Cougar Halloween Mischief: A Novella (Heart of the Cougar)

by Terry Spear

  “We’ll get you patched up in no time,” Dan said.

  “I can’t work tomorrow. I’ve messed everything up.” Ricky felt terrible about it. He was so eager to work at his new job, to prove to the other guys that he could be more than an informant or a ranch hand, but he had really gone and done it this time.

  Dan shook his head and patted his shoulder. “You can work in the office while your leg is casted. No problem at all. And about Mandy, we’ll take care of her.”

  Stryker and Chase had already shifted and growled to let them know they were headed into the woods.

  “Come on, Hal. Let’s get going so Doc can take care of Ricky.” Dan headed off for the woods, Hal hurried after him.

  The ambulance took off for the clinic and every bump in the road made Ricky’s leg and head hurt. Ricky was already wondering what they were going to do with Mandy once they caught up to her. She would have trouble controlling her shifting. Why had she come here? What if she had known he was living here now and wanted to renew their relationship?

  He was hoping so, yet, he figured he’d blown that now. Where would she stay? He’d have to ask Hal and Tracey if she could stay with them out at the ranch. He smiled a little. Then he frowned. If he was going to work at the sheriff’s office now instead of out at the ranch, he’d only see her when he returned home at night.

  Still, that was better than nothing and he would have time to convince her that he was still an excellent choice of a boyfriend for her. And more.

  Mandy was living a nightmare. Lights were shining this way and that as two men tracked her, but no matter how much she tried to shake them, they followed her like they could smell her trail. Then she saw two cougars flanking her and her heart nearly gave out. They were larger than her and she suspected they were males.

  A couple of vehicles headed out on the road where she’d come from. Did they save the cougar? She hadn’t heard any gunfire, so she hoped they hadn’t shot it. What if they shot her!

  But she was hallucinating. Or caught up in a night terror, nightmare paralysis, or effect from the bite that she couldn’t shake loose of.

  “Mandy! Mandy Richards!” one of the men shouted.

  Okay, now she really knew this was all a horrible figment of her imagination. No one here knew her name. Well, besides the fact that they wouldn’t be calling out to her as if she were running as a human.

  “We don’t want to hurt you. Just stop running from us. We’ll take care of your injury and explain what’s going on. Your boyfriend, Ricky Jones, didn’t mean to bite you.”

  Her heart was already racing went into overdrive. She hadn’t thought about him in forever. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She often wondered what had become of him. But here, in this place, with her new life ahead of her, new town, new makeover, she was leaving her old life behind, and for the moment, she hadn’t been thinking about him. He bit her? A cougar bit her!

  How would they know she had dated Ricky? Maybe she was in a coma. Maybe they had read her driver’s license and knew her name that way. And she was hearing bits and pieces of conversation that drifted into her coma-like state. No way would they know who she had dated in the past though. Unless…unless she had mentioned him in her confusion and hadn’t even realized she’d said anything. Why wouldn’t she have said Edgar Sanderson’s name? The guy she’d been dating, until she tried to call it quits? He should have been the one on her mind.

  “Okay, we’ll take her down that way.”

  Down? Like “shooting her” taking her down?

  Then she heard a shot fired, a stab in her flank, and she stumbled, fell, collapsed. Okay, so they caught her, all right? She could end this nightmare now and wake up or sleep more soundly.

  One of the men lifted her in his arms and started carrying her back the way she’d come. At least she thought so.

  “You don’t think Ricky did this on purpose, do you, Dan?” the guy carrying her asked.

  “No, Hal. I believe he was telling the truth, that it was an accident.” His hair dark and his expression darker, Dan said, “Hey, Stryker, Chase, you can meet us at the clinic. Since the two of you came in the same car, maybe one of you can take her car there. I’ll carry Mandy in my car and see you in a few.”

