Falling for the Cougar

by Terry Spear

  She walked over to look out the window at the parking lot beyond the swimming pool. She figured her Grand Am rode a little higher, but his low-slung Mustang probably would never make it. Not unless they took a different route south, maybe.

  She narrowed her eyes as she considered the torrential rains pouring down on the parking lot. Her car wasn’t parked in its spot. Her heart took a dive. Then she realized she’d moved it after running over the man. A sickening feeling washed over her. She couldn’t believe she’d killed him.

  Peering out the window, she still couldn’t see her car from her vantage point. She turned her attention back to the bathroom. The shower had shut off. A few minutes later the door to the bathroom squeaked open.

  Scott was dressed in denim shorts and a western shirt and sandals and looked perfectly huggable in the gray doom of the morning storm. But she was concerned about what had gone on between them that night.

  She motioned to the window and the direction of Houston. “The roads look bad. I can’t tell which we can drive on and I’m worried your car is so low to the road, it might not make it.”

  “We’ll make it.” Scott didn’t want to worry Nicole. Somehow, they’d make it.

  She finished packing.

  He peered out the window. The weather and roads were a major concern. Leaving Galveston didn’t seem like a winning idea, but he wasn’t sure that staying put was a good idea either. He had to take her someplace safe.

  When they were packed, he grabbed both of their bags and waited for her to open the door. She peeked out the peephole and seeing their way clear, she reached for the door handle and twisted. The latch gave enough to open the door part way with a thud. She removed the security bar and tried again.

  After they left the room, she strode down the hall as he walked beside her and before long, they were at the checkout counter checking out of the rooms.

  The manager walked over to the clerk and said, “Give the lady a free night.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “For all the trouble you seemed to have been having.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We’re sorry the weather isn’t cooperating better. It’s supposed to be clearing later today.”

  Scott shook his head. “We’re heading to Las Vegas where the weather is significantly better.”

  The man smiled warmly. “Well, miss, if you decide to visit us again, please mention your visit here and we’ll make some special accommodations on your behalf.”

  “Thank you.”

  After paying his bill, Scott walked into the lobby with Nicole. “Listen, I was wondering if you’d like to have breakfast before we leave. It might be a while before we can get anything to eat, with so much of Houston flooded like it is.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  In fact, he worried they might get stranded on the road somewhere and have no way out for several hours. “Why don’t we leave our bags at the front desk then?”

  “I’d rather keep them with us.”

  “Sure.” He could see she was still afraid. She tried to hide her feelings, but he noticed she was looking for signs anyone was following them again. After last night, he certainly didn’t blame her, and he was on high alert too.

  They settled into a booth at the nearly empty hotel restaurant and ordered the buffet. After serving themselves eggs, sausage, bacon and biscuits, they returned to their seats.

  The waitress poured their coffee, then walked off. Nicole ran her hand over the cup’s handle. She seemed to be deep in thought.

  He finally said, “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about us last night.”

  He had every intention of continuing his relationship with her. He wasn’t sure whether he should speak or let her have her say first. Even though he was dying to say something, he sat quietly listening, and nodded to get her to continue.

  She stared at her coffee cup and then looked up at him. “I’ve been worried all morning about this. I don’t remember what happened last night between us.”

  He wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or well, he wasn’t sure how to react. He was filled with relief she wasn’t planning on dumping him. And certainly, she had no problem with him wanting to ditch her. He was totally swept off his feet by her.

  “Hey, nothing happened last night between us. We just slept. You were a cougar all night long. I couldn’t have gotten fresh with you even if I’d wanted to.” For most of the night anyway.

  She smiled, and that seemed to settle things between them for her.

  Chapter 9

  “If you’re worried about what happened between us last night, don’t. We snuggled a bit, but that was it. You were scared and I offered my protection. But nothing else happened,” Scott said.

  Nicole took a deep breath and relaxed her body considerably. He figured she’d been afraid they’d made love last night and she hadn’t remembered it.

  He hoped his plying her with champagne hadn’t given her the impression he wanted to just have a good hot time with her. Well, not that he hadn’t wanted it. But he wanted more of a relationship than that. She was somebody special and that’s how he wanted to keep it. He’d only meant to try and relax her. “Okay?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d tried to take advantage of me or anything, but I wasn’t sure if I had, well, been too…”

  “Not at all.” The key in the slot had fixed that, if they had wanted to take anything further. “Nothing happened.” And he was glad for it, knowing how she was feeling about everything else in her life right now. He scooted into her booth, wrapped his arm around her, and kissed her cheek.

  Everything about her made her more enduring to him. Just her tackling him on the beach was purely by accident. But he’d had a delightful time with her at the pyramids, the boat trip, the gardens, the 3D movies, even with having pizza and champagne with her last night.

  Though she feared the stalkers, and had every good reason to, she had an inner strength and fierce determination to stop them, knowing full well the police would do nothing to help her. Not without proof.

