Black Hills

1

SOUTH DAKOTA

June 1989

Cooper Sullivan’s life, as he’d known it, was over. Judge and jury-in the form of his parents-had not been swayed by pleas, reason, temper, threats, but instead had sentenced him and shipped him off, away from everything he knew and cared about to a world without video parlors or Big Macs.

The only thing that kept him from completely dying of boredom, or just going wacko, was his prized Game Boy.

As far as he could see, it would be him and Tetris for the duration of his prison term-two horrible, stupid months-in the Wild freaking West. He knew damn well the game, which his father had gotten pretty much right off the assembly line in Tokyo, was a kind of bribe.

Coop was eleven, and nobody’s fool.

Practically nobody in the whole U.S. of A. had the game, and that was definitely cool. But what was the point in having something everybody else wanted if you couldn’t show it off to your friends?

This way, you were just Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne, the lame alter egos of the cool guys.

All of his friends were back, a zillion miles back, in New York. They’d be hanging out for the summer, taking trips to the beaches of Long Island or down to the Jersey Shore. He’d been promised two weeks at baseball camp in July.

But that was before.

Now his parents were off to Italy and France and other stupid places on a second honeymoon. Which was code for last-ditch effort to save the marriage.

No, Coop was nobody’s fool.

Having their eleven-year-old son around wasn’t romantic or whatever, so they’d shipped him off to his grandparents and the boondockies of South holy crap Dakota.

Godforsaken South Dakota. He’d heard his mother call it that plenty of times-except when she’d smiled and smiled telling him he was going to have an adventure, get to know his roots. Godforsaken turned into pristine and pure and exciting. Like he didn’t know she’d run off from her parents and their crappy little farm the minute she’d turned eighteen?

So he was stuck back where she’d run from, and he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. It wasn’t his fault his father couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, or his mother compensated by buying up Madison Avenue. Information Coop had learned from expert and regular eavesdropping. They screwed things up and he was sentenced to a summer on a horseshit farm with grandparents he barely knew.

And they were really old.

He was supposed to help with the horses, who smelled and looked like they wanted to bite you. With the chickens who smelled and did bite.

They didn’t have a housekeeper who cooked egg white omelets and picked up his action figures. And they drove trucks instead of cars. Even his ancient grandmother.

He hadn’t seen a cab in days.

He had chores, and had to eat home-cooked meals with food he’d never seen in his life. And maybe the food was pretty good, but that wasn’t the point.

The one TV in the whole house barely got anything, and there was no McDonald’s. No Chinese or pizza place that delivered. No friends. No park, no movie theaters, no video arcades.

He might as well be in Russia or someplace.

He glanced up from the Game Boy to look out the car window at what he considered a lot of nothing. Stupid mountains, stupid prairie, stupid trees. The same view, as far as he could tell, that had been outside the window since they’d left the farm. At least his grandparents had stopped interrupting his game to tell him stuff about what was outside the window.

Like he cared about a lot of stupid settlers and Indians and soldiers who hung around out here before he was even born. Hell, before his prehistoric grandparents had been born.

Who gave a shit about Crazy Horse and Sitting Bullshit. He cared about the X-Men and the box scores.

The way Coop looked at it, the fact that the closest town to the farm was called Deadwood said it all.

He didn’t care about cowboys and horses and buffalo. He cared about baseball and video games. He wasn’t going to see a single game in Yankee Stadium all summer.

He might as well be dead, too.

He spotted a bunch of what looked like mutant deer clomping across the high grass, and a lot of trees and stupid hills that were really green. Why did they call them black when they were green? Because he was in South crappy Dakota where they didn’t know dick about squat.

What he didn’t see were buildings, people, streets, sidewalk vendors. What he didn’t see was home.

His grandmother shifted in her seat to look back at him. “Do you see the elk, Cooper?”

“I guess.”

“We’ll be getting to the Chance spread soon,” she told him. “It was nice of them to have us all over for supper. You’re going to like Lil. She’s nearly your age.”

He knew the rules. “Yes, ma’am.” As if he’d pal around with some girl. Some dumb farm girl who probably smelled like horse. And looked like one.

He bent his head and went back to Tetris so his grandmother would leave him alone. She looked sort of like his mother. If his mother was old and didn’t get her hair done blond and wavy, and didn’t wear makeup. But he could see his mother in this strange old woman with the lines around her blue eyes.

It was a little spooky.

Her name was Lucy, and he was supposed to call her Grandma.

She cooked and baked. A lot. And hung sheets and stuff out on a line in back of the farmhouse. She sewed and scrubbed, and sang when she did. Her voice was pretty, if you liked that sort of thing.

She helped with the horses, and Coop could admit, he’d been surprised and impressed when he’d seen her jump right on one without a saddle or anything.

She was old-probably at least fifty, for God’s sake. But she wasn’t creaky.

Mostly she wore boots and jeans and plaid shirts. Except for today she’d put a dress on and left the brown hair she usually braided loose.

He didn’t notice when they turned off the endless stretch of road, not until the ride turned bumpier. When he glanced out he saw more trees, less flat land, and the mountains roughed up behind them. Mostly, it looked like a lot of bumpy green hills topped over with bare rock.

He knew his grandparents raised horses and rented them at trail-heads to tourists who wanted to ride them. He didn’t get it. He just didn’t get why anybody would want to sit on a horse and ride around rocks and trees.

His grandfather drove along the more-dirt-than-gravel road, and Coop saw cattle grazing on either side. He hoped it meant the drive was nearly over. He didn’t care about having dinner at the Chance farm or meeting dumb Lil.

But he had to pee.

His grandfather had to stop so his grandmother could hop out to open a cattle gate, then close it again when they’d gone through. As they bumped along his bladder began to protest.

He saw sheds and barns and stables, whatever they were didn’t matter. It was, as far as it went out here, a sign of civilization.

Something was growing in some fields, and horses were running around in others like they didn’t have anything better to do.

The house, when it came into view, didn’t look that different from the one his grandparents lived in. Two floors, windows, a big porch. Except the house was blue and his grandparents’ was white.

There were a lot of flowers around the house, which somebody who hadn’t had to learn to weed the ones around his grandparents’ house might think were okay to look at.

A woman came out on the porch and waved. She wore a dress, too. A long one that made him think of the pictures of hippies he’d seen. Her hair was really dark and pulled back in a ponytail. Outside the house sat two trucks and an old car.

His grandfather, who hardly said anything, stepped out of the car. “’Lo, Jenna.”

“It’s good to see you, Sam.” The woman gave his grandfather a kiss on the cheek, then turned to give his grandmother a big hug. “Lucy! Didn’t I say don’t bring a thing but yourselves?” she added when Lucy turned and took a basket from the car.

“I couldn’t help it. It’s cherry pie.”

“We sure won’t turn that down. And this is Cooper.” Jenna held out a hand as she would to an adult. “Welcome.”

“Thank you.”

She dropped a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go on in. Lil’s been looking forward to meeting you, Cooper. She’s finishing up some chores with her dad, but they’ll be right along. How about some lemonade? I bet you’re thirsty after the drive.”

“Um. I guess. May I use the bathroom?”

“Sure. We have one right in the house.” She laughed when she said it, with a teasing look in her dark eyes that made the back of his neck hot.

It was like she knew he’d been thinking how old and dumpy everything looked.

She led him through, past a big living room, then a smaller one, and into a kitchen that smelled a lot like his grandmother’s.

Home cooking.

“There’s a washroom right through there.” She gave his shoulder a careless pat, which added to the heat on the back of his neck. “Why don’t we have that lemonade out on the back porch and visit awhile?” she said to his grandparents.

His mother would have called it a powder room. He relieved himself with some gratitude, then washed his hands at the tiny sink fixed in the corner. Beside it pale blue towels with a little pink rose hung on a rod.

At home, he mused, the powder room was twice as big, and fancy soaps sat in a crystal dish from Tiffany. The towels were a lot softer, too, and monogrammed.

Stalling, he poked a finger at the petals of some white daisies standing in a skinny wood pot thing on the sink. At home there would’ve been roses probably. He hadn’t really noticed that kind of thing until now.

He was thirsty. He wished he could take a gallon of lemonade, maybe a bag of Cheetos, and stretch out in the back of the car with his Game Boy. Anything would be better than being forced to sit with a bunch of strange people on the porch of some old farmhouse for probably hours.

He could still hear them talking and fooling around in the kitchen, and wondered how long he could stall before going back out.

He peeked out the little window, decided it was the same shit. Paddocks and corrals, barns and silos, dumb farm animals, weird-looking equipment.

It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to go to Italy and walk around looking at old stuff, but at least if his parents had taken him, there might be pizza.

The girl came out of the barn. She had dark hair like the hippie woman, so he figured it had to be Lil. She wore jeans rolled up at the cuffs, and high-top sneakers, and a red baseball cap over the hair done in two long braids.

She looked scruffy and stupid, and he immediately disliked her.

A moment later a man came out behind her. His hair was yellow, and worn in a long tail that enforced the hippie conclusion. He, too, wore a ball cap. He said something to the girl that made her laugh and shake her head. Whatever it was had her starting to run, but the man caught her.

Coop heard her squeal with laughter as the man tossed her in the air.

Had his father ever chased him? Coop wondered. Ever tossed him in the air, then swung him in giddy circles?

Not that he could remember. He and his father had discussions-when there was time. And time, Cooper knew, was always in short supply.

Country bumpkins had nothing but time, Cooper thought. They weren’t under the demands of business like a corporate lawyer of his father’s repute. They weren’t third-generation Sullivans like his father, with the responsibilities that came with the name.

So they could toss their kids around all day.

Because it made something hurt in his stomach to watch, he turned away from the window. With no other choice, he went out to be tortured for the rest of the day.

LIL GIGGLED as her father gave her another dizzying swing. When she could breathe again, she tried to give him a stern look. “He is not going to be my boyfriend.”

“That’s what you say now.” Josiah Chance gave his girl a quick tickle along the ribs. “But I’m going to keep my eye on that city slicker.”

“I don’t want any boyfriend.” Lil gave a lofty wave of her hand with her expertise as an almost-ten-year-old. “They’re too much trouble.”

Joe pulled her close, rubbed cheeks. “I’m going to remind you of that in a few years. Looks like they’re here. We’d better go say hello, and get cleaned up.”

She didn’t have anything against boys, Lil mused. And she knew how to mind her manners with company. But still… “If I don’t like him, do I have to play with him?”

“He’s a guest. And he’s a stranger in a strange land. Wouldn’t you want somebody your own age to be nice to you and show you around if you dropped down in New York City?”

She wrinkled her narrow nose. “I don’t want to go to New York City.”

“I bet he didn’t want to come here.”

She couldn’t understand why. Everything was there. Horses, dogs, cats, the mountains, the trees. But her parents had taught her that people were as different as they were the same.

“I’ll be nice to him.” At first, anyway.

“But you won’t run off and marry him.”

“Dad!”

She rolled her eyes just as the boy came out on the porch. Lil studied him as she might any new specimen.

He was taller than she’d expected, and his hair was the color of pine bark. He looked… mad or sad, she couldn’t decide which. But neither was promising. His clothes said city to her, dark jeans that hadn’t been worn or washed enough and a stiff white shirt. He took the glass of lemonade her mother offered and watched Lil as warily as she watched him.

He jolted at the cry of a hawk, and Lil caught herself before she sneered. Her mother wouldn’t like it if she sneered at company.

“Sam.” Grinning broadly, Joe stuck out a hand. “How are things?”

“Can’t complain.”

“And Lucy, don’t you look pretty?”

“We do what we can with what we’ve got. This is our grandson, Cooper.”

“Glad to meet you, Cooper. Welcome to the Black Hills. This is my Lil.”

“Hello.” She cocked her head. He had blue eyes-ice-on-the-mountain blue. He didn’t smile, nor did his eyes.

“Joe, you and Lil go clean up. We’re going to eat outside,” Jenna added. “We’ve got a fine day for it. Cooper, sit down here by me, and tell me what you like to do in New York. I’ve never been there.”

