by Terry Spear
Besides, he was feeling tired himself, the headache still plaguing him.
Not that he'd planned to tell Kate or William about it. And he'd tried not to wince or show in any way that it was troubling him. He knew it would go away on its own. He must have slept for a while when he heard his brother talking low to someone nearby. His eyes shot open.
Bill. He had come to speak to Stella. The only good thing about that was that he lived so far away, Ted didn't think Bill could convince her to leave Colorado and join him in Texas, but who knew?
“Hey, how are you doing, Stella?” Bill asked her.
“I’m doing better, thanks.” Then Stella glanced over at Ted and her expressive blue-green eyes widened. But then she smiled. "I'm sorry. Did we wake you?"
"No, I didn't expect to sleep at all. Did you bring us dinner?" he asked his brother.
Bill laughed. "Kate read me the riot act. You eat what they have here for dinner tonight. Hopefully, you will be back at work tomorrow. I can check on Stella."
Hell, now Ted didn't want to be released to return to work and that had never happened to him, ever. He loved his job and the Haverton family was like his own.
Kolby came into the room and smiled broadly at Stella, bringing her red roses.
Why hadn't Ted thought of that? But neither had Bill. Then Elsie came into the room and set vases of more roses on the table near Stella's bed. "I'm sure you'll get lots more." Then Elsie smiled and left the room.
Stella smiled as she read the card. "Thanks, Bill and Ted."
Ahh, hell, Ted wanted to get her his own flowers!
"And thanks—" Stella said to Kolby.
"Kolby is the name. I'm a ranch hand at the Haverton's ranch, ma'am. I helped capture the men who shot you." He was all smiles.
Ted wanted to tell Kolby to look for someone his own age.
Then the food was served, and Bill said, "Okay, I'm off to have dinner with the Havertons. See you when they release you, Ted. Good night, Stella. Sleep well." Bill was about to leave when he noticed Kolby was hanging around. "Come on, Kolby. You'll make everyone wait on dinner when you know they want to put the kids to bed."
Then Bill and Kolby left, and Ted and Stella were alone, and Ted was blissfully grateful.
"So tell me something about your family." Ted wanted to get to know Stella and that meant getting to know her family too.
"Truthfully, I don't have anything to do with my birth parents. My dad thought there was something wrong with my mom because I was a white cougar when I was born," Stella explained, running her hands over the white clinic blanket. "As I got older, he acted worse about me having white fur and wouldn't let me run at all as a cougar, believing I would shame the family if any other cougar shifters saw me like that."
"Hell, it could have been his genes that produced your beautiful white fur." Ted already knew he wouldn't like her dad.
"Yeah, exactly. Except he didn't see it that way. Mom always told me she loved me, but I could tell she was torn between loving me and loving my dad. As far as he was concerned, he couldn't love us both equally. She finally gave me up for adoption so she could stay with my dad and keep the peace."
Ted shook his head. He couldn't believe anyone would give up their only child to another family for no other reason than she had a different color of fur than her parents. Though his own dad had been abusive, and his mother stayed with his dad, so there were some similarities Ted and Stella had with regard to having family issues.
"Anyway, they never had any more kids, like they felt they were cursed because of me and might have more with white coats just like me. But my adoptive parents accepted me just fine. I think it was because they hadn't produced me. So they didn't feel any shame in that. Some cougars have looked at me differently once they learn of the color of my coat, so I've dated mostly humans. Being rare doesn't mean you're special. It means you're an oddity."
"I sure don't see you that way."
"Well, thanks. But everyone wants to see me because—"
"You're rare and special. It's a cougar run town. We're all special. We all care about each other. You won't find any negativism here. Maybe shock, surprise, astonishment, from those who haven't met you before. But they'll see how beautiful you are."
She sighed. "It has made me reject my kind. But when you came to help me, you were so kind and caring—even knowing upfront about the color of my fur, it made me realize not everyone is the same."
"No. Just like with my dad. He was really hard on me and I left home at sixteen. He finally died, but I couldn't go back. I'd made my home here. My mother didn't leave him either, but she protected us the best she could. My father was fine toward her and my sister. He just had a hard time dealing with my brother and me. I have to admit we did get in a fair amount of trouble when we were kids and teens. Nothing illegal, but just being reckless, adventurous, as cougars. My sister wasn't like that. My niece wasn’t either, but she ended up with a bad mate. They're divorced now and she has two kids to raise. I think she's going to move back to the ranch house to help her mom with things."
"But you never want to return?"
"No. Not except for special occasions. My life is here. Bill's is in Texas. When he retires from the FBI, he'll take over the ranch. It's his and my sister’s and I would never take that from them. Not when my brother goes home as much as he can to help out at the old homestead."
"So you'll remain the foreman at the Haverton's ranch."
"As long as they'll have me, yeah. So what happened to your adoptive parents?"
