Koda tries to shrug it off. “’salright. It was going to happen sooner or later. Sooner’s just as well, I suppose.”
Green eyes flash. “It’s not alright. It’s not alright and it’s not fair. Damnit, you shouldn’t have to go through this again!”
“If I don’t, who will? Who can speak for him other than me?” Her smile is sad. “Life isn’t fair. Death isn’t either.”
Though her eyes, faraway, don’t register movement, she feels a warm, slight body press against her from the back and two well-made arms wrap around her waist as a chin rests on her shoulder. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone, Dakota. Hell, you shouldn’t have to go through it at all.” A brief pause. Kirsten’s gentle breathing tickles against Koda’s ear and cheek. “What can I do to help?”
Dakota smiles and turns her head so that their faces are on a level. “Just be you,” she whispers. “That’s all I need.”
“I will,” Kirsten murmurs, sealing the vow with a kiss that quickly deepens. When she feels Koda’s tongue gently trace across her lips, she opens them, bidding welcome. With a groan, Koda pulls Kirsten’s arms away, then twists the smaller woman so that they are now face to face. Her own hands come up, sinking themselves into the thick, soft mass of Kirsten’s golden hair, stroking and tugging as their mouths move together sensually, urgently. Kirsten’s hands find their way onto Dakota’s broad shoulders, squeezing and releasing in time to her panting breaths. She is quickly becoming overwhelmed by everything—the emotions, the sensations, the taste of Koda’s lips and breath—and when she feels one hand leave her hair and trail, ever so gently, against the side of her breast, she moans and pulls away.
Slumped over, she breathes in deep, trying to catch her air and calm a heart lunging itself against her ribs with passionate force. A brief touch to her shoulder, and she looks up into Koda’s concerned eyes. “I’m…I’m….ok,” she pants. “Just gotta….woah.”
“What’s wrong? Are you alright?” Koda’s voice carries an edge to it, and that edge gets through to Kirsten on some level.
Taking in a deep breath, she straightens, and lets it out slowly. “Yes, I’m fine. It just…caught me by surprise.”
Koda cocks her head in question.
In response, Kirsten lifts a slightly trembling hand and lays it against Dakota’s silken cheek. “I have never, ever felt like this before. Never. Physically, emotionally, it’s like…it’s like dangling over the edge of a cliff and the bottom’s nowhere in sight.” She meets Koda’s gaze directly, willing her to understand. “It scared me for a moment.”
Dakota smiles, and turns her head just slightly so that her lips rest against Kirsten’s palm. “I understand,” she murmurs, kissing the hand on her face.
“You do?”
The smile broadens. “I do.” Moving forward, she places the tenderest of kisses on Kirsten’s reddened lips, then pulls away. “C’mon. Let’s get ready for work.”
Grasping Kirsten’s hands, Koda pulls them both up to their feet. The young scientist steps forward and wraps her arms around Dakota’s firm body and holds tight for several moments. “Thank you,” she finally murmurs against the cloth covering Koda’s chest. She pulls back slightly, looking up at the tall woman. “Do you think that maybe…we would come back here again sometime?”
“Count on it,” Koda replies, kissing the crown of Kirsten’s hair. “Count on it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
KODA RUNS HER hands over the small cat’s body, pressing gently against her sides and abdomen. Despite her ordeal of the evening before, Sister Matilda’s black fur is glossy as a raven’s wing, her white bib and muzzle pristine. She has hardly stopped purring since delivering her kittens last night, and all her bones vibrate with the rumbling. Koda has given up on the stethoscope, resorting to the old fashioned method of counting her respirations and the beats of her heart by compressions of her ribs. She is pleased to find them close to normal; there is no real sign of trouble in the belly, either. The new mother’s uterus is a bit loose, but nursing her litter of six should help to firm it up without further intervention.
“All right, girl. Let’s get another dose of good old Penicillin in you, just as a precaution.” Koda leaves her lying on the exam table, small paws kneading the empty air, to fill a syringe from the vial in the countertop fridge. Compared to the bobcat, Sister Matilda is an ideal patient, content to stay where she is put and to accept human attempts at help with aplomb. Koda rubs her ears, then lifts her scruff and slips the needle in. The purr never misses a beat.
The evening before, she had cried with her distress, and so had little Daphne Burgess. Koda had accompanied the Sergeant to his home, made her initial examination, and brought cat and human family all back to the clinic. Sister Matilda’s labor had arrested several hours before, but there had been no blockage of the birth canal. Despite her small frame and enormous belly, so round she could hardly turn herself over without all four feet leaving the exam table, Koda had found no reason why she could not deliver normally. An injection of Oxytocin had started contractions again almost immediately, and within two hours she had become the happy mother of sextuplets.
Emphasis on the sex part: not one kitten looks like any other. One yellow longhair, one calico shorthair, one solid smoky grey, one black with white paws like his mother, one all white with a stubby Manx tail and one that looks suspiciously like a Maine Coon Cat. “Got around a bit there, didn’t you girl?” Koda remarks as she lays her back among her brood.
Briefly Koda inspects her other patients in the ward. A flop-eared rabbit with an infected eye is responding to treatment; a Scotty, survivor of an unfortunate encounter with a porcupine, looks morosely up at her over his still-swollen nose. She gives him a scratch between the ears. “Curiosity’s not just bad for cats, bro,” she admonishes him. At least it hadn’t been a skunk.
A tap sounds at the door of the ward. “Dr. Rivers? There’s an elderly gentleman here to see you. A civilian.”
“Tell him half a minute, Shannon. I’m coming.” Stepping in and out of the bleach basin without thinking, Koda pauses to run her hands under the tap. She has a fair notion who the elderly civilian is and an even better notion why he’s here. From the file cabinet by her desk in the cubbyhole designated as her office, she takes two file folders and a small, silver key. Fingering it gingerly, she drops it into her pocket. She has known for days that this moment would come. She hates it no less for being forewarned.
Judge Harcourt stands in the middle of the reception area. He fills the small space to overflowing, standing with spine straight as a plumbline in pinstriped suit and burgundy tie, his salt-white hair combed into waves that brush at his collar. “Doctor Rivers,” he says gravely as she pushes open the door. “I wonder if I might have a moment of your time.”
“Come on back,” she says, gesturing with the files.
Koda drags the chair from the examination room into the postage-stamp size space beside her own in front of her desk. “Have a seat, Fenton.”
He remains standing, silent, until she sits, then follows suit, taking his tobacco pouch from his pocket. Without speaking he loads the pipe, reaches for the lighter and pauses, his eyes darting around the room. “Go ahead,” Dakota says. “The nearest oxygen tank is two rooms over.”
He gives her a grateful look, and it is only when the fragrant smoke begins to curl up from the bowl that he says, “We have a problem.”
Koda snorts. “Just one? Thank you. What did you do with all the others?”
“We have a judicial problem,” he amends, giving her a sharp look beneath bushy brows. “To wit, the Dietrich family, specifically his son.”
“Let me guess. They want charges pressed.”