Falling for the Cougar

by Terry Spear

  He leaned against the wall as he waited for her. When she walked back out, he grabbed their bags and she looped her arm through his.

  The rain still pummeled them as they hurried outside to his car. After unlocking his car doors, he shoved the suitcases in his trunk, then hurried to jump into the driver’s seat. Nicole had already pulled her rain jacket off and sat in the passenger’s seat. She hooked up her seatbelt.

  For the moment, they were safe. But then he remembered her talking about having a vision of her car being stolen. “What did you see in your vision?”

  “Oh. It can’t be true. The car being stolen, sure. But that it’s smashed up against a pillar of an overpass?” She shook her head. “That part has to be because I was thinking about my parents’ car accident and had incorporated it in my vision.”

  That had never happened to him when he had a vision. He either had a nightmare or a vision, they didn’t mix with one another.

  “Has that ever happened to you before? Stuff that’s happened to you recently gets mixed in with a vision?”

  “It has to have. Otherwise, my friend Jackie stole my car and crashed into a bridge and died.”

  Ah, hell, he’d stepped in that one. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Have you ever mixed up dreams or nightmares with a premonition?” she asked.

  “I’m sure everyone’s different.”

  “I take that as a no. What about you last night? Did you have any visions or dreams?” she asked.

  “Yeah. First, I kept seeing the guy raising his gun at me.”

  “Then me running him over.”

  “Yeah, you did some real fancy driving that saved my ass.” He realized he shouldn’t have mentioned that part of the nightmare once he told her about the guy and the gun. She didn’t need to be reminded of her role in that. “Then it morphed into a nightmare that my ex-girlfriend moved in on me.”

  “Oh?”

  “It had to be a nightmare. She’s in the military too, a finance officer. She transferred to another post out of state, career all the way.”

  “Is she a cougar?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good that she’s out of the area. You may feel I’m way too dangerous to date, but maybe after this is resolved, we could. And if we did, I don’t share a boyfriend with anyone.”

  He chuckled. “That’s a deal. Though I’m not waiting for the danger to be over before I date you. I’m all in already.”

  She smiled. “Good. That’s what I was thinking, but I wanted to give you an out if you thought I was too much trouble.”

  “No way.” He was thrilled. Here he thought he was going to have a real time of it after she’d been so reluctant to trust him, not that he didn’t understand now after all she’d had to deal with.

  It would take them several hours in the bad weather to get to his home in Killeen. With thoughts of a shared meal and bed that night, he hoped they wouldn’t have any more trouble, but he suspected they would if the men who were after her learned they had left the hotel. He just hoped her friend hadn’t stolen her car and died in a crash.

  He backed out of the parking spot and headed for the exit. He tried to think of the puzzle they needed to solve. “Can you think of anything your father said to you that would help with this?”

  She shook her head as she unfolded a map of the area. “No.”

  He knew with any mystery game, all clues had to be investigated, no matter how insignificant they seemed to be. But this one was more than significant, as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t letting go of something that might turn out to be important in solving the mystery. There was something about the chill in her voice when she spoke about her parents’ death that bothered him too. What did she know that she wasn’t revealing?

  “You trust me, don’t you?”

  She glanced at him and his stomach churned. He had gained her trust only to an extent, he feared. Something was bothering her about her parents’ death, and he had to find out what. Why did she think her parents were murdered when the coroner thought otherwise? The coroner wouldn’t have been in on the cover-up, would he have? The notion was unlikely, he thought.

  He pulled onto the street and drove in the direction of the bridge that led to Houston. Once they had left Galveston Island, he continued on the route he’d driven to get there.

  He sighed heavily. He’d wanted to have a nice vacation from the rigors of work. He hadn’t expected to be involved in a murder caper, extraordinaire.

  She pointed ahead. “Road closed.”

  But there wasn’t a sign saying so.

  “Premonition,” she said.

  “Okay, good.” He wished his psychic abilities were assisting them too.

  They had to detour. She searched for another route. Looking up at the road signs, she said, “Turn left here.”

  He turned left. More blocked roads. Another detour.

  She fumbled with the map. “Make a right here.”

  This time they made their way a little farther but again, emergency roadblocks obstructed their path.

  “You’ll need to turn around and we’ll have to head left instead.”

  She’d found their way to Moody Gardens without a hitch when they were on the Island. But he wasn’t certain she was doing all right with the flooded streets of the Houston’s suburbs. They’d switchback so many times, he wasn’t even sure they were headed in the right direction. As his compass pointed east, he said, “Are you sure—”

  Her voice laced with annoyance, she said, “Do you want me to drive and you navigate? We must head back toward Galveston, then we’ll try south instead of north. All the roads directly west have been submerged under tons of water.”

  “Sorry. I hate getting lost. Kind of a pet peeve of mine.”

  She nodded. “Mine too. But I do stop for directions when I need to. Do you?”

