Catamount Ridge (8 page)

7

THE MORNING OF the Fourth of July found the Marcus family squatting at the best spot in town to enjoy the celebration. They had been staking out this same location since the family first came to Silverton.

Red Clay Park was the best place to see the fireworks, which would be set off later in the evening. The area they claimed had it all. Barbeque pits on one side, shade trees on the other, and a picnic table in the middle.

Water balloon fights and soaker races kept the residents cool during the heat of the day, and marshmallow roasting fires kept them warm after the sun dipped below the horizon.

Jessie sat under the trees in a dilapidated folding chair she remembered from her very young childhood. Her father must have repaired this same chair more than ten times since it came into his possession.

Sally relaxed next to her in a matching webbed lounger. “I’m glad your kids are here. I’ve missed them.”

Jessie had mixed feelings about her boys being in Silverton. It was a selfish move on her part, but missing them had become too much to bear. She hugged the daylights out of them when her ex-husband dropped them off. Scott even received a thank you hug for letting them come, but Jessie doubted any of them were safe.

“Look at your dad playing with your boys,” Sally chuckled. “He looks twenty years younger.”

Sally was right. Cade Marcus loved his grandchildren. The boys wouldn’t be here long, but by the time she got them back to their father, they would be spoiled rotten.

Her cousin nudged her arm. “I heard a rumor. Please tell me you aren’t dating Derek Foster.”

Derek’s wounds hadn’t been as serious as her assistant made them out to be. He still sported a black eye and had a cast on his arm, but his chest wounds were superficial. Stitches were needed, but none of the claw marks ended up being particularly deep.

If Ice had been the mountain lion inflicting the damage, he would have been thorough. This second rate hatchet job had been done by someone else.

Derek was taking his turn overseeing the cubs. For a fee, the public could climb inside their pen and get up close and personal with the animals. Jessie balked at the idea of the unusual cubs being fondled, but the town council overrode her objections. The idiots thought fundraising was more important than the cubs’ health or the safety of the public. All hell would break loose if Ice caught wind about how his cubs were being treated. Since that was not an argument Jessie could present to the uninformed council, she dug in her heels and refused to let the issue go. For no other reason than to shut her up, a compromise was reached and the full day of public handling was cut in half.

Jessie grinned sheepishly at her cousin’s worried face. “Dating is a strong word for what Derek and I are doing,”

Sally grinned and stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong. “So it’s just for the sex?” she inquired sheepishly.

Luckily, Derek was too busy playing up his injuries for that to be an issue. The reprieve wouldn’t last forever, but the Guardianship assured her the problem would be resolved with swift precision. Jessie wasn’t stupid. She had a pretty good idea what that meant. The group had a vast arsenal and a score to settle. Abducting Lizzy was the shifters’ first mistake, but involving Jessie in their quest for survival would be their undoing.

Jessie wanted to ease Sally’s mind, but changing the subject seemed far easier. She retrieved a small brown bag from under her chair, and asked, “Sal, would you mind watching the boys? I need to talk to Dad.”

Sally took the brush-off in stride. “I would be delighted.”

As much as she trusted her cousin, Jessie felt the need to reiterate. “Just you. Don’t delegate their care to anyone else, for any reason.”

The middle-aged spinster took another sip of lemonade. “Understood, Mama Bear. Derek won’t get within a hundred yards of them without you around to take him down.”

Jessie had only met a few members of the Guardianship. The way her cousin replied made her wonder if Sally had joined the cause. Her cousin didn’t seem the type, but she was privy to most of the town’s secrets. The lady possessed a formidable inner strength and was fiercely protective of those she loved.

Jessie cocked a questioning brow in her cousin’s direction and a sly smile quirked up one side of Sally’s face. That was all the reassurance she needed. The lady would not let her down.

Jessie caught her father’s attention and called out, “Let’s take a walk.”

Cade smiled and waved her over. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

She wasn’t sure of anything, but it was time. Jessie focused the all-knowing teacher glare she learned from Grace down on her children. “Cousin Sally is going to watch you for a few minutes. Do not give her a hard time. Do you understand me?” Fighting to maintain a straight face, she repeated, “Do not give her a hard time.”

The boys grinned from ear-to-ear. They let out a whooping screech and raced off towards their mother’s unsuspecting cousin. Within seconds, Sally’s lounge chair was tipped over, and she was on the ground fending off two exuberant towheads.

Cade laughed out loud. “You’re bad.”

“Yeah, we planned that,” Jessie agreed. “But look. Sally loves it.”

“And if she didn’t, you could say you told them to be good.”

There was no fear in that. Sally was always up for a good joke. Jessie stepped towards the road. “Come on, Dad. It’s time. I’ve put this off long enough.”

Her breath caught in her throat as they approached the street, and long pent-up tears welled in her eyes. Not knowing if she could make her feet move forward, she hesitated.

Cade gripped her elbow and propelled her along.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m with you. Whatever happens, I’ll always be with you.”

They passed through the gates of the county cemetery and stopped in front of her baby brother’s grave. It was Jessie’s first visit.

She stared at the etched name above the date of his death, and wished with all her heart that she hadn’t caused him to break his fishing pole.

Her father’s words were slow and steady. “I know what you did. You told us rattlesnakes could choose whether to release its venom. You also said most bites were dry. In your eight-year-old irritating way, your reassurance kept Nathan calm. I read that pamphlet later. You knew baby rattlers don’t have control over their venom. The moment they’re startled, it pumps out. Those little suckers are far more dangerous than their adult counterparts, but you gave us hope. You sat next to your brother and bickered with him like it was just another day.” Cade closed his eyes and hung his graying head. “I can’t imagine how you maintained your composure with so much at stake. I was proud of you back then, but it’s nothing compared to the pride I have for the woman you’ve become.”

