Black Hills

by Nora Roberts

  The crowd applauded.

  “She’ll be protected here,” Lil added. “Cared for by the staff, interns, and volunteers of Chance Wildlife Refuge, and through,” lest they forget, Lil thought, “the donations of our patrons and visitors. She’ll have a good life here, and may have it for over twenty years.”

  She watched the black cat belly through the grass, nosing it, nosing the air, then rising to stalk. Squatting to pee, marking her territory as the lion marked hers.

  She paced and circled, and even when she stopped to drink from her trough, Lil saw her muscles quivering.

  She continued to pace, to prowl, sending out that hoarse roar. When she rose on her hind legs to sharpen her front claws on her tree, Lil felt her own muscles quiver at the beauty of the cat’s lines, the power of her build.

  She watched, even when the others drifted away, she watched for nearly an hour. And smiled when Cleo leaped into the tree to spread her muscular body over a thick branch.

  “Welcome home, Cleo,” she said aloud.

  She left the new guest alone and went back to the office to check the paperwork.

  She looked in on Matt first to find him reading the new addition’s medical records. “Everything as advertised?”

  “Healthy female melanistic jaguar, who has not yet come into estrus. She’s had regular exams, the proper inoculations. Her diet has been somewhat suspect. Tansy brought blood samples, but I’ll want to examine her myself.”

  “Understood. Let’s give her a day or two to adjust to her new environment before we put any more stress on her. I can get you some scat and urine without too much trouble if you want to start sooner.”

  “Sooner the better.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Lil walked to the office she shared with Tansy, and shut the door.

  Tansy looked up from the keyboard. “Everything okay?”

  “We’ll get into that in a minute. First, what’s up with you?”

  “Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it now. I want to talk about it later,” Tansy decided. “With alcohol.”

  “Okay, after tonight’s feeding. We’ll have some wine and a debriefing. But here’s what you have to know now.”

  Lil sat and filled Tansy in on what had happened during her trip.

  “My God, Lil. My God. You could’ve been seriously hurt. You could’ve been killed.” Tansy shut her eyes. “If one of the kids—”

  “Middle of the night. The kids aren’t here. We’re taking steps. Every step we can. With the new alarm system the animals, the staff, everyone will be protected. I should’ve dug into the coffers for an updated system before.”

  “It did the job, Lil. It did the job until some crazy person came around. You have to be crazy to open the enclosure that way. Whoever did it could’ve ended up as fresh meat just as easily as that elk. The cops can’t find him? Any trace of him?”

  “Not so far. Coop thinks he has a line on who it is. Tansy, Carolyn Roderick—you remember her?”

  “Sure. What does she have to do with this?”

  “She’s missing. She’s been missing for months, disappeared from a group working in Alaska.”

  “Missing? Oh, no. Her family. I talked to her mother a couple of times when Carolyn was here.”

  “She had a boyfriend—an ex. He came around here when she interned.”

  “The mountain-man type—Ed? No, not Ed.”

  “Ethan.”

  “Right, Ethan, of the I’m-descended-from-Crazy-Horse blather.”

  “You remembered that faster than I did,” Lil replied.

  “I had dinner with Carolyn and some of the other interns a few times, and he’d come along or show up. Full of himself and his proud heritage, which came off as bullshit to me. But she liked it, liked him. He brought her wildflowers, did some volunteering. Took her dancing. She was smitten.

  “It went bad between them. She broke it off, and people Coop contacted said they thought he was violent.” Lil got them both bottles of water. “I remembered, after I looked through her file, how he’d gone around claiming to be Sioux, and how he bragged about living in the wild for long stretches of time, like—well—Crazy Horse. Had a hard-on for the Park Service. Claimed this area was sacred ground.”

  “You think it’s him? The one who killed the cougar and wolf? Why would he come back here and harass you?”

  “I don’t know. But he’s vanished, too. Coop hasn’t been able to locate him. Yet. If there’s anything more you can remember about him, anything at all, you should tell Coop and Willy.”

  “I will. I’ll think about it. God, you think he did something to Carolyn?”

  “I wish I didn’t think that.” Thinking it made her feel sick and sad, and guilty. “I’m not sure if I’m actually remembering or if I just have the heebies, but I feel like he was a little spooky. Like I’m remembering him watching me. A lot. And maybe didn’t think anything of it at the time, as some of the volunteers and interns tend to watch me. They want to see what I’m doing, and how I do it. You know.”

  “Sure.”

