Cat's Meow Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Excerpt from Cat’s Pajamas

  About Arsenic in the Azaleas

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  After a year of hell, Lani Summerland’s life is just getting better when she’s tossed unceremoniously a few hundred years into the future with her orange Persian cat, Charming Marvin, in her arms. With no way to fight it, no way to go back, things are only looking to get worse fast.

  Breaking protocol is cause for severe consequences in the time and world Liev Blackburn lives. But, after a year of government regulation, the crackdown is easing up and he begins to relax. Everything he’s worked for is hinged on keeping his reckless brother in check. But, while he’s been protecting Milo from falling under the government’s ever-vigilant radar, his brother has been working on a surprise present for him, one that’s the cat’s meow… Lani is that gift—a woman from the past that Liev has been fixated on.

  Milo never anticipated having his brother’s dream girl come to their time with a snarky cat that can not only talk but doesn’t have a clue how or when to shut up!

  Books in This Series:

  Cat’s Meow

  Cat’s Pajamas

  Cat’s Cradle

  Cat’s Claus

  Broken Protocols 1-4

  Sign up to be notified of all Dale’s releases here!

  Protocol 1:3:1. You will in no way use technology to damage the life of another—particularly if those actions are to selfishly enhance your own.

  Chapter 1

  Lani Summerland was on top of the world. It had taken several years, but she’d finally put her past behind her. A new day had begun. A new job, her first date in a long … okay, in a very long … time, and, for once, her future looked bright.

  It had been the years of hell, especially this last one.

  She glanced at her plain black watch and realized, after working later, she was running a little behind. She wanted time to prepare for her date. She’d actually hoped to have a lot of time to prepare, but her boss hadn’t been easy to deal with today and insisted she complete some work before leaving. Normally it wasn’t a problem, but today was special. Only she was new to her job and didn’t dare do anything but what was asked of her with a bright smile.

  As soon as she completed the job, she’d logged off and bolted out of the building. She walked faster on the busy street, her head bent against the wind and the rain that threatened. Rush hour had peaked, but plenty of people still raced to get home. Equally focused on their destination as she was. Her apartment was just a few blocks around the corner.

  For the umpteenth time, she pulled the faded, crumpled photo of her and Lawrence from her pocket. He’d been everything to her. Now, one year after her very public humiliation, she could finally say she’d recovered. She was at a crossroads in her life. A good one. A place she’d worked to reach for the year. But she’d made it. Now it was time to get rid of the picture. She’d hung on to it as a reminder. Of a painful lesson learned, to never be forgotten. Some rules were never meant to be broken—and ignorance was not an excuse. She’d had some inkling that things with Lawrence weren’t as they’d seemed, but young love and all the rest of those glorious emotions, guaranteed to get her into hot water, had overruled her better judgment.

  So she’d ignored those little nudges. Until she had found him at a company event, as the host, in fact—with his beautiful young wife at his side.

  That had been the most disastrous evening of Lani’s life. The wife’s mocking look and laughing comment to Lani later in the ladies’ room about being her husband’s latest side piece hadn’t helped. That the woman knew had been bad enough but from her words, it was obvious she and her husband had laughed about her. Just the knife twisting in the wound. The pink slip from his legal firm the next day was just another insult and another piece of her education.

  Never have an affair with the boss—especially when it turns out he’s married.

  She’d been such a fool. She hated that the other staff had known—and no one had said anything to her. That they all believed she was the kind to have affairs with married men. Now she got those snide comments she hadn’t understood at first. The mocking and disgusted looks she hadn’t connected to the truth. Too bad someone hadn’t blurted out something to clarify the situation. It might have been painful and humiliating at the time, but she’d have put a stop to the affair immediately.

  Nothing like learning about men, life, and consequences the hard way.

  A garbage can was up ahead. She stopped, carefully ripped up the picture—one that she’d once loved and held dear—into tiny pieces and fed them slowly into the can. She smiled, feeling a wonderful sense of freedom as each piece disappeared from sight.

  Then she turned, pulled up her coat collar, and raced the last few blocks home.

  Time to let go and to create a better future. And, as of today, it looked damn bright.

  “What the hell?” Liev studied the massive wall of monitors in front of him. The computers should all be locked behind the security field at this point. He glanced around the large empty office to see if anyone had slipped in behind him, but he was alone in the encroaching darkness. Then again, he should be. It was damn late, and it was his brother’s office. No one was allowed in but the two of them. Not in this age of computer espionage. His world lived on computers, and his brother was a genius when it came to programming. There was nothing he couldn’t create.

  Hence the large company that they started together, with a few family backers, and the heavy security measures they used to keep their inventions secure until their official release. Some were not meant to be released. Ever. If it weren’t for Milo’s recent odd behavior, that little-kid look of having a secret he desperately wanted to share, Liev wouldn’t be here now. Genius Milo—chocolate-munching, green-mohawked, geeky Milo—had been acting suspicious for days.

  That would give anyone nightmares.

