by Terry Spear
“And you said you don’t dress up for silly stuff like that any longer. So you weren’t going yourself anyway.”
“So you took up with the bastard again? Just to go with someone to a Halloween party? You’ll never make it through the night without shifting. Hell, he doesn’t deserve you. And he hasn’t heard the last of me.” Edgar hung up her.
“What did he want?” Ricky asked, frowning.
“He intends to cause trouble.” And she really didn’t want him to cause any trouble for Ricky.
7
Ricky hated that Mandy had an ex-boyfriend who intended to continue to bother her. Why couldn’t Edgar just man-up and realize she wasn’t the one for him any longer? Ricky didn’t want her getting hurt. He just wished he could get out of this cast so he could be better prepared in the event the guy showed up in Yuma Town. He suspected Edgar would come after Ricky before he was completely healed.
The air was crisp and chilly as he hobbled back to the bunkhouse with Kolby. “I’m sorry Hal called you to come escort me back to the house. I could have managed on my own.” Ricky was glad Mandy had kissed him like she wanted to get back together with him. All the years that had passed between them seemed a distant memory.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. You would have done the same for me.” Kolby glanced at him. “So what do you think? Are the two of you getting back together again?”
“I hope so, but she and I aren’t the same two people as we were before.” Even though he felt like she was the same girl he knew, deep down, he knew they weren’t. “We’ve had different life experiences, we’re older, and she’s got a lot to deal with being a cougar now.”
“So you’re getting together again.” Kolby smiled at him.
Ricky groaned. “I wish. But Edgar called her, and he’s got it in for me. What if she goes back to him because she’s afraid for my safety?”
“She’s got everything going for her here. A whole cougar town to help her through this and to be her family, a job like she’s wanted, and you. So no, I don’t see her giving that up just to protect you. She was planning to leave him before she was bitten, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, see?”
Ricky still worried she might be too concerned about his welfare. He didn’t want her to be. He just wanted her to be happy.
“Did you call Dan to let him know the trouble that could be headed your way?”
“Not yet.”
“He’s your boss. So you’d better get on it.”
“I will.”
When they reached the bunkhouse, the former main ranch house before the Haverton family built the new one, Ricky said goodnight to his brother. Ted already had retired to his own bedroom in the rustic house that was designed for cowboys or guests of the Havertons with four bedrooms, four baths, honey-oak wood floors, walls, and ceilings, and paintings of the horses they’d raised on the ranch over the years. It also had a spacious living room for kicking back after long days working on the ranch and a kitchen they all cooked in when they weren’t sharing meals with the Havertons.
He hadn’t given it much thought about living closer to work when he was going to be on the road quite a bit in his deputy sheriff job. He still planned to help out at the ranch on his days off, but he wondered if Hal and Tracey would want to replace him with another hired hand who would work more hours than he would be able to. There was still a spare bedroom, but they might need his room if he wasn’t going to be a full-time ranch hand. No one had said a thing about it, and he hadn’t started working as a full-time deputy yet, so he figured they’d all just play it by ear.
Each of the rooms had their own private door that led outside the bunkhouse, which made it nice if they were all working different hours, which sometimes they did. And each of the doors had their own cat door that they could slip out of any time they felt the urge to run, which, when Ricky and Kolby had first been turned, had come in really handy. One or the other of them would run through the other brother’s cat door, snarl to wake the other up, and then the brother would shift, and they’d slip off into the night, running through the wild to their heart’s content. On occasion, they’d miscalculate the timing of the shift, back in those days, and one of them would end up walking back to the house naked. Not the best thing to do when it was cold and having to walk on rocks and the prickly ground. The one who was still a cat would race back to the house and wake a perturbed Ted up to come to the brother’s rescue.
Getting ready for bed, Ricky smiled as he remembered Ted riding out, trailing another horse behind and having a set of clothes for the brother who had shifted inconveniently. He grumbled a lot about times like that, but they knew he loved working with them too. And spending quality time talking about everything under the sun, riding the horses, and relaxing after a hard day’s work. Both Ricky and Kolby owed so much to Ted for mentoring them, and acting as a father figure, though he constantly told them he was not old enough to be their father, which made them all the more determined to tell him he was better than any father they could have had.
“Brother, older brother, fine. Not your father.” Ted was still trying to find his own mate, so he really didn’t want a prospective mate thinking he’d had two kids when he’d been a teen.
Ricky swung his casted leg into bed, then picked up his cell phone and called Dan. “Hey, I hope it’s not too late to be calling you, but Edgar, Mandy’s ex-boyfriend, called her and said he isn’t letting things stand as they are now. So I expect trouble, and probably before I’m all healed up.”
“Okay, no, you know it’s never too late to call me when trouble could be headed our way. Get some sleep. I’ll let everyone else know.”
“Thanks.” Then Ricky nestled back against his pillows and pulled the down comforter over his waist and thought about Mandy and the kiss they had shared. Passionate, real, loving. He was determined to make her his, whatever it took.