In Lil’s experience, her mother could get anybody to talk, make anybody smile. But Cooper Sullivan from New York City seemed to be the exception. He spoke when spoken to, minded his manners, but little more. They sat out at the picnic table, one of Lil’s favorite things, and feasted on fried chicken and biscuits, on potato salad and snap beans her mother had put up last harvest.

Conversation ranged from horses and cattle and crops, to weather and books and the status of other neighbors. All the things, in Lil’s world, that mattered.

Though Cooper struck Lil as stiff as his shirt, he managed to eat two helpings of everything, though he barely opened his mouth otherwise.

Until her father brought up baseball.

“ Boston ’s going to break the curse this year.”

Cooper snorted, then immediately hunched his shoulders.

In his easy way, Joe picked up the basket of biscuits, offered it to the boy. “Oh, yeah, Mr. New York. Yankees or Mets?”

“Yankees.”

“Not a prayer.” As if in sympathy, Joe shook his head. “Not this year, kid.”

“We’ve got a strong infield, good bats. Sir,” he added as if he’d just remembered to.

“ Baltimore ’s already killing you.”

“It’s a fluke. They died last year, and they’ll fade this year.”

“When they do, the Red Sox will pounce.”

“Crawl maybe.”

“Oh, a smart-ass.”

Cooper paled a little, but Joe continued as if he hadn’t noticed the reaction. “Let me just say, Wade Boggs, and toss in Nick Esasky. Then-”

“Don Mattingly, Steve Sax.”

“George Steinbrenner.”

For the first time, Coop grinned. “Well, you can’t have everything.”

“Let me consult my expert. Sox or Yankees, Lil?”

“Neither. It’s Baltimore. They’ve got the youth, the momentum. They’ve got Frank Robinson. Boston ’s got a play, but they won’t pull it off. The Yankees? Not a chance, not this year.”

“My only child, and she wounds me.” Joe put a hand on his heart. “Do you play back home, Cooper?”

“Yes, sir. Second base.”

“Lil, take Cooper on around back of the barn. You can work off the meal with a little batting practice.”

“Okay.”

Coop slid off the bench. “Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Chance. It was very good.”

“You’re welcome.”

As the children walked away, Jenna looked over at Lucy. “Poor little boy,” she murmured.

The dogs raced ahead, and across the field. “I play third base,” Lil told Coop.

“Where? There’s nothing around here.”

“Right outside Deadwood. We have a field, and a league. I’m going to be the first woman to play major-league ball.”

Coop snorted again. “Women can’t play the bigs. That’s just the way it is.”

“The way it is isn’t the way it has to be. That’s what my mother says. And when I’m finished playing, I’m going to manage.”

He sneered, and though it brought her hackles up, she liked him better for it. At least he didn’t seem as stiff as his shirt anymore. “You don’t know dick.”

“Dick who?”

He laughed, and even though she knew he was laughing at her, she decided to give him one more chance before she clobbered him.

He was company. A stranger in a strange land.

“How do you play in New York? I thought there were buildings everywhere.”

“We play in Central Park, and sometimes in Queens.”

“What’s Queens?”

“It’s one of the boroughs.”

“It’s a mule?”

“No. Jesus. It’s a city, a place. Not a donkey.”

She stopped, set her fists on her hips, and fired at him out of dark, dark eyes. “When you try to make somebody feel stupid when they ask a question, you’re the stupid one.”

He shrugged, and rounded the side of the big red barn with her.

It smelled like animal, dusty and poopy at the same time. Coop couldn’t figure out why anybody would want to live with that smell, or the sounds of clucking, snuffling, and mooing all the damn time. He started to make a sneering remark about just that-she was only a kid, after all, and a girl at that-but then he saw the batting cage.

It wasn’t what he was used to, but it looked pretty sweet to him. Somebody, he supposed Lil’s father, had built the three-sided cage out of fencing. It stood with its back to a jumbled line of brush and bramble that gave way to a field where cattle stood around doing nothing. Beside the barn, under the shelter of one of the eaves, sat a weatherworn box. Lil opened it, pulled out gloves, bats, balls.

“My dad and I practice most nights after dinner. Mom pitches to me sometimes, but she’s got a rag arm. You can bat first if you want, ’cause you’re company, but you have to wear a batting helmet. It’s the rule.”

Coop put on the helmet she offered, then checked the weight of a couple of bats. Holding one was almost as good as the Game Boy. “Your dad practices with you?”

“Sure. He played minor-league for a couple seasons back east, so he’s pretty good.”

“Really?” All derision fled. “He played professional ball?”

“For a couple seasons. He did something to his rotator cuff, and that was that. He decided to see the country, and he ended up out here. He worked for my grandparents-this used to be their farm-and met my mother. That was that, too. You wanna bat?”

“Yeah.” Coop walked back to the cage, took a couple of practice swings. Set. She pitched one straight and slow, so he got the meat on it and slapped it into the field.

“Nice one. We’ve got six balls. So we’ll field them after you hit.” She gripped the next ball, took her position, pitched another easy one.

Coop felt the little lift inside as the ball sailed into the field. He smacked a third, then wiggled his hips and waited for the pitch.

She winged it, and blew it by him. “Nice cut,” was all she said as he narrowed his eyes at her.

He choked up on the bat a bit, scuffed his heels. She fooled him with one that curved low and inside. He caught a piece of the next pitch, fouling it off so it rang as it hit the cage.

“You can toss those three back if you want,” she told him. “I’ll pitch you some more.”

“That’s okay. You take a turn.” And he’d show her.

They switched places. Rather than soften her up, he burned one in. She caught enough of it to have it shooting foul. She caught the next, popped it up. But she got the fat of the bat on the third pitch. If there’d been a park, Coop was forced to admit, she’d have hit it out.

“You’re pretty good.”

“I like them high and inside.” After cocking the bat against the cage, Lil started toward the field. “We’ve got a game next Saturday. You could come.”

Some dumbass boondockie ball game. Would be, he thought, a lot better than nothing. “Maybe.”

“Do you get to go to real games? Like at Yankee Stadium?”

“Sure. My father’s got season tickets, box seats, right behind the third-base line.”

“No way!”

It felt good-a little-to impress her. And it didn’t suck to have somebody, even a farm girl, to talk ball with. Plus she could handle the ball and the bat, and that was a serious plus.

Still, Coop only shrugged, then watched Lil slip through the lines of barbed wire without mishap. He didn’t complain when she turned and held the lines wider for him.

“We watch on TV, or listen on the radio. And once we went all the way down to Omaha to watch a game. But I’ve never been to a major-league ballpark.”

And that reminded him just where he was. “You’re a million miles from one. From anything.”

“Dad says one day we’ll take a vacation and go back east. Maybe to Fenway Park because he’s a Red Sox fan.” She found a ball, stuck it in her back pocket. “He likes to root for the underdog.”

“My father says it’s smarter to root for a winner.”

“Everybody else does, mostly, so somebody has to root for the underdog.” She beamed a smile at him, fluttered long lashes over dark brown eyes. “That’s going to be New York this year.”

He grinned before he realized it. “So you say.”

He picked up a ball, tossed it hand to hand as they worked their way toward the trees. “What do you do with all these cows, anyway?”

“Beef cattle. We raise them, then sell them. People eat them. I bet even people in New York like steak.”

He thought that was gross, just the idea that the cow staring at him now would be on somebody’s plate-maybe even his-one day.

“Do you have any pets?” she asked him.

“No.”

She couldn’t imagine not having animals around, everywhere, all the time. And the idea of not having any brought a lump of genuine sympathy to her throat.

“I guess it’s harder in the city. Our dogs…” She paused to look around, then spotted them. “They’ve been out running, see, and now they’re back at the table, hoping for scraps. They’re good dogs. You can come over and play with them sometimes if you want, and use the batting cage.”

“Maybe.” He sneaked another glance at her. “Thanks.”

“Not many of the girls I know like baseball all that much. Or hiking and fishing. I do. Dad’s teaching me to track. My grandfather, my mom’s father, taught him. He’s really good.”

“Track?”

“Animals and people. For fun. There’s lots of trails, and lots to do.”

“If you say so.”

She cocked her head at the dismissive tone. “Have you ever been camping?”

“Why would I want to?”

She only smiled. “It’s going to be dark pretty soon. We’d better get the last ball and head back. If you come over again, maybe Dad will play or we can go riding. You like to ride?”

“You mean horses? I don’t know how. It looks stupid.”

She fired up at that, the way she’d fired up to hit the ball high and long. “It’s not stupid, and it’s stupid to say it is just because you don’t know how. Besides, it’s fun. When we-”

She stopped dead in her tracks. As she sucked in her breath, she grabbed Coop’s arm. “Don’t move.”

“What?” Because the hand on his arm shook, his heart slammed into his throat. “Is it a snake?”

Panicked, he scanned the grass.

“Cougar.” She barely breathed the word. She stood like a statue with that one trembling hand on his arm, and stared into the tangled brush.

“What? Where?” Suspicious, sure she was just screwing around and trying to scare him, he tried to pry her hand away. At first he saw nothing but that brush, the trees, the rise of rock and hill.

Then he saw the shadow. “Holy shit. Holy freaking shit!”

“Don’t run.” She stared as if mesmerized. “If you run, he’ll chase you, and he’s faster. No!” She yanked on his arm as Coop edged up, getting a firmer grip on the ball. “Don’t throw anything, not yet. Mom says…” She couldn’t remember everything her mother had told her. She’d never seen a cat before, not in real life, not near the farm. “You have to make noise, and, and make yourself look big.”

Quivering, Lil rose to her toes, lifted her arms over her head, and began to shout. “Get away! Get away from here.

“Yell!” she shouted to Cooper. “Look big and mean!”

Her eyes, keen and dark, measured the cougar from tip to tail. Even as her heart pounded with fear, something else moved through her.

Awe.

She could see his eyes glint in the oncoming dusk, glint as they seemed to look right into hers. Though her throat went dry, she thought: He’s beautiful. He’s so beautiful.

He paced, powerful grace, watching them as if deciding whether to attack or retreat.

Beside her Coop shouted, his voice raw with fear. She watched the big cat slink toward deeper shadow. And then it leaped away, a blur of dull gold that dazzled her eyes.

“It ran away. It ran away.”

“It didn’t,” Lil murmured. “It flew.”

Through the roaring in her ears, she heard her father shouting for her, and turned. He charged across the field, scattering surprised cattle. Yards behind him Coop’s grandfather ran, carrying a rifle she realized he’d gotten from the house. The dogs raced with them, as did her mother, with a shotgun, and Coop’s grandmother.

“Cougar.” She managed to get the word out just before Joe swept her off her feet and into his arms. “There. Over there. It’s gone now.”

“Get in the house. Coop.” With his free arm, Joe pulled Coop against him. “Both of you, get inside. Now.”

“It’s gone, Dad. We scared it away.”

“Go! Cougar,” he said as Jenna sprinted past Sam and reached them.

“Oh, God. You’re all right.” She took Lil, giving Joe the shotgun. “You’re all right.” She kissed Lil’s face, her hair, then bent down to do the same to Coop.

“Get them in the house, Jenna. Take the kids and Lucy, and get inside.”

“Come on. Come on.” Jenna draped her arms around both children, looked up at Sam’s grim face as he reached them. “Be careful.”

“Don’t kill it, Dad!” Lil called out as her mother pulled her away. “It was so beautiful.” She searched the brush, the trees, hoping for just one more glimpse. “Don’t kill it.”

2

Coop had a couple of bad dreams. In one the mountain lion with its glinting yellow eyes jumped through his bedroom window and ate him in big greedy bites before he could even scream. In another, he was lost in the hills, in the green and the rock, in the miles of it. No one came to find him. No one, he thought, even noticed he was gone.

Lil’s father hadn’t killed the cougar. At least Coop hadn’t heard gunshots. When his grandfather and Mr. Chance had come back, they’d had cherry pie and homemade ice cream, and had talked of other things.