Jessie wasn’t sure she deserved her father’s generous accolades, but Nathan was an old guilt she learned to live with a long time ago. It was a new guilt that plagued her. Doubts about whether she did right by Ice kept creeping into her mind.

“Baby, girl,” her father said, interrupting her thoughts. “I know you think you have it all figured out, but Derek Foster shouldn’t be anywhere near our family.”

That was another accolade she didn’t deserve. Jessie had no idea what she was doing. “I’m keeping my friends close and my enemies closer,” she explained.

Cade wasn’t happy, but he understood. “We’ve all done that a time or two. The boys could be in danger though.”

On that point, they were in complete agreement. “The kids are only staying until tomorrow,” she explained. “They are much safer with Scott than they are here.”

Disappointment filled her father’s face. “I’m going to miss them, but it won’t be for long. We have a mess to work out, but my money is on the Guardianship.” His gaze shifted down to Nathan’s headstone. “You were the one who got us through that day, and for months afterward.” A tear slid down his cheek. “I’ll never be able to repay you or thank you.”

That was the opening Jessie had been waiting for. “There’s something I need to do and I hope you’ll be okay with it.”

Cade frowned. “I’m sure it will be fine. What is it?”

Jessie opened the brown bag. “Out of respect for you and Mom, I’ve held back, but I don’t want to do that anymore.” She popped the top of a small white container and dumped a glob of wiggling night crawlers on her brother’s grave.

“Hey, Dweeb!” she shouted at the ground. “That’s what worms look like. You would have known that if you had come up on the deck to read with me!”

Cade barely suppressed a laugh. “Feel better now?”

Jessie smiled and looked up into her father’s twinkling eyes. “It’s too soon to tell. Come on, let’s get back to the boys.”

They came up behind Derek, and Jessie wrapped an arm around the ranger’s waist. “You’re doing pretty well considering you’re an anti-social long-term hut monger.”

Derek’s lips brushed against her cheek, but his golden eyes blinked in confusion. He didn’t understand the reference. A smile quirked up both sides of Jessie’s face. It was the confirmation she needed to solidify her belief that Ice picked her up on the ridge after the failed attack and tried to save her.

The Guardianship took Ice away after Grace tranquilized him down in her basement. Under the guise of protecting her, the Guardianship kept the outcome of the ensuing interrogation secret. The action simply forced Jessie to conduct an investigation of her own. She was still unclear how or why she ended up in Derek’s cabin, but Ice’s story seemed to be panning out.

Derek was becoming increasingly suspect. The man never mentioned his cousin’s disappearance. Something had to be up if a species on the verge of collapse wasn’t concerned about one of their few surviving members.

Ranger Cindy Daniels came up and dispersed the crowd. “Sorry, everyone. Time’s up. The cubs need to get back to the rescue center.” She shooed the stragglers away, and after the cubs were packed inside their dog kennel, she turned to her boss. “My vacation will officially begin after I drop the cubs off. I won’t be back in the office until the nineteenth.”

It was the first Jessie heard of Cindy’s vacation plans, but she was relieved. The blonde irritated the hell out of her and being Cindy-free for a couple of weeks sounded like heaven.

The young woman walked away, and Jessie waved a happy goodbye.

•   •   •

CINDY SAT ON the fur blankets Derek left in the mine. She rocked and cooed the feisty cub as she fed him the breast milk she picked up from the donation center down in Sacramento. The other one waited patiently by her side. The sickly little guy was doing much better, and Cindy was certain he would survive.

Getting the cubs back had been easier than expected. That fool, Jessie Marcus, had done exactly what she and Derek planned from beginning to end. Ice’s disappearance could only mean one thing. The bitch had killed him.

That rigid stickler had to go. Now they were free to propagate their species anyway they pleased. All of her own offspring had died. It was clear mating with Derek wasn’t going to produce a viable cub. None of them had wanted to admit it, but Ice had been right all along. It was time to search out new blood. Their small little offshoot was floundering, but somewhere out in the world, there had to be other shifters. The old woman who raised them didn’t even know the proper name of their species. The trio had fumbled along in the dark to get as far as they had. Cindy thought they had done pretty well. Life became a lot easier once they figured out how easy it was to influence people. There was something transcendental about their eyes. The simple act of making eye contact made the human race pliant and suggestible. It was a gift they couldn’t afford to go without if their species were to survive.

According to the old woman, males could mate with any female mountain lion. Her cubs would gain the ability to shift if they formed a connection with a human female and were fed her mother’s milk. It stood to reason, that female shifters could give birth to a shifting cub, but so far, it hadn’t worked.

Derek needed to get Jessie back up here to finish the job she started. If the cubs got much older without forming that special bond, then everything they worked so hard to achieve would have been for nothing. If presented the opportunity, Cindy would love to raise cubs of her own, but realistically, Ice’s cubs presented the best hope of their bloodline continuing. After the Lizzy disaster, Derek didn’t want another blubbering surrogate and handpicked his tough new boss. She missed her own children and he thought the adorable little cubs would kick her maternal instinct into high gear. All he needed was a few more hours with the woman and their species would be saved.

The voice of Grace Langston broke the stillness of the cave. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t little Cindy Daniels. Long time no see.”

Cindy set the cub aside and faced her old schoolteacher. “Ms. Langston, what brings you here?”

Grace raised her Beretta and aimed it at Cindy’s chest. “You appear to be derelict in your duty. I’ve come to take the cubs back to the rescue center.”

Saving the cubs was the only thing that mattered. Ms. Langston could not be allowed to leave the cavern alive, let alone with the cubs. Cindy stepped closer to gaze into Ms. Langston’s eyes.