Cougar's Mate

by Terry Spear

  He hoped she’d be pleased with the slipper boots, snow boots, another bra, another pair of jeans, a pair of turquoise sweats, five T-shirts, three proclaiming Yuma Loves Pumas! Pumas Love Yuma! Cougar Power!—because she needed to feel that she belonged here.

  When she’d washed the guest bedroom linens, he worried that she intended to leave for good and as a kindness to her host, she had washed them. But then it appeared she was intending to make the bed and sleep in it again. He waited a minute or two, and then figured he’d help her make the bed, and maybe they could talk.

  He didn’t want to pressure her into staying with him in his bed tonight, though he definitely wanted her in it—with him. Not because of the sex, though he wouldn’t discount that. But because he thought the more she got used to being with him, the closer she got to him, the less likely she’d leave.

  “I’ll help you,” he said, before she could object, and he moved to the opposite side of the bed and began to help her make the guest bed.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Last night was… special. But it’s better if I sleep here from now on.”

  “Did… was I too pushy?” He hated the insecurity in his words but he feared he’d pushed her before she was ready for anything this intimate. Even though she’d acted as though she had wanted him as much as he had felt the same raging need to make love to her.

  She shook her head, but she avoided looking at him, and he feared she was tearful again.

  He dropped the corner of the sheet he was supposed to tuck underneath the mattress and came to her side, but she quickly held her hand up to keep him from comforting her. “It’s… it’s nothing. I just need to do this.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Are you certain?” His eyes were on hers, watching her emotions, seeing the turmoil. It was killing him not to be able to push through her barrier.

  She nodded, her eyes filled with tears.

  He let out his breath and returned to the other side of the bed, helped finish making it, then said, “If you need anything, you know where I am. Good night, Shannon.”

  As much as it killed him to do so, he had to give her the space she needed. Let her come to terms with this on her own. He wasn’t letting her go.

  He walked out of the bedroom and shut the door, his heart feeling like it had been filled with stones, then ripped out, and thrown into Lake Buchanan where it sank to the bottom.

  He hoped she’d change her mind and join him, or maybe even call him and ask him to return to her room, but he knew it wouldn’t happen.

  He retired to his bed, undressed, and climbed into the clean sheets, disappointed he couldn’t breathe in her delightful scent. Was that why she had washed the sheets? To clean away everything that had happened between them last night?

  He sighed, wanting to kiss her more, to hold her tight, wished to make love to her again. He shook his head at himself, not believing after vowing he'd never marry again, never find anyone again, he was already thinking along those lines. He would do anything to protect Shannon, he told himself. And she wasn’t having any part of it.

  Hell, he was really, really interested in her. In more than a protective sort of way. He reached over and grabbed his laptop off his bedside table, opened it up to answer emails and something, maybe his police training, made him check his browser history. He’d smelled her scent on his laptop, but she’d dusted the furniture with a lemon cleaner and moved the laptop to do so. Still, his police instinct and cat wariness kicked in.

  In the browser history, he discovered she’d accessed maps, terrain features of Colorado, bus locations, and schedules. He ground his teeth. He’d thought Shannon was feeling safe with him. She was like a deer ready to bolt. He just couldn’t let her.

  His cell phone rang. Grabbing it off his bedside table, he saw it was Dan. "Yeah, Dan?" He knew his buddy would have news or he wouldn't be calling at this late hour.

  "Okay, I have bad news. Are you alone?"

  Chase's heartbeat quickened as he set his laptop down on the bedside table. "Yeah, what's going on?"

  "I finally got a police bulletin that shows a picture of Shannon that isn’t really the best of shots. But between that, her approximate age, and that she has no living relatives, and that her first name is Shannon, I’m betting this is her. In Canyon, Texas, Shannon Rafferty is wanted as a person of interest in an ongoing investigation concerning the murder of her boyfriend, Ted Kelly."

  Chase felt numb. She’d said that. That if she was called a person of interest in some investigation to know it was all a lie. "Tell me all about it."

  "When her boyfriend didn’t show up at work—and get this, he was a cop—“

  Chase couldn’t believe it.

  “—his family grew concerned. They tried calling both him and Shannon, and there was no response on either of their phones. They discovered a bloody scene where her boyfriend, Ted, was stabbed numerous times in the kitchen of his home and left for dead. They determined he had died approximately forty-eight hours earlier. She and her car were reported missing shortly after that. Her car was found a few days later, purse, ID, credit card, cash, keys, her clothes, and a couple of bags. Everything appeared to have been left intact. They don’t have much crime out there or the car would have been stolen along with everything that she had left behind. Instead, the old farmer who reported it was afraid she’d met with foul play and didn’t want to leave his fingerprints on anything so he didn’t touch anything. The fingerprints that were lifted belonged to Ted Kelly and someone else who wasn’t in the database. Had to have been Shannon’s since the car’s registered in her name.”

  Chase’s head swam with all the possibilities as he tried to see this from Shannon’s standpoint. "Was it a home invasion? She witnessed the murder but didn't know who they were, and they came after her? Or maybe it had to do with someone the cop had arrested previously and the man was out for revenge? And she had seen what he’d done to her boyfriend?" Chase asked, grasping at any case that could clear her of having killed her own boyfriend.