Deliberately. Coop knew all about that adult ploy. Nobody would talk about what had happened until after he and Lil were in bed, and couldn’t hear.

Resigned to and resentful of his prison, he did his chores, ate his meals, played his Game Boy. He hoped, if he did what he was told, he’d get a parole day and be able to go back to the Chance farm and use the batting cage.

Maybe Mr. Chance would play, too, then he could ask him about what it was like to play professional ball. Coop knew his father expected him to go to law school, to work in the family firm. To be a big-shot lawyer one day. But maybe, maybe, he could be a ballplayer instead.

If he was good enough.

With his thoughts on ball, on escape, on the misery of his summer sentence, the big yellow-eyed cat might’ve been just another dream.

He ate his breakfast of flapjacks, as his grandmother called them, in silence at the old kitchen table while she fiddled around at the stove. His grandfather was already outside doing some farm thing. Cooper ate slowly, even though the Game Boy was forbidden at the table, because when he finished he’d have to go outside for chores.

Lucy poured coffee into a thick white mug, then brought it with her to sit across from him. “Well, Cooper, you’ve been with us two weeks now.”

“I guess.”

“That’s about all the brooding time you’re going to get. You’re a good, bright boy. You do what you’re told and you don’t sass. At least not out loud.”

There was a look in her eyes-a smart look, not a mean one-that told him she knew he sassed in his head. A lot.

“Those are good qualities. You also tend to sulk and don’t say boo to a goat and drag around here like you’re in prison. Those aren’t such good qualities.”

He said nothing, but wished he’d eaten his breakfast faster and escaped. He hunched his shoulders, figuring they were going to have a discussion. Which meant, from his experience, she’d tell him all the things he did wrong, and how she expected more, and he was a disappointment.

“I know you’re mad, and you’ve got a right to be. That’s why you got these past two weeks.”

He blinked at his plate, and a line of confusion formed between his eyebrows.

“The fact is, Cooper, I’m mad for you. Your parents did a selfish thing, and didn’t take you into account when they did it.”

He brought his head up about an inch, but his eyes lifted and met hers. Maybe it was a trick, he thought, and she was saying that so he’d say something bad. So he could be grounded or punished. “They can do what they want.”

“Yes, they can.” She nodded briskly as she drank her coffee. “Doesn’t mean they should. I want you here, and so does your grandpa. I know he doesn’t say much, but I’m telling you the truth. But that’s a selfish thing, too, for us. We want you here, we want to get to know our only grandchild, have time with him we never got much of before. But you don’t want to be here, and I’m sorry for that.”

She was looking right at him, right at his face. And it didn’t feel like a trick. “I know you want to be home,” she continued, “with your friends. I know you wanted to go to baseball camp like they promised. Yeah, I know about that.”

She nodded again, and sipping coffee stared off hard out the window. It seemed she was mad, as she’d said. But not at him. She really was sort of mad for him.

And that was something he didn’t understand. That was something that had his chest getting all tight and achy.

“I know about that,” she repeated. “A boy your age doesn’t get a lot of say, a lot of choices. They’ll come, but at this stage you just don’t have them. You can make the best out of what you’ve got, or be miserable.”

“I just want to go home.” He hadn’t meant to say it, only to think it. But the words came right out, pushing out of that tight, achy chest.

She shifted her gaze back to his. “Honey, I know. I know you do. I wish I could do that for you. You may not believe me, you don’t know me very well so you may not, but I really want to give you what you want.”

It wasn’t a matter of belief, it was that she talked to him. Actually talked as if he mattered. So the words, and the misery with them, just bubbled out of him.

“They just sent me away, and I didn’t do anything wrong.” Tears rose into his voice. “They didn’t want me to go with them. They didn’t want me.”

“We do. I know that’s not much comfort to you right now. But you know that, you believe that. Maybe sometime later in your life, you’ll need a place. You know you’ll always have one here.”

He spoke the worst. The worst that hid inside him. “They’re going to get a divorce.”

“Yes, I expect you’re right about that.”

He blinked and stared, because he’d expected her to say that wasn’t true, he’d expected her to pretend everything would be fine. “Then what’ll happen to me?”

“You’ll get through it.”

“They don’t love me.”

“We do. We do,” she said, firmly, when he lowered his head again and shook it. “First because you’re blood. You’re kin. And second, just because.”

When two tears plopped on his plate, Lucy kept talking. “I can’t speak for what they feel, what they think. But I can say something about what they do. I’m so mad at them. I’m so mad at them for hurting you. People will say it’s just one summer, it’s not the end of the world. But people who say that don’t remember what it’s like to be eleven. I can’t make you happy to be here, Cooper, but I’m going to ask you for something. For just one thing, and maybe it’s a hard thing for you. I’m going to ask you to try.”

“Everything’s different here.”

“It sure is. But you might find something in the different you like. And the backside of August won’t seem so far away if you do. You do that, Cooper, you give it a real good try, and I’ll talk your grandpa into getting us a new television set. One that doesn’t need those rabbit ears.”

He sniffled. “What if I try and I still don’t like anything?”

“Trying’s enough, if you mean it.”

“How long do I have to try before the new TV?”

She laughed, full and hard, and for some reason the sound of it made his lips curve and his chest loosen up. “That’s a boy. Good for you. Two weeks, we’ll say. Two weeks of brooding, now two weeks of trying. You make a real effort, and you’ll have that new TV set in the parlor, you betcha. Is that a deal?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right. Why don’t you go out now, find your grandpa. He’s got some project going out there, and he might need a hand.”

“Okay.” He got to his feet. Later, he wouldn’t know why it spewed out. “They yell a lot, and they don’t even know I’m there when they do. He’s having sex with somebody else. I think he does that a lot.”

Lucy blew out a long breath. “Are you listening at keyholes, boy?”

“Sometimes. But sometimes they’re yelling about it, and I don’t have to try to hear. They never listen to me when I talk. They pretend to sometimes, and sometimes they don’t even pretend. They don’t care if I like anything, as long as I’m quiet and out of their way.”

“That’s different here, too.”

“I guess. Maybe.”

He didn’t know what to think as he walked outside. No adult had ever talked to him that way, or listened to him that way. He’d never heard anybody criticize his parents-well, except each other.

She’d said they wanted him. No one had ever said that to him before. She said it even when she knew he didn’t want them, and it didn’t feel like she’d said it to make him feel bad. It felt like she’d said it because it was true.

He stopped, looked around. He could try, sure, but what could he find to like around here? A bunch of horses and pigs and chickens. A bunch of fields and hills and nothing.

He liked her flapjacks, but he didn’t think that’s what she meant.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed around to the far side of the house where he heard banging. Now he was going to have to hang around with his strange, mostly silent grandfather. How was he supposed to like that?

He cut around, and saw Sam over by the big barn with the white silo. And what Sam was hammering into the ground with some kind of metal stakes had Coop speechless.

A batting cage.

He wanted to run, just fly across the dirt yard. But made himself walk. Maybe it just looked like a batting cage. It could be something for the animals.

Sam glanced up, took another whack at the stake. “Late on your chores.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fed the stock, but you’re going to need to get the eggs right soon.”

“Grandma said you needed help with a project.”

“Nope. ’Bout done.” With the little sledgehammer in hand, Sam straightened up, stepped back. He studied the fence cage in silence.

“Eggs aren’t going to jump in the pail on their own,” he said at length.

“No, sir.”

“Might be,” he drawled as Coop turned to go, “I could pitch you a few after chores are done.” Sam walked over, picked up a bat he’d leaned against the side of the barn. “You can use this. Just finished it last night.”

Baffled, Cooper took the bat, ran his hands along the smooth wood. “You made it?”

“Don’t see no reason for store-bought.”

“It… it has my name on it.” Reverently, Coop traced his fingers over the name etched in the wood.

“That’s how you know it’s yours. You plan on getting those eggs sometime today?”

“Yes, sir.” He handed the bat back to Sam. “Thank you.”

“You ever get tired of being so damn polite, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sam’s lips twitched. “Go on.”

Coop started to run toward the chicken house, stopped, turned back. “Grandpa? Will you teach me how to ride a horse?”

“Get your chores done. We’ll see.”

THERE WERE some things he liked, at least a little. He liked hitting the ball after supper, and the way his grandpa would surprise him every few pitches with crazy, exaggerated windups. He liked riding Dottie, the little mare, around the corral-at least once he’d gotten over being worried about being kicked or bitten.

Horses didn’t really smell after you got to like them a little, or ride them without being scared shitless.

He liked watching the lightning storm that came one night like an ambush and slashed and burned the sky. He even liked, sometimes, a little, sitting at his bedroom window and looking out. He still missed New York, and his friends, his life, but it was interesting to see so many stars, and to hear the house hum in the quiet.

He didn’t like the chickens, the way they smelled or sounded, or the evil glint in their eyes when he went in to gather eggs. But he liked the eggs just fine, whether they were cooked up for breakfast or stirred into batter and dough for cakes and cookies.

There were always cookies in his grandmother’s big glass jar.

He didn’t like when people came to visit, or he rode into town with his grandparents, the way they’d size him up and say things like, So, this is Missy’s boy! (his mother, christened Michelle, went by Chelle in New York). And they’d say how he was the spitting image of his grandfather. Who was old.

He liked seeing the Chance truck ramble toward the farmhouse, even if Lil was a girl.

She played ball, and didn’t spend all her time giggling like a lot of the girls he knew. She didn’t listen to New Kids on the Block all the time and make girly eyes over them. That was a plus.

She did better on a horse than he did, but she didn’t rag on him about it. Much. After a while, it wasn’t like hanging out with a girl. It was just hanging out with Lil.

And one week-not two-after the talk at the kitchen table, a brand-new TV showed up in the parlor.

“No point in waiting,” his grandmother said. “You held up your end just fine. I’m proud of you.”

In all of his life, he couldn’t remember anyone being proud of him, or saying so, just because he’d tried.

Once he’d been judged good enough, he and Lil were allowed to ride, as long as they stayed in the fields, within sight of the house.

“Well?” Lil asked as they walked the horses through the grass.

“What?”

“Is it stupid?”

“Maybe it’s not. She’s pretty cool.” He patted Dottie’s neck. “She likes apples.”

“I wish they’d let us ride up into the hills, really see stuff. I can only go with one of my parents. Except…” She looked around, as if to check for cocked ears. “I snuck out one morning, before sunrise. I tried to track the cougar.”

He actually felt his eyes bug out. “Are you crazy?”

“I read all about them. I got books from the library.” She wore a cowboy hat today, a brown one, and flipped a long braid over her shoulder. “They don’t bother people, hardly at all. And they don’t much come around a farm like ours unless they’re like migrating or something.”

Excitement poured off her as she shifted to turn more fully toward the speechless Coop. “It was so cool! It was just so cool! I found scat and tracks and everything. But then I lost the trail. I didn’t mean to stay out so long, and they were up when I got back. I had to pretend I was just coming out of the house.”

She pressed her lips together, gave him her fierce look. “You can’t tell.”

“I’m not a tattletale.” What an insult. “But you can’t go off by yourself like that. Holy shit, Lil.”

“I know how to track. Not as good as Dad, but I’m pretty good at it. And I know the trails. We hike a lot, and we camp out and everything. I had my compass, and my kit.”

“What if the cougar had been out there?”

“I’d have seen it again. It looked right at me that day, right at me. Like it knew me, and it felt like… It sort of felt like it did.”

“Come on.”

“Seriously. My mother’s grandfather was Sioux.”

“Like an Indian?”

“Yeah. Native American,” she corrected. “Lakota Sioux. His name was John Swiftwater, and his tribe-his, like, people-lived here for generations and stuff. They had animal spirits. Maybe the cougar was mine.”

“It wasn’t anybody’s spirit.”

She just continued to train her gaze on the hills. “I heard it that night. Late the night we saw it. I heard it scream.”

“Scream?”

“That’s the sound they make because they can’t roar. Only the big cats-like lions-can roar. Something in their throat. I forget. I’ll have to look it up again. Anyway, I just wanted to try to find it.”

