by Terry Spear
Stella was fascinated as he went about his chores and she thought he might even be showing off a little. Which she thought was cute.
They had lunch with the Havertons later, and then she went to sit out on the porch again to watch all the activities. The kids were playing on bales of hay, but then Tracey told Ted to go inside with Stella to make some scarecrows and he saluted Tracey, then escorted Stella inside the house. Both Koda and Zula came in to lie by their feet at the couch. If Ted was through working, they were ready to join him and take a snooze. She had to lean down and pet them.
Then Stella sat back up, ready to get to work.
“Tracey wants you to rest more and get warmed up.” Ted started a fire in the fireplace.
Stella had been feeling a bit chilled so she was glad they had gone inside.
"I've got to get started on making some of these scarecrows." Ted brought out a bunch of worn jeans and western shirts, some old pillowcases, a box of safety pins, and some bandanas and carried them into the living room where they were going to watch a movie. "You can sit there and see me create them. Just rest."
"No way. I've never made one before, and I'm helping too." She was eager to assist him with creating scarecrows. This would be fun, and she'd finally get to do something to help with decorating for Halloween like she'd wanted to from the beginning.
"Okay, ready for your first lesson?" He brought out a stack of old newspapers and a sack full of plastic sacks and set them on the coffee table.
"I sure am."
"Great. First, button, zip or close the shirts and pants." He brought out a spool of string and a couple of pairs of scissors.
She could certainly do that. She began buttoning all the shirts. He was cutting off lengths of string. Then she began fastening all the fasteners on the pants. "How did you learn to do this?"
"Tracey had me help her last year, then she gave me the project this year since I was so good at it. A bunch of us are going to get together to make a lot more of them, but I wanted to get started on some."
"And the two on the front porch? Did you make them?"
"Yeah, Kolby and I made them last year, and we liked them so much, we just stored them for this year." He started crumpling up the newspaper.
"They're really cute. I would have saved them too." She finished fastening all the clothes.
This was fun. But especially because she was doing it with Ted while they were half-watching a thriller on TV, the fire crackling in the fireplace and he paused to wash the ink off his hands, then made them steaming cups of spiced apple cider. Then he was back to crumpling paper. After that, he began to stuff the pillowcases with the paper.
"Tie strings around the shirt arms and pants legs to close them," he said. "Then we stuff them with the plastic bags or crumpled up newspaper. And then just use the safety pins to attach the shirt to the pants at the waist."
She began stuffing the jeans with plastic bags. “Are all these clothes yours?"
"Nah. Everyone donated them last year for the project. That's the great thing about the cougar community. Everyone helps out. I've got markers for drawing the faces, but we also have scraps of felt to use to create the faces—glue on or sew on."
"You have a sewing kit?"
"You bet. I know how to sew buttons or tears in clothing." He smiled at her.
She smiled. "Good. I'll sew on some faces."
Once all the pants and shirts were stuffed, they began to safety pin them together and tucked the "tail" of the pillowcase stuffed heads into the neck of the shirt. Then secured the heads to the necks of the shirts with safety pins.
She cut up some triangles to make eyes for some of the faces while Ted was creating other faces with marker.
Then he left the house and returned with a small bale of straw in a bucket. "We tuck these around the neck, leg, and shirt openings and glue them where necessary."
She helped him with that but paused to see the heroine in the movie thriller in a tight spot and had to see her get out of it. She'd been shot in the leg and had to take cover. Then someone was shooting from a different angle and everything went silent, until the heroine heard running footfalls headed in her direction. She raised her gun to shoot at the gunman when the hero called out to her, "Where are you, Sheri?"
"Russell!"
And then there was more gunfire.
Silence.
Stella was glued to the show now, unable to work on the scarecrow she'd been adding straw to until she learned how this turned out.
Then the heroine heard footfalls again, only this time, they sounded different. She didn't dare call out where she was again.
"It's me, Russell," the hero said, limping into view and she struggled to get up from where she was sitting.
"No, don't get up. We've got help coming."
Stella smiled. Then began working on the scarecrow again. "I love happy endings."
"Like yours."
She smiled at Ted. "Yeah, really nice to a rough beginning."
Once they had finished all ten scarecrows, Ted stacked them near the bookcases. "We'll put them up tomorrow, while you're back at your job, unless you change your mind and want to stay here another day."
"I'd love to, really. It's a catch-22. If I didn't heal so fast, I'd go in on Wednesday, and rest another day. But then my wounds wouldn't be as visible to my co-workers. If I go in tomorrow, they'll be more visible, but I'll be tired too. I might leave work a little early, if I get too worn out."
"That sounds like a good idea. Don't overdo it or you'll end up back in the clinic here. Though if you do, I'll bring you more flowers and bring you home-cooked meals, part of the Yuma Town clinic experience."
She laughed. "What if someone else is hospitalized and wants the same treatment?"
"I suspect I might be banned from the clinic."
She smiled. She really was enjoying being here with him and even doing the arts and crafts was a joy. She hadn't done anything like that in forever. She was glad she could make these with Ted.