  He could have been dead when the man reached for his gun, but without hesitation, she had saved his life, putting her own in jeopardy. He figured she was still upset about having killed the man, but she was holding up well under the strain.

  She sighed deeply. “You’ve been so nice to me. I feel awful that I’ve gotten you into this.”

  “Think nothing of it. Somehow we’ll figure it out.”

  “It’s not like one of the mystery games we play on the computer.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  Nicole picked at her food and Scott finally said, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m not really all that hungry. We ate late last night.”

  “Would you like anything else?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He glanced out the window as the rain still fell from the dark clouds in sheets. “You know, we could drive to South Padre Island. We could see if we could drive out of some of this bad weather. And only the two of us would know we headed down there.”

  “I think it’d be better to return home.”

  “All right.” He sure hadn’t expected to have his vacation plans cut so short. But meeting Nicole made the whole trip worthwhile. If he could just figure out what was going on with her. The notion she could have been in danger completely on her own without him to protect her gnawed at him. He was sticking to her for the long haul, through the danger and beyond. “Are you finished then?”

  She nodded.

  He ate his omelet and downed the rest of his coffee.

  After he paid for breakfast, they put on their rain jackets and he carried their luggage to the back door of the hotel. Nicole opened the door, then grabbed Scott’s arm. “My car! Ohmigod, I had a premonition about it. I thought I’d had a mixed-up nightmare about when my parents died in the car crash since we’d been talking about it.”

&
nbsp; He’d noticed at once too. Her car was gone, just like the body had disappeared. The situation was really getting out of hand, but he felt powerless to do much about it.

  Her fingers dug into his arm as her face reddened. “Those bastards stole my car!”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s go back inside to report the theft.”

  She was distraught, her hands trembling, and tears shimmered in her eyes. They were getting to her, and they were unnerving him too. He couldn’t believe they’d stolen her car either. Well, yes, he could.

  If they’d hide the body, they’d have to remove the evidence that any of the body or fibers of his clothes might be on her bumper. So they would have to get rid of the car too. Slick move. His stomach twisted in knots. They were good at what they did. He couldn’t show how scared he really was for her sake.

  Returning to the check-in counter, Scott set the suitcases down and said to the hotel clerk, “The lady’s car has been stolen.”

  The clerk stared at him with a slight downward twist to his mouth. He’d been the same one the night before who’d called 911 for Scott. The man glanced at Nicole, then turned back to Scott. “The same car that ran over the man last night?”

  “Yes. The Grand Am’s gone.”

  “I see.”

  “Call it in.”

  The clerk handed him the phone. “I’ll let you do the honors this time.”

  Scott turned around to see how Nicole was faring. She wasn’t anywhere in sight. He dropped the phone on the counter and ran toward the back door of the hotel. Yanking the door open, he saw her wandering through the parking lot in the pouring rain looking for her car. His stomach knotted with worry for her. Was she totally losing it?

  Dashing into the storm, he ran straight for her. “Nicole!”

  Nicole didn’t hear anything in the wind and rain but the fury of the storm. A lengthy piece of iron rested on the ground next to one of the hotel dumpsters and she hurried over to examine it, thinking at first it was a rifle. It wasn’t, just a piece of discarded steel, grungy with age.

  Then tires screeched. She turned as a black SUV careened toward her. Behind her was a chain link fence, to her right, the dumpsters, and to her left a pickup truck.

  She grabbed the scrap of metal and jumped out of the path of the SUV, barely able to squeeze between the fence and the truck’s front bumper. The SUV struck the fence with such force the bumper hung up on the coils of the chain link.

  She ran around to the driver’s side and struck the driver’s darkened window with as much force as she could muster as the driver tried to back the vehicle out. All the fear she’d been feeling transformed into anger. An uncontrollable rage grew with every blow she struck. She wanted to reveal who the enemy was. To have a living bad guy to turn over to the police so they could question him about what was going on. If these men had anything to do with what had happened to her parents, she wanted them all to die a horrible death.

  Determined to get results, she bashed the glass repeatedly.

  The tires of the SUV squealed and ground as the driver jammed on the gas and rocked his vehicle back and forth.

  Only one more blow on the spiderweb of glass and then she’d knock out her assailant next. Drawing her weapon back, she readied it again. Before she could strike another blow, a hand gripped her arm and yanked her back. “Nicole!”

  She barely recognized Scott as he pulled her away from the SUV, she was so intent with stopping the man who had tried to kill her.

  Scott dragged her across the parking lot as she kept her eyes on the SUV. As soon as the vehicle broke loose from the fence, it whipped around and headed straight for them.

  Like a spear thrower aiming at its prey, Nicole threw her weapon at the windshield. The windshield cracked. Her anger dissolved some as she took pleasure in fighting back. Scott yanked her out of the path of the vehicle and underneath the overhang of the hotel.

  “Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “I…I thought maybe my car was still there. That I’d parked it somewhere else.”

  He held her tight as the SUV’s tires squealed as it turned down the street and disappeared.

  “The police won’t believe any of it, will they?”