He couldn’t help but admire what she’d done, even if it was crazy. No girl he knew would sneak out to track down a mountain lion. Except Lil. “If it’d found you, maybe you’d be breakfast.”

“You can’t tell.”

“I said I wouldn’t, but you can’t sneak out and go looking for it again either.”

“I think it would’ve come back by now if it was going to. I wonder where it went.” She looked off again, into the hills. “We could go camping. Dad really likes to. We take like a nature hike and camp overnight. Your grandparents would let you.”

“Like in a tent? In the mountains?” The idea was both terrifying and compelling.

“Yeah. We’d catch fish for supper and see the falls, and buffalo and all kinds of wildlife. Maybe even the cougar. When you get all the way to the peak, you can see clear to Montana.” She shifted to look back as the dinner bell rang. “Time to eat. We’ll go camping. I’ll ask my dad. It’ll be fun.”

HE WENT CAMPING and learned how to bait a hook. He knew the rush-up-the-spine thrill of sitting by a campfire and listening to the echoing howl of a wolf, and the shock of watching a fish he’d caught more through luck than design flash silver in the sunlight at the end of his rod.

His body toughened; his hands hardened. He knew an elk from a mule deer and how to care for tack.

He could ride at a gallop, and that was the biggest thrill of his life.

He earned a guest spot on Lil’s baseball team, and brought in a run with a strong double.

Years later, he’d look back and realize his life had turned that summer, and would never be the same again. But all Coop knew at the age of eleven was he was happy.

His grandfather taught him to carve and whittle, and to Coop’s utter joy, presented him with a pocketknife-to keep. His grandmother showed him how to groom a horse, top to bottom, how to check for injury or illness.

But his grandfather taught him how to talk to them.

“It’s in the eyes,” Sam told him. “In the body, the ears, the tail, but first it’s in the eyes. What he sees in yours, what you see in his.” He held a lead line on a fractious yearling colt who reared and pawed the air. “Doesn’t matter what you say so much, because they’ll see what you’re thinking in your eyes. This one wants to show he’s tough, but what he is is a little spooked. What do we want from him, what’re we going to do? Is he going to like it? Will it hurt?”

Even as he spoke to Coop, Sam looked into the colt’s eyes, kept his voice soft and soothing. “What we’re going to do is shorten up on the line here. A firm hand doesn’t have to be a hard one.”

Sam eased in, got that firm hand on the bridle. The colt quivered and danced. “Needs a name.” Sam stroked a hand over the colt’s neck. “Give him one.”

Coop took his eyes off the yearling to gawk at Sam. “Me?”

“What kind of a name’s Me for a horse?”

“I meant… Um. Jones? Can it be Jones, like Indiana Jones?”

“Ask him.”

“I think you’re Jones. Jones is smart and brave.” With a little help from Sam’s hand on the bridle, the colt gave a decisive nod. “He said yes! Did you see that?”

“Yeah, you betcha. Hold his head now, firm, not hard. I’m going to get the saddle blanket on him. He’s used to that. Remind him.”

“I… It’s just the blanket. You don’t mind the blanket, Jones. It doesn’t hurt. We’re not going to hurt you. You’ve had the blanket before. Grandpa says we’re just going to get you used to the saddle today. It doesn’t hurt either.”

Jones stared into Coop’s eyes, ears forward, and barely acknowledged the saddle pad.

“Maybe I can ride you some, after you’re used to the saddle. Because I don’t weigh enough to hurt you. Right, Grandpa?”

“We’ll see. Hold firm now, Cooper.”

Sam hefted the training saddle, eased it onto the horse. Jones jerked his head, gave a quick buck.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” He wasn’t mad, wasn’t mean, Coop thought. He was a little scared. He could feel it, he could see it in Jones’s eyes. “It’s just a saddle. I guess it feels funny at first.” Under the afternoon sun, with sweat he barely noticed dampening his T-shirt, Coop talked and talked while his grandfather cinched the saddle.

“Take him out on the lounge, like I showed you. Just like you did with him before the saddle. He’ll buck some.”

Sam stepped back to let the boy and the colt learn. He leaned on the fence, ready to intervene if need be. From behind him, Lucy laid a hand on his shoulder.

“That’s a sight, isn’t it?”

“He’s got the touch,” Sam acknowledged. “Got the heart and the head, too. The boy’s a natural with horses.”

“I don’t want to let him go. I know,” she said before Sam could respond. “Not ours to keep. But it’s going to break my heart a little. I know a true thing, and that’s they don’t love him like we do. So it breaks my heart knowing we have to send him back.”

“Might be next summer he’ll want to come.”

“Might be. But oh, it’s going to be quiet between times.” She heaved a sigh, then turned at the sound of a truck. “Farrier’s coming. I’ll go get a pitcher of lemonade.”

IT WAS the farrier’s son, a gangly towheaded boy of fourteen called Gull who, in the late-afternoon shadows of the barn, gave Coop his first-and last-chaw of tobacco.

Even after he’d finished puking up his breakfast, his lunch, and everything else still in his system, Coop remained what Gull assessed as green as a grasshopper. Alerted by the sounds of retching, Lucy left her work on her kitchen garden to hustle to the back of the barn. There Coop, on his hands and knees, continued to heave while Gull stood, scratching his head under his hat.

“Jesus, Coop, ain’t you done as yet?”

“What happened?” Lucy demanded. “What did you do?”

“He just wanted to try a chaw. I didn’t see the harm, Miss Lucy, ma’am.”

“Oh, for-Don’t you know better than to give a boy his age tobacco?”

“Sure can puke.”

Since he seemed to be done, Lucy reached down. “Come on, boy, let’s get you inside and cleaned up.”

Brisk and pragmatic, Lucy hauled him inside. Too weak to protest, Coop only groaned as she stripped him down to his jockeys. She bathed his face, gave him cool water to drink. After she’d lowered the shades against the sun, she sat on the side of the bed to lay a hand on his brow. He opened bleary eyes.

“It was awful.”

“There’s a lesson learned.” She bent over, brushed her lips on his forehead. “You’ll be all right. You’ll get through.” Not just today, she thought. And sat with him a little, while he slept off the lesson learned.

ON THE BIG flat rock by the stream, Coop stretched out with Lil.

“She didn’t yell or anything.”

“What did it taste like? Does it taste like it smells, because that’s gross. It looks gross, too.”

“It tastes… like shit,” he decided.

She snickered. “Did you ever taste shit?”

“I’ve smelled it enough this summer. Horse shit, pig shit, cow shit, chicken shit.”

She howled with laughter. “New York has shit, too.”

“Mostly from people. I don’t have to shovel it up.”

She rolled to her side, pillowing her head on her hands, and studied him with her big, brown eyes. “I wish you didn’t have to go back. This is the best summer of my whole life.”

“Me too.” He felt weird saying it, knowing it was true. Knowing the best friend of the best summer of his life was a girl.

“Maybe you can stay. If you asked, maybe your parents would let you live here.”

“They won’t.” He shifted to his back, watched a circling hawk. “They called last night, and said how they’d be home next week, and meet me at the airport and… Well, they won’t.”

“If they did, would you want to?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want to go back?”

“I don’t know.” It was awful not to know. “I wish I could visit there and live here. I wish I could train Jones and ride Dottie and play baseball and catch more fish. But I want to see my room and go to the arcade and go to a Yankee game.” He rolled toward her again. “Maybe you could visit. We could go to the ballpark.”

“I don’t think they’d let me.” Her eyes turned sad, and her bottom lip quivered. “You probably won’t ever come back.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Do you swear?”

“I swear.” He offered his hand for a solemn pinky swear.

“If I write you, will you write me back?”

“Okay.”

“Every time?”

He smiled. “Every time.”

“Then you’ll come back. So will the cougar. We saw him the very first day, so he’s like our spirit guide. He’s like… I can’t remember the word, but it’s like good luck.”

HE THOUGHT about it, how she’d talked of the cougar all summer, had shown him pictures in the library books, and the books she’d bought herself with her allowance. She’d drawn pictures of her own and hung them in her room, among her baseball pennants.

In his last week on the farm, Coop worked with his penknife, and the carving tool his grandfather let him borrow. He said his goodbyes to Dottie and Jones and the other horses, bade a not very fond farewell to the chickens. He packed his clothes, along with the boots and work gloves his grandparents had bought him. And his beloved baseball bat.

As he had on the long-ago drive in, he sat in the backseat and stared out the window. He saw things differently now, the big sky, the dark hills that rose up in rocky needles and jagged towers and hid the forests and streams and canyons.

Maybe Lil’s cougar prowled in them.

They turned in the far road to the Chance land to say another goodbye.

Lil sat on the porch steps, so he knew she’d been watching for them. She wore red shorts and a blue shirt, with her hair looped through the back of her favorite ball cap. Her mother came out of the house as they pulled up, and the dogs raced from the back, barking and bumping their bodies together.

Lil stood, and her mother came down, laid a hand on her shoulder. Joe rounded the house, stuffing work gloves in his back pocket, and flanked Lil on the other side.

It etched an image in Cooper’s mind-mother, father, daughter-like an island in front of the old house, in the foreground of hills and valleys and sky, with a pair of dusty yellow dogs racing in madly happy circles.

Coop cleared his throat as he got out of the car. “I came to say goodbye.”

Joe moved first, stepping forward and offering a hand. He shook Coop’s and still holding it crouched to bring them eye-to-eye. “You come back and see us, Mr. New York.”

“I will. And I’ll send you a picture from Yankee Stadium when we clinch the pennant.”

Joe laughed. “Dream on, son.”

“You be safe.” Jenna turned his cap around to lean down, kiss his forehead. “And you be happy. Don’t forget us.”

“I won’t.” He turned, suddenly feeling a little shy, to Lil. “I made you something.”

“You did? What is it?”

He held out the box, shifting his feet when she pulled the lid off. “It’s kind of stupid. It’s not very good,” he said, as she stared at the small cougar he’d carved out of hickory. “I couldn’t get the face right or-”

He broke off, stunned, embarrassed, when she threw her arms around him. “It’s beautiful! I’ll always keep it. Wait!” Spinning around, she dashed into the house.

“That’s a good gift, Cooper.” Jenna studied him. “The cougar’s hers now, she won’t have it any other way. So you’ve put part of yourself into her symbol.”

Lil bolted out of the house, skidded to a stop in front of Coop. “This is my best thing-before the cougar. You take it. It’s an old coin,” she said, as she offered it. “We found it last spring when we were digging a new garden. It’s old, and somebody must’ve dropped it out of their pocket a long time ago. It’s all worn so you can hardly see.”

Cooper took the silver disk, so worn the outline of the woman stamped on it could hardly be seen. “It’s cool.”

“It’s for good luck. It’s a… what’s the word, Mom?”

“A talisman,” Jenna supplied.

“A talisman,” Lil repeated. “For good luck.”

“We’ve got to get on.” Sam gave Cooper’s shoulder a pat. “It’s a long drive to Rapid City.”

“Safe trip, Mr. New York.”

“I’ll write,” Lil called out. “But you have to write back.”

“I will.” Clutching the coin, Coop got into the car. He watched out the back, as long as he could, watched the island in front of the old house shrink and fade.

He didn’t cry. He was nearly twelve years old, after all. But he held the old silver coin all the way to Rapid City.

3

THE BLACK HILLS

June 1997

Lil walked her horse through the morning mists along the trail. They moved through high grass, crossed the sparkling waters of a narrow stream where tangled vines of poison ivy lurked before starting the upward climb. The air smelled of the pine and the water and the grass while the light shimmered with the delicacy of dawn.

Birds called and chattered. She heard the burry song of the mountain bluebird, the hoarse chee of a pine siskin in flight, the irritable warning of the pinyon jay.

It seemed the forest came to life around her, stirred by the streams and slants of misty light sliding through the canopy of trees.

There was nowhere in the world she’d rather be.