  As Milo’s business partner and older brother, and company CEO, Liev didn’t dare let Milo go off half-cocked again. Genius he might be, but he lacked a certain level of common sense, as proven by the slap from the Commonwealth Council Protocols Association (CCPA) special Regulatory Commission Group last year. And their intensified monitoring of Milo thereafter. No one doubted Milo’s intentions—just that they weren’t clearly thought out. At the end of the nerve-racking CCPA review, the board had determined that the brothers would be allowed to continue their IT company, but the genius needed to be carefully watched.

  A year later, the regulatory overseeing eye had eased—slightly. But the scrutiny had chafed for both Milo and Liev. For Milo more so.

  And, as Liev stared at the complex coding on the screens mounted in the center of the wall, he realized that Milo was in deeper than before. But what was he creating? And how much trouble was it going to bring them all? Liev’s heart sank. This last year had done nothing to smarten Milo up. This program looked to be almost complete, if not ready for testing. But Liev knew nothing about it. And why was that?

  “I wondered how long it would take you to check up on me.” Milo’s quiet voice spoke from behind Liev.

  Liev dropped his head into his hands, wanting to pull his hair out. Instead,
he said in a low worried voice, “What have you done?”

  “It’s nothing bad. In fact”—Milo’s voice picked up enthusiastically—“it’s kind of awesome.”

  “Kind of awesome?” Liev spun around to glare at his kid brother who didn’t know when to quit. “This could mean jail time. You know that.” He towered over his younger brother. “This could mean losing the company. Years of our time and effort. Years where the family helped us, backed us, protected us. Did you even think of that? Did you once think about the consequences? About what will happen to me? Or does any of that matter?”

  “No. No, it doesn’t.” Milo rushed over, wringing his hands. At least the childish delight of the last few days had dimmed. Milo just didn’t get that rules and regulations were there for a reason. Liev did. He lived by them. His brother didn’t even acknowledge them. And Liev had been bailing Milo out since he was a little boy—he wouldn’t change now.

  Milo loved history. And, when he added in his crazy geek skills and a complete lack of comprehension of the limits to what he could do, all manner of hell could happen. Had happened. Was possibly about to happen again.

  “You don’t understand.” Milo beamed with excitement. “See? It works this time.”

  Liev shook his head, not mistaking his brother’s meaning. He was talking about the same damn project that had gotten them into trouble last time. “No. It doesn’t.”

  “Yes.” Milo hopped from one foot to the other. Passion and joy were on his face and in his voice. “It does. It does. Honest.”

  “There is no way. You can’t just go back in time and yank a person forward a couple centuries into our world. Look at what kind of trouble that got you in last time.” Got us, but he kept that bit quiet. Milo’s enthusiasm got him—them—in trouble every time. But, every once in a while, Milo came up with something so earth-shattering that most people had no trouble overlooking the problems that came with Milo. Then again, they weren’t the ones having to clean up after him.

  Milo walked over to the keyboard, his fingers dancing so fast that Liev could barely follow what he did on the screen. Colors and figures flashed at alarming speeds on the massive wall of monitors in front of them.

  Liev might not be the creative genius that Milo was, but he still knew more than most about coding. “Hey, stop. You can’t test this right now.”

  “Sure I can. It works. I actually planned to test it tonight anyway. I just didn’t expect to have you here. Having you here though … it’s perfect.”

  Raising both hands in frustration, Liev gave an exasperated snort. “You were hoping that I wouldn’t be here. Right?”

  Milo shot him a resentful look. “You never let me have any fun.”

  “Fun?” Liev said ominously. “Going back in time, snagging up any female you want, and dropping them into our time is fun? You do remember what happened last time, right?” His glare deepened. “The massive power outage you caused?”

  “I figured out how to stop the massive power surge. Besides, I only wanted to brainstorm with Marie Curie,” he said resentfully. “She was an intelligent woman. We’d have had a great time.”

  “If you didn’t kill her in the process,” Liev snapped.

  Milo spun around to face him, his grin once again splitting his face. “No, I fixed that. It’s safe now.”

  “Says you.” Liev eyed his brother suspiciously. He didn’t know how to get this into his brother’s head. This was too important. “This is big. Like seriously big stuff. And the chances of you doing this successfully … You know the protocols are very specifi—”

  “Ah, but the protocols are poorly written.” His elfish grin flashed, and he added, “Besides, they are more like guidelines.”

  Milo nudged his brother to the side. “You might want to get out of the way.”

  “What? What for?” Liev spun around and caught sight of Milo reaching for a button on the side. “No. Stop.” And he knocked his hand away. Milo stumbled backward, tripped, and fell against his keyboard. The screen went nuts as Milo’s elbow smacked the button anyway.

  Immediately a high-pitched whine filled the room. Liev slapped his hands over his ears, even as his eyes stared in panic at the monitors dancing with flashing computer code.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Everything!” Milo danced, laughing like a loon. “But it’s nothing to worry about. It’s supposed to be like this.”