  He shook his head. “No witnesses. The storm’s raising such a ruckus, probably nobody heard a thing. And the hotel’s barely occupied.” He pulled her toward the door of the hotel. “We’ve got to report your car stolen for insurance purposes. That’s all. I doubt they’ll believe much else. And then we need to get on our way. They’re sure to know what kind of a car I’m driving too, now, so this isn’t going to be a safe trek, I’m afraid.”

  “We need to be driving a big rig.”

  “Yeah, a Mustang won’t stand a chance against an SUV. Where’d you learn how to throw a javelin?”

  She gave him a half smile. “Girl Scouts.”

  He chuckled under his breath. “The Girl Scouts must have been a lot wilder than us Boy Scouts.”

  She laughed, albeit slightly hysterical. He leaned her against the concrete block wall and kissed her lips. His mouth pressed against hers with strength and domination. She’d never known such passion in a man before and the feeling both overwhelmed and surprised her. She couldn’t understand what had come over him.

  His hands shoved her hood back and his fingers ran through the strands of her hair. She held his shoulders, partly wanting to shake some sense into him, partly wanting to hold him so he’d continue his reckless abandon.

  “Scott,” she tried to whisper, but his mouth at once silenced her. She released the tension harboring in the pit of her stomach and kissed him back. Her tongue toyed with his with purpose. And he met the challenge with exuberance.

  With the way his body worked up against hers, she knew he was aroused all because of his interest in her. Her hands shifted to the back of his dripping wet rain jacket. Increasing the pressure of his body against hers, she pressed her hands into the small of his back.

  She was mad to encourage him like this when their lives were still in peril but having him kiss her like he loved her and nobody else released the stress that had built up in every inch of her muscles. Now a new tension was mounting—the most pleasurable kind.

  He finally kissed her cheek and pulled away from her. His hand caressed her face with a tender touch. “I’m sorry. Just the thought of losing you—”

  She touched her finger to his lips. “I enjoyed the moment too. Don’t be sorry.”

  He pulled his key card out and shoved it into the slot. “I didn’t want you to think I lose control like that with every woman I meet. With you, I couldn’t help myself.”

  She ran her fingers down his back. “Yeah, well, we’ll have to be more careful the next time.”

  He looked at her. His eyes showed concern and she smiled. He opened the door, then took her hand. “I hope you’re only teasing.”

  “I mean, doing that when we could be in more danger.”

  He gave an exaggerated sigh of relief. She chuckled.

  When they returned to the check-in counter, the clerk raised his brows. “Is the car still missing?”

  Scott yanked the phone out of the clerk’s hand and called the police.

  The policeman tapped his pen on his notebook. “I don’t understand. This is the same blue Grand Am you were driving that ran over a man dressed in black last night, right?” he asked Nicole.

  Nicole and Scott had removed their raincoats and now sat on the sofa together while he held her hand with a firm grasp. He wasn’t letting anyone intimidate her further, not without him there to protect her.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And the man was dead, but walked away?”

  Scott felt her leg stiffen as her bare skin touched his. He squeezed her hand with encouragement. She was holding up well, but he wanted to get this over with and take her away from her nightmare now.

  “Scott said he couldn’t find a pulse on the man.”

  The policeman nodded. “So the two
of you are on vacation, but had never met before?”

  “Yes, Officer,” Scott said. He wanted to give Nicole a breather and as the question was directed at the two of them…

  “And you and she happen to be stationed at Fort Hood together?”

  “It’s a big post.”

  Clearing his throat, the policeman pointed to Nicole’s hands. “Injure yourself?”

  She looked at the rust stains on her hand and shook her head. “But the driver of a black SUV tried to run me over.”

  “Did you get a license plate number?” the officer asked.

  “No.”

  And Scott had been too busy trying to rescue Nicole to check it out, damn it.

  “Okay, well we’ll report your car stolen and if we recover it, maybe we’ll even find a dead body inside. And if we see a black SUV that looks suspicious? We’ll check it out. Unfortunately, the security videos for the parking lot were damaged with the continuing storm and the hotel hasn’t been able to replace the system until things quiet down and they can get someone out here to take care of it. If there’s nothing more you can think of…”

  Scott rose from the sofa and extended his hand. “Thanks, Officer.”

  The police officer shook his hand, then turned to Nicole. “The two of you take it easy on the roads. Many are covered with a lot of water. Lots of stalled cars and other debris are making the traveling more treacherous.”

  When he left the lobby, Scott helped Nicole up. “I’ll run into the restroom and wash my hands.”

  “Are your hands all right?” He turned her palms up and examined them. She had cut one and he frowned. “Have you had a tetanus shot recently?”

  “Yeah, two months ago. I’ll be all right. You know how we are at healing.”

  They pulled their rain jackets on and then he grabbed their bags and walked her to the ladies’ restroom. He wanted to make sure the restroom was clear, but she shook her head at him as if she read his mind and smiled. “I’ll be fine.”