She spotted tracks, usually deer or elk, and noted them on the tape recorder in her jacket pocket. Earlier she’d found buffalo tracks, and of course, numerous signs of her father’s herd.

But so far in this three-day jaunt she’d given herself, she’d yet to track the cat.

She’d heard its call the night before. Its scream had ripped through the darkness, through the stars and the moonlight.

I’m here.

She studied the brush as the sturdy mare climbed, listened to the birdcalls that danced through the sheltering pine. A red squirrel burst out of a thicket of chokecherry, darted across the ground and up the trunk of a pine, and looking up, up, she spotted a hawk circle on his morning rounds.

This, as much as the majestic views from the clifftops, as much as the towering falls tumbling down canyons, was why, she believed, the Black Hills were sacred ground.

If you felt no magic here, to her mind, you would find it nowhere.

It was enough to be here, to have this time, to scout, to study. She’d be in the classroom soon, a college freshman (God!), away from everything she knew. And though she was hungry to learn, nothing could replace the sights, the sounds, the smells of home.

She’d seen cougar from time to time over the years. Not the same one, she thought. Very unlikely the same cougar she and Coop had spotted that summer eight years ago. She’d seen him camouflaged in the branches of a tree, leaping up a rock face, and once, while riding herd with her father, she’d spotted one through her field glasses as he took down a young elk.

In all of her life she’d never seen anything more powerful, more real.

She made note of the vegetation as well. The starry forget-me-nots, the delicate Rocky Mountain iris, the sunlight of yellow sweet clover. It was, after all, part of the environment, a link of the food chain. The rabbit, deer, elk ate the grasses, leaves, berries, and buds-and the gray wolf and her cats ate the rabbits, deer, and elk.

The red squirrel might end up lunch for the circling hawk.

The trail leveled off, and opened into grassland, already lush and green and spearing with wildflowers. A small herd of buffalo grazed there, so she added the bull, the four cows, and the two calves to her tally.

One of the calves dipped and shoved, and came up again with his head draped with flowers and grass. Grinning, she paused to pull out her camera, take a few pictures to add to her files.

She could title the calf Party Animal.

Maybe she’d send it, and copies of some of the shots she’d taken on the trail, to Coop. He’d said he might be coming out this summer, but he hadn’t answered the letter she’d sent three weeks before.

Then again, he wasn’t as reliable about letters and e-mails as she was. Especially since he was dating that coed he’d met at college.

CeeCee, Lil thought with a roll of her eye. Stupid name. She knew Coop was sleeping with her. He hadn’t said so, in fact had been pretty damn careful not to. But Lil wasn’t stupid. Just like she was sure-or nearly sure-he’d slept with that girl he’d talked about in high school.

Zoe.

Jeez, what happened to regular names?

It seemed to her that guys thought about sex all the time. Then again, she admitted, shifting in the saddle, she’d been thinking about it a lot lately.

Probably because she’d never had it.

She just wasn’t interested in boys-not the ones she knew, anyway. Maybe in college next fall…

It wasn’t as if she wanted to be a virgin, but she didn’t see the point in getting sweaty if she didn’t really like the guy-and if he didn’t heat her up on top of the like, then it was just a kind of exercise, wasn’t it?

Just something to be crossed off the life-experience list.

She wanted, she thought she wanted, more than that.

She shrugged it off, put her camera away, took out her canteen to drink. She’d probably be too busy studying and working in college for sex. Besides, her priority now was the summer, documenting her trails, the habitats, working on her models, her papers. And talking her father into culling out a few acres for the wildlife refuge she hoped to build one day.

The Chance Wildlife Refuge. She liked the name, not only because it was hers, but because the animals would have a chance there. And people would have a chance to see them, study them, care about them.

One day, she thought. But she had so much to learn first-and to learn, she had to leave what she loved best.

She hoped Coop came, even for a few weeks, before she had to leave for college. He’d come back, like her cougar. Not every summer, but often enough. Two weeks the year after his first visit, then the whole wonderful summer the year after, when his parents divorced.

A couple of weeks here, a month or so there, and they’d always just picked up where they left off. Even if he did spend time talking about the girls back home. But now it had been two whole years.

He just had to come this summer.

With a little sigh, she capped her canteen.

It happened fast.

Lil felt the mare quiver, start to shy. Even as she tightened her grip on the reins, the cat leaped out of the high grass. Like a blur-speed, muscle, silent death-he took down the calf with the flower headdress. The small herd scattered, the mother bugling. Lil fought to control the mare as the bull charged the cat.

It screamed in challenge, rising up to defend its kill. Lil locked her legs, gripping the reins with one hand as she dragged out her camera again.

Claws flashed. Across the meadow Lil scented blood. The mare scented it as well and wheeled in panic.

“Stop, easy! It’s not interested in us. It’s got what it wants.”

Gashes dripped from the bull’s side. Hooves thundered, and the calls sounded like grief. Then it all echoed away, and there was only the cat and her kill in the high meadow.

The sound it made was like a purr, a loud rumble, like triumph. Across the grass, its eyes met Lil’s, and held. Her hand trembled, but she couldn’t risk taking her other off the reins to steady the camera. She took two wobbly shots of the cat, the trampled, bloody grass, the kill.

With a warning hiss, the cat dragged the carcass into the brush, into the shadows of the pine and birch trees.

“She has kittens to feed,” Lil murmured, and her voice sounded thin and raw in the morning air. “Holy shit.” She pulled out her recorder, nearly fumbled it. “Calm down. Just calm down. Okay, document. Okay. Sighted female cougar, approximately two meters long, nose to tail. Jeez, weight about forty kilograms. Typical tawny color. Stalk-and-ambush kill. It took down a bison calf from a herd of seven grazing in high grass. Defended kill from bull. It dragged kill into the forest, potentially due to my presence, though if the female has a litter, they would be too young, probably, to visit kill sites with the mother. She’s taking her kids, who wouldn’t be fully weaned as yet, breakfast. Incident recorded… seven twenty-five A.M., June 12. Wow.”

As much as she wanted to, she knew better than to follow the track of the cat. If she had young, she might very well attack horse and rider to defend them, and her territory.

“We’re not going to top that,” she decided. “I guess it’s time to go home.”

She took the most direct route, anxious to get back and write up her notes. Still it was mid-afternoon before she saw her father and his part-time hand Jay mending a fence in a pasture.

Cattle scattered as she rode through them and whoaed the horse by the battered old Jeep.

“There’s my girl.” Joe walked over to give her leg, then the mare’s neck, a pat. “Home from the wilderness?”

“Safe and sound, as promised. Hi, Jay.”

Jay, who didn’t believe in using two words if one would do, tapped the brim of his hat in response.

“You need some help here?” Lil asked her father.

“No, we’ve got it. Elk came through.”

“I saw a couple herds myself, and some bison. I watched a cougar take down a calf in one of the high meadows.”

“Cat?”

She glanced at Jay. She knew the look on his face. Cougar equaled pest and predator.

“Half a day’s ride from here. With enough game to keep her and the litter I imagine she’s got fed. She doesn’t need to come down and go after our stock.”

“You’re all right?”

“She wasn’t interested in me,” she assured her father. “Remember, prey recognition is learned behavior in cougars. Humans aren’t prey.”

“Cat’ll eat anything, it’s hungry enough,” Jay muttered. “Sneaky bastards.”

“I’d say the bull leading that herd agrees with you. But I didn’t see any signs of her on the route back here. No sign she’s extended her territory down this far.”

When Jay just jerked a shoulder and turned back to the fence, Lil grinned at her father. “Anyway, if you don’t need me I’m going to head in. I’m ready for a shower and a cold drink.”

“Tell your mother we’ll be a couple hours out here yet.”

After she’d groomed and fed her horse and downed two glasses of sun tea, Lil joined her mother in the vegetable garden. She took the hoe from Jenna’s hands and set to work.

“I know I’m repeating myself, but it was the most amazing thing. The way it moved. And I know they’re secretive, skulky, but God knows how long it was back there, stalking that herd, choosing its prey, its moment, and I never saw a sign. I was looking, and I never saw a sign. I have to get better.”

“It didn’t bother you, to see it kill?”

“It was so fierce and fast. Clean, really. Just doing her job, you know? I think if I’d been expecting it, if I’d had time to think about it, I might’ve reacted differently.”

She sighed a little, tipped up the brim of her hat. “The calf was so damn cute, with those flowers dripping around its head. But it was life and death, in seconds. It… this is going to sound weird, but it was sort of religious.”

She paused to swipe at her sweaty forehead. “Being there, witnessing the moment, it just made me more sure of what I want to do, and what I need to learn so I can do it. I took pictures. Before, during, after.”

“Honey, it may be squeamish, especially coming from a beef farmer, but I don’t think I’d want to see that cougar chowing down on a buffalo calf.”

Grinning, Lil went back to hoeing. “Did you know what you wanted, what you wanted to do, to be, when you were my age?”

“I didn’t have a clue.” Squatting, Jenna plucked weeds from around the ferny green of carrots. Her hands were quick and capable, her body long and lithe like her daughter’s. “But a year or so after, your father came along. He gave me one cocky look, and I knew I wanted him, and he wasn’t going to have much choice in the matter.”

“What if he’d wanted to go back east?”

“I’d’ve gone back east. It wasn’t the land I loved, not back then. It was him, and I guess we fell in love with this place together.” Jenna pushed back her hat, looked over the rows of carrots and beans, the young tomatoes, and on to the fields of grain and soybeans, to the pastures. “I think you loved it with your first breath.”

“I don’t know where I’ll go. There’s so much I want to learn, and to see. But I’ll always come back.”

“I’m counting on it.” Jenna pushed to her feet. “Give me that hoe now, go in and clean up. I’ll be in in a bit, and you can help me start supper.”

Lil cut across toward the house, taking off her hat to slap it against her pants to dislodge some of the trail dust before going in. A long, hot shower sounded better than good. After she’d helped her mother in the kitchen, she could take some time to start writing up her notes and observations. And tomorrow, she had to get her film into town, get it developed.

On her list of things to save for was one of the new digital cameras. And a laptop computer, she thought. She’d earned a scholarship, and that would help with college expenses, but she knew it wouldn’t cover everything.

Tuition, housing, lab fees, books, transportation. It all added up.

She was nearly to the house when she heard the roar of an engine. Close, she determined, on their land. She walked around the house rather than inside to see who was coming and making such a racket out of it.

She set her hands on her hips when she saw the motorcycle roaring down the farm road. Bikers traveled the area regularly, and especially in the summer. Now and then one or more rode in looking for directions, or a couple days’ work. Most approached a little more cautiously, she thought, while this one barreled straight in as if he…

The helmet and visor hid his hair and most of his face. But the grin flashed, and she knew it. Letting out a whooping laugh, she raced forward. He stopped the bike behind her father’s truck, swung his leg over as he unhooked the helmet. He set the helmet on the seat, and turned in time to catch her in mid-flying leap.

“Coop!” She held on, tight, as he swung her in a circle. “You came.”

“I said I would.”

“Might.” Even as she gave him a squeeze, something trickled inside her, a little like heat. He felt different. Harder, tougher, in a way that made her think of man instead of boy.

“Might turned into did.” He dropped her on her feet, and still grinning, looked at her. “You got taller.”

“Some. I think I’m done now. So did you.”

Taller, and harder-and the scruff he hadn’t shaven off in a day or two, she judged, added sexy. His hair, longer than the last time she’d seen him, curled and waved around his face so his chilled blue eyes seemed even clearer, sharper.

The trickle inside her went warm.

He took her hand as he turned to study the house. “It looks the same. New paint on the shutters, but it looks the same.”

He didn’t, she thought. Not exactly. “How long have you been back? Nobody said you were here.”

“I’ve been back about ten seconds. I called my grandparents when I hit Sioux Falls, but I told them not to say.” He released her hand, but only to wrap his arm around her shoulders. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“You did. You really did.”

“I stopped by here before I went there.”

And now, she realized, everything she wanted and loved most was here for the summer. “Come inside. There’s sun tea. When did you get that thing?”

