by Terry Spear
"What?"
Ava pulled off the road and stopped at the edge of the snowbank. She turned around in the front seat and faced Nina. Ava was frowning at her. "When we were ten, you saved me from drowning in a river. You nearly drowned. I mean, you did.” Tears ran down Ava’s cheeks and she hastily brushed them away. “I was being my headstrong, cocky self and wanted to play on the logs being carried downstream. You were trying to keep me from getting myself into trouble. You were hollering at me to come back to shore. I told you that if you were afraid of the logs, go home. You came out on them, not to prove to me that you weren’t afraid, but because you were trying to reach me and keep me from drowning myself."
"What?" Nina didn't remember any of it.
"Logs roll. They were slippery and mossy. I started to fall and you grabbed for me, pulling me onto the log so I could hold on, but you lost your balance and went into the river. I couldn’t reach you and had to run back to the house and get Dad. You were right about how dangerous it was. I couldn't see it until you…you drowned. Dad pulled you out of the ice-cold water and rushed you to the hospital. They never asked me what had happened. I never told them. You were in a coma for three days and you didn't remember any of it when you came out of it. Mom and Dad thought it was best if we didn't tell you what had happened. So we didn't. I always wanted to tell you I was sorry for getting you into so much trouble, but then you were right as rain after that. Once I got over the darn cold I got from it, I gave it to you." Ava shrugged. "It didn't mean I forgot any of it though. "
"I had nightmares about that forever! You should have told me. Let's go back," Nina said. "Let's do this right."
"You're serious about the guy I knocked out, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"Wait. Oh. My. God! He's Santa with the abs! The one you took pictures of. I knew you were hung up on him when you took pictures of him. I guess if there's a wedding, I won't be your bridesmaid." Now Ava sounded truly sorry. Finally.
"If he's dead, there won't be a wedding."
Ava tried to turn the car around. "If this gets us killed, I'm coming back to haunt you."
"Ava, thanks." Nina would forgive her about anything, unless Stryker was murdered in the time it took for them to return or if he suffered a permanent injury from Ava's hitting him. "What did you hit him with?"
"I stunned him with a different Taser."
Nina thought he should have come to by then. She frowned at her sister. "How do you know so many men are coming after you?" Nina wondered if she'd had a listening bug or something on Rudy's phone, but Nina didn't imagine her sister would have been capable of it.
"I just do."
"No, how do you know? Tell me the truth. Enough damn secrets."
"All right." Ava tried to turn the car around and got stuck in the snow on the other side of the road.
"Ohmigod," Nina said, when Ava tried to back out and her tires just kept spinning. "Get this tie off me." She unfastened her seatbelt and leaned over the seat and held out her hands.
Ava cut the tie off with her knife.
Nina got out of the car to push it out of the snowbank, but she couldn't do it by herself. "Do you have it in neutral?"
"Yes, I've got it in neutral." Ava sounded exasperated with herself. She got out of the car to try and help Nina push Nina’s car out of the snow when a shot rang out and the round struck the car right by Nina's shoulder.
Nina shrieked and ducked. “Move, strip, shift!”
12
Stryker came to and aroused himself enough to sit up, forgetting how he got there for a moment. Then it dawned on him. While he was out in the snow, Nina's lookalike sister attacked him with a blasted Taser gun. He hurried to get up off the tile floor and rocked a little on his feet for a moment. He'd been outside, checking on the skunk cage and she’d come around the side of the garage, startling him because she’d looked so much like Nina.
He assumed Ava thought he was one of the bad guys and she was saving her sister from him. He hurried to get out of his manacles and shoved them in his coat pocket and found his phone and called Dan right away. "Hey, we’ve got an emergency. It seems Ava thought I was one of the bad guys and took Nina from the house," he said, going through all the rooms and finding Nina, her purse, gun, and phone gone. He headed for the garage. "They've taken Nina's car."
"Are you okay? You sound a bit ragged," Dan asked, sounding concerned.
"Yeah, hurry, will you? I have no idea which direction they took."
"You wouldn't have let the women go anywhere, if you'd been fine," Dan said and Stryker could hear his car door slam shut and the engine come to life.