  A flash of light exploded in the center of the room, blinding them both.

  Chapter 2

  Lani glanced at the clock, realizing she had just enough time for a cup of tea and a snack before getting dressed. She filled her teakettle and placed it on the stove. Her trip home in the brisk weather had left her chilled inside. The tea would help. The snack would take the edge off her hunger until she was served dinner. She smiled, wondering what restaurant her new beau was taking her to.

  She danced a quick jig across the living room. Perfect day, perfect date, and a perfect evening to come. If she had any misgivings that her bubble was about to burst, it had to be residual negativity left over from the years from hell. And maybe a twinge of a reminder that Murphy’s Law had been formulated specifically with her in mind.

  But that was over. She was all about new beginnings. And that meant she could open the bottle of wine she’d been saving for a special occasion. Screw tea. Wine would warm her up too. She reached into the back of the fridge and pulled it out. Twisting the top off, she poured herself a glass and held it up to sniff it.

  Charming Marvin, her overgrown orange Persian cat, jumped lightly onto the counter. She bumped the wineglass gently against his nose.

  “Cheers!”

  Meow!

  Lani flipped her long blond braid behind her back and laughed. “Right back at you, big guy. Here’s to us.” Eyes closed, she took a large gulp of her wine. Still too buoyed to relax, she put her glass down and snagged Charming up. Humming a tune in her head, she twirled him around.

  “We’re gonna be just fine.”

  Meow!

  She laughed and twirled him again. She wanted to enjoy this moment. It had been a long time coming, but it was all good. She felt fine. In fact, she felt better than fine. She felt great!

  Her life was back on track. It had been a long, painful struggle, but she’d made it.

  Tonight would be good too. Danny was a cute single guy who had transferred into the company last month. Life was good again. Joy filled her heart. It had been a long time since she’d felt this way. She glanced down at her cat, and said, “You know what I’ve been through, don’t you?”

  Meow!

  “I wish you could talk, Charming. Just think how great that would be.” She did a quick pirouette with him. Just as she slowed down, a white light exploded in her living room.

  Invisible waves blasted her, picking her up and throwing her against the couch, Charming clutched fiercely in her arms, his claws digging deep into her skin, a strange howl ripping from his throat. Mist swam through her brain, and her eyes burned. Her chest squeezed tight. She couldn’t breathe. Her ears rang, and her lunch was crawling up the inside of her throat. She tried to cry out but no words came out.

  What the hell had just happened? She could only hope the property damage would be minimal. Otherwise her landlord would freak.

  She had to get out of here. If that had been an earthquake it could happen again. If it had been some kind of accident then fire could be next. She didn’t dare stay inside. Besides, her lungs were screaming for fresh air.

  She sat forward, clutching Charming tightly, afraid he’d take off, and that she wouldn’t be able to find him again. Moving slowly, her muscles heavy and unwieldy, her body in major shock, she struggled to her feet and headed for the doorway. Smoke filled her living room. She stifled a cough and covered her mouth with her sleeve to avoid breathing the reeking aroma.

  She crouched low, gasping for air.

  Had there been a gas leak? A bombing?

  Then she heard voices.
Oh, thank God. She struggled toward them.

  A strange voice cried out, “Damn it, Milo. What did you do?”

  “Wowza.” A cackle filled the air. “Look. It worked!”

  Through the mist, she spied two men, … or, at least, she thought they were men. The one in a purple and turquoise skintight suit with a green mohawk bounced in front of her, a maniacal laugh coming from his mouth. Then her shocked gaze landed on the second man.

  Lawrence?

  And that couldn’t be.

  Her heart slammed against her ribs, and then she really couldn’t breathe. She gulped for air as she stared at the one man she’d loved and hated—and had spent the last year trying to forget—who now stood in front of her. Staring at her—was it possible—equally shocked?

  Unbelievably, after all this time, her anger rose in a red haze. She stepped into his personal space and smacked him—hard.

  His head flipped to the side, then came back around slowly, a red mark quickly rising on his cheek. Shock lit the deep dark depths of his eyes.

  Uh-oh.

  She took a step back, her ribs frozen and locked.

  He took a step forward.

  Finally her lungs expanded. She took a deep breath, spun around, and ran.

  She raced out the door and headed toward the elevator. And somehow got turned around. There were no walls of elevators. Nothing looked right. … Nothing looked normal. What the hell … Blindly she ran from door to door, until she found one leading outside and bolted through.

  And came to a skittering stop. Her mind couldn’t process what her eyes saw. She was on a balcony—a very high up balcony. And that couldn’t be either. Her apartment was on the third floor, whereas, from the scenic panorama laid out before her, she had to be at least sixty floors up—if that was even possible. There were no buildings in her town even a third that tall.

  The view in front of her was like nothing she’d ever seen before. It appeared to be a city. Or rather a metropolis on steroids. Buildings rose in weird space-agey-looking domes, and railcars raced along big circular runs. And—God help her—vehicles flew high above her head.