  The two cougars that were still flanking them both growled and ran off. The other men were dressed in jeans, jackets, cowboy boots and hats, and she’d seen one of them wearing a badge. She suspected they were with a sheriff’s office, rather than from a police station.

  “Hal, can you take her in at your ranch after she’s feeling better? Since she’s Ricky’s girlfriend and you and Tracey have had experience dealing with newly turned cougars?” Dan asked.

  Hal’s dark brown eyes considered her, as if trying to decide if she was a safe bet or not.

  Now Mandy was certain this was perfectly unreal. It was just all part of a crazy, mixed-up nightmare because of running into the cougar and then him biting her.

  “I’ll have to talk to Tracey about it, but yeah, I’m sure she’ll be agreeable.”

  Mandy was fighting falling asleep, or she should say a deeper sleep where she wouldn’t be having such a real dream. Then she wondered why. When she woke up, she’d be her normal self, her hand bandaged, antibiotics administered, and as long as she didn’t have rabies, she was heading to Loveland as planned. Unless they put her on pain medication to deal with her aching hand. Shouldn’t they have already? If they had, it wasn’t working.

  Then she dropped off completely and she didn’t have any more dreams.

  “I want to see her,” Ricky told Elsie Miller, his nurse. She wore scrubs featuring colorful dragons on a blue and gold starred background, her typical style—bright, cheerful, and fun. He swore she had a really stern side when it came to him obeying the clinic rules, but she also had a soft side when it came to her patients.

  “I told you already, you hit your head hard and Doc Kate said no moving from the bed, until tomorrow, except for going to the bathroom and you call one of us before you leave the bed. We’ll make sure you get there all right. Besides, you’re on pain medication and we don’t want you falling and breaking the other leg or something else. Doc Kate is going home soon and Dr. Rugel will be coming in to cover emergencies for the night.”

  Kolby walked into the room, smiled at the nurse, and frowned at Ricky, his blue eyes worried. He ran his hands through his hair, blonder than Ricky’s. “Hey, bro, are you going to be okay?”

  “You and your brother are two of our worst patients,” the nurse said, smiled, and left them alone to visit.

  “Yeah, I’ve got a broken leg and a mild concussion. You won’t believe who ran into me.”

  “In this fog? I can imagine anybody could be at fault if you were foolish enough to cross the road in your cougar coat.”

  “Mandy Richards.”

  Kolby’s jaw hung agape.

  “Yeah, my Mandy Richards.”

  “From Durango?” As if there would be another one in the whole state of Colorado.

  “Yeah. She’s going to be so pissed off at me.”

  “Why? She ran into you. Unless you dented her car.”

  “I bit her.”

  Kolby’s eyes grew round, then he cast him a small smile. “Déjà vu.”

  “I didn’t bite her for the same reason I bit you,” Ricky said, perturbed. “I don’t make it a habit of biting people. Just you. Well, and Carl Nelson, but we both bit him.”

  “He deserved it. He had already shot you and was trying to kill you.” Kolby grabbed a chair and pulled it closer to the bed. “So that’s why you said she would be pissed off at you, more than she already would be because you had dumped her without telling her why.” Before Ricky could defend himself, Kolby raised his hand. “We all know why. Except she doesn’t.”

  “Have you seen her yet? I should have asked Elsie if they’d brought her in yet. She didn’t say whether or not she was here. Just that I can’t leave the bed. I wondered if she was still a cougar.”


  Kolby shook his head. “I didn’t know you turned anyone before I got here. Let alone that it was your old girlfriend. You get yourself into the worst messes.”

  “They could put her in the same room as me and that would save up a room for someone else, if someone else needed it.”

  “Are you kidding? Once she learns what happened to her and you were the cause of it? I can just imagine a cat fight, except with you in your cast, you wouldn’t be shifting, and you’d be sporting some big-toothed cat bites, along with your broken leg and banged-up head.”

  “I want to see her. I want to explain to her why I had left her.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to do that.”

  They heard someone’s footsteps coming down the hall and Ricky tensed, unable to help himself.