  “And now I’m feeling like that wasn’t the feeling I got when he watched me. That maybe I felt something slightly off, but dismissed it.”

  “I don’t remember him that well. I just thought he was a bullshitter, but he helped out around here and seemed focused on charming Carolyn.”

  “Okay.”

  “What else can I do?”

  “Talk to the interns, keep them steady. I’ve told them everything I can, and I’ve contacted the universities for the incomings. I figured full disclosure. I don’t believe any of them are in any danger, and we have to keep the refuge running normally. Still, full disclosure. And that’s bound to make some of them jumpy.”

  “Okay. Most of them are going to be over at the commissary, processing for the evening feeding. I’ll go over, get a gauge.”

  “That’d be good.”

  “We’ll talk later.” Tansy rose. “Do you want me to stay here tonight?”

  Coward, Lil told herself when she nearly agreed. But the agreement wouldn’t be due to fear of some maniac prowling the hills. It would be due to avoidance of Cooper Sullivan.

  “No. We’re covered here. I’d rather stick with routine as much as we can.”

  Lucius tapped on her doorjamb as Tansy went out. “I e-mailed you pictures of Cleo, and a kind of montage we took as we were transferring her. I can get them on the Web page whenever you approve.”

  “I’ll take a look.” Focus, she ordered herself, and she shifted gears into work mode. “I’ll write something up to go with the montage. We’ll want something on her specifically, the jag in general, and some behind-the-scenes stuff. Then put her up on the Adopt page. Did Mary see about getting the black jag toy for that donation, and for the gift shop?”

  “I think she’s got some possibles e-mailed to you.”

  “Okay. I’ll get on it.”

  “Want the door shut?”

  “No, open is fine.”

  She dug up a soft drink for the hit of caffeine, then dug into work.

  It took her through feeding time, and she still wasn’t quite satisfied. She copied the work and photos to a thumb drive, stuck it in her pocket. She’d give it another pass at home, after a solid break. Come to it fresh.

  Contributors, she knew, wanted info, but they also wanted a story. A new animal meant new interest, and she intended to exploit that. She cleaned up other paperwork while twilight filled with the sounds of feeding.

  She came out, locked up as the last of the interns left for the day. Eventually, she thought, she’d have enough in the budget to build the dorm. Housing for the interns, their own kitchen. Two years down the road, by her estimation, with the hit on the budget with the proposed security system, the expense of building a new enclosure.

  She found Tansy in the living room with a bottle of wine and a bag of corn chips. “Alcohol and salt.” Tansy toasted her. “It’s what I need.”

  “Food o
f the gods.” Lil tossed her jacket, her hat aside, poured her own glass. “You look tired.”

  “I guess I didn’t get much sleep last night.” Tansy took a long gulp of wine. “Because I was busy having sex with Farley.”

  “Oh.” Lil decided that bulletin required sitting down. “Okay. Yes, this is news best served with adult beverages. Wow.”

  “Really, really good sex.” Brows knit, Tansy bit into a chip. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “Ah, have more?”

  “Oh, good God, Lil, what have I done? I knew better, but it just happened.” She knocked back a slug of wine. “Four times.”

  “Four? Four times in one night. Jeez. Here’s to Farley.”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “No, it’s a serious accomplishment.”

  “Lil.”

  “Tansy. You’re a grown-up, he’s a grown-up.”

  “He thinks he’s in love with me.” Tansy crunched on chips. “Do you know what he said to me last night?”

  “Before or after sex?”

  “After, damn it. And also before. I’m trying, really trying to be sensible and fair and realistic.”

  “And naked.”

  “Shut up. Then he looks at me. Man, he sure can look at me.”

  Tansy told her everything Farley said, nearly word for word.

  “Oh.” She couldn’t help it. Lil pressed a hand to her heart. “That’s beautiful. And so Farley, so completely and beautifully Farley.”

  “I know it. I know, but Lil, this morning, over breakfast in this diner, I’m fumbling around, trying to . . . I don’t know slow it down, calm it down. Be sensible. He just keeps smiling at me.”

  “Well, four times puts a smile on a guy’s face.”

  “Stop it! He says, ‘I’m going to marry you, Tansy, but you can take some time to get used to it first.’”

  “Wow.” Lil’s jaw dropped before she managed to close it and take another drink. “Well. I repeat, Wow.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I say. He just smiles and nods, and when we go outside, he gets ahold of me again and kisses my brains out. I felt them leak out of my ears. I think I lost half my brain in Montana.”

  “Have you set the date?”