  He smiled. Even riled, she was a turn on for him. Her cheeks were rosy pink and her blue eyes were still heated. He could tell the way she smoothed the map over her lap with jerky motions she was still annoyed with him. Then he happened to notice a black SUV tailing from some distance behind. Panic filled his gut. He tried to quell the fear until he saw the fractured windshield. He was certain it was the same car that tried to run Nicole over in the parking lot.

  He turned his head slightly to see her looking at him. She glanced at the side mirror. To his astonishment, she continued to read the map as if the menace behind them didn’t exist. “Okay, turn left here.”

  “But that heads us back north where the brunt of the storm is dumping—” He shut up as she glared at him. “Okay, we turn left here, though I distinctly heard you say we were going to head south,” he muttered under his breath. He wasn’t going to get into an argument with her, not with a killer whale on their tail.

  “Yes, that’s what I said, until I saw we had unwelcome company.” The rain still punished their windshield and the roads proved slippery. Water puddled up in potholes and dips in the road making for a rough ride. “Can you turn this car quickly if you need to?”

  “Not under these conditions.”

  “You’re going to have to try.”

  “Haven’t we already been here once before…yeah, there’s the barricade!”

  “Turn sharply right, here! Now!”

  He turned his front end sharply onto the exit ramp, barely missing the concrete barrier as the SUV with its heavier tonnage kept going straight, missing the exit.

  “Cross around the overpass and go back down on the other side! We can’t go anywhere in this direction. Everything’s flooded, but we’ve got to keep going before he’s able to back out and follow us up the exit ramp.”

  Well, she was a smart cookie after all. He smiled, unable to contain his amusement that they’d misled the bad guys into a mess.

  He pulled over the top of the overpass and drove across, while both tried to see what had become of the SUV. “Right where we wanted him,” she confirmed, her concerned voice tinged with relief.


  They continued on past as they watched the gold-toothed man climb out of his car, gun in one hand while his right arm was wrapped in cloth. Scott sped up, causing his car to slip twice on the wet pavement before he was out of range of the weapon.

  Nicole looked back. “Looks like the SUV is out of commission. He piled it on top of the barrier and flooded the engine, I suspect.”

  Scott reached under the map and squeezed Nicole’s leg. “Where to now?”

  “I’ve been thinking. How does South Padre Island sound to you?”

  He chuckled. “I can’t think of a better place I’d like to go and with a more interesting companion, but don’t you think we might return to my place and try to work this out?”

  “Yeah, besides, I’m not sure the weather would be much better down there.”

  “Not much good for sun tanning.”

  “It’s not good for you anyway.” She ran her hand over his arm. Her touch wasn’t good for him either as his eyes strained to watch the road while his body ached for hers to surrender to his. Which he knew he shouldn’t be thinking of under the circumstances.

  She guided him south, then they headed west again where they finally broke free of the Houston suburbs. The rain continued for miles.

  After they’d driven for two hours, he pulled into a gas station to fill the tank up. When he climbed back into the car, he said, “Okay, we’re still trying to solve the mystery.”

  “I’d never told Tom—”

  “Tom, the major.”

  “Yes, anything about my parents. Then right out of the blue, he questioned me about them.”

  “You mean, he asked about where they were living or something?” He drove down the highway again.

  She shook her head. “No, that’s what was so odd. He asked about a friend of my parents, Boris Nikolayevich. My dad had known him for years, but how would Tom have known of him? He asked casually over a bottle of champagne. I don’t drink much so maybe he thought I was a bit tipsy, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t get tipsy.” He felt her gaze on him, turned, and smiled at her.

  “Well, I certainly remember what I say or do. Most of the time.”

  “So what did you say?”

  “I told him I didn’t know anything about a Boris Nikolayevich.”

  “But you did know him?”

  “Sure. He loved to hunt and brought venison to our home every fall during deer hunting season. I couldn’t eat it. Bambi hang-up.”

  Scott chuckled.

  “Anyway, he was a really nice man.”

  “And Russian?” he asked. She looked at him again and he pulled into a seafood restaurant’s parking lot. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand driving any further in this weather. I’ve got to take a break.”

  She reached over and rubbed his back.

  Her fingers deftly massaged the tension from his muscles. He wanted the sensation to continue. “Maybe we should stop at a hotel for the rest of the afternoon.”

  She chuckled. “Come on. I don’t usually eat much for breakfast, but I’m starving for lunch.”

  Dessert was more what he had in mind. “All right, but after lunch, we could still consider stopping at a hotel.”

  “We only have three more hours to drive.”

  “Yeah, but I could use a really good masseuse right about now.”

  “I can drive for a while if you like.”

  He glanced back at his Mustang.

  She shook her head as they walked into the restaurant. “Are you afraid to let me drive it?”

  “The weather’s too bad.”

  “Ah-huh. You still trust me to read the map?”

  “You’ve done all right so far.”

  She shook her head at him again.

  He chuckled.

  Inside the restaurant, the hostess seated them in a booth shaped like a shipwrecked boat, and Scott waited until the woman left them alone. “Okay, now about this Boris. Was he a Russian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you heard from him since your parents’ death?”

