by Terry Spear
She smiled. "They missed seeing me too."
Nurse Mandy Jones came in to take their vital signs then, and said, "Dr. Rugel is coming in to see you and discharge you, Ted. Stella, Dr. Hill is most likely going to keep you for another couple of days."
"No, I need to get back to work."
"They’ll understand once you tell them you were shot by hunters. You can't leave the clinic until one of the doctors okays you going home. You don't have anyone to look after you, do you?" Mandy asked.
"No."
"It's for your own good then. If you were to return to work too soon and ended up having to return here, you might have a longer stay."
Stella let out her breath in exasperation. "All right."
Then Mandy left, and Ted pulled the curtain closed and began to get dressed. "I'll sneak food into you," he promised Stella.
She was quiet.
He finished dressing and opened the curtain to see Kate standing there with her arms folded across her chest, waiting for him to open the curtain. He smiled. Caught again!
"She needs to eat what I prescribe for her first."
Stella was smiling at him though.
"I'm free to go, right?" Ted wanted to hang around to be with Stella, to keep her company, but he had chores to do that Hal was counting on him to take care of.
Dr. Rugel entered the room. "Yeah, but with restrictions." He handed Ted the paperwork.
Ted read over the restrictions. "Hell, I can't even lift the kids to give them a horseback ride."
"Right. And if you feel nauseous, dizzy, or have severe headaches, you tell someone at the ranch right away. No heroics."
Ted might as well sit here and visit with Stella. "I'll see you later," Ted said to Stella. "Seems I've got to do light work around the ranch for a few days. I guess I can feed the chickens."
Kate and William smiled at him.
"Kolby's supposed to shadow you and make sure you don't do what you're not supposed to do. He's supposed to do it instead, and believe me, he's eager to prove he can do everything you do and more while you're on restricted duties," Kate said.
"I bet."
"Thanks again, Ted, for coming to my aid," Stella said to Ted.
"I'm glad I was there to come to your aid." He was glad it hadn't come to bloodshed, but if those men had persisted on going after the cougar in their barn—when he was afraid it had been one of their own kind, figuring a real cougar would have run away from the ranch when in danger and not toward it and seeking protection there—he would have opened fire on them. Wounding them would have been preferable, of course, but if they had retaliated, it would have been a different story.
He squeezed her hand. "I'll come and see you when I'm not doing my light work around the ranch. Tonight."
"Okay, that sounds good. Thanks, Ted."
Then he left, wishing she could stay at the ranch, but they would have to have someone watch over her, and that someone should be the medical staff for now.
But he intended to pick up some white roses for her before he dropped by to see her tonight.
He planned to just drive home, but Kolby came to pick him up, and he realized he had needed a ride since Bill and Ted had come in together and Bill would have driven the pickup home. Ted was going to drive now, but Kolby wouldn't even let him do that. To an extent, Ted was amused.
"Okay, should I sit in the back seat and you can be my chauffeur?" Ted raised his brows.
Kolby laughed. "You always drive, so this time, I get to, and then it'll be back to the old way of doing things. She's hot, isn't she?"
"She's amazing." But seeing all the red blood on her white fur coat had been shocking.
"Bill's not going to try and date her and take her away from us, is he?" Kolby sounded worried.
"No." At least Ted didn't think so, though he had gotten her flowers. "And she's not with us anyway."
"You're going to change that, aren't you? If you don't, I will."
Ted chuckled. "You're too young for her."
"She's a cougar!"
Ted laughed. "I'm going to visit her after work."
"Can I come too?"
"No."
"See? You're afraid I'll win her over."
"No, I'm not."
"Well, Hal might still say someone has to drive you."
Ted groaned.
"Is your head hurting?"
"No.”
"Someone has to keep her here."
Ted smiled. "I'm hoping we'll all make her feel welcome, but you know it's up to her whether she wants to be with a family of cougars or not. If she's happy where she's at, and she doesn't want to be with other cougars, except maybe on occasion, then that's the way it will have to be."
"Nah, someone needs to convince her what she's missing out on in life if she doesn't join us," Kolby said.
Ted didn't think of himself as naturally laid back, but about pushing a cougar, any cougar, into wanting to be something they wouldn't be comfortable with? That wasn't him. Long term, he figured it wouldn't work out for the cougar.
“Take me to the jail, will you?” Ted said, wanting to have another good look at the men who had shot Stella.
“Yeah, sure.”
When they got there, he and Kolby went inside.
"No way in hell, man," Sims said as Dan charged him with attempted murder.
"We were shooting at the cougar," Braxton said.
"Yeah, no damn person. And if there had been a person there, they would have been killed by the bloody cougar," Clayton said.
"I guess you didn’t consider that anyone would have even been in the building when you started shooting at it. We have the rounds that the doctor took out of the victim’s wounds, so think again," Dan said.
Ted was glad Dan was throwing the book at them. Kolby just smiled.
When they arrived at the ranch, Tracey came out and gave Ted a hug. "We're so glad you're going to be all right, and Bill tells us Stella is doing fine. He said he would hang around if you needed him to do the ranching chores. He would change his flight plans and leave later, if you want."