  “Will you stop it! You’re not helping.”

  “Sorry, Tans, but you’re sitting there, stress-eating Fritos and telling me a good man, a really good man, loves you and wants you. A man you had multiple orgasms with—I assume.”

  “Yes, multiple was a factor. He’s very . . . attentive and energetic.”

  “Now you’re just bragging.”

  “Some. God, Lil, he’s sincere and sweet and just a little scary. I’m messed up over this, over him.”

  “Which would be a first. I like that you’re in love with him, and all I can think is good. It’s good. All I can be is happy, and a little bit jealous.”

  “I shouldn’t have slept with him,” Tansy continued. “Now I’ve complicated it even more, because before I could think I just had the hots for him, but now I know I have the hots for him, and I’m crazy about him. Why do we do that? Why do we end up sleeping with them?”

  “I don’t know. I slept with Coop.”

  Tansy ate another chip, washed it down with wine. “I thought you’d hold out longer.”

  “So did I,” Lil admitted. “Now we’re mad at each other. I think. Or I snapped and snarled at him this morning. Which I knew, even as I was doing it, was ninety percent defense and ten percent truth.”

  “He broke your heart.”

  “Into countless pieces. Farley’s incapable of doing that to you.”

  Tansy’s deep, dark eyes went soft. “I could break his.”

  “Yes, you could. Will you?”

  “I don’t know, that’s the problem. I don’t want to. He’s not what I was looking for. When I thought about what I might be looking for, down the road, it sure wasn’t a skinny white cowboy.”

  “I don’t think we get to choose as much as we tell ourselves we choose.” Thoughtfully, Lil dug into the bag of chips. “If I could pick, it would be Jean-Paul. He’s a better choice for me. But he wasn’t the one, and I couldn’t make him the one. So I ended up hurting him even though I didn’t want to.”

  “Now I’m depressed.”

  “Sorry. No more talk of broken hearts.” Deliberately Lil shook herself as if shedding a weight. “Let’s talk about sex with Farley. Spare no details.”

  “No.” Amused, Tansy pointed at her. “At least not on one glass of wine. And since I’m driving, no more for me. I’m going home and I’m going to think about something else. Anything else. You’ll be all right here?”

  “There’s half a dozen armed men outside.”

  “Good. But I meant regarding Cooper.”

  Lil blew out a breath. “I’m going to take the late shift, thereby avoiding that problem, as he’ll take first duty. It’s not a solution but it’s a plan. Tansy, just one question. Don’t think first, just answer. Are you in love with Farley? Not just crazy about, but in love with.”

  “I think I am. Now I’m even more depressed.” She pushed to her feet. “I’m going home to brood.”

  “Good luck with that. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Alone, Lil fixed herself a sandwich and a short pot of coffee. She sat at her kitchen table, eating her dinner and polishing her pieces for the website.

  She braced, every muscle on alert, when the door opened. Then relaxed again when her mother came in. “I told you not to come tonight.”

  “Your father’s here, I’m here. Live with it.” At home, Jenna opened the fridge, sighed once at the contents, then took out a bottle of water. “You’re working, and I’m interrupting.”

  “It’s all right. I’m just fine-tuning some articles for the Web page, on our new princess.”

  “I saw her. Lil, she’s beautiful. So elegant and mysterious. She’ll be a huge draw for you.”

  “I think so. And she’ll be happy here. Plenty of room once we finish her permanent habitat. The right diet, the right care. I’m going to look into breeding her next year.”

  Jenna nodded, sat. “This is probably nothing.”

  “Oh-oh.”

  “You know Alan Tobias, the ranger.”

  “Sure. He brings his kids here.”

  “He’s helping out tonight.”

  “That’s nice of him. I should go out and thank him.”

  “Yes, at some point. He told us there’s a hiker missing.”

  “For how long?”

  “He was due back around four. His wife didn’t start worrying, seriously, until five.”

  “Well, it’s barely eight.”

  “And dark. He’s not answering his cell phone.”

  Nerves jangled, but she spoke calmly. “Reception’s spotty. You know that.”

  “I do, and it’s probably nothing. He probably got turned around a little, and he may end up having a lousy night if he doesn’t make it back to a trailhead soon. But Lil, he was hiking Crow Peak, and that’s not all that far from where you trapped the cougar with Coop.”

  “It’s a full-day hike to the summit and back, and it’s not an easy trail. If he’s not experienced, it would take longer, probably longer than he allowed. Why was he hiking alone?”