  Dan came into the room and shook his head. “Mandy’s asleep in bed. She shifted but didn’t wake. Elsie told me you want to see her, but you aren’t to leave the bed, according to Doc Kate. And Doc William will be apprized of the situation, so no disobeying the rules. I know you want to see her first and explain something about what’s going on and apologize to her, but you both need a little time to recuperate. Tomorrow, if the doc says you’re well enough to leave your bed, you can. In the meantime, get some rest.”

  “What about my working tomorrow?” Ricky was still afraid Dan would decide he was too impulsive or reckless to hire him and would fire him before he even had a chance to work one day on the job.

  Dan sighed. “Let’s leave it up to the doctors. If they say you’re ready to work, you can come into the office. I don’t want you driving until you’re cleared for it completely. We’ve got things covered otherwise.”

  Ricky must have looked so down about it—you know, the part about how they really didn’t need him because they got it covered—that Dan added, “But we’re not letting you off the hook. Not after all the training we sent you through.”

  “Where is she going to live?” Ricky blurted out, now that his job wasn’t in jeopardy, for the moment.

  “Hal is going to talk to Tracey about her moving in with them. Of course, she won’t be living in the bunkhouse with you and Kolby and Ted. But you can see her when you’re not working and try to renew your friendship. Tracey has to agree though. With you and your brother, they had ranch foreman, Ted Weekum, to watch over the two of you while you got your shifting under control. But Tracey and Hal work, and they’ve got four three-year-olds now, so it’s a little different.”

  “I’ll watch over her.” Ricky was eager to help her transition into her new way of life.

  “You’ll be working,” Dan reminded him.

  “Uh, yeah, but when I’m not.”

  “If she will even speak to you,” Kolby reminded him.

  “Uh, yeah, well there’s that.” But Ricky was persistent when he wanted something. And right now, he really wanted to see her. “I want to order some flowers for her.”

  Dan chuckled. “I’m out of here.”

  Kolby was smiling when he shook his head, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and called a florist.

  According to the clock on the wall, it was the middle of the night and Mandy was lying in a bed, her wrists confined to the railings as if she were a common criminal. Why? Because she’d run into a cougar? It wasn’t like she had hit a person and taken off, leaving the injured person behind. And she had been injured by the cat. She looked at her hand and saw that it was wrapped in bandages. She was wearing an IV and she suspected they were giving her antibiotics to fight infection. The call button was near her hand and she was torn about pushing it and finding out just why she’d been confined to the bed or let the nurse on duty rest. She was more sympathetic to their cause now that she was one too.

  She frowned. Did she have rabies? And that’s why they had her confined to the bed? Great. Just great. Note to self: if she hit another wild animal, she was not getting near it. Then she noticed a dozen red roses and carnations filling a vase on a nearby table.

  Well, that was nice, anyway. She didn’t think they could be from Edgar. He didn’t know where she was going, and as far as she knew, she hadn’t told anyone else about him. The more she eyed them, the more she wanted to know who they were from. But she wasn’t going to call the on-duty nurse just to learn that bit of information.

  Then she heard someone approaching the room, but not in a regular way. Not on one footstep after another. She couldn’t make out the sound. Then Ricky appeared in the doorway of her room. Ricky Jones. His dark brown hair shorter than she’d remembered it, his dark brown eyes considering her for a moment.

  Her mouth agape, she couldn’t believe he was standing there in a hospital gown, his head bandaged, his leg in a cast and he was on crutches.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Shhh, I’ll be in trouble if they learn I left my room. I just had to see you and to know you are going to be all right.”

  “Come in and close the door then.”

  He did and sat in a chair that was across the room. “I’d move it closer, but I’m not really able. When the swelling goes down, they’re putting me in a walking cast. What are you doing here?”

  “I was on my way to Loveland to interview for a position of an LPN at a hospital but was going to stop in here to get some gas. Then I hit a cougar and he or she bit me. I think they believe I have rabies.” Mandy raised her hands to show she was confined. “What happened to you?”