"Hell, I forgot all about him leaving tomorrow." Ted enjoyed seeing his brother, though he was glad Bill wouldn't be seeing any more of Stella then. Ted was supposed to drive Bill to the airport.
"Kolby is going to do the driving to the airport, if you feel fine with Bill going home. It's totally up to you. You know we always enjoy it when your brother comes and spends time with us," Tracey said.
Ted looked at Kolby.
Kolby smiled. "I guess you'll need my chauffeur services again."
Then Ted saw Bill headed out of the stables. He smiled and waved. "How are you doing? I was going to come and get you, but Kolby said you never let him drive and he wanted to do it."
Ted shook his head. "I'm doing fine. There's no need for you to hang around unless you want to visit with me longer."
"Nah. You're going to be busy seeing Stella until she leaves, right?"
Ted nodded. "Yep. I promised her I would see her tonight even."
"See? I'll leave first thing in the morning like I planned then. You're sure you're all right?" Bill asked, sounding truly concerned now.
"Yeah, they put me on limited duties, but I didn't need to be."
Bill smiled and slapped him on the shoulder. "Let's get breakfast. Tracey was holding it up for you, though she fed the kids already."
Stella received ten more vases of flowers from various families around Yuma Town. Now she felt special. If she'd been at the clinic back home, her co-workers would have gotten her a vase of flowers, but nothing like this. It smelled like a bit of floral heaven in the room, like she was in the royal gardens. Even the nurses Elsie, Mandy, who appeared to be about six months pregnant, and Helen Kretchen came in and breathed in the scents and smiled, then went about their business as if they were taking a break from their duties to walk through the gardens.
"Is it always like this, or is it because I'm so rare?" Stella asked Mandy.
<
br /> "It's always like this when we have an unattached female cougar injured and we are taking care of her," Mandy said. "Now, if it's a male we don't know anything about, probably not."
"Well, it has been wonderful."
Dr. Kate came into the room and said, "In case no one has told you, we have the annual Halloween party coming up. Costumes are not mandatory, but everyone wears them. If you don't have plans, come down and stay with someone, everyone will offer, and you can enjoy the festivities."
That's when Stella noticed some of the pumpkins and fall leaves decorating the room. She enjoyed fall, but she normally didn't do anything for Halloween except give trick-or-treaters candy when they came to her apartment complex. That might be a total of ten kids. She lived in one of those swinging singles complexes. Not that she was swinging, or anything, mainly because she was a shifter, but she liked living in a complex where they didn't have a ton of kids out playing in the parking lot or in the complex itself. The downside of it being a singles place was that there were often wild parties going on, none of which she had been interested in.
"I'll see how things go." Stella didn't want to commit to going and then back out, especially when everyone was being so nice to her.
"Well, we have a western theme going on this year. Some said it wasn't Halloween enough because several members of our community wear western clothes to work in, but we had a vote and that's what was decided."
Now, Stella loved western clothes. And guys dressed in western gear and cowboys.
"Just modern-day clothes, right?"
"Some of us ladies are dressing in hoop skirts. Really, anything goes."
Now that sounded like fun! "Okay, I would like that."
Kate pulled out her phone and showed her the gown she was going to wear. "It's a great site for costumes, and reasonable too. I just don't have any time, or the inclination, to make anything right now." She offered Stella her phone to look at all the gowns.
Stella looked through them. "Is everyone buying from the same company?" She could imagine everyone wearing the same thing.
"Some are, some aren't. I can send you the list of what everyone's wearing if you're worried about buying one that is the same as anyone else has."
Stella gave Kate her email address and figured if she bought a gown, she was going to her first ever Halloween party. Though if something came up, she might not be able to.
That night, Ted dropped by with a dozen white roses for Stella. She smiled at the thought behind his selection.
"How are you feeling?" Ted pulled over a chair next to the bed and sat down.
"Better. I really think I can go to work on Monday, but I'll need to wear a sling."
"You might not be able to do a lot until you're out of the sling either. Are you sure you don't want to stay at the ranch? You could sleep in one of the rooms of the bunkhouse or you could stay with Tracey and Hal and the kids in the main house. They're ready for either. We have our own kitchen in the bunkhouse, our own living room and even a rec room. So it's not just a place to sleep in."
"I think I'll go home, but thanks for the offer."
"All right. On my way in, Kate told me she invited you to the Halloween party and you could stay with one of the families to attend. Are you going to come?"
"Yeah, I guess so. It sounds like fun. Whose idea was it to wear western clothes?"
"Kolby and mine. We have different cougars who make recommendations each year. If it had been Ricky and Mandy, his mate, we would have a steampunk theme always. One year, we did the Pirates of the Caribbean. So this year, it's a western theme. I'd love to take you, if you would like."
"Sure. I couldn't decide, but Kate showed me some gowns that she and the other ladies have bought, and I went ahead and ordered mine."
"All right. We have it at the ranch this year. So if you stay with us, you won't be needing to go anywhere. Then we’ll have pony rides for the kids, hayrides, a corn maze, dancing, and food. We'll turn one of the outer buildings into a haunted house. It will be fun."
She smiled. "That would be. I've never been to a Halloween party, but that sounds like fun."