"They emancipated me at sixteen. Long story. They were good to me when I was little, and I really needed that in my life, but it was only because I did what they told me to do without question. But when I was a teen, I began to rail against some of the rules. Mainly, that I couldn't run as a cougar ever because of my white fur. So they would happily take their evening jaunts to run and I was forbidden to leave the house. They were going to move, and I actually liked the school I was attending, though most of us are homeschooled. But I proposed they emancipate me since I was not going with them, and they happily agreed. No fuss, no muss. I expected a big fight, or at least some discussion back and forth, but they were glad—at that point—to be rid of me. So I knew then that though they had said my white fur didn't matter, it did. I had to run, so when they were off on their jaunts, I went in the opposite direction and always timed myself so I would get home before they did.”
Hell, Ted couldn’t imagine not being able to run as a cougar when he was a teen.
"I think they never knew I’d been running on my own as a cougar. At least that was my thought on the matter, but as cougars? Who knows? They might have come across my cougar trails at some time and knew just what I had been up to. They never said anything, and I didn't either."
"Did they move with the intention of taking you out of that environment?"
She laughed. "No. They left articles around the house—the kitchen island, the coffee table—about teens emancipating themselves from their guardians—or else I would never have thought of it. I mean, at the time, I just thought it was by accident. But when they didn't object to my saying I wanted to be emancipated, and said they'd go along with it—even having encouraged me to get a job well before that so I could support myself—not well, but enough to get by and they'd send me money to help with my education until I was eighteen—so I figured it was their plan all along. It worked! And I was happily emancipated and no longer a threat to them when I ran as a cougar in the wild. Once I turned eighteen, they cut off support, though I could have used the help, and then I never heard from them again. I did check to see where they lived, but they had moved, leaving no forwarding address."
"Hell." He couldn’t imagine being on his own at that age without a decent job and a roof over his head. The guys he worked with and the man he worked for were human, but at least they knew his family history and they had been there for him.
"It's no worse than your situation," Stella sa
id.
"Only as far as I left home at sixteen to work on Bob Johnson's ranch, but at least as long as I worked hard, I had a roof over my head, food, a beat-up old pickup, a job, and pay. I can’t imagine what you would have gone through."
“It was rough sometimes, but you know, I always had plans and I tried not to think about wishing for what I couldn’t have—cougar friends who didn’t see me as an oddity.”
“We wouldn’t treat you like that here.”
She smiled.
"So what do you do?" he asked.
"I'm a paralegal for Brown and Sons. I like the job well enough. No cougars work there though. I wanted to find a place to run and I found this area and thought it would be safe."
"Hal and Tracey's property is safe, for the most part. But we have had hunters trespass before and they're fined heavily, sometimes with jail time. This time they'll get jail time because they were shooting at the property and they shot you and could have hit others, including the Haverton's four-year-old quadruplets and their mother."
Tears sprang into Stella's eyes. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry. I never thought they would shoot the ranch up. I only saw the outbuildings, no one there, just the dogs playing with each other. I just thought I could hide there and shift. If the hunters checked out the barn and found me, I would have been human, but then I couldn't shift and was afraid I was done for. Not just because of the trespassing hunters illegally hunting on the property, but whoever was managing the ranch would want me dead, afraid I would go after the horses. Explaining why I was a wounded human who was naked in your barn was one thing, but there was no explaining being a wounded cougar there. I did smell all the cougar scents in the place, but I just wasn't thinking clearly. At one point, I believed that the owners had killed cougars and stored them in there for a while. That wasn't reassuring.
"I'm glad you came to speak with me. I didn't trust you right away, until I smelled you were a shifter. I knew you wouldn't be talking to me and bandaging me up if you had wanted to harm me. But I still couldn't believe a whole community of cougars lived together either. It must be nice."
"Believe me, it is. We look out for each other." They finished their dinners and set their tables aside. "I would have gotten you flowers, if I hadn't been so out of it."
She smiled. "Your brother got them for me from the both of you. I figured as much, but that was sweet of him to include you too. I should have given flowers to you for coming to my aid and reassuring me I was in a safe place, and then giving me blood and injuring yourself afterward."
"Yeah, don't mention that part. Everyone will rib me about that forever."
She smiled. "How does your head feel?"
"Better, after I slept. The Havertons, or another family, will probably want to put you up for a couple of days before you leave, after the doctor releases you." Ted hoped she would agree to stay with them.
"We'll see. I need to get back to work on Monday. So if I'm stuck at the clinic for the weekend, I'll just return home, Sunday night, hopefully.”
“Bill was telling me about Dan charging the men with shooting you when you were human."
"True."
"So you should be able to get off work for that. And the police reports are all done by our own cougars, so there will be no issues with that."
"Okay, good."
“I hear you’re from Grand Junction.”
“I am.”
“You like to live dangerously.”
She smiled. “I know. The place has the reputation of being dangerous there because of the number of both violent crimes and property crimes. That’s why the law firm I work for does so well. They’re always defending a number of criminal cases.”
Ted shook his head. “Then the guilty get off for the crimes they were charged with.”
“Well, you know they have to have the best legal representation to get a fair trial.”