He glanced back at the motorcycle. “Nearly a year ago. I figured if I could make it back this summer, it’d be fun to bike cross-country.”

He stopped at the base of the stairs, cocking his head as he scanned her face.

“What?”

“You look… good.”

“I do not.” She shoved at her hair, gone to tangles under her flat-brimmed hat. “I just got back from the trail. I smell. If you’d gotten here a half hour later, I’d be cleaned up.”

He just kept staring at her face. “You look good. I missed you, Lil.”

“I knew you’d come back.” Giving in, she went into his arms again, closed her eyes. “I should’ve known it would be today, when I saw the cougar.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you all about it. Come inside, Coop. Welcome home.”

Once her parents had come in, greeted Coop, settled down with him, Lil dashed upstairs. The long hot shower of her dreams became the fastest shower in history. Moving at light speed, she pulled out her small supply of makeup. Nothing too obvious, she ordered herself, and used a light hand with blush, added mascara and just a hint of lip gloss. Since it would take forever to dry her hair, she pulled it all back, still damp, into a tail.

She thought about earrings, told herself it was too obvious. Clean jeans, she decided, a fresh shirt. Natural, casual.

Her heart was beating like a marching band.

It was weird, it was strange, it was unexpected. But she had the hots for her best friend.

He looked so different-the same, but different. The hollows in his cheeks were new and fascinating. His hair was shaggy and sexy with the dark brown just starting to go streaky from the sun. He’d already started to tan a little-she remembered how he’d go brown in the sun. And his eyes, that glacier ice blue, just pierced some unexplored land inside her.

She wished she’d kissed him. Just a friendly hi-Coop sort of thing. Then she’d know what it was like, know what it felt like to have his mouth meet hers.

Calm down, she ordered herself. He’d probably laugh his head off if he knew what she was thinking. She took several deep breaths, then walked slowly downstairs.

She could hear them in the kitchen: her mother’s laugh, her father’s joking tones-and Coop’s voice. Deeper, wasn’t it deeper than it had been?

She had to stop and breathe again. Then fixing an easy smile on her face, she strolled back into the kitchen.

He stopped, in the middle of a sentence, and stared. Blinked. Just that instant, that surprise that flickered in his eyes, had her skin humming.

“So are you staying for supper?” Lil asked him.

“We were just trying to talk him into it. But Lucy and Sam are expecting him. Sunday,” Jenna said with a finger wag. “Everybody here for a picnic on Sunday.”

“Absolutely. I remember the first one. We can fit in some batting practice.”

“Bet I can still outhit you.” She leaned back against the counter and smiled in a way that had him blinking again.

“We’ll see about that.”

“I was hoping for a ride on that toy you’ve got out there.”

“A Harley,” he said in sober tones, “is nobody’s toy.”

“Why don’t you show me what it can do?”

“Sure. Sunday, I’ll-”

“I was thinking now. It’s all right, isn’t it?” She turned to her mother. “Just a half hour?”

“Ah… Do you have helmets, Cooper?”

“Yeah, ah, I bought a second one figuring… Yeah.”

“How many tickets have you racked up riding that?” Joe asked him.

“None in the last four months,” Cooper said with a grin.

“Bring my girl back like you took her.”

“I will. Thanks for the tea,” he said as he rose. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”

Jenna watched them go out, then looked at her husband. “Oh,” she said.

He gave her a weak smile. “I was heading more toward: oh, shit.”

Outside, Lil studied the helmet he offered. “So are you going to teach me to drive this thing?”

“Maybe.”

She put the helmet on, watching him while she strapped it. “I can handle it.”

“Yeah, I bet you could.” He got on. “I thought about picking up a sissy seat, but-”

“I’m no sissy,” she said, and swung on behind him. She snugged her body behind his, wrapped her arms around his waist. Could he feel her heart thudding? she wondered. “Let her rip, Coop!”

When he did, zipping down the farm road, she let out a scream of delight. “It’s nearly as good as riding a horse,” she shouted.

“Better on the highway. Lean into the turns,” he told her, “and keep a good grip on me.”

Behind him, she smiled. She intended to.

COOP MEASURED OUT grain while the sun streamed through the loft windows. He could hear his grandmother singing as she fed the chickens, and their clucking accompaniment. In the stalls, horses chuffed and chewed.

It was funny how it all came back-the smells, the sounds, the quality of light and shadow. It had been two years since he’d fed a horse or groomed one, since he’d sat down at a big kitchen table at dawn to a plate of flapjacks.

It might have been yesterday.

The constant was a comfort, he supposed, when so much of his life was in flux. He remembered lying on a flat rock by the stream with Lil, years before, and how she’d known what she wanted. She still did.

He still didn’t.

The house, the fields, the hills, just the same as he’d left them. His grandparents, too, he thought. Had he really thought them old all those years before? They seemed so sturdy and steady to him now, as if the eight years since hadn’t touched them.

They’d sure as hell touched Lil.

When had she gotten so… well, prime?

Even two years before she’d just been Lil. Pretty, sure-she’d always been pretty. But he’d barely thought of her as a girl, much less a girl.

A girl with curves and lips, and eyes that put his blood on charge when she looked at him.

It wasn’t right to think of her that way. Probably. They were friends, best friends. He wasn’t supposed to notice she had breasts, much less obsess on what they’d felt like pressed into his back while they’d roared down the road on his bike.

Firm and soft and fascinating.

He sure as hell wasn’t supposed to have a sex dream about getting his hands on those breasts-and the rest of her.

But he had. Twice.

He bridled a yearling, as his grandfather had asked, and let the filly out to the corral to work her on the line.

With the stock fed and watered, the eggs gathered, Lucy walked over to sit on the fence and watch.

“She’s got some sass to her,” she said when the filly kicked up her hind legs.

“Energy to spare.” Coop switched leads, worked her in a circle.

“Picked her name yet?”

Coop smiled. Since Jones it had been tradition for him to name a yearling every season whether he made it out to the farm or not. “She’s got that pretty, dappled coat. I’m thinking Freckles.”

“Suits her. You’ve got a way, Cooper, with the naming, and the horses. You always did.”

“I miss them when I’m back east.”

“And when you’re here, you miss back east. It’s natural enough,” she continued when he didn’t speak. “You’re young. You haven’t settled yet.”

“I’m almost twenty, Grandma. It feels like I should know what I’m after. Hell, by my age you were married to Grandpa.”

“Different times, different place. Twenty’s younger in some ways than it once was, older in others. You’ve got time to do that settling.”

He looked back at her-sturdy, her hair shorter, with a bit of curl, the lines around her eyes deeper-but the same. Just as it was the same that he could say what was on his mind, or in his heart, and know she’d listen.

“Do you wish you’d taken more? More time?”

“Me? No, because I ended up right here, sitting on this fence watching my grandson train that pretty filly. But my way’s not yours. I married at eighteen, had my first baby before I was twenty, and barely been east of the Mississippi my whole life. That’s not you, Cooper.”

“I don’t know what me is. First?” He looked back at her. “You said first baby.”

“We lost two after your ma. That was hard. Still is. I think it’s why me and Jenna got close so quick. She had a stillbirth and then a miscarriage after Lil.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Things happen, and you go on. That’s all there is. If you’re lucky you get something out of it. I got you, didn’t I? And Jenna and Josiah, they got Lil.”

“Lil sure seems to know what she wants.”

“The girl does have her eyes forward.”

“So…” He aimed for casual. “Is she seeing anyone? A guy, I mean.”

“I took your meaning,” Lucy said drily. “Nobody in particular I’ve heard about. The Nodock boy did a lot of sniffing around in that direction, but it didn’t seem Lil was interested overmuch.”

“Nodock? Gull? But, Jesus, he’s twenty-two or -three. He’s too old to be hanging around Lil.”

“Not Gull, Jesse. His brother. Younger. He’d be about your age. Would you be sniffing in that direction, Cooper?”

“Me? Lil? No.” Crap, he thought. Just crap. “We’re friends, that’s all. She’s practically like a sister.”

Her face bland, Lucy tapped her boot heel on the fence. “Your grandfather and I were friendly when we were coming up. Though I don’t recall him ever thinking of me as a sister. Still, that Lil, she’s got her eyes forward, like I said. Girl’s got plans.”

“She always did.”

When work was done for the day, Coop thought about saddling one of the horses for a long, hard ride. He wished it could be Jones, but the yearling he’d once helped train had become one of the stars of his grandparents’ tourist trade.

He considered his options, had just about settled on the big roan gelding named Tick, when he saw Lil walking toward the corral.

It was lowering to admit, but his mouth went dry.

She wore jeans and a bright red shirt, scuffed boots, and a worn-in gray hat with a wide, flat brim, and her long black hair loose under it.

When she got to the fence, she tapped the saddlebag slung over her shoulder. “I’ve got a picnic in here I’m looking to share. Anybody interested?”

“Might be.”

“The thing is, I need to borrow a horse. I’ll barter this cold fried chicken for a ride.”

“Take your pick.”

Angling her head, she gestured with her chin. “I like the look of that piebald mare.”

“I’ll get you a saddle, and let my grandparents know.”

“I stopped in the house first. They’re fine with it. We’ve got a lot of day left. Might as well take advantage.” She draped the saddlebag over the fence. “I know where the tack is. Go ahead, get your own horse saddled.”

Friends or not, he didn’t see the harm in watching her walk away, or noticing how her jeans fit as she did.

They set to work, with a rhythm both of them knew well. When Coop lifted her saddlebag, he winced. “That’s a lot of chicken.”

“I’ve got my recorder and camera, and… stuff. You know I like to make a record when I’m out on a trail. I was thinking we could head for the creek, then take one of the spur trails through the forest. Get a good gallop on the way there, then it’s pretty scenery.”

He shot her a knowing look. “Cougar territory?”

“The couple I’ve tracked this year cover that area. But that’s not why.” She smiled as she swung into the saddle. “It’s just a pretty ride, and there’s a stream where the forest opens up. It’s a nice spot for a picnic. It’s a good hour from here though, if you’d rather something closer.”

“I can work up a good appetite in an hour.” He vaulted onto his horse, settled his hat more securely on his head. “Which way?”

“Southwest.”

“Race ya.”

He gave the gelding a light kick. They galloped across the farmyard and through the fields.

There’d been a time, Lil thought, when she’d been the better rider, and by a long shot. Now she had to admit they were on level ground. The mare was her advantage, being light and quick, so with the wind in her hair, Lil reached the thin line of trees less than a length in the lead.

Laughing, eyes bright, she leaned forward to give the mare a congratulatory pat on the neck. “Where do you ride in New York?”

“I don’t.”

She straightened in the saddle. “You’re saying you haven’t sat a horse in two years?”

He shrugged. “It’s like riding a bike.”

“No, it’s like riding a horse. How do you…” She trailed off, shook her head, and began to walk the horse into the pines.

“How do I what?”

“Well, how do you stand not doing something you love?”

“I do other stuff.”

“Such as?”

“Ride a motorcycle, hang out, listen to music.”

“Chase girls.”

He gave her a grin. “They don’t run very fast.”

She let out a hoot. “I bet they don’t. How does CeeCee feel about you being out here all summer.”

He shrugged again as they crossed a flat bordered by trees and boulders. “We’re not serious. She’s got her thing, I’ve got mine.”

“I thought you two were tight.”

“Not especially. I heard you were hooking up with Jesse Nodock.”

“God, no!” Tossing back her head, she laughed. “He’s nice enough, but kind of dopey. Plus all he really wants to do is wrestle.”

“Wrestle? Why…” Something dark crept into his eyes. “You mean with you? You’ve been doing it with Nodock?”

“I have not. I went out with him a couple times. I don’t much like the way he kisses. A little on the sloppy side of things, to my taste. He needs to practice his technique.”

“You know a lot about technique?”

She slanted him a look, a slow smile. “I’m doing an informal study. Look.” As they were riding abreast, she reached out to touch his arm, then pointed. In the far edges of the trees, a herd of deer stopped to stare back at them. Lil dug out her recorder.

