Catamount Ridge (9 page)

Grace chuckled. “Sorry dear, I’ve seen that trick pulled too many times. That hypno-babble doesn’t work on me. It never did.” She walked over to the cubs and nudged one with the toe of her boot. The cub playfully pounced on her foot. Grace grinned and gently pushed him aside. “We’ve been watching the cousins for a long time. You covered your tracks well, but once we discovered Ice’s Achilles heel, he gave you up. When your clan drove Lizzy insane, the Guardianship wanted revenge. Cooler heads prevailed for a time, but you crossed the line when you messed with Jessie. That crime will not go unpunished. Funny how things work out. If we had killed the cousins back then, we would have never discovered your existence.”

Cindy’s eyes narrowed with anger. After she dealt with this wrinkled old witch, and if Ice was still alive, he would feel the heat of her wrath. Since her first menses, it was understood that she was to be protected at all costs. Her womb had been their species only hope. It wasn’t her fault Derek’s sperm was defective and that all attempts at producing a viable offspring failed. If Ice hadn’t refused to mate with her, none of this would have ever happened.

The Guardianship, whoever that was, would have to be destroyed as well, but right now, Cindy had a score to settle. She stepped forward with new purpose. “Do you know how much I hated you and that shrilly whistle you used to blow out in the schoolyard? You picked on me all the fucking time. Say goodbye old woman. You are about to die.”

“Give it your best shot,” Grace challenged. “We’ll see if your quick-change is faster than my gun. Personally, I think I have the upper hand.”

Without giving the shifter any further opportunity, she fired twice, straight into Cindy’s heart.

“You bitch!” Cindy clutched her chest and melted into animal form. Weak chucking sounds begged for help as her blood pooled around her dying carcass.

For no other reason than pure spite, Ms. Langston pulled a shrilly whistle out from around her neck and blew it as loud as possible, making it the last sound little Cindy Daniels would ever hear.

And then there were two.

Cindy’s phone began to chime. Grace was surprised the phone received a signal this far within the mine. Her own phone barely worked up here in the hills. She made a mental note to check out who Cindy’s provider was. Another good thing to come from this day.

Grace picked up the phone and saw that Derek was calling. She danced a happy jig, ignored his call, and made one of her own.

•   •   •

DEREK WAS NIBBLING on an ear of corn when Cade’s cell phone went off. A slow smile crossed the old guy’s face and a set of knowing eyes locked onto his.

As soon as he pocketed his phone, Cade announced, “Grace is having car trouble. Looks like I have to go give her a hand.”

“Just make sure you’re back in time for the fireworks, Dad,” Jessie called out. “You promised the boys.”

Cade chuckled and stepped lightly towards the road. “This is nothing but a minor inconvenience. The problem will be solved in no time.”

Derek watched Cade leave. Jessie’s father knew something. Cindy was alone with the cubs at the mine, but she hadn’t checked in. Something had to have gone horribly wrong. Over and over he tried her cell. At first, the phone would ring. Now the only response he received was a robotic voice informing him that the caller he was trying to reach was currently unavailable.

Cindy’s phone had been turned off.

“Ladies,” Derek said politely. “I have an errand I need to run. I’ll be back soon.” He stood and quickly followed Cade into the darkness.

The women watched the men leave.

A frown crossed Sally’s face. “Do you think it’s my cooking?”

Jessie wiped a glob of barbeque sauce off her chin and grabbed another rib. “Hell no!”

•   •   •

THE SCENT OF death laced the surrounding air. The golden brown cat approached the entrance to the mine with caution.

Grace walked out of the darkness and held up the feisty cub. Cade’s razor sharp hunting knife was pressed to its neck. “Take a good look, Derek. We wanted you to see how badly you failed before you died.”

Swish! An arrow plunged into the side of the beast, then another, and then one more.

With each beat of his heart, Derek felt his blood pump out of his body. He tried desperately to shift back to his human form, but he didn’t have the strength. Failure was not an option. He couldn’t die now when they were so close to success. He wanted to cry out, but he refused to give his hunters the satisfaction.

As his world turned black, he saw Cade Marcus standing over him holding a compound bow.