  "Family and friends are always the first suspects. You know that, Chase."

  "Damn it, I know it, but she said if someone came around saying she was a person of interest in a crime that was committed it would be a lie."

  “Hell, when did she tell you that?”

  “A little while ago. If she witnessed the murder, and I highly suspect that she had, which was why she ran, she would be a person of interest. It might have been a case of self-defense even, but she was afraid it wouldn't look that way because he was a cop and she ran off. That makes her look guilty in the eyes of the law. Was the place a human-run town?"

  "Yes. So they're not going to keep it hushed up. They have a dead cop and they need to pin the blame for his murder on someone."

  "What have they got on her whereabouts?"

  "They thought she was headed for Florida. They'd been tracking her, or they thought they had, but discovered she'd thrown her cell phone in the bed of a pickup truck headed to Florida when he’d stopped for gas at a service station and run in to use the restroom."

  “Did she get gas there?”

  “Yeah, used her credit card. She had to or she would have had to go inside and pay with cash. That’s where they picked up a grainy picture of her by the pumps. No other pictures of her anywhere. Not at her house. Nowhere.”

  “Except her driver’s license,” Chase said.

  “Didn’t look like her at all. She’d had blond hair and it had been cut short.”

  Chase couldn’t imagine her as a blond. Then he frowned. Was she really a blond? No. All of her hair was dark.

  "They found her abandoned car in Texas only about two hours from where she lived in Canyon out in some farm land. They said there was no sign of blood or a struggle though, so they assume she was still alive when she left the vehicle. Still, the police think she might have been the victim of a crime because she had left everything behind. Some think she might have witnessed her boyfriend's murder, and the mur
derer or murderers caught up with her finally. But because they haven’t located her body, they're still looking."

  "This isn't good," Chase said, rubbing the whiskers on his chin.

  "No, it isn’t. At least they have no money trail to look for. So that's good."

  "Was he a shifter?”

  “We don’t know and we can’t go asking them. Not without alerting them we might know something of her whereabouts.”

  “If her boyfriend's family are shifters, they could track her trail."

  Dan let out his breath. "Yeah. There's the real problem. Her boyfriend's two brothers are police officers also. He's got an uncle on the police force in another town."

  "Hell. And how much do you want to bet they are shifters and they’re behind trying to have her hung? They know a shifter can't be tried for murder. She can't go to jail."

  Dan didn't say anything.

  The news really hit Chase hard. "They want to put her down. God damn it."

  "That's what I figure. They’ve got to catch up to her before the human police force does. They’ve got to kill her—in the line of duty. They can say that she killed his brother and ran. She resisted arrest, maybe one of them will cut himself up or something, and then say he had to fatally wound her."

  "That’s the reason she ran." Chase got off the bed and paced across his bedroom. "Okay, I don't believe she would have killed her boyfriend other than in self-defense."

  "We don't know that for sure, Chase. She could be a black widow with dead boyfriends all over the place."

  "Dan," Chase said, sounding exasperated with him.

  "Okay, I agree, but from the sounds of it, this could be an act of outrage. If she learned he was cheating on her and she killed him for it, she wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Certainly not where his brother is concerned if they were very close."

  Chase swore under his breath again. "Okay, you’re the sheriff. What do you want to do about it?"

  "Well, hell, Chase, we've been friends too long for me to say what you can or can't do under the circumstances. You think she's innocent."

  "She is until proven guilty, or have we lost that concept somehow?"

  Dan didn't say anything for a moment. Then he said, "Okay, listen, believe me, I'm on your side, all right? I'm just trying to play devil's advocate. To protect herself, she might have killed her boyfriend. Hell, she might have killed you up on the mountain for the same reason if you hadn't gotten lucky."

  Chase ground his teeth.

  "I have to take more of an unbiased view on this."

  "So what do you want me to do? Stand down while these men track her down and murder her? Not wanting anyone to learn about it? Oh, sure one of them didn't mean to, but they fought over the gun, and he just happened to shoot her somewhere that she'd bleed out before she could get any medical assistance."

  "If I tell you to bring her into town for questioning, would you?"

  Chase paced across the floor some more. "I'll talk to her."

  "If she admits she killed her boyfriend for a reason other than self-defense? Anger? Something else? What then?"

  "I said I'd talk to her."

  "Now?"

  "Yes. Now. We need to know what to do. Call you back in a little while." Chase ended the call, threw on a pair of boxers, and headed to the guest room. He knew she was innocent of killing her boyfriend in cold blood. He just had to figure out what to do to keep her from being the family’s terminal target.

  So much for moving a pure cougar out of the territory when Dan had sent him to hunt her down in the first place. This had become a nightmare of epic proportions.

  When he reached her door, he knocked. No answer. He worried then that she'd heard him talking to Dan and got the gist of it, and she'd run. Maybe that’s why she’d wanted to stay in her own room, so that she could slip out when Chase went to sleep tonight.