“Six white-tail, four doe, two fawns. Aren’t they sweet? A buck’s been through here, too, not long ago.”

“How do you know that, Tonto?”

“Look at the bark. Scrape marks from a buck rubbing his antlers. Some of that’s fresh, Mr. New York.”

This, too, was familiar, he thought. Riding with her, listening to her point out the tracks, the wildlife, the signs. He’d missed that.

“What else do you see?”

“Marmot tracks, and mule deer. There’s a red squirrel up in that tree. You’ve got eyes.”

“Not like yours.”

“Cat’s been through here, but not recently.”

He watched her, only her. He couldn’t seem to do otherwise, not when the sunlight dappled on her face, and those dark eyes were so alive, so intent. “Okay, how do you know?”

“Those scrape marks? That’s cougar, but they’re old, probably from a male marking his territory last mating season. He’s moved on, at least for now. They don’t stay with the female or the family. Screw and hit the road. That’s a guy for you.”

“About this informal poll.”

She laughed, and clucked to the mare.

4

It was easy to fall into a routine, into the comfortable zone of it. Hot days, hard work, and sudden storms. Lil spent nearly every free moment with Coop, on horseback or hiking, batting balls, or on fast rides on his bike. She lay in the grass with him and counted stars, sat on the banks of a stream and shared picnics.

And he never made a move.

She didn’t understand it. She’d barely looked cross-eyed at Jesse and he’d been all over her. Dirk Pleasant, too, when all she’d done was take a couple of spins on the Ferris wheel with him at the carnival last summer.

She knew the look a boy got in his eye now when he thought about a girl that way. She’d swear she’d seen that look in Coop’s aimed in her direction.

So why wasn’t he all over her?

Obviously it was time to take the bull by the horns.

She drove the bike, carefully, nearly to the end of the farm road. Concentrated, muttering instructions to herself on the turn, then drove it back to where Coop stood, watching her.

She kept the speed dignified, only because the couple of times she’d burned it, he’d gotten really mad.

“Okay, I’ve driven back and forth six times today.” Though her hand twitched, she resisted gunning the engine. “You’ve got to let me take it out on the road, Coop. Get on, let’s take a ride.”

“You almost ditched it on the turn.”

“Almost doesn’t count.”

“It does on my bike. I’m still paying for it. You want a ride, I’ll drive.”

“Come on.” She got off, took off her helmet. Deliberately shook back her hair before taking the Coke bottle from him to drink. She tried on the sultry look she’d practiced in the mirror. “One mile up, one mile back.” Smiling, she traced a finger down his throat, moved in a little closer. “It’s a straight shot, and… I’ll make it worth your while.”

His eyes narrowed. “What’re you doing?”

She cocked her head. “If you have to ask, I must not be doing it right.”

He didn’t step back; she didn’t move the hand that rested lightly on his chest. His heartbeat speeded up a little. Surely that was a good sign.

“You need to be careful how you come on to guys, Lil. They’re not all me.”

“You’re the only one I’m coming on to.”

Temper-hardly the reaction she’d been after-lit in his eyes. “I’m not your practice dummy.”

“I wasn’t practicing. But I guess you’re not interested.” With a shrug, she set the Coke on the seat of the bike. “Thanks for the lesson.” Insulted, embarrassed, she started for the first cattle gate.

She supposed he just went for city girls, with their city ways. Mr. New York City. Well, that was fine, that was just fine, she didn’t need him to-

His hand gripped her arm, and he spun her around so fast her body plowed into his. Temper sparked off him just as it did her.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” he demanded.

“What the hell’s wrong with you? You don’t trust me to drive your stupid bike for a couple of miles, you don’t want to kiss me. You act like I’m still nine years old. If you’re not interested that way, then you should just say so instead of-”

He yanked her up to her toes, and his mouth was on hers. So hard, so fast. Nothing like the others, she thought, dizzy. Nothing like the other boys.

His lips were hot, his tongue quick. Something inside her went loose, as if a knot gave way, and every inch of her-inside and out-flashed with light, with heat.

It felt as if her heart would beat its way right out of her chest.

She shoved him back, trying to catch her breath. “Wait a minute, wait a minute.”

Everything went bright and sharp. Dazzling. Who needed to breathe, she thought, and leaped back into his arms with a force that knocked them both to the ground.

She stopped his heart. He’d have sworn it stopped beating when he’d gone crazy and kissed her. For that instant, it had been like death-and then everything blasted back to life.

Now, somehow, he was rolling with her on the dirt road, over the prickly grass on its edge. He was hard, brutally hard, so when she pressed her hips up, pressed against him, he groaned in pleasure and torment.

“Does it hurt? What does it feel like?” Her words tore on ragged breaths. “Let me feel-”

“Jesus. Don’t.” He gripped her hand and pulled it back from its sudden and fierce exploration. Another minute of that and he knew he’d go off, and embarrass them both.

He pushed back to sit on the old road with his heart knocking between his ears. “What are we doing?”

“You wanted to kiss me.” She sat up with him. Her eyes were huge, deep and dark. “You want more.”

“Look, Lil-”

“So do I. You’re going to be my first.” She smiled as he stared at her. “It’ll be right with you. I’ve been waiting until I knew it’d be right.”

Something, she thought it might be panic, streaked across his face. “That’s not something you can take back once it’s done.”

“You want me. I want you back. We’ll figure it out.” She leaned forward, laid her lips gently, experimentally on his. “I liked the way you kissed me, so we’ll figure it out.”

He shook his head, and the panic turned into a kind of baffled amusement. “I’m supposed to be the one talking you into having sex.”

“You couldn’t talk me into anything if I didn’t want it.”

“That’s for damn sure.”

She smiled again, started to lean her head on his shoulder. And was on her feet in a flash. “Oh, God, look at the sky. Look north.”

It boiled. Coop pushed to his feet to grab her hand. “Let’s get inside.”

“It’s miles off. Miles. It’s going to spawn though. It’s-There!”

The funnel whirled out of the churning mass, twisting its way to the ground like a deadly black finger. “My grandparents.”

“No, it’s miles off, and it’s heading west, heading to Wyoming. We’ve barely even got wind here.”

“They can turn.” As he spoke he saw it simply eat through a line of trees.

“Yeah, but it’s not. It won’t. Look, look, Coop, can you see the rain wall? There’s a rainbow.”

She saw the rainbow, he thought, and he saw the black funnel storming its way across the plains.

He supposed that said something about both of them.

OUTSIDE LIL’S BEDROOM, Jenna took several bracing breaths. The light under the door told her Lil was still up. She’d half hoped that by the time she’d finished stalling, the light would be off.

She knocked, opened the door when Lil called out to come in.

Her daughter sat up in bed, her hair spilling around her shoulders, her face scrubbed for the night, and a thick book in her hands.

“Studying already?”

“It’s on wildlife ecology and management. I want to be ready when I start classes. No, I want to be ahead,” Lil admitted. “A freshman has to be really good to have a chance at any serious fieldwork. So I’m going to be really good. I’m already feeling competitive.”

“Your grandfather was the same. Horseshoes or horse trading, politics or pinochle, he wanted to come in first.” Jenna sat on the side of the bed. So young, she thought, looking at her daughter. Still a baby in so many ways. And yet…

“Did you have a good time tonight?”

“Sure. I know a lot of people my age think barn dances are hokey, but they’re fun. It’s nice to see everybody. And I like watching you and Dad dance.”

“The music was good. Gets the feet moving.” She glanced at the open book, saw what looked like some sort of strange algebra. “What in the world is that?”

“Oh, it’s explaining equations for measuring population density of species. See, this is a formula for finding the merged estimate, that’s the mean of the individual estates. And its variance is the mean of…” She stopped, grinned at her mother’s face. “Do you really want to know?”

“Do you remember me helping you with math after you got through long division.”

“No.”

“That would be your answer. Anyway, you didn’t dance much tonight.”

“We liked listening to the music, and it was so nice out.”

And whenever you came back in, Jenna thought, you had that dazed and smug look of a girl who’d done some serious kissing.

Please, God, let that be all.

“You and Cooper aren’t just friends anymore.”

Lil sat up a little straighter. “Not just. Mom-”

“You know we love him. He’s a good young man, and I know you care about each other. I also know that you’re not children anymore, and when you feel more than friendship, things happen. Sex happens,” Jenna corrected, ordering herself to stop being a coward.

“It hasn’t. Yet.”

“Good. That’s good, because if it does, I want both of you to be prepared, to be safe.” She reached in her pocket and took out a box of condoms. “To be protected.”

“Oh.” Lil just stared at them, as dumbfounded as her mother had been by the equations. “Oh. Um.”

“Some girls consider this the boy’s responsibility. My girl is smart and self-aware, and will always look after herself, rely on herself. I wish you’d wait, I can’t help wishing you’d wait. But if you don’t, I want you to promise me you’ll use protection.”

“I will. I promise. I want to be with him, Mom. When I am-I mean just with him, I feel all this… this,” she said lamely. “In my heart, and in my stomach, in my head. Everything’s fluttering around so I can barely breathe. And when he kisses me, it’s like, Oh, that’s what’s it supposed to be. I want to be with him,” she repeated. “He pulls back because he’s not sure I’m really ready. But I am.”

“You’ve just made me feel a lot better about him. A lot better knowing he’s not pressuring you.”

“I think it might be, sort of, the other way around.”

Jenna managed a weak laugh. “Lil, we’ve talked before, about sex, safety, responsibility, those feelings. And you’ve grown up on a farm. But if there’s anything you’re not sure of, or want to talk about, you know you can talk to me.”

“Okay. Mom, does Dad know you’re giving me condoms?”

“Yes. We talked about it. You know you can talk to him, too, but-”

“Oh, yeah, big but. It’d feel really weird.”

“On both sides.” Jenna patted Lil’s thigh as she rose. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“I won’t. Mom? Thanks for loving me.”

“Never a problem.”

RELY ON YOURSELF, Lil thought. Her mother was right, as usual, she decided as she packed provisions. A woman had to have a plan, that was the key. What to do, when and how to do it. She’d made the arrangements. Maybe Coop didn’t know all of them, but the element of surprise was also key.

She put the packs in the truck, grateful that her parents had gone to town, so there didn’t have to be any awkward be carefuls, even if they were unspoken.

She wondered if Coop’s grandparents knew what was going on. Really going on. She’d opted not to ask her mother that one. Talk about awkward.

Didn’t matter, don’t care, she thought as she drove with the wind shooting through the open windows. She had three days free. Probably her last in a row for the summer. In another few weeks she’d be on her way north, on her way to college. And another phase of her life would begin.

She wasn’t leaving until she’d finished this phase.

She’d thought she’d be nervous, but she wasn’t. Excited, happy, but not nervous. She knew what she was doing-in theory-and was ready to put it into practice.

She turned the radio up and sang along as she drove through the hills, passed tidy farms and pastures. She saw men mending fences, and clothes flapping on lines. She stopped-she couldn’t help herself-to take pictures and some quick notes when she spotted a good-sized herd of buffalo.

She arrived at the farm in time to see Coop saddling up. She hitched on her pack, grabbed the second, then gave a whistle.

“What’s all that?”

“Some surprises,” she called out as he walked over to help her.

“Jesus, Lil, it looks like enough for a week. We’re only going to be a few hours.”

“You’ll thank me later. Where is everybody?”

“My grandparents had to run into town. They should be on their way back, but they said not to wait if we were ready before.”

“Believe me, I’m ready.” She hugged that exciting secret inside. “Oh, I talked to my college roommate today.” Lil checked the cinches on the mare’s saddle. “We got our dorm assignments, and she called, just to touch base. She’s from Chicago, and she’ll be studying animal husbandry and zoology. I think we’re going to get along. I hope. I’ve never shared a room before.”

“Not much longer now.”

“No.” She mounted. “Not much longer. Do you like your roommate?”

“He stayed stoned pretty much through two years. He didn’t bother me.”

