In a long list of bad ideas, Raylan Givens was almost sure that this might have been the worst one he had had in a long time.
In common with nearly all of his ideas, it had begun with the best intentions. Partner having a rough time, check, get present guaranteed to cheer partner up. Check. Get to work to discover partner has gone out of town on a long-haul transfer for a week, therefore stuck with present.
Present proves to be unexpectedly feisty.
Raylan tugged the back of the ratty old sofa forwards a little. He had ten minutes to find her before he had to be heading out of the door, and she was good at hiding in unexpected places. He just needed to be certain that she wasn't in the car again. After yesterday's scare that had nearly given him a heart-attack and caused him to crash. Explaining the dents in the hood had taxed even Raylan's litany of excuses and ingenuity to the limit. He still wasn't sure that Art believed him.
He reached down, and waved the hotdog wiener. Not exactly cat food, but he'd discovered that cat food didn't necessarily appeal. He could hear something that sounded like tiny claws, he waggled the wiener again.
She flew through the air, bypassed the wiener and latched on to Raylan's hand. He yelped, and yanked his arm back, the kitten clinging to his wrist. Her front paws wrapped tight around his wrist, biting his arm with passionate enjoyment as her back paws scrabbled at his hand.
"Dammit." Raylan tried to unhook her with his free hand, and interest her in the wiener. "You little…" she was purring at him, squirming under the grip of his hand, he stared into the bright green eyes as she opened her mouth.
"Y'kinda wanna bite, don't ya?" He said.
There was a second's delay, then her tiny fangs sank into the base of his thumb.
Raylan winced, and carefully pried her off his hand. Putting her down on the soft cushion he'd bought for her, he backed out slowly, index finger ticked in her direction. "Stay…" He reversed through the door and snapped it shut quickly.
Heaving a sigh of relief, he got into the Lincoln and headed off to work.
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"Here, let me." Rachel took the can of antiseptic spray out of Raylan's hand, gently turned his scraped and bitten hand over, cleansing the obvious wounds. "Get into a fight cowboy?"
He snorted, "an unwinnable one."
"New pet? For Franny?"
Raylan blushed. "For Tim." He admitted.
Rachel grinned. "Kitten?"
He actually squirmed. "Yup." Looked up, "she wants blood, unfortunately, I think it's mine."
"And this is Tim's present?"
"Huh… yeah!" He had the feeling he was being laughed at. "Why?"
Rachel's smile was a knowing one. "Uh-huh!" She said.
Raylan humphed under his breath and pretended not to notice. The instant Tim was back from his trip, Raylan was driving over to his place with the little she-devil in a box, and then it was back to his solitary existence.