Built to Serve: A Catgirl Harem Adventure (Build-A-Catgirl Book 3) Read online

  “I’d like to make a donation to cover Reina’s care.” He started to reach inside his suit jacket.

  “That’s rather generous of you, Mr. Selanic,” I said, wondering if he had any idea what that amount would be.

  “Please, call me Clint,” he started. “Will ten thousand put a dent in it?” I struggled not to look shocked.

  “That will more than cover it,” I answered. He quickly walked back over to the desk, grabbed a pen from the holder, and wrote out the check. He walked back and handed me the check.

  “Please, let me know if she needs any further support,” he said as he pushed the door open once more.

  “This is very generous of you,” I told him. “I’ll assign an account to Reina right away.” Clint smiled and stepped out the door. Before it closed, he looked back at me and nodded his head.

  “You have a fantastic day, Leah.” He turned and walked away before I could respond. I watched him through the front window until he was out of sight and then went back to the reception desk and sat down. He hadn’t even waited around long enough for me to give him a donation receipt. I was marveling at his nonchalant afterthought of a ten-thousand-dollar donation when the door behind me opened up. Macy poked her head through and smiled at me.

  “I saw him leave from the camera room. Was that a check he handed you?” Macy opened the door a little further and walked through.

  “Yes, it was. A ten-thousand-dollar donation to cover Reina’s expenses.” I looked up, waved the check at her and waited for her reaction. Her eyes got wide, and she tilted her head slightly as though she was wondering if she heard me correctly. “And he has started the screening process to become a volunteer.” We just stared at each other for a moment, and then both started giggling.

  “Not a bad way to start off the day!” Macy laughed.

  “You couldn’t be more right!” I replied. “I’m going to get an account set up for Reina real quick. How is it going with her?”

  “Remarkably well,” Macy started. “She is very bright and was more talkative once she’d been showered and got some clean clothes. Above all, she’s extremely grateful. She’s already been asking about how to repay us for our kindness. I have her in the lounge now. She’s checking out more information about what we do here.”

  “Good. When you think she is ready, let’s get her over to Clark to check out her systems,” I instructed. “You are a magician at making CGs comfortable, Macy. You know that?” I smiled appreciatively at her. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled at me.

  Macy headed back to the door she’d come out of. Just before she disappeared through it, she turned and winked back at me. “I owe it all to you!” Then she was gone. I took another look at the check in my hand. Donations of that size don’t happen so casually as a general rule, and they certainly don’t happen so casually. I was excited to tell Charlie about it, but that would have to wait. Instead, I picked up the phone and dialed the number to Vice Grip Solutions. A happy voice answered after four rings.

  “Thank you for calling Vice Grip Solutions, how may I help you?” the voice asked.

  “Kennedi?” I recognized her voice immediately.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “It’s Leah.”

  “Oh! Hi, Leah! What’s going on?” she asked excitedly

  “Hi, Kennedi. I have a CG that Macy will be bringing over for a systems check. Do you have time to do it today?” Her cheery and helpful demeanor was always welcoming.

  “I’ve actually just had a cancellation. It’s for three o’clock with Krysta. Will that work?” Kennedi asked.

  “I will let Macy know, and she’ll bring her over. Her name is Reina,” I told her. “I didn’t know Krysta was back at the store. She’s been so busy constructing her marketing plans for the lot of us.”

  I heard Kennedi giggle a little. “She is just in for the day. She said she was in the mood to get around some customers and physically help, instead of just lending us her ‘business brain.’” I recognized the humorous tone with which Kennedi said that. I always heard that tone after she confused a figure of speech with a literal interpretation. Kennedi had a defect that kept her from wirelessly updating like a normal cat girl, so she learned things ‘manually,’ as she put it. My favorite story of her assigning literal meaning was when our friend Bev asked her to toss some potatoes in a pot for her. Kennedi stood across the kitchen and threw potatoes into the pot on the stove. I giggled a little as well.

  “Were you wondering how she ended up with more than one brain?” I teased Kennedi. She laughed even harder through the phone.