“I’m hoping to make friends. Some people make friends in college that stay friends all the rest of their lives.” They moved at an easy pace, all the time in the world, under the wide blue plate of sky. “Did you get stoned?”

“A couple of times and that was enough. It seemed like the thing to do, and the grass was right there. He’s all, Dude, fire one up,” Coop said in an exaggerated stoner’s tone that made her laugh. “So why not? Everything seemed pretty funny-and mellow-for a while. Then I was starving and had a headache. It didn’t seem worth it.”

“Is he going to be your roommate again this term?”

“He flunked out, big surprise.”

“You’ll have to break in a new one.”

“I’m not going back.”

“What?” She jerked her mount to a halt to gape, but Coop kept going. She nudged the mare into a trot to catch up. “What do you mean, you’re not going back? Back east?”

“No, back to college. I’m done.”

“But you’ve only-you’ve barely… What happened?”

“Nothing. That’s pretty much the point. I’m not getting anywhere, and it’s not where I want to get, anyway. The whole prelaw shit was my father’s deal. He’ll pay as long as I do it his way. I’m not doing it his way anymore.”

She knew the signs-the tightening of his jaw, the flare in his eyes. She knew the temper, and the bracing for a fight.

“I don’t want to be a lawyer, especially not the kind of corporate stooge in an Italian suit he’s pushing on me. Goddamn it, Lil, I spent the first half of my life trying to please him, trying to get him to notice me, to fucking care. What did it get me? The only reason he’s paid the freight on college is because he has to, but it had to be his way. And he was pissed I didn’t get into Harvard. Jesus, as if.”

“You could’ve gotten into Harvard if you wanted.”

“No, Lil.” Exasperated he scowled at her. “You could. You’re the genius, the straight-A student.”

“You’re smart.”

“Not like that. Not with school, or not that way. I do okay, I do fine. And I fucking hate it, Lil.”

Sad and mad, she realized. The sad and mad was back in his eyes. “You never said-”

“What was the point? I felt stuck. He can make you feel like you don’t have a choice, like he’s right, you’re wrong. And Christ, he knows how to make you toe the line. That’s why he’s good at what he does. But I don’t want to do what he does. Be what he is. I started thinking of all the years I’d have to put into becoming what I didn’t want to become. I’m done with it.”

“I wish you’d told me before. I just wish you’d told me you were so unhappy with all this. We could’ve talked about it.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know this whole deal’s about him, not me. Him and my mother, and their endless war, and endless pursuit of the right appearances. I’m finished with it, too.”

Her heart broke a little for him. “Did you have a fight with your parents before you left?”

“I wouldn’t call it a fight. I said some things I wanted to say, and I got an ultimatum. I could stay and work in the family firm this summer or he’d cut me off. Financially, as he’s cut me off in every other way since I was a kid.”

They forded a stream in silence, just the splash of hooves through water. She couldn’t imagine her parents stepping away from her, not in any way. “So you came here.”

“It’s what I’d planned to do, what I wanted to do. I’ve got enough money to get my own place. I don’t need much. I was never going back to live with my mother anyway. Just never going there again.”

A little bubble of hope swelled inside her. “You could stay here, with your grandparents. You know you could. Help out at the farm. You could go to school out here, and-”

He turned his head toward her, and she felt that little bubble pop and dissolve. “I’m not going back to college, Lil. It’s not for me. It’s different for you. You’ve been planning what you were going to study, what you were going to do, ever since you saw that cougar. And decided to chase cats instead of pop flies.”

“I didn’t know you were so unhappy. I get law wasn’t your choice, and it was unfair of your father to push you there, but-”

“Fair’s not the point.” He shrugged, a gesture of a young man too used to unfair to be bothered by it. “It’s not about that, and from now on it’s not about him. It’s about me. The whole college scene? That’s not about me.”

“Neither is staying here, is it?”

“It doesn’t feel like it, not yet or not now anyway. I don’t know what I want, for sure. Staying would be easy. I’ve got a place to stay, three squares, work I’m pretty good at. I’ve got family, and you.”

“But.”

“It feels like settling, before I know. Before I do something. Out here, I’m Sam and Lucy’s grandson. I want to be me. I enrolled in the police academy.”

“Police?” If he’d leaned over and shoved her off her horse she’d have been less stunned. “Where did that come from? You’ve never said anything about wanting to be a cop.”

“I took a couple of courses in law enforcement, and one in criminology. They were the only things I liked about the whole pile of crap these last two years. The only things I was any good in. I’ve already applied. I’ve got enough course credits to get in, and I’ll be twenty when I start. It’s six months’ training, and it just feels like I’d be good at it. So I’m going to try it. I need something that’s mine. I don’t know how to explain it.”

She thought, I’m yours, but kept the words to herself. “Have you told your grandparents?”

“Not yet.”

“You’ll be working in New York.”

“I’d’ve been going to school back east,” he reminded her. “And if everyone but me had their way, working in legal in my father’s company back there. Wearing a suit every fricking day. Now I’ll be doing something for me, or at least trying to. I figured you’d understand that.”

“I do.” She wished she didn’t. She wanted him there, with her. “It’s just… so far away.”

“I’ll come out when I can. As soon as I can. Maybe Christmas.”

“I could come to New York, maybe on semester break, or… next summer.”

Some of that sad lifted from his face. “I’ll show you around. There’s a lot to do, to see. I’ll have my own place. It’s not going to be much, but-”

“It won’t matter.” They’d make it work, somehow, she told herself. She couldn’t feel this way about him, about them, and not make it work. “They have cops in South Dakota, too.” She tried out a bright smile. “You could be sheriff of Deadwood one day.”

He laughed at the idea. “First I have to get through the academy. A lot of people wash out.”

“You won’t. You’ll be great. You’ll help people and solve crimes, and I’ll study and get my degree and save wildlife.”

And they’d find a way, she thought.

SHE LED the way to the spot she’d chosen. She’d wanted it perfect-the day, the place, the moment. She couldn’t let the future, the uncertainty of it interfere.

They had the sun, and it filtered through the trees to sparkle on the waters of the fast-running stream where purple dame’s rockets danced in the light breeze. More wildflowers bloomed in the light, and in the shadows, and the birdcall was music enough.

They dismounted, tethered the horses. Lil unstrapped her pack. “We should set up the tent first.”

“Tent?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. We’ve got two days. It’s okay with your grandparents, with my parents.” She set the pack down, laid her hands on his chest. “Is it okay with you?”

“It’s been a while since we camped. Last time your father and I shared a tent.” Searching her face, he rubbed her arms. “Things have changed, Lil.”

“I know. That’s why we’re here, with one tent and one sleeping bag.” She leaned in, keeping her eyes open as she brushed her lips over his. “Do you want me, Cooper?”

“You know I do.” He pulled her closer, took her mouth with a sudden and fierce possession that arrowed heat straight to her belly. “Jesus, Lil, you know I do. No point in asking if you’re sure, if you’re ready. You’re always sure. But… We’re not prepared. A tent’s not enough for what we’re talking about. At least, the kind of tent you’ve got in that pack.”

It made her laugh, and hug him tight. “I have a box of tents.”

“Sorry?”

“Condoms. I have a box of condoms. I never go camping unprepared.”

“A box. That makes the one I’m carrying in my wallet kind of unnecessary-and okay, thank you, God-but where the hell did you get condoms?”

“My mother gave them to me.”

“Your…” He closed his eyes, then gave up and sat on a rock. “Your mother gave you a box of condoms, then let you come out here with me?”

“Actually, she gave them to me a week ago, and asked me to promise to be sure and to be careful. I did, I am. I will.”

A little pale, Coop rubbed his hands on the knees of his jeans. “Your father knows?”

“Sure. He’s not home loading up the shotgun, Coop.”

“It’s weird. It’s just weird. And now I’m nervous, damn it.”

“I’m not. Help me set up the tent.”

He rose. They worked quickly, efficiently, securing the small, lightweight tent.

“You’ve done this before, right?”

He glanced over at her. “You don’t mean camping. Yeah. But I’ve never done this before with someone who hasn’t-done it before. It’s probably going to hurt you, and I don’t know if it’s even any good for a girl the first time.”

“I’ll let you know.” She reached out, laid a hand over his heart. All she could think was it was beating for her now. It had to be. “We could start now.”

“Now?”

“Well, I’m hoping you’ll get me warmed up first. I brought an extra blanket to spread out.” She pulled it out of the pack. “And since you’ve got that condom in your wallet, we could start with that. Otherwise, it’s all we’re going to think about.” Steady and sure, she took his hand. “Maybe you could lie down here with me, and kiss me awhile.”

“There’s nobody else like you in the world.”

“Show me, will you? You’re the only one I want to show me.”

He kissed her first, as they stood in the sunlight beside the blanket, and put everything he had that was soft and gentle into it.

He knew she was right. It should be here, in the world that belonged to the two of them, the world that had brought them together, and linked them together forever.

They lowered to kneel, face-to-face, and she sighed against his lips.

He stroked her, her hair, her back, her face, and finally her breasts. He’d felt them before, felt her heart kick against his palm when he touched her. But this was different. This was prelude.

He drew off her shirt, and saw the smile in her eyes as she drew off his. Her breath caught when he unhooked her bra. Then her eyes fluttered closed as for the time he touched her there skin to skin.

“Oh. Well. That’s definitely warming me up.”

“You’re like…” He searched for the right words as he cupped her breasts, used his thumbs to tease her nipples. “Gold dust, all over.”

“You haven’t seen all over yet.” She opened her eyes, looked into his. “Things are coming to life inside me I didn’t even know were there. Everything’s all jumpy and hot.” She reached out, rubbed her palms over his chest. “Is it like that for you?”

“Except I knew they were there. Lil.” He bent his head and took her breast into his mouth. The flavor of her flooded him, the sound of her shock and delight raced wild through his blood.

Her arms came around him, urging him, and stayed around him when they collapsed on the blanket.

She hadn’t known there would be so much. Storms and waves and shudders. Nothing she’d read-not the texts, not the novels-had prepared her for what happened to her own body.

Her mind seemed to lift out of it, release it, so there was nothing but feeling.

She raced her lips over his shoulder, his throat, his face, giving in to the urge to feed on him. When his hand stroked down her torso, fought open the button of her jeans, she quivered. And thought: Yes. Please, yes.

When she tried to do the same for him, he drew back.

“I need to…” His breath came ragged as he dragged his wallet out. “I might forget, just stop thinking.”

“Okay.” She lay back, touched her own breasts. “Everything feels different already. I think… Oh.” Her eyes widened as he yanked off his jeans. “Wow.”

Elemental male pride at her reaction had him slanting a glance at her as he ripped open the condom. “It’ll fit.”

“I know how it works, but… let me.” Before he could sheath himself she sat up to touch him.

“Holy shit, Lil.”

“It’s smooth,” she murmured as another wave of heat rolled through her. “Hard and smooth. Will it feel like that inside me?”

“Keep that up, you’re not going to know for a while.” His breathing fast and shallow, he caught her wrist, pulled her hand away.

He struggled to focus, concentrated on the protection. “Let me,” he said as he lowered to her. “Just let me this first time.”

He kissed her, long, slow, deep, and hoped his instincts ran true. She seemed to soften under him, and then as he stroked his hand down, quivered.

She was already wet, and that nearly undid him. Praying for control, he slipped a finger into her. Her hips arched up as her fingers dug into his back.

“Oh, God, oh, God.”

“It’s good.” Hot, soft, wet. Lil. “Is it good?”

“Yes. Yes. It’s…”

She felt something rise up, fly off, and take her breath with it. He was kissing her, kissing her, anchoring her, letting her go. She arched again, to find more. Then again, again.

This, she thought, this.

Swimming in the heat, she felt him shift, felt him press at the core of her. She opened her eyes, struggled to focus, watched his face, the intensity of those crystal blue eyes.

It hurt. For a moment the pain was so shocking through the pleasure she went stiff with denial.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She didn’t know if he intended to stop or go on, but knew she was on the brink of