They finished the movie then. He was going to grill steaks, a special send off before she returned home to Grand Junction. She had such mixed emotions about it. She truly wanted to just stay here and be with him at least for another day. But she knew, as addictive as he was, she'd want to stay another day, and another, until Friday came, and it was time for the Halloween party. And then what? Stay the weekend and then be feeling the same way about the next week? She had it in mind that maybe she'd get it out of her system. This need to be with other cougars. To be with Ted. That she was just tired from being injured. That once she was her normal self, she would be ready to return to doing her normal activities.
But she suspected spending a whole week with Ted wouldn't be enough, or that it would change her mind about being with him further. She couldn't stay here though. What about Kolby and the other ranch hands? They had to return to the bunkhouse. And then it wouldn't be the same—just her and Ted enjoying the house like it was their own. Besides, Ted had to get back to work and she knew she would be bored if she was just watching him work or sitting in the house curled up on the sofa, watching TV.
"Hey, after I start the steaks, do you want to make some pumpkin pie together? Do you even like pumpkin pie?"
"I do. I love pecan pie too."
"Okay, next time, we'll have a pecan pie." Once he started the steaks, he and Stella started working on the pumpkin pie.
She had already started on the pie crust and he smiled at it.
"Now that looks good," he said.
"It was one of the things my adoptive mother taught me how to do. Make pie crusts. And pies. It was the only kind of dessert she liked."
Then instead of him teaching her how to make a pie, he became her assistant, helping her with the pie filling and then he had to check on the steaks again. They soon sat down to eat and then he asked her, "Can you come early to the party on Friday?"
"I was thinking of that. So I could help out if anyone needed me to."
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br /> "Good. I will be anticipating your return all week."
She smiled. "At least it's a short week now. Just three days and a wake up. So what other crafty things do you make?" She was fascinated that he even made scarecrows and painted pumpkins. She would love to get into more craft work to give herself a hobby instead of just watching TV or reading books after work or on the weekends.
"Hmm, well, I've whittled a bit. And I help build the stone wall for Tracey's garden, because she wanted to keep the cows and horses out of her vegetables. The calves had sneaked under the fence to the pastureland and ended up in her garden one time, and she had a fit. I don't blame her. They pulled up all her vegetables and ate half of them."
"Oh, that would be frustrating."
"It was. So I was designated as the castle wall builder. Chase, whose ancestors built and maintained a castle in Scotland, helped me design it and build it. Though a lot of the guys ended up helping with the project, and we made a real celebration out of it. That's how we do things around here. The ladies brought us drinks and visited with each other. All the CSF agents, deputy sheriffs, sheriff, Kolby, they were involved in a lot of it. It took a lot of teamwork."
"That's what I would love to have around a garden. It makes it look like a country estate garden with the moss growing on the rocks in the shade, and the little rock sedums. So cute. I never would have imagined you and the others built it. I just figured some landscape company did it. That is so neat."
"Thanks. It turned out really well. The wrought iron gates leading into the garden were Chase's idea too, since they had those at the old Scottish estate."
"I love that."
After Ted and Stella finished dinner, it was time for her to drive home.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay at the ranch one more night?” he asked.
“No, I really feel fine and I don’t have that much sick leave to use up.”
“All right. Well, I can drive you home, while someone else drives your vehicle to your apartment.”
"No, I can do it," Stella said to Ted, and she helped him clean up after the meal. She gave him a hug and a kiss after they were done. She knew he didn't want to see her go. She hadn't figured she would feel this way about a man so completely after knowing him for such a short time, but she really would miss his company and everyone else's once she returned home.
After one final kiss, she finally climbed into her Jeep and left to return to Grand Junction. When she reached home, she should have felt glad to be in her own little home. But it was dark and quiet and not half as nice as the bunkhouse. Her apartment looked over a parking lot and other parts of the complex. A pool and clubhouse were situated in the middle, but the pool was closed for the fall and it didn't appeal as much as the pond and the waterfall that she and Ted had ridden to by horseback.
Despite having been shot and bitten beforehand, the last couple of days had been magical. Still, she was looking forward to Halloween and couldn't wait to return to see the cougars—especially Ted, who made her melt in his arms.
Chapter 8
When Stella went to work on Tuesday morning, she hadn’t wanted to say anything about what had happened to her and hoped no one else would bring it up.
"Did you have a nice three-day weekend?" Tori asked as if she really didn’t believe Stella had been shot.
"Right." Getting shot twice didn't count as a fun three-day weekend, but Stella couldn't be gladder that she'd found so many new friends, cougar friends, to party with.
"So tell us what happened," Tori said.
Stella knew they didn't believe she'd been shot and bitten by a rattlesnake. How could she have been back to work this quickly? It was a good thing she still had the wounds to prove that she had, though they had healed up to some degree, much faster than if she'd been human. She pulled off her suit jacket and showed them her arm where she’d been shot twice. Even the lawyers came out of their offices to see her wounds. Then she sat down and lifted her pant leg to show them her snakebite.