•   •   •

No quarter had been given to either Cindy or Derek. The sentence passed down by the Guardianship had been carried out with the promised swift precision.

Gracie removed the bow from Cade’s tight grip. “Jessie and the boys are safe now,” she cooed.

Cade wanted to feel remorse, but the shifters had grown too embolden. Marigold would be the last one to be taken care of. Lizzy’s mother had that covered. As a new employee at the nursing home, Mable was stuck working the Fourth of July night shift. If all went well, she planned on handing in her resignation on the fifth. One night on the job was all she needed. Marigold’s death would be painless. The old battle-ax would not suffer the way her daughter had.

•   •   •

THE MARCUS FAMILY, along with Gracie Langston, stood proudly with hand over heart, singing the Star Spangled Banner. The fireworks display was set to begin the moment the crowd hit the last note of the patriotic song.

Cade lifted Jessie’s youngest son on top of his shoulders and pointed at the nighttime sky. “That’s where the sparks will fly. Plug your ears, boy. Freedom is about to ring.”

8

FACES FLOATED IN the mist. The images shifted and swirled until one came into focus. Nathan’s sappy five-year-old smile beamed from ear-to-ear. “Now you tell me!” he shouted before drifting happily away.

Jessie shot up in bed, the grin on her face matched that of her brother’s. Her message about the worms had been received loud and clear. Not ready to let him go, she gave herself a hug and brushed a tear from her cheek. “Twerp,” she called out softly.

Clear as day, Nathan retorted joyfully, “Butthead.”

Ice rustled beside her. “Is everything okay?”

It was more than okay. Her baby brother had come for a visit. Jessie hoped it wouldn’t be the last, but if it was, this one was special enough to last a lifetime.

“I had a dream. Sorry I woke you.” Ice reached for her, but Jessie shook her head. “Slow down, cowboy. The doc said you need to take it easy for a few weeks.”

Her bedmate chuckled. “Doc? Don’t you mean vet? I’m still wondering how he kept me in human form long enough to perform the vasectomy. No offense, but I don’t trust the Guardianship, and I’m itching to find out if this thing still works.”

Performing the surgery hadn’t been an easy task. The correct dosage of anesthesia had been difficult to find. Too much and Ice shifted into mountain lion form. Too little and he would become aware. That fine line took longer to discover than the actual procedure. They ended up sterilizing both man and beast. The general consensus was that Ice didn’t need to know all the particulars.

Without the ability to procreate, Ice was no longer deemed a threat to the community. It wasn’t clear if Ice had an actual home. Since the mine was an inappropriate place to stage a recovery, the cabin where Derek used to live was their next best option. Jessie stayed on to make sure Ice didn’t shift or overdo it. No one knew exactly what would happen, but shifting too soon would more than likely send him back to the veterinary clinic.

Ice, being Ice, assumed she remained for other more carnal reasons. That belief was reinforced when Jessie decided to sleep in the bed with him, instead of on the couch as she originally planned. It got cold this high up in the mountains and Ice was a furnace. Tomorrow, she would make sure they had firewood available, but she rather liked having Ice beside her. If she had her way, her pillow would never reside on that lumpy couch.

“Would you like to visit the cubs tomorrow?” she offered. “I understand they are doing well.”

The hair on his neck bristled and his eyes turned hard at the mention of his offspring.

“Simmer down, daddy cat,” she scolded. “As soon as they’re weaned, they will be released back into your care. I’ve made arrangements for you to remain here. The cabin is secluded enough for you to teach them how to survive on their own without being disturbed.”

The big bad shifter ran his hands through his dark hair. “That’s a big responsibility. I never saw myself as a nurturer.”

Jessie pushed his torso back into the bedding and snuggled down beside him. “All you have to do is love them. I’m sure you’ll figure out the rest.”

A sexy grin crept onto his lips. “Does this mean my previous methods have been forgiven?”

That was a hard question to answer. The open part of her mind wasn’t sure there was anything to forgive. If he had been honest, she would have undoubtedly refused to nurse the cubs. No matter how resigned Ice was to being the last of his kind, with their survival on the line, he had little choice in the matter. Instinct forced him to try.