"She tased me. I doubt Nina would have gone with her willingly. We need to head out on the road that leads past Hal's ranch. Most likely, Ava wouldn't have driven toward town if she's worried about any of us catching up to her." Stryker got in his Jeep and sat for a minute, trying to get rid of the cobwebs in his brain.
"We'll meet you at the Robinson's house."
"I'm on my way out of here. I'm going to try and catch up to them. Not sure how long they've been gone. Approximately twenty minutes, if I recall the time right."
"All right, watch yourself. I'll get ahold of Hal since he's out in your direction. Maybe he can stop them."
"Okay, talk in a few." Stryker finished backing down the driveway, then took off down the road after the women. He tried calling Nina, but her phone went to voicemail. He didn't know Ava's number, or he would have called her next. He was worried sick about the women, knowing Nina would never have left willingly and how much trouble both could be in without anyone else's protection.
He called Nina again. "Pick up. Please, pick up." Then he got an incoming call from Hal.
"Hey, I'm on my way. Dan told me a little bit of what happened. He's getting the rest of the troops together," Hal said.
"Thanks, Hal." Stryker told him all the rest of the news. He really hadn't wanted to mention that Nina's twin had knocked him out this time. He could imagine Dan firing his butt and hiring both of the women to replace him. They ended the call and he got another, this time from Leyton's mate, Dr. Kate.
"Okay, tell me everything that happened and how you're feeling now," Kate said, being her clinical doctor self.
He gave a watered-down version of how he was feeling like shit.
"Okay, now you can tell me the true state of your condition," she said. "Remember, I'm mated to Leyton, so I know just how the two of you think."
Stryker grunted. "I'm the closest to where the women took off to, so I’m doing fine. I just need to catch them." At least he thought he was closest to them. Unless Hal was, coming in the opposite direction. Then his worst nightmare was realized when he saw Nina's car up ahead stuck in the snowbank, the back passenger door open, and the driver's door ajar. A truck was parked behind theirs and a couple of men were leaning into Nina's car. There looked to be no sign of the women. At least it appeared Nina had convinced Ava to turn around and return to the Robinson’s place, but they couldn’t make it. "I found Nina's abandoned car stuck in the snow on the side of the road. A couple of men are looking into the vehicle. I'll have to get back to you."
"Be careful, Stryker. I'll let Leyton know. He's on his way to help."
"Thanks." Stryker slowed down and pulled to a stop on the road, calling Dan at the same time. "The car is a few miles from the Robinson's home, stuck in snow. Two men were looking into it, their black pickup truck parked behind Nina's car. There's no sign of the women. Keeping the line open." He pocketed his phone, leaving the line open, pulled his gun out, and climbed out of the Jeep in a rush.
"Hold it right there!" Stryker snapped, pointing the gun at the men. The two men could be the ones looking to kill the sisters, or just curious to see what had happened. Neither seemed to be armed, but that didn't mean they weren't dangerous. "Step away from the car, lie down on the ground, and place your hands behind your backs."
"Hey, man, we were just stopping to see if we could assist th
e person who got stuck in the snow," the one man said.
Stryker smelled their scent on the breeze. Humans. "I'm Deputy Sheriff Stryker, and I'm not going to tell you again." He noticed the one man had Nina's phone in his hand. She had a cougar on the cover, so he knew the phone wasn't this guy's. They were stealing from the abandoned car. He glanced into the car and said to Dan over the phone in his pocket, "Their clothes are here. Nina's purse, guns, Ava's phone." He saw three rounds in the front hood. "The two men attempting to burglarize Nina's car didn't know what they were getting into. The two women were being shot at." He noticed cougar prints bounding through the snow. "Cougars' trails nearby, headed in Hal's ranch's direction."
"Okay, maybe Hal will see them then. Be there in a few minutes."
"Thanks. If these guys cooperate, I won't have to shoot them. They're holding me up, damn it, from protecting the women," Stryker said.
"We didn't do anything wrong," the other guy said, quickly shoving Nina's phone in his pocket as if it was his own.