  “Close,” she said. “I put together that it was possible she may have named different parts of her programming, but I was a little perplexed on how she was giving them to us on loan.” I heard her laugh at herself.

  “I can see your logic there,” I told her, chuckling. I could almost see Kennedi in my mind, shrugging her shoulders and flipping her raven-black hair back away from her face. It was what she did whenever she joked about herself.

  “I got a chuckle out of a few people with that,” Kennedi replied brightly.

  “Well, I’m happy you got that straightened out,” I started. “Please tell her ‘hello’ from me and let her know she’ll be seeing Macy this afternoon, alright?”

  “Absolutely!” Kennedi replied. Then she lowered her voice almost to a whisper and said, “Have you settled on a venue for the party yet? I can’t believe it is only two months away!”

  “Yes,” I answered her. “I will give you the details a little later, but you are going to love it, and so will he!”

  “Perfect! Okay, I’m off to catch Krysta between clients. Have a great day. It was awesome to hear from you!” Kennedi said, raising her voice back to a normal volume as she spoke.

  “You too, Kennedi,” I replied. I hung up the phone and took a third look at the check in my hand. I reached beside me, opened my desk drawer, and lifted my purse out. I wasn’t about to keep that amount of money on the premises, so I fished my keys out of my bag. Then I made a quick phone call to the back lounge where Macy was with Reina, to let her know I was leaving for the bank.

  A moment later, a tall, blonde, cat girl that had come to the foundation a month earlier walked out of the back door into the reception area. I was already on my way to the front door, and I nodded at her as she sat behind the desk. As I stepped out onto the sidewalk and felt the warm Nevada air surround me, an image of Clint crossed my mind. I smiled to myself at the thought of another human being so generous and kind. I mentally crossed my fingers that his background check didn’t unearth some hidden reason we would not be able to work with him. I pulled my phone out of my purse as I walked, dialed, and listened to the ring on the other end. I just had to tell Charlie about the morning’s events!

  2

  I opened my eyes just as the sun broke the horizon. The room was dim with just a sliver of light squeezing through where the heavy, blackout curtains hadn’t been shut all the way. I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked around. Kennedi was already up and gone, as usual. Cat girls had no need for sleep, so she was always up before me, and usually had a myriad of tasks completed before I woke up. I sat up the rest of the way and stretched my arms over my head. It was going to be a busy day, and I didn’t want to get a late start.

  Theo and Bev, the couple who had become family to me, asked me to help them with a home project that was going to take a solid ten hours at least. It was Theo and Bev who had gifted me the land that the house I was in now had been built on. I thought back to the day I met the couple. I had just bought Kennedi from an abusive pawn-shop owner and needed to find work to replenish what I’d spent on her. Theo needed a hand to fix his farm equipment, so I went to work for him. I hadn’t known it at the time, but that day was the first day of my new life. The challenges, and adventures, that had occurred between then and now were many, and Theo and Bev had been a constant support in nearly every single one.

  Since that first meeti
ng, Kennedi and I had brought three additional cat girls to live with us, Ellie, Krysta, and Rosie. We’d also opened three new businesses, and we owed it all to the kindness and generosity of a childless couple who opened their home to us.

  I smiled at the memory as I threw back the comforter and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I stood and stretched one more time and took a look around. Kennedi had decorated the room in a rustic country theme but managed to still make it cheery and welcoming. She and Theo had built most of the furniture in the house, including what was in the sitting area of the bedroom. The room was massive, so she’d opted for a raw-log style couch and loveseat set with a wooden footlocker that doubled as an ottoman and storage for extra blankets. I walked by the footlocker and into the bathroom. There were his and hers sinks and a hot tub in the first room, and the toilet and steam shower were in another.

  I reached in and turned the shower on and stripped down. It took no time at all for the water to warm up, and a moment later, I was relaxing under two shower heads spilling hot water down on me. As I lathered up, I started going over what would need to be done to build the horse corral behind Theo’s house. Bev had gotten it in her mind that having a couple of horses would be a good idea, and Theo would do anything to make his wife happy.