From the start, Ice’s clan was lost. Inbreeding had degraded their genetic fitness past the tipping point. Survival drove Derek, Cindy and Marigold to do the unimaginable, and the trio paid dearly for their warped decisions.

Ice understood the need for diversity. He never mated with Cindy. Any offspring they produced would have been less able to cope than themselves, but finding a wild mate was difficult. Other mountain lions sensed his deficiencies and rejected his overtures. The impossible happened when an older female visited one of his scrape sites and began to yowl. Neither was the others’ first choice, but since they couldn’t afford to be picky, Ice mounted her when she moved beneath him.

After giving birth, Derek killed the protective female to gain control of her cubs. Then he took it a step further and devised a plan to get rid of Ice. In lion form, Derek let Cindy wreak enough havoc upon his body to send him to the hospital. The duo pegged Ice as the deranged cat, then sat back and waited for Jessie to do him in.

Their plan almost worked. If Ice hadn’t readily agreed to the vasectomy, he would be pushing up daisies instead of canoodling with his captor. Derek and Cindy weren’t the smartest apples on the tree. Once Ice told his side of the story, the guilty party and their plan had been easily unraveled.

Ice pulled Jessie in a little closer. “When I’m able, perhaps I should scout around for a female to adopt them.”

Jessie leveled him a frosty glare. The typical male response was to let the woman do it. Her dad hadn’t shirked his responsibility after her mother left. Jessie barely tolerated her mom, but she would be a daddy’s girl for the rest of her life.

“Suck it up, Buttercup,” she scolded. “They’ll only tie you down for about eighteen months. I think you’ll survive just fine. They have half your DNA. The cubs might not be able to shift, but somewhere inside, they have a touch of humanity. Let them form a familial connection with you. There are no guarantees, but they might come back around to see you someday.”

His blue eyes turned soft. “It doesn’t sound like it’s only my cubs you’re talking about. As I was drifting in and out of consciousness, I heard something about your kids moving to town permanently.”

He was right. Jessie thought she was doing the right thing by leaving her boys with their dad, but she was wrong. She was grateful they weren’t around during the worst of it, but now that life had settled down, she wanted them back. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have a home of her own. Grandpa Cade loved his grandkids. For him, the noise and broken lamps didn’t hold a candle to storytime before going to bed, or the look of excitement when he taught them something new. Gracie even offered to care for them while Jessie was at work. The retired teacher wasn’t used to her world being so quiet. Knowing her boys, they would give the stern taskmaster a run for her money and that thought alone made Jessie extremely happy.

Loveable cousin Sally volunteered to help fill in the gaps.

Where her relationship with Ice would go was anyone’s guess. Mountain lions were solitary by nature. It stood to reason that trait would stay strong within the shifter population. Finding a new clan wouldn’t be easy, but at some point, she wouldn’t be enough for the wild cat.

With his mesmerizing magnetic gaze, it was difficult to gauge how much he cared for her. The Guardianship had a theory on the subject and didn’t think she had cause to worry. They believed that once you were aware of the power, it was easier to see through the cloud.

Jessie hoped that was true, but in the long run it didn’t matter.

Ice was a shifter and mountain lions didn’t mate for life. They needed their solitude and a large area to roam. The ridge might seem vast to a human, but it was confining to a puma.

Never in her wildest dreams did Jessie imagine being attracted to a shape-shifting mountain lion, but life was unpredictable. She wasn’t under the illusion that she and Ice had found their happy ever after. Someday she would need more than a wandering cat to fill the family void. Jessie wasn’t even sure she wanted to introduce Ice to her children.

The only future she imagined with the blue-gray cat was of a migratory nature. Ice would slip in and out of her life until they each found what they were searching for. One day, Ice would no longer return and leave Jessie wondering what happened to him, or Ice would meander back into town to find Jessie sharing her life with someone else.

Would they be able to wish the other well, or would their mutual ardor create a perpetual tug-of-war they would never be able to escape?

Jessie looked into Ice’s sexy blue eyes and foresaw nothing but trouble. Any relationship they formed was already doomed, but that was a problem for another day. At this moment, she was exactly where she wanted to be.

Fate had brought her home, and Jessie planned on enjoying everything and everyone the town had to offer.