Kat's pet has now gravitated to stealing rings. Specifically, Jace Burton's granddaddy's ring. And Jace just happens to be the big-shot architect Kat is vying with the other designers to work with. 

 

When Jace wakes in the middle of the night to find a naked and highly distraught Kat in his living room, he's inclined to believe her bizarre tale of sleepwalking and cat-burglars-of-the-feline-persuasion. And did he mention she was gorgeous? And naked? As an added bonus, he's beyond grateful to learn that Kat's found his grandfather's missing ring. But Jace is appalled to think of what harm might have befallen Kat while she prowled the streets naked at night. She's gotten right under his skin and all his protective instincts kick in with a vengeance. It's sure no hardship to escort her safely home—nor to help her figure out how'n the heck she's getting out of her deadlocked house at night. But then the unbelievable truth smacks Jace right between the eyes, and he doesn't know what the hell to think. Should he hide what he's seen from the woman he's fallen head over heels for? Or reveal the truth and risk losing her forever…. **Originally published July 2011 in Secrets Volume 30, Desires Unleashed by Red Sage Publishing. (Warning: Contains graphic language and scenes more suited to adult readers.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maree Anderson
• Release date: Jul 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9780995139930

Maree Anderson

Maree Anderson writes paranormal romance, fantasy, and young adult books. She lives in beautiful New Zealand, home of hobbits, elves, and kiwis — both the fruit and the two-legged flightless variety. She's a bookworm, a chocoholic, a coffee-lover, and she has an extremely amusing cat named "Twink".Maree's first novel for young adults, the multi-award-winning Freaks of Greenfield High, was optioned for TV, and currently has over 2 million reads on Wattpad. Alas, Freaks didn't make it to the small screen, but it sure was a fun ride while it lasted. Readers will be please to know she is definitely planning on writing more books in her popular Freaks and Crystal Warriors series.

Book preview

IN THE BEGINNING

Buddha summoned all the animals to a meeting, and promised each of the first twelve animals to arrive a designation representing a year on the Chinese zodiac. The animals were very excited. And none more so than Cat.

The night before the meeting, Cat was worried that he would oversleep. He took his concerns to his friend, Rat, and they agreed on a plan. The first one to wake the next morning would rouse the other, and then they would leave for the meeting together. But Rat broke his promise and left Cat sleeping.

Rat arrived at the meeting before any of the other animals, and Buddha gave him the honor of being the first animal of the Chinese zodiac. One by one, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig arrived, and each was allocated his place in the zodiac.

Cat woke up and found Rat gone. He ran to the meeting but arrived too late. It was over. And when he found out that Rat had gotten there first and been honored by Buddha, he was furious. Cat has never forgiven Rat. And to this day, if a cat finds a rat, he will do his utmost to kill him.

Chapter One

Anyone spotting the sleek creature crouched on the rooftop might have thought it was a mini panther. Its short, jet-black coat had a glossy sheen that begged to be petted and stroked, but a close-up glance at its copper-penny colored eyes would dispel any notion that this cat would tolerate such indignities. It was a wild creature, with a mind of its own—a distinctly un-catlike mind.

And an agenda.

The cat didn’t understand why it had been drawn to this particular house. Only that instinct had prodded and poked until it had succumbed to the primal pull of a force it couldn’t deny. It leaped from the rooftop to a fence paling, streaked across the thin strip of wood capping the fence, and launched itself from the fence. It hit the ground running, darting across the grass, its lithe form wending between bushes and landscape plantings, barely raising a disturbance at it passed. At the side door it came to an abrupt halt and paused, sniffing the air. Then it butted its head against the cat-flap, pushed through and prowled into the kitchen.

The cat wasn’t looking for food. Which was fortunate because there was no cat-lover residing here—no pets at all, in fact. And certainly no food left out for bold strays to sample.

The cat gathered itself to leap. In one smooth movement, it bounded from the floor to the marble countertop. It paused a moment, whiskers twitching, ears alert for unwelcome intruders, before hopping into the sink and lapping at the tiny puddle of water.

Moonlight filtered through the open blinds, painting the pale walls with swathes of luminous silver. The glint from a moon-kissed trinket sitting on a saucer by the sink drew the cat’s attention. It sprang from the sink to the countertop and slinked over to investigate.

The cat sniffed the trinket, scenting human male—the same human male whose scent permeated the room. It sneezed and took a moment to groom its face and whiskers. With a final disdainful sniff, it scooped the ring into its mouth so that the trinket looped over one of its lower canines. And as noiselessly as it had entered the house, it departed.

~*~

Kat shivered. She curled up into a tight ball, wrapping her arms around her knees, but the chill licking her bare skin dragged her from sleep.

Bare skin….

She jerked to full wakefulness, blinking to clear the sleep-haze from her eyes.

Ah, crap. Not again. She uncurled her limbs and cast her gaze down her body, already knowing what she would see.