Then they both grew quiet. He was thinking of how he was going to see her again. He was always busy at the ranch, but Hal and Tracey would give him time off when he needed it. He was thinking he would have to visit Stella where she lived, to show her he still cared about what happened to her. He couldn't imagine living among strictly humans and not enjoying the time as a cougar with others like them. But some cougars were real loners and maybe she'd learned to live like that.
"So what do you do as a paralegal? I've never met one before," he said.
"I do a lot of research in my job, to determine the legality of the situation and all the facts in the case. I end up drafting court documents, review and summarize documents and file papers with the court. I communicate with the clients and maintain the files."
"It sounds to me like you do everything."
"No, I'm important to the support of the lawyer's case, but I'm not a lawyer. I love doing research and drafting up the court documents. Well, all of it really."
"That's good. And you haven't had any trouble with the crime in Grand Junction?"
"My apartment was broken into once. I really didn't have anything worth stealing. So they didn't get anything. I have my laptop at work with me, just in case anyone breaks into my apartment."
"You ought to live here. We deal with crime in a hurry, and so we rarely have trouble. A few rogue cougars, a few bad humans, but no one in the town causes us trouble."
"That sounds good." She'd never lived anywhere else than Grand Junction, born and raised.
"I'm glad you're here, despite the circumstances."
"I'm glad I am too." She felt bad that he had hurt himself after giving her blood. He seemed sweet and so was his brother. In fact everyone was so caring, it was refreshing. Particularly since they were all cougars. She was so unused to being around cougars, she wasn't even sure how she would interact with a whole town full of them. She guessed she'd been a loner for so long, she was used to it.
She was feeling tired again, glad she wasn't nauseous or having any numbness due to the snakebite. She figured they must have given her the antivenom quickly enough to counteract the poison.
"I would like to see you after you return home sometime," he said.
She smiled. "I would like that." Then she closed her eyes, too tired to think about anything else or talk about it.
And then she was back in the world of dreams and nightmares.
Chapter 4
In the middle of the night, Ted heard a cougar cry out and he leapt out of bed, ready to grab his rifle, when he realized he was in the clinic, not at the bunkhouse, and the cat that had cried out was a white cougar, tangled in her sheets. And he had no rifle by his side.
Nurse Elsie rushed in.
"She was having a nightmare, I think," Ted said, running his hand over his stubbly face.
"She seems to be sleeping now."
"Yeah, but she about gave me a heart attack."
Elsie smiled at him. "How are you doing?" She was checking Stella's vital signs.
"I'm fine. The headache's gone."
Elsie looked at his chart. "You had a headache? It's not on your chart."
"Yeah, but it's gone." Why didn't Ted remember he hadn’t mentioned the headache before, and he shouldn’t have now?
"Okay, well, if you need anything, just ring. And if Stella is in pain or really restless, let me know."
"Sure, I will."
Then Elsie left, and Ted climbed back into bed, his heart still pounding furiously. He watched the pretty cougar sleeping soundly and he was glad she wanted to see him further. He just wished she would stay at the Haverton's ranch to recuperate longer, just in case she had issues with the gunshot wounds or the rattlesnake bite.
He heard rain on the rooftop and hitting the window. He loved hearing the sound of rain, normally, but he was even gladder for it tonight since the rain would wash away the blood evidence where Stella had left a trail behind from where she’d been shot all the way to the barn. Otherwise, they were going to have to go and wash it away by hand, wherever they could spot or smell the blood.
Then
he finally managed to fall asleep again and the next thing he heard was someone delivering breakfast. That was what he hated about clinics. A body that needed rest couldn't get it. Though he would have been up by now if he'd been at home on the ranch, eating breakfast at the bunkhouse and getting chores done. He guessed the minor concussion he'd had, was worse than he thought.
Stella smiled at him. He was getting used to her being awake when he was asleep. "Elsie said that I nearly gave you a heart attack."
He laughed. "Yeah. You let out a blood curdling cougar cry. Elsie had double-timed it to get here too."
"Sorry about that. I had a nightmare about hunters shooting at me."
"I don't blame you. I would feel the same way. I'm just lucky that when I've ever run into hunters, I've been able to leap up into the rocks and get away from them, or run so fast, they never had a chance. But something like that would definitely give me nightmares. I mean, just being hunted, not even having been shot."
"Here? You've had trouble here before?"
He didn't want her to think it wasn't safe here to run, but they'd had some cases of hunters trespassing on the ranch property before. "A couple of times. We respond to it quickly and with hunter licenses being revoked, heavy fines given, and some jail time, like in this case, it helps to keep people from doing it further. We spread the word, we share it in our local newspaper, all with the hope that hunters will learn not to come here and violate our laws. But there are always those who don't get the word. In your case, killing a white cougar was just too tempting."
"I try not to stay in any one area to run, just in case anyone spies me and captures me on a camera, and everyone descends on the area. But I do need to run as a cougar sometimes. It's just in our blood."
"I agree."
"I was so afraid you would think I was a cougar after the horses. But I guess the horses are used to cougars, and they aren't upset when you shift."
"No. We'll have to scold the dogs, Koda and Zula, though. They should have alerted us way before the hunters began shooting up the place."