  When I was done showering, I opened the shower doors and watched the steam bellow out. I grabbed a towel hanging on a nearby rack and dried myself off as I walked to one of the sinks in the adjoining room. I ran the towel over my short brown hair and then hung it over the edge of the spa tub behind me. I glanced at my naked form in the mirror and ran my hands through my hair to straighten it out. I’d always taken care of myself, and it showed. I had a six-pack, broad shoulders, and excellent posture. It was the way I held my shoulders back and my head high that made most people think I was taller than my six-foot-three-inches.

  I considered shaving, but since I was going to be working outside all day, I skipped it. So, I brushed my teeth and then walked back into the bedroom, headed to our walk-in closet, and got dressed. Comfort was my first objective when it came to clothes of any kind. I reached past the two-hundred-dollar pairs of jeans that Kennedi liked to bring home to me and grabbed a five-year-old pair of worn-in jeans. I slid them on and found a plain white t-shirt that was perfect for the day I had planned. After putting on a pair of Gold Toe socks, I headed downstairs to the kitchen.

  The stairway came down between the kitchen and dining room. I turned left at the bottom and walked into the kitchen. A yellow and black-haired cat girl stood at the sink, facing away from me. She was tall and athletically built but still had generous curves. Her tail was an unusual purple-gray color and had a black stripe on both the top and bottom of it. Although it wasn’t visible when Kennedi and I had built her, we had a sharp metal, retractable spike added to her tail. As nice as Ellie was in general, she could be a lethal enemy if provoked.

  “Good morning, Ellie,” I called to her from across the island. She turned around and fixed her purple-blue eyes on me.

  “Good morning, Clark!” She smiled and wiped her hands on the white apron she was wearing. Ellie had been gifted to me when I was fighting in the Platform matches. She was my second cat girl and had a no-nonsense personality that sometimes masked how deeply sensitive she could be. She had instantly taken a liking to cooking and to Bev. Bev was a fantastic cook herself and had taught Ellie her kitchen secrets. Together, the two of them opened Elko’s now most popular restaurant, Belavi.

  “Have you seen Kennedi?” I looked out the window behind her. There was a row of trees directly in front of the house. I could see the leaves dancing slightly, indicating a light breeze outside. A breeze would come in handy while Theo and I worked outside for sure.

  “Yeah. She’s in her tower,” Ellie motioned towards the side of the house. “She said she was looking up a couple of things to add ideas to her next project.” Ellie smiled and turned back to the sink where she was washing bell peppers.

  “Sounds about right,” I chuckled. We had built a Victorian-style tower for Kennedi to have her library and window seats. When she teamed up with a local glassblower, Samuel, to open her own nano-glass art studio, she started converting one of the rooms in the tower into a glass-blowing studio. ‘The tower’ was almost always the answer to the question of where Kennedi had gone to.

  “I have an omelet skillet coming out of the oven in about five minutes. Kennedi, Krysta, and Rosie will be down by then,” Ellie told me over her shoulder. Even though none of the girls actually needed to eat, they all joined me for breakfast every morning. If Ellie was testing a new recipe, they’d eat as well, but usually, we all just sat and mapped out our day with each other. I walked over to the fresh pot of coffee that Ellie had brewed and poured myself a cup. She had added cinnamon to the coffee grounds, which didn’t add much flavor but made the coffee itself smell amazing. I sat back down at the island with my cup just as Krysta and Rosie walked into the kitchen.

  “Good morning!” Krysta almost shouted. Ellie shot her a look, and Krysta clapped both hands over her mouth, smiling. “Oops! I mean, good morning!” she said in a whisper. We all started laughing.

  “Good morning, Clark, Ellie,” Rosie piped up. Her voice was always small, even when she got excited. Her eyes were the way to tell how she was feeling. She had gorgeous, bright-amber-colored eyes that sparkled when she was happy. Her honey-blonde hair and milk-white skin just made them brighter.