"That phone belongs to a woman I know." Intimately.
The guy began to take the phone out of his pocket, and Stryker said, "Leave it." He didn’t want the guy pulling out something else like a weapon.
Then Stryker saw Hal headed in his truck in his direction. He'd really hoped Hal had picked up the women somewhere along the way, but he suspected they wouldn't have stuck to the road while running in their cougar coats. There would be no need to and it wasn't as safe for them to run near the road either.
Hal pulled his truck up right behind the would-be thieves, so close, he was nearly bumping their back sides. They turned to see who was about to run them over and he gave them a dark smile. Hal got out of the truck. "Deputy Sheriff Haverton. What seems to be the trouble?"
He grabbed the one guy's wrists and manacled them, before either of them could say a word, then shoved him against his truck while Stryker took care of the other guy.
"Attempted burglary and burglary," Stryker said, handcuffing the other guy and pulling Nina's phone out of his pocket. "And…resisting arrest."
"No, we didn't," the one guy said, sounding hot under the collar.
"Sure you did. How many times did I tell you to get down on the ground? And neither of you would obey?" Stryker shoved the other man against Hal's truck and searched for ID when he really wanted to be out there searching for the women, but he couldn't leave Hal in a lurch until more help arrived.
"You didn't see any sign of the women?" Stryker asked as Hal put the guy's ID on the front of his hood.
"No." Hal glanced in Nina's car.
"Yeah, they took off. Rounds hit the car."
One of the guys glanced over his shoulder at Stryker.
"Yeah, those guys are bad asses like you. Only they're shooting to kill. You should be glad they didn't kill you," Stryker said.
"We just—"
"Save it for the judge," Hal said, and glanced at Stryker.
Stryker felt antsy about leaving, wishing some of the others would get here. Then he heard Dan's siren from a long way off.
"You can go. I've got these two well in hand," Hal said.
"They'll get here in a few minutes."
And then they saw three vehicles tearing down the road to join them.
"Hell, I only took a phone, man," the one guy said. "We didn't shoot the car. We don't have any weapons on us."
"Yeah, but you've got warrants out for your arrest for a number of suspected burglaries in the nearby town," Hal said, looking on his phone.
Dan pulled up behind Stryker's Jeep. "Go on. We've got this," Dan said, getting out of his vehicle.
"Thanks." Stryker hurried off to his Jeep and noticed Chase, Leyton, Travis, and Bridget were waiting for him to lead the way. But he suspected he was going to have to pull over and shift and run as a cougar to follow where the women ran to, if he was going to catch sight of them.
Up the road and out of sight of Dan and Hal and the thieves, Stryker pulled off the road and told everyone what was up so that someone could drive his Jeep, rather than let anyone rob it like those two men were planning to do with Nina's car. The guys would have to get a tow truck for Nina's car to pull it out. Someone would drive her car back to the Robinson's house. "I'm shifting and then heading back toward Nina's vehicle to see if I can pick up the women's scent."
"I'm going with you," Leyton said. "Are you okay? Kate said Ava tased you."
"Yeah, but I don't want the whole world to know," Stryker said.
Then the two of them stripped, throwing their clothes into the Jeep and shifted. Bridget got into Stryker's Jeep, and they headed toward Hal's ranch to see if they could find any sign of the two women in that direction.
Leyton and Stryker leapt through the deep snow toward Nina's car, but suddenly picked up the women's trail, turned, and hurried off after them across the snow-covered meadows and into the woods.
The she-cats appeared to be taking a shortcut to Hal's ranch. Stryker wished he could tell the others where they were headed and to meet them there. He wondered who was leading whom now. Was Ava still running the show? He didn't think Nina knew her way around out here, and Ava seemed to have been here a while, so maybe she had some inkling of where she was going. There were no roads out here, and no other cougars that they could smell right now, and that was good news. He just hoped they could catch up to the women before the shooter did.
He wondered if they were heading for the cliffs though. They could find refuge in the caves up there, but the shooter could still shift and try to take them out. Two females against one male could still have the advantage.