  “He sent me a note before I took this vacation. I was really surprised to hear from him as I thought he’d moved away.”

  “To?”

  “I thought maybe Florida. He’d always talked about retiring out there.”

  “The mail was postmarked from where?”

  “Houston. That’s where he’d been living before, but when I sent him a note about my parents’ funeral, I got the card back from the post office marked, returned, no forwarding address. There wasn’t any return address on the card he sent either.”

  “So what did he say?”

  They paused their conversation as the waitress took their drink orders and then walked away.

  “It was kind of cryptic. He told me to have a nice time on the island. I wondered how he knew I was going on vacation. And how he would know I was going to an island. He also said to be careful of the sharks as they were out in greater numbers this season. Of course they have been. There have been shark reports all along the eastern coast and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico too, so I didn’t think anything about his comments there.”

  “And I was wearing board shorts featuring a shark.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, I had considered you were the one I had to be wary of.”

  “Anything else?”

  The waitress returned with their drinks, took the orders for their meal, then left.

  “He told me to keep venison safe. He’d given me a Bambi stuffed toy one fall because I always went on about them eating Bambi whenever he came to our house with the deer meat. I figured he couldn’t remember the name of the deer and called it venison. His English was rather broken.”

  A chill spiked down Scott’s spine. “Or else he didn’t want anyone else to realize what he was talking about if they read his mail to you. Only you would know what his message meant.”

  Nicole stared at the table. He could tell from the way her hand was trembling she was scared. Was the Russian an ex-patriot who’d sent her secret documents or what?

  Scott reached over and touched her hand. “Do you still have Bambi?”

  Chapter 10

  Nicole couldn’t believe that Boris would have sent her something that could have endangered her life. Then tried to warn her about it. Now what was she to do? “Yeah, I still have Bambi. He’s got a special place in my heart. Besides, Whiskers adores him,” Nicole said.

  Scott’s brows rose.

  Maybe he didn’t mind cuddling with her, but would he like her Maine Coon cat too?

  He drank some of his soda and set the glass down on the table. “Whiskers.”

  “A furry hairball with an overstuffed body. I keep him on a strict diet, but he’s still as big as my office at work. Anyway, he’s a registered Main Coon and sleeps with Bambi.”

  “A raccoon?”

  She chuckled. “No, a cat.” A raccoon! Just because she had guys trying to kill her, didn’t mean she had strange animals living with her. “I don’t think my apartment manager would go for raccoons living in my complex. Cats are all they allow.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve never had a cat. I guess he gets along with cougars all right. Does he scratch and bite much?” he asked.

  “Only if you rub his fur the wrong way.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know there was only one way to pet a cat.”

  He sure could be cute. And he was handy in a crisis. Perhaps Whiskers would grow on him.

  He fingered his glass of Coke. “Okay, so I think we ought to retrieve Bambi first, then to go to my place.”

  “Okay.”

  They grew quiet when the waitress returned. After she brought their meals to them and left, Nicole said, “I’ll pay for the lunches.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, after I already ordered. Here I got the lunch portion when I could have had the Lobster Royal feast.”

  She laughed. “You can have dessert.”

  The warm sparkle in his eye and hi
s upturned lips said it all. He still wanted to stop in at a hotel on the way home. The same kind of tingling filled her body just like when he drew near, and she had no control over suppressing it.

  She couldn’t help smiling at him. He made her feel good, despite the nagging in her mind that the bad guys were out there, just waiting to get them. However, where Scott or any other man was concerned, she had no intention of setting her career aside just so she could marry. She’d known too many cases where the couples split up because they ended up with tours apart.

  “Maybe, I should try and get ahold of my girlfriend and stay with her.” She realized as soon as she said it, she hoped he would object on the grounds she wouldn’t be safe without him. But also, Nicole couldn’t shake loose of the fear she had that she’d witnessed a premonition of Jackie’s death.

  “Ahh, another piece of the puzzle. I’d almost forgotten about her until you mentioned about the nightmare. She was the one who set up this vacation and backed out. Have you called her lately?”

  “I tried. She supposedly had left on a family emergency. But her parents said there was no family problem.”

  Scott’s expression darkened. “Too many coincidences. And you have no idea where she’s gone to?”

  “I considered she might have been having an affair with a married man. That she’d decided she already had her leave approved, and preferred vacationing with him over me. I don’t really know what happened with her for sure.”

  He sighed heavily. “Yeah, well, sometimes the pressure of work and lack of relationships can do that to a person, though I don’t believe in home-wrecking.”

  “You said your girlfriend was all about her career.”

  “Well, a career is great and all, but what do you have at the end of it?”

  She tilted her chin up. When men called it quits with her, she’d always have an income. “A retirement check.”

  His dark eyes studied her. She could tell he hadn’t considered she could feel the same way as his old girlfriend. What did he think anyway? That a woman would give it all up for a man of her dreams? Men faded away after some months of fun and then what did a woman have? Nothing. Her parents were the exception.