Baby whimpered, bumping against Kit’s leg. Lightning cracked over the ridge, followed by the roll of thunder.
Baby’s ears flattened.
From a cluster of rocks up the slope Kit heard a shrill, rising wail. On a punch of fear, she recognized the cry of a mature cougar. Despite the wild pounding of her heart, she suppressed a primal urge to run.
“Stay,” she ordered, one hand on Baby’s head. If the dogs bolted, the hunting cat would be on them in a second, drawn by their motion.
Across the clearing Kit saw her rifle in its sling next to her backpack, and she cursed herself for not keeping the weapon within reach. Over the last months she had seen a rare cougar track on the higher slopes, but none of the animals had ever come close to the ranch.
Brown fur flashed up the ridge. Kit felt the skin tighten along her neck. She gripped her big oak walking stick, the only weapon at hand against a predator with ten times her strength.
Wind sighed through the cottonwood trees.
Kit heard the big cat cry again, the high wail like a physical assault. Beside her leg, Baby gave a powerful twitch.
“Stay, all of you.” Kit’s voice shook.
She knew she would have to take on the big cat armed with only her stick. Her father had done it once, and he’d told the story in electrifying detail for years afterward.
Staying calm was crucial. Sudden movement would trigger an immediate attack. In the face of a cougar, she also had to stand tall, raising her stick so that the cat would recognize her as an intimidating predator prepared to fight back. Her father had also warned her never to stare into a cougar’s eyes, since this was considered a dominance challenge from one predator to another.
With one hand still on Baby’s neck, Kit raised her big oak stick. “Heel.” She spoke loudly to the Labs as she moved backward. As the wind shook the trees, she took another cautious step, the dogs ranged close beside her.
The low, stubby branches of a mesquite tree shook furiously. Brown fur brushed against shivering leaves, and a mature male cougar stepped onto a boulder, mouth open in a snarl.
Too close.
There was no way Kit could possibly reach the rifle now.
Swinging her heavy stick, she took three running steps forward, answering the cougar’s cry with her own loud shout. Despite her terror, she reached deep and found her strength, shaping it to match the predator’s cry. Cougars ranged by territory, killed by territory, and were famously unpredictable, especially if they were defending their young or a previous kill.
This would be Kit’s only chance to save the dogs and herself.
The cougar stared at her, all hunger and rippling muscles. Her dusty sneakers slipped in a patch of gravel, and she fell to one knee, then lurched up instantly, her hands raised while she shouted hoarse warnings in a voice that sounded like a stranger’s. At the top of the ridge, the narrow path twisted past a huge boulder streaked white with quartz, and there the cougar waited, smudged by sunlight, muscles taut, ready to jump.
Ready to kill Kit and carry away her dogs.
Warm sunlight slanted down. A hawk called far down the slope. Kit felt every detail cut deep into her mind as the dogs tensed beside her, barking wildly.
The big cat took a step closer. Grimly, Kit prepared for the attack she sensed was seconds away. The big predator swung sharply to one side, then circled the boulder, snarling in a mix of anger and pain while its powerful shoulders flexed, almost as if it were wounded.
Then the brown body jumped high and cut through the streaming sunlight past Kit, past the dogs, landing less than four feet away. In an instant, the big cat was gone, swallowed up in the shadows cast by junipers and sage.
The glade fell silent. Even the dogs were still.
Kit spun around, guarding the route where the cougar had vanished. When there was no more sign of movement, she raced back to grab her rifle, racked in a shell and leveled the barrel.
With her rifle on one arm and her walking stick in the other, she issued sharp commands to the dogs, herding them uphill away from the trees where the cougar had left the trail. It was a longer route back to the ranch, but no overhanging rocks would conceal a stalking predator.
Kit wasn’t about to be cornered again.
Her hands shook, wind brushing her face. Dimly she realized her cheeks were wet with tears.
WOLFE COULDN’T BREATHE.
His fingers dug into the dirt as he watched Kit’s shaky progress up the steep slope. He still couldn’t believe she’d gone after the cougar armed with no more than a stick.
Fearless—or just crazy. Maybe both.
He’d been on his way up the ridge even before she’d seen the animal stalking her, but she’d done all the right things to make the cougar back down. Her quick, smart response had prevented him from breaking his orders to remain undercover.
She would never know how he had seen the big cat when it was poised to attack. She would never suspect that the animal’s growl of anger and fear had come from Wolfe’s silent intrusion. He couldn’t control the animal, but he could enhance Kit’s appearance to make her resemble a fearsome predator.
Despite the jagged emotions Kit must be feeling right now, she was doing fine, keeping the dogs close as she set a good pace across the mesa. If he had his way, he’d be up there beside her, close enough for protection should the need arise.
But orders were orders. Right now Ryker wanted only deep cover surveillance on Kit and the dogs. Protection if needed, but no exposure.
Crouched near a juniper tree, he watched her. She was quick and confident, with spare elegance in every long stride. Short and spiky, her hair glinted with hints of copper in the shifting sunlight. When she moved into the shade, the color changed, dark as French wine he’d tasted once in Burgundy. The short, uneven chunks hugging her face made him want to slip his hands deep and feel her warmth. He stifled the unfamiliar longing and forced his thoughts back to his mission.
Thanks to his training, he was adept at burying his emotions and forgetting them. The sight of a woman’s uneven hair wasn’t going to make him backslide.
In Wolfe’s line of work, feelings got a man killed faster than bullets.
He kept that thought in mind as he followed Kit back to the ranch, careful to stay out of sight.
KIT WATCHED SHADOWS pool across the empty courtyard, feeling unbearably tired.
She was still shaken by her encounter with the cougar. Shivering, she stared at the ridge above the ranch and realized how lucky she was to be alive. She wanted to believe that her quick response with voice and motion cues had scared the predator away, but she couldn’t. The animal had looked wounded. Perhaps something else had frightened it and sent it running away into the brush.
Too keyed up to sleep, she paced the living room, unable to forget the cougar’s shrill cry. Silent and smart, the animal could be outside the wall right now, searching for a tree branch with access into the nearby courtyard.
Enough.
Disgusted, Kit grabbed her old sweater from the arm of the couch and strode down the hall. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well tackle the pile of bills that had accumulated over the last week. Food, equipment and medical care for the dogs were just the beginning, yet she refused to stint on materials or food for her animals, even if it meant that she wore threadbare jeans and sneakers with holes in the bottoms.
The ranch was a steady drain on the small legacy that had come to Kit at her parents’ death. With forty acres of high desert stretching between two mountain ranges,