In the middle of the night, Mandy found herself waking to that familiar feeling she had now that she was going to shift. She wanted to snarl and bite Ricky! She needed her eight hours of sleep to feel human. This was not helping one bit.
At least she’d left her door ajar so she could leave the room. She yanked off her pajamas and then pulled off the bandages on her hand that Ricky had so carefully wrapped around her injury. She stared at her hand for a moment, couldn’t believe it, and smiled. It was much better. Much better than if she’d been strictly a human. Then the annoyance returned as her body heated right before the shift into her cougar form that she couldn’t stop for anything.
She tried to tell herself he hadn’t bitten her hand on purpose. It didn’t matter. She was totally frustrated. She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the full-length mirror, the first time she’d actually seen herself as a cougar. No matter how many times she tried to reconcile with herself that that was really her with the pretty reddish fur and black tipped ears, the white fur under her chin and on her belly, she couldn’t.
She ran out of the bathroom and through the hall to the front door that had a cat door for them to come and go as cougars. Luckily, she was able to get out that way without alerting anyone else in the family. She didn’t want to wake up the whole household while she was having a cat fit over being a cougar when she wanted to sleep, and they needed their sleep just as much!
Once she was outside, she felt better, like she blended in with the wild out of doors, that she was meant to be there. Was that ridiculous, or what?
Then the annoyance returned, and she ran straight for the bunkhouse. Normally, she could curb her irritation when something bothered her, no problem. Was it the cougar half of her that made her so snarly feeling?
She wandered around the dark bunkhouse, a couple of lights on outside the house and the main house and the barn, though with her cat vision, she realized how much she loved being able to see just as well as if it were daylight out.
She smelled the doors to the house, surprised there were so man
y of them leading to the outside of the place. One smelled more like Ricky’s scent than the others and she pushed through the cat door within the door.
Inside the room was dark, though she could see just fine.
Ricky had a double bed, a blue, down comforter covering him, his eyes closed in sleep, like hers should have been. She sat her rump on the blue and brown and beige braided, oval rug for a few minutes, glowering at him. Of course, he didn’t wake, too busy sleeping happily, and that annoyed her further.
She jumped on his lap liked she’d done when he was in the clinic and glowered at him. Though she wasn’t sure if her human attempt at a cougar glower had the same effect.
His eyes popped open, and for a moment, he just stared at her. Then he smiled.
That was not the response she was hoping for. Being sorry for the condition she was in? Maybe. An apology? Sure. Smiling? No way.
She growled.
He chuckled. “Sorry.”
He didn’t mean it in the least!
“If I could, I’d shift and go running with you. But I might rebreak my leg and Doc Kate would be furious with me. And I want this cast off when I take you to the Halloween party.”
She frowned.
“Listen, I was thinking of getting a home on Secret Valley Creek Road. For us. It has woods, a creek, and my boss, Dan, and his mate, Addie, also a deputy sheriff, and their twin babies, live there. So does Florence Fitzgerald. She’s a retired CIA officer. Now she owns a bakery in town and they’re the best sweet treats ever. I want to take you there. Tomorrow maybe? If you think you can manage the shifting a little? Mrs. Fitz had a news reporter, newly turned, working as her baker and he would just duck back into the office off the kitchen when he had to shift until it was safe to come out. I had to go out the kitchen door one time myself, so it’s a viable option.”
She looked skeptically at him. She couldn’t even begin to believe he thought they should get a house together.
He patted the bed beside him. “Sleep with me. You can wear some of my clothes when you wake, and I’ll walk you back to the main house.”
As wired as she’d been when she first had shifted, she felt exhausted now, and she agreed. Though she didn’t have plans to wake him when she needed to walk back to the main house. She’d make her way back to the house on her own.
He pulled the cover aside so she could climb under it with him and she suspected he worried she’d turn and then be sleeping naked on top of the covers and would get cold. He pulled her closer so she could rest her head against his T-shirt covered chest. She was going to resist, but the fight was all out of her and she laid her head down on his chest, listening to his heart beating, the blood rushing through his veins. She was thinking she would wake if she shifted into her human form and she would grab some of his clothes, not wake him, and leave. No way did she want him to have to hobble back to the main house and to the bunkhouse again in his cast.
Then she drifted off and finally woke to the sound of Kolby knocking on the door. Her heart hammered. Great. Just great.
“Hey, Ricky, are you awake? Mandy’s missing. We’re hoping she’s running as a cougar and okay, but we’re getting ready to search for her. We figured you could ride your horse.”
Ricky smiled at her and Mandy groaned and pulled the covers over her head.
“Call off the search. She’s here with me.”
“Oh, great, that’s a relief. So, does that mean we have to have a shotgun wedding?”
Ricky threw his pillow at the door with a thump.
Kolby laughed. “Hey, Ted, she’s been found. We need to call off the search. She’s safe and under Ricky’s protection.”
“I need to get out of here,” she told Ricky, not believing she was naked in bed with him, though he was wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts and a clunky cast. She was glad for that anyway.