Or in this case, what she wouldn’t see. Namely, pajamas.

Dammit, she’d stripped off her pajamas in the dead of night. Again.

Doubtless she’d also been wandering naked about the house. Again. Doing goodness only knew what.

Wouldn’t be so bad if she had enough sense to crawl back under the covers after her nightly jaunts. But nooo. She had to lie there, completely exposed and vulnerable, until inevitably, the deepening chill woke her.

The last time Kat had suffered this particular problem, she’d been a twelve-year-old kid. Her nightly jaunts had lasted an entire year before ceasing as suddenly as they’d manifested.

For a child on the cusp of teenage-hood, it had been embarrassing enough, but for a twenty-four-year-old? Little wonder she felt so lethargic these days, what with all the broken nights. Heck, she was tucked up in bed by ten-thirty every single freaking night because by ten, she could barely keep her eyes open.

She nibbled on her lower lip. Must be stress. But what the heck did she have to be stressed about? Well, other than her grandma’s latest escapades at the retirement village. And these bloody sleepwalking episodes.

Could be worse, she supposed. She could be the kind of sleepwalker who opened deadlocked doors. Or even tinkered with security latches and crawled out windows. Kat shuddered, a vivid visual of waking up to discover she’d been parading naked up and down the street, giving anyone who cared to look a show they’d never forget, making her skin clammy. The mere thought of making such a public spectacle of herself was enough to churn her stomach. Thankfully, her hasty extra security precautions had proven more than adequate.

A cool draft of air from the barely open window goosed her skin again. She rolled off the covers and was about to dive beneath them when a flash of gold nestled on one of her pillows caught her attention.

Aw, hell. Another gift. And not car or house keys this time.

She scooped the item from her pillow. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she flicked on the bedside light and squinted at her gift.

A man’s ring. An old one by the looks of the worn band. She weighed it in her palm. Heavy, too. Probably worth a bit.

There was some sort of engraving on the inside of the band. An inscription?

The lettering had been smoothed to illegibility by constant wear. Damn. There went her best chance of identifying its owner.

Kat let the ring fall to the coverlet as she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Crap! I sooo don’t need this.

Mrrrow?

Kat pried open her eyelids to glare at the cat snoozing atop the throw rug on the end of her bed. Cupcake, you pull another stunt like this, and I’m gonna swat your furry little feline behind. Then, I’m gonna remove that dingy old cat-flap and replace it with a fancy one that I can lock, okay? We’ll soon see how you like being stuck inside and having to use a litter box.

Cupcake blinked his amber eyes and yawned, displaying his canines. Then he buried his nose beneath his bottlebrush tail and ignored her.

Kat glanced at her alarm clock. Four a.m. She huffed a disgruntled sigh. No point trying to get back to sleep now. She scooted off the mattress and planted her feet… right on top of her pajamas, haphazardly discarded on the rug beside her bed. In the exact same place they’d ended up these past few weeks. Ever since that night she’d been treated to a Chinese New Year dinner by a grateful client, in fact.

She gave herself a mental slap upside the head. Coincidence, nothing more. She could hardly blame the restaurant for a return of her childhood affliction, even if she had eaten some truly bizarre food. And even if she stretched the boundaries of her overactive imagination to its limits, there was no way that evening out had anything to do with her too-lazy-to-lift-a-paw-unless-food-was-involved feline companion morphing into a cat-burglar the very next night.

It was simply Cupcake’s way of demanding more attention. Other cats brought in birds or mice, but Cupcake had obviously decided that sets of keys, knickknacks, odd pieces of underwear, and even the occasional x-rated DVD, would garner more attention. And because Kat was completely unaware of her cat, or anything else for that matter, during her sleepwalking episodes, the sneaky furball had apparently decided that her mistress’s nightly excursions were the optimum time for such thievery.

Cupcake didn’t bring Kat a gift every night. But more often than not, there would be some offering left on a pillow. Hopefully, as soon as she got her shit together and quit this sleepwalking caper, her pet would quit bringing her these inconvenient gifts.

Speaking of gifts, time to do a bit of work and then get started on locating the owner of this ring.

A couple of hours later, Kat stretched her arms over her head to work out the kinks in her spine. While her printer spat out Found! flyers, she pulled on some clothes, tied her hair back with a scrunchie, and inhaled a glass of OJ. From past experience, she knew that popping notices with a photo and a brief description of the found item in mailboxes, was far less time-consuming than knocking on doors and explaining her cat’s latest bout of thievery to amused neighbors.

She grabbed the flyers and a fanny pack, stowed some cash and keys, and let herself out of the house, locking the door behind her. A glance at her watch confirmed she had plenty of time to deliver the flyers and grab a coffee and a cinnamon roll at the local café before she had to meet with the mayor. Hey, it wasn’t the healthiest breakfast, but Kat figured she deserved a treat.

~*~

Jace lay on his stomach, head buried beneath a pillow, trying his darnedest to ignore the