He just hoped he and his brother could reach them in time. He wasn't sure what they were going to do once they did find them. The women had veered off again, away from Hal's ranch and were heading for the caves near the waterfall.
Stryker and Leyton realized the same thing at the same time and they both took off for the cliffs. There was no road out here either, only horse trails where everyone rode the horses. This land was Hal and Tracey's ranch property.
Stryker and Leyton were running full out, driven to reach the cliffs, and Stryker just hoped both women were okay. Though he sure wanted to give Ava a few choice words about tasing him and taking off with Nina. Ava had put them both in a world of danger, as evidenced by the bullet holes in Nina's car.
He wondered then where Ava's own vehicle was.
They were nearly to the bottom of the rocks, where he smelled Nina and her sister’s scent. He and Leyton would have to climb to reach the caves. He let out a snarl to tell Nina he was coming for her. He hoped she'd let him know which cave she was in.
She poked her head out of one of the caves, filling him with ragged relief to see her alive and well, and then a cougar who looked similar to her, showed herself too. Nina bounded down the cliff toward him, but someone began shooting, splintering snow- and ice-covered rocks near her.
Ava ducked back into the cave, calling for Nina in her cougar way, distressed.
Stryker raced up the cliff with Nina. He wanted her to stay in the cave and be safe. Leyton had taken cover behind some rocks down below, not making a move to climb the cliff. Stryker knew Leyton was waiting for him to join him and they'd kill the shooter.
Inside the cave, Nina nuzzled him as if she had been afraid she'd lost him. He nuzzled her right back, licking her face, wanting to protect her always, and then he shifted. "We're going after the shooter."
Nina unexpectedly shifted then. "Ava says there are three of them. Maybe more."
"Okay, well it appears there's only one right now. We're taking him down. Then we’ll only have to deal with two more." He hugged and kissed her, then released her and shifted and left the cave. He leaped from boulder to boulder, trying to take refuge behind rocks as he made his way down. Shots were fired, damn the shooter, and ice and rock shattered near his left hip.
But as soon as the bastard began shooting at Stryker, Leyton raced out of his hiding place and targeted the sh
ooter. Unless the shooter was able to get a shot off at Leyton and hit him, the man didn't have a prayer of a chance. Stryker leaped as far from the rocks down to the ground as a cougar could jump without killing or badly injuring himself and dodged behind a rock, he quickly leaped over it to help Leyton.
The shooter fired at them, trying to hit the fast-moving cats, but they had split up and were coming at him from different directions. Before they could reach him, dodging behind rocks, whenever the shooter switched from one to the other to try his aim at each of them, when another cougar leaped down the rocks.
Nina. God, Nina. Stay back.
But she was quick and agile, moving just as swiftly, except she was running behind the boulders, out of the shooter's line of sight from up above.
And then Stryker glimpsed the other cat behind her, racing to help too.
The shooter raised up from behind a boulder to see Stryker readying to pounce and he aimed his rifle, but Nina leaped from the boulders to the left of the shooter and knocked him to the side, forcing his shot to go wild. Stryker was on him next, and between him and Nina, he was dead. If he hadn't been a cougar, Stryker would have gone after the man's rifle and shot him. But he was a cougar and they wouldn’t have any more trouble from him.
Ava was standing on top of some rocks, looking down at them. Leyton joined them and shifted. "We need to drag his carcass to Hal's ranch. They'll take care of him there." Leyton stuck the guy’s rifle partway underneath his belt so it wouldn’t get lost while they were dragging him to the ranch, and then Leyton turned back into his cougar form.
Then he and Stryker looked up at Ava, wondering what she intended to do. Nina watched her too, and then Ava came down off the boulders and joined them.
Stryker took that as meaning she was going to go with them, but he still didn't trust her after what she had pulled.
13
Nina still cared about her sister, they were blood relatives after all, but she could have gotten any number of them killed here today with her actions. At this point, Nina figured it was up to her sister to either go with them or do her own thing, though she prayed her sister would come to her senses and leave with them. Ava looked a little nervous around Stryker, and he didn't look any happier to see her. Nina didn't blame him at all.