"That's awful," Tori said, the others echoing her statement. "I can't believe you're back to work so soon."
"I'm just lucky I heal pretty quickly, or I wouldn't be."
One of the lawyers said to her, "Have the men responsible been charged for a crime against you?"
"Yes. They were shooting at the building I was in and they could have hit others at the ranch. They were hunters and guess who the one man was?" She told them about Jeffrey Sims. "The man you represented in court for illegal trespass and hunting."
The lawyer's face fell a little. Stella and the other paralegals loved their work when they were helping a lawyer protect someone who was being railroaded into pleading guilty of a crime. But in a case like Sims, they knew he would be the kind of man that would continue to do illegal hunting, figuring he could get away with it over and over again, as long as he always had a high-paid lawyer who was good at his job to represent him.
This time, she hoped the lawyers in the agency wouldn't represent him.
"If he gets away with shooting you, I'll represent you in a civil case," Kristy Brown said. "I won't be representing Sims or his buddies this time. I'm sorry to hear it. Are you doing okay?"
"Yeah, but it was frightening, and the men had shot up the place when there were four four-year olds in the yard. What kind of men do something like that? It's just a good thing that the walls of the barn helped to slow down the bullets so when they impacted with me"—which wasn't true at all—"they didn't do as much damage."
“Well, they’ll have to seek someone else’s representation this time.”
That made Stella feel better. "Thanks. I appreciate that."
Then the lawyers and she got back to work, but during lunch break, Tori asked her, "So what were you doing in a barn at a horse ranch?"
"I had taken a horse ride earlier."
"Oh, no, were any of the horses injured?"
"No, thankfully." She'd never really thought out the consequences of her actions—of endangering the livestock, or people at the ranch when she headed for that barn. To her, that was her place of escape and she hadn't been able to think of anything else. Of course, she hadn’t thought the men would shoot at anything other than her either.
"Oh, good. Because I know the prosecutor would prosecute this case, but if the ranch owners need civil representation also, our lawyers would certainly represent them."
"Thanks. I'm sure they would."
"Are you having nightmares about it?"
"Yeah. It's hard not to as the men riddled the barn with bullets. Thankfully, one of the men visiting the ranch happened to be an FBI agent. He was armed and shouting to them to drop their weapons and get on the ground."
"Oh, how awful."
No matter how bad the situation had been, life threatening for several of them, especially herself, at least she'd had a great story to tell about why she had taken a sick leave day for Monday.
"Wait, so why did they shoot up the barn? Were they pissed off at the rancher for some reason?"
This was the problem with telling the staff the real reason she had missed work yesterday. But she hadn't wanted to pretend she was just sick and couldn't make it in and then seemed perfectly healthy. She never did that in her life, and she wasn't going to now. But she knew, if they followed the news when they went to trial, the men would say they were shooting at a white cougar—which seemed ridiculous enough that maybe no one would believe them anyway. But it would come out—at least from their testimony, or their lawyers, if the men didn't take the stand and tell their own story in their defense.
"They said they'd shot a white cougar and they believed it had gone into the barn."
The other paralegals stopped their work to listen to her. One said, "No way. Were they drinking?"
"I don't know. All I know is that the ranch foreman who came to see to my injuries—to save my life—was yelling at them to throw down their weapons too. He had a rifle on him when he came into the barn to check on me."
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"They knew you'd been shot already?"
"No, but Ted was afraid I might have been as many bullets as the hunters had fired at the building and through the open doors."
"Oh, I bet you were scared."
"Yeah, I managed to make it up a ladder into a hayloft. Truly, I don't even remember it. I just remember Ted coming to see me there."
"And the rattlesnake bite?" Tori asked.
"I don't remember exactly. I think it was in the barn when I went inside. I heard a rattle, and I knew there was a rattlesnake, but the men were shooting, and I was just trying to find cover."
"There isn't such a thing as a white cougar," one of the women said. "I mean, it says here on this website they're so rare, that I doubt that's what they saw."
"They claim they shot it. But there was no cougar in the barn and no wounded cougar anywhere on the acreage. The ranch hands and several people went out and looked. They intended to take care of it and put it in a cat reserve near there." She had to fabricate that part, but she knew of the cat reserve. She'd gone there a few times, hoping that if there ever was a cougar locked up in there who was truly a shifter, she could figure out a way to free him or her. She'd never had any indication one was, but it was just something she felt she needed to do because she'd hoped that if she had ever ended up in one, someone would do that for her.
"Could it have run off?" Tori asked.
"If it had been shot twice and bleeding the whole way that they said it had, probably not. He would have bled to death. Vultures would have circled the area if the cat had died or was near death somewhere. The ranch hands watched for any signs of it, but they didn't find a trail of blood, and no sign of vultures circling, indicating something had died."
"So the men had lied,” Tori said.
"Or they were drunk. Who knows?"
"Oh, did they get a picture of it?" Tori asked.