She couldn’t believe that she’d fallen so deeply asleep that she hadn’t realized she was snuggling with him in her human form at some point in the middle of the night, when, in the beginning, she’d wanted to bite him. He didn’t know how lucky he had been.
8
Ricky couldn’t believe they’d slept so soundly that he hadn’t even awakened when she’d shifted. The two of them had both had to deal with the trauma of his bite to her hand and his broken leg and minor concussion and moving from his room to hers and her doing the same with coming to his room at the clinic that night, which had to be the reason why they were so exhausted last night.
He could have socked his brother for making the shotgun-wedding comment though. Ricky knew Mandy was feeling self-conscious about sleeping naked against him during the night when they were just getting to know each other again, especially since everyone in the family would know about it by breakfast time.
“Wait here. I’ll get you some clothes.” He climbed out of bed and pulled some blue sweats out of his bottom bureau drawer and handed them to her. “They might be a little big. We’ll get some shoes for you. I’m going to the bathroom so you can get dressed.”
He left her alone and was thinking how he would be all for a shotgun wedding, really.
When he returned to the bedroom, she was dressed in his sweats and he wanted to wrap his arms around her, but she hurried past him to the bathroom.
“We could get married,” Ricky said, getting dressed.
“Ha!” She left the bathroom and she tied her hair in a ponytail. “You might not feel that way if you knew what I wanted to do when I came to see you last night.”
He smiled. As growly as she’d looked, he’d known. “Bite me.”
“Yeah.”
“But you love me.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Kolby knocked at the door. “Hey, Ted and I made pumpkin spice pancakes and slices of ham for you guys. We’re headed out to take care of the horses. Tracey dropped by to bring some of Mandy’s clothes over for her.”
“Hey, brother, thanks so much.” Ricky left the bedroom and got the clothes for Mandy and left them in the room for her. “See you in a few minutes,” he said to her.
He walked out of the room and thanked his brother and Ted too before they headed outside.
“I hope you plan to marry that little filly,” Ted said, putting on his Stetson.
“I’m working on it.” Though Ricky was sure it was going to take some time to make things right between them. Maybe when she had her shifting under control, though that could take months, she would consider such a thing. He just couldn’t wait to be able to run with her as a cougar, to cuddle with her as one too, when she had to turn at night and couldn’t help herself, to show her that it was just a natural thing for them to do.
Then Kolby and Ted left the bunkhouse and Mandy joined Ricky in the kitchen and smiled when she saw that the pancakes were wearing powdered sugar and maple syrup, forming jack-o-lantern smiles. Her mood brightened in an instant. She usually had a sunny disposition, so it was disconcerting for him to see her down about any of this and he was glad she was cheered up.
Ricky brought them cups of coffee and sat down at the table with Mandy, who had changed into her own clothes—a soft, rust-colored sweater and blue jeans and boots. He was thinking he ought to get her some western ones so she could ride a horse in style. “Ted and Kolby are great, aren’t they?”
“This is really cute.” She ate some of the pancakes. “And they’re delicious.”
“We all love to cook. Ted was the one who taught us.” Ricky sighed. “You know, they’re expecting me to make things right between us, so I think there’s a bit of matchmaking going on here.”
She shook her head, but then she got a call from Edgar and she groaned. She put it on speakerphone so Ricky could listen in and he appreciated it.
“You’re not working in Loveland. I checked all the clinics, but I found one that said you got a job in Denver. Don’t worry. I’ll find you.” Then Edgar hung up on her.
Ricky would recognize Edgar’s gruff voice anywhere. He hated t
hat she’d gotten involved with him in the first place, wishing Ricky could have stayed with her instead and fended off the likes of Edgar. How could the guy think she’d want to return to him after all his bullying? “Are you going to change your cell number?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Why don’t you move in with me? I mean, us?” Ricky asked. “We have another spare bedroom with its own bathroom. Then if you shift in the middle of the night and you want to bite me, you can join me in the bedroom. I’ll leave the door ajar for you. I mean, I thought you might want some female companionship initially to learn all there is about us, like from Tracey and Leesa, the children’s nanny, but I’d love to have you here, close by.” She opened her mouth to say no, he was certain. “That way if you aren’t at the main house because you’ve shifted and taken off, no one will worry about sending out a search party. Besides, it’s much quieter at the bunkhouse than it is there with all the three-year-old’s playing.”
She seemed to reconsider and sighed. “You might be right. But I need to get a place of my own once I can start working and control the shifting.”
Yes! “Okay, great. I’ll help you move your things over.”
“I’ll call Tracey and see if it’s okay first.”
He figured she didn’t want to rock the boat when Hal and Tracey had been so generous in letting her stay with them. But he knew they’d understand and if she was going to constantly come to see him in the middle of the night, they’d feel less anxious about her disappearing from the main house.
She got on her phone and called Tracey when he got a call and he started clearing away the dishes. It was from Dan and Ricky told him about the situation with Mandy and Edgar now searching for her in Denver.”
“Good. It will take Edgar a while to do that. I was planning to have you work in the office until Doc removes your cast, but I want you on a special detail,” Dan said.