  “Hey there, girls,” I replied to both of them. “Good morning.” Both girls smiled and joined me at the kitchen island. Rosie’s pitch-black tail danced behind her as she sat.

  “You look excited about something?” I observed and asked at the same time. Her face lit up with a huge smile.

  “I am! I have a new design I’m going to be testing for heating pad coils today!” Rosie exclaimed in her small voice. She was the director of product development for the nano-glass division of Vice Grip Solutions.

  VGS had started as a small operation designed to help modify CGs so that their originating company, Omnicorp, couldn’t use them to illegally data mine. It had grown exponentially since then. Now, VGS, owned by Charlie Lindy and me, performed modifications as well as re-built abandoned CGs and sold them at a more affordable price to good homes. Last year, we had taken over the contract for the special type of glass used in the building of CGs because we had found several new functions that the glass made possible. Heat diffusion and retention was one of those functions, and Rosie worked to create appliances and appliance replacement parts that offered the even-temperature benefits of nano-glass without the traditional fire hazard. She had a unique skill that made her perfect for the job. She could control and produce electrical currents. Once she’d learned about the upcoming position, she jumped at the chance to make it a reality.

  “What happened to the one you were working on last week?” Her excitement about this round of heating pads was significantly increased from her first attempts.

  “They weren’t flexible enough to be used as wraps. They were fine for flat heating, but if someone has an injury, like a muscle spasm in the lower arm, it wouldn’t be much use,” Rosie explained. “With the new design, the elements are smaller and weaved differently. Hopefully, we will have gained enough flexibility for the pad to be completely folded in half. Or, at least, almost in half.” She was beaming with excitement.

  “Call me when your testing is done. If you are successful, I’ll sign off on the plans and get the appropriate info over to Krysta so she can start on the marketing plan. Good work, Rosie,” I praised her, then looked over at Krysta.

  She had made it her mission to take over the administrative portion of our businesses and those of several of our friends’ businesses as well. From marketing plans to business plans to financial projections, she was a genius when it came to business admin. Looking at her, however, most wouldn’t guess that was the case. She wasn’t outwardly flashy at all. She had long, dark, chestnut brown hair, deep brown eyes, and
a dark reddish-brown tail. She was only about five-foot-five-inches tall and never loud in public situations. She was as close as one could get to having a secret weapon in the business world.

  “Rosie,” Krysta started. “When you send the info to Clark, make sure you include as much detail about the special weaving of the nano-wires. I can use that as a kick-off feature. Also, any info about different types of material you test with it.”

  “You’ve got it!” Rosie replied. They both smiled at me.

  It still was a little unbelievable that I didn’t have to take control of every aspect of my businesses. For so long, when I was on my own, I didn’t trust anyone with any kind of my affairs. Now, I had a trusted circle that took care of so much that I got to focus on the future, and the positive impact, I wanted to make in the world of CGs.

  “What have you got?” I heard a voice ask from behind me. It was Kennedi.

  She walked into the kitchen with her long tail swishing behind her. It was a brilliant orange color with black rings around it. As she passed behind me to get to her chair, she brushed her soft hand across the back of my shoulders and paused to kiss me on the cheek. I caught her gaze before she turned away, and she winked one of those emerald green eyes at me. She was absolutely beautiful. Once she was seated, she leaned forward and put her elbows on the island, cupped her face in her hands, and looked back and forth from Krysta to Rosie.

  “Oh, stop it, Kennedi,” Ellie chuckled from the other side of the room. “You heard every word they said!” Kennedi smiled mischievously.

  “Ellie, why do you have to be a spoilsport?” Kennedi feigned irritation. Ellie threw a kitchen towel at her.

  “Because I can!” Ellie laughed as she ducked down to avoid the towel flying back at her. “And now YOU can go get me a clean towel for the veggies!”

  “The only thing on my list of things NOT to do today is to get you a towel!” Kennedi stuck her nose up in the air and pretended to be checking an imaginary to-do list. “Yep! There it is… do NOT get towels for Ellie.”