"We'll run as cougars afterwards before the little ones are too worn out."
That decided it! She was going.
Elsie brought in her dinner, but instead of it being a platter of clinic food, it was a dinner of steak and mashed potatoes and broccoli. "Ted convinced Dr. Kate you needed this to help you heal faster and that it works well for him. Doc said that you should be fine eating this."
Stella couldn't believe Ted had gone through the trouble to convince the doctor to let her eat what she wanted to. Now she realized why Kate had asked her what she loved best to eat this morning after breakfast—in just a chatty kind of way.
"Courtesy of Ted," Elsie added, smiling at him, then leaving them alone. Then she returned with another tray. "He said you might not want to eat in front of him, so he made a dinner for himself to enjoy while he keeps you company." She set it on the other table, and he pulled it over to the chair so he could eat next to Stella.
"Now this takes the cake. A first date with a cougar in a clinic bed—with a four-star meal." She took a bite of her steak. "This is perfect."
"I grilled the steaks at Kate and Hal's place just a few minutes ago and made the mashed potatoes and broccoli. I thought you might need some good home-cooked food and their house is right behind the clinic."
"Oh, this is just great. The other is fine, but it's more institutionalized. Okay, I'll take you up on your offer for me to stay at the bunkhouse for another day or two, if Kate says I can leave the clinic soon."
"Yes," he said with a fist pump.
She laughed, but she continued to enjoy her steak then too. "It's just delicious."
"I would sneak you out to see a movie at the ranch with me because Kate won't give you a pass, but—"
"We can watch a movie together here. All we need is popcorn."
He laughed. "I'll be right back."
He couldn't be asking Kate if they could have popcorn. They would be full by the time they ate their meals.
When Ted returned, he was smiling.
"You did not ask Kate if we could have popcorn, did you?" Stella couldn't help but be amused.
"Yeah, she said they have some in the lounge. I'll make it for us as soon as we want some."
She smiled. "We're going to be full."
But after they ate, they talked about all kinds of stuff, and by the time he cleared away their plates and they settled in to watch a movie, she was ready for some popcorn.
"I'll go get it." He left the room and ran into Mandy.
"The furthermost righthand cabinet over the microwave," Mandy said.
"Thanks."
Any guy who would do this much for Stella while she was in the clinic, and even before that, and was a cougar, was worth spending more time with, she decided.
Then they settled on a western movie and shared popcorn. She was glad her right shoulder hadn't been injured since she did so much with her right arm.
Now she was ready to leave the clinic, have more delicious meals, and sleep without interruption any time she needed to.
When the movie ended, Ted leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I'll return tomorrow night to have dinner with you and hopefully, you'll be able to leave the next day."
"It's a deal."
Chapter 5
When Ted left, Stella was feeling so much better physically. Elsie came in and said, "Kate said if you have Tracey and the others to watch out for you, you can leave here tomorrow afternoon. We'll let them know you'll need transportation out there. They can take you to your Jeep in the impound lot or take it to the ranch for when you're ready to leave and return home."
"Okay, thanks. That sounds good." She was thrilled. She hoped she could sit out on the porch and watch the cowboys at work firsthand.
Then she tried to sleep, but the nightmare returned.
She just had to reach the barn, just several hun
dred yards across the field where the grass was short. She could do it. Sprint at forty-five miles per hour. Leap into the barn. Hope that no one at the horse ranch saw her run in there before she could shift. Then the men saw her out in the open and closed the distance, not calling out, not alerting the ranch hands if there were any about. The hunters were going to catch her. They were going to shoot her full of holes. They were nearly there. And they fired at her. One bullet after another, the rounds pinging off the metal building and she was afraid she was going to get hit by some of the ricocheting bullets. But she didn't feel that she'd taken any more hits.
That would soon change if they came into the barn and found her bleeding as a cougar in there and finished her off. She leapt up into the hayloft and moved around a bundle of hay and tried to shift. She heard men shouting at the hunters to drop their weapons. But they wouldn't comply. It was like an old-western shootout. The men would be eyeballing each other, but no one would concede.
Then she heard a man coming into the barn. One of the ranch hands? She couldn't shift. Damn, she couldn't even lift her head. She heard him close the doors to the barn. And then he said he was a cougar, and he would like her to stay with him. And he would take her to the Halloween party. But it would be here. Right here. At the horse ranch with other cougars like her. But not like her. She was a rare white cougar, and they would gawk at her, but no. She would be wearing a beautiful blue gown, her shoulders exposed, and she would look like a western princess, her knight in shining armor in western boots, chaps, and a Stetson, coming to her rescue on a white stallion.
She startled awake and smelled eggs and bacon and hash brown potatoes and saw Ted bringing her another home-cooked meal.
"Fresh eggs, even," he said. "Store bought bacon though."
"I…I thought you were coming for dinner, then they said I could join you all on your ranch this afternoon, so I thought—"
"I'll pick you up this afternoon. I just wanted to make sure you had a good hearty breakfast to get you through until then.”
She smiled. "Wow. Just, wow. Thanks, Ted. This is great. I've never had fresh eggs before. They're great."