  She couldn’t fight this on her own. He knocked again. She could be sound asleep. But he had to talk to her now and figure out what to do. He shook his head at himself. If anyone had ever said he might one day be aiding and abetting a murderer, he'd have told them he was crazy.

  When she still didn't answer the door, he said, "It’s just me, Chase." Then he pulled out a tool he could use on the door and unlocked it, assuming the worse. She was gone.

  He tried to open the door, but it hit the bedside table. She had moved it to protect herself from him? He felt bad for her all over again.

  "Shannon, it's just me," he said, reaching in to turn on the light switch, hoping she was in the room and hadn’t slipped out the window, when he saw Shannon in her cougar form crouched and ready to pounce.

  ***

  Shannon had moved the bedside table against the door and fallen asleep, but hurried footfalls headed in the direction of her door had awakened her and she was up on her feet in an instant. Chase wouldn't have bothered her unless something was terribly wrong. She was half asleep and so confused she wasn't sure what to think. Or maybe someone else was here. The sheriff, ready to lock her up and then turn her over to Hennessey.

  She’d stripped out of her sweats and shifted and was just waiting across the room, ready to protect herself. The table was still against the door, and she was still concerned Chase might not be alone. That Hennessey would be with him. He'd shoot her if he could get a shot off before she pounced on him, claiming self-defense. Or maybe, he’d wait until he’d had her manacled and driven off with her. And then shoot her and bury her in a shallow grave somewhere in the woods.

  Chase was peering in through the narrow makeshift entrance he’d managed to make to see into the room, the table pushed partly away from the door, his eyes wide. "I'll close the door so you can get dressed and move the table. I'll be waiting in the living room. We need to talk." His voice and look told her he meant what he said, that he wanted to reassure her, but that they had to do this.

  He closed the door and walked down the hall to the living room. She heard him take a seat on the couch. She shifted, moved the table, shifted again, then headed for the living room—as a cougar.

  He cast her an elusive smile. "It works better if you can talk also."

  She sat her romp down on the floor and didn't move. If he said anything she didn’t like, she was out of here, running again as a cougar.

  "Okay, here's the deal." He explained everything that Dan had told him, including what he had thought—that she had protected herself in self-defense. And that her boyfriend and his family were all shifters.

  He told her he suspected her boyfriend would have been stronger than her. Not some little guy. But then again, in a fit of rage, people were known to do that which no one would ever believe they could do.

  ***

  Hell, if the sheriff and Chase knew as much as they did, there was no sense in Shannon keeping the secret any longer. Chase wouldn't believe her word against another police officer’s, but someone had to hear the truth. And yeah, both of the men were six feet-two, and no way could she have killed her boyfriend all on her own. Though she imagined that if someone was angry enough, maybe he’d been doped up or drunk, and the person caught him off-guard, maybe.

  But once she told her side of the story, she had to run. And Chase wasn’t stopping her this time.

  She loped back into the guest bedroom. To Chase's credit, he stayed on the couch, waiting for her. He didn’t come after her to ensure she shifted, dressed, and didn’t attempt to sneak out through the bedroom window.

  Dressed in the gray sweats, one of the Yuma T-shirts, and socks, Shannon rejoined Chase on the couch and pulled the throw over her lap, keeping her distance from him. She was scowling when she asked, "Did Hennessey mention that he and his brother had some kind of business dealings—I assume illegal—and my boyfriend cheated him on it? That Hennessey was furious and they got into a huge fight and he killed his brother? That I was in the house at the time, though he had thought I was sleeping until I heard the fight and it escalated? That after Hennessey stabbed his brother, he came a
fter me? Did he mention that he found the perfect patsy for his crime? Me? And oh, the best part of it? I have to die. I can't have a prison sentence. Cougar shifters in prison would be a disaster. So I didn't have any choice. Who do you think they'd believe? A police officer who is the brother of a fellow police officer? Or me?"

  "Hell. I believe you, Shannon.”

  But he still didn’t offer to pull her close or comfort her, not that she appeared as though she wanted to be touched at the moment. She might look relaxed while she curled up on the couch, but she was coiled to strip, throw open the door, shift, and run.

  “Do you mind if I tell Dan the story?"

  "Go ahead. It won't make any difference."

  "It sure as hell makes a lot of difference." Chase set his phone down before he called the sheriff, and then he did what she hadn’t wanted and yet had wanted him to do, feeling like a bundle of contradictions. He pulled Shannon into his arms and held her tight, his one hand keeping her close, his other hand stroking down her back in a tender caress. "I'm staying with you until we resolve it one way or another."

  She was stiff in his arms, wanting to relax, but she couldn't. "The only way to do that is to kill him. You know that, don't you? He's killed his brother. I have to take the blame. There’s no other way. If I'm dead, his secret will remain. Even if by some miracle he was found guilty of the murder, the same problem exists. He can't live in prison. He'd have to die."

  Chase took a deep breath, running his hand over her hair. "We need to clear your name. We'll take care of this one way or another. He's not touching a hair on your head." And then he lifted her chin.