  “I, uh, live here. Listen, Mandy, before I say anything else, I have to tell you why I left you in Durango the way that I did.”

  “It’s water under the bridge. I moved on. I’m in a relationship with someone new.” Though as far as she was concerned, that relationship was over for her, but she didn’t feel she needed to explain that to Ricky.

  “Who?” Ricky sounded shocked to hear it, which annoyed her.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you left me. What did you expect? For me to wait around for you to change your mind?” She’d never really gotten over him, but she had no plans to get back together with him either, just because she ran into him here at the clinic.

  He slumped in his chair and looked miserable.

  “So, what was the reason that you left me?” She wanted to hear whatever story she figured he was going to make up.

  “I was serving as an informant for a couple of different law enforcement agencies. Things were getting really hairy and I couldn’t involve you. A couple of the guys were friends of Kolby’s but he didn’t know they were bad guys. Anyway, I couldn’t tell you why I left. It was better that you had no clue about where I’d gone.”

  “You were an informant?” She couldn’t believe how dangerous his situation could have been. It was hard for her to believe he would have done something like that. Then again, when it came to protecting his only other living relative, his brother, she could understand that. And she had to admit he had been protecting her too.

  “Yeah. Both of the agents live here in Yuma Town now, and well, it’s a long story, but I helped them put away some bad guys. Honey, the former informant, had been murdered. I took his place. You can see why I didn’t want you involved.”

  “Murdered?” She stared at him for a moment in surprise, her heartbeat thumping harder, and she shook her head. “I…I thought you were seeing someone else. Or maybe that you had returned home to Cody, Wyoming where you and your brother were from.” She’d been born there too but was never going back. She couldn’t believe how wrong she’d been about him.

  “Not me. There’s never been anyone like you for me. I had to do the job I did to protect my brother, but I didn’t want to give you up. I just didn’t have any choice if I was going to keep you safe.” Then he glanced at the vase of flowers and smiled. “Do you like your roses?”

  “They’re from you?” That surprised her too, but she shouldn’t have been. He’d been sensitive about her needs, until he dumped her. But if he’d done so to keep her from getting hurt, she had to rethink
how she’d been feeling concerning his leaving her so long ago.

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks. They’re lovely.” She motioned with her head toward him. “How did you get injured?”

  “You ran into me with your car.”

  3

  Ricky was all set to explain about Mandy hitting him with her car when he was running across the road as a cougar, figuring it was going to take some convincing that he and the cougar were the same, when the door opened to Mandy’s room and the nurse on duty, Marcus Jones, unrelated to Ricky’s brother and him, peered in at him. “You weren’t supposed to be out of bed. Doctor’s orders.”

  “I—”

  “Out, or I’ll wake Doc William and he’ll order a sedative for you so you’ll stay in bed.”

  “I have a mild concussion,” Ricky said to Mandy, touching his bandaged head lightly, wanting her to know that it wasn’t just his broken leg they were concerned about. If that’s all it had been, he would have gone home already.

  “You didn’t tell me that.” Mandy tilted her chin down in a way that said she couldn’t believe he’d disobey his doctor.

  He smiled. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.” He wished Marcus hadn’t stopped what he was going to say to Mandy about being a cougar. But he was glad he was finally able to tell her about why he’d had to end their relationship before someone he was informing on learned of her and killed her.

  He hobbled back down the hallway and resettled in his bed, Marcus hovering over him until he made sure he wasn’t going anywhere else.

  “You could just move her in here with me,” Ricky said.

  “The doctor would have to okay that, and Miss Richards would have to be agreeable. Besides, you know she’s newly turned, and we never know how someone will react. She could shift, be confused, and hurt you. Especially because you turned her in the first place. Go to sleep.” Marcus turned out his lights. “We’ll see you in the morning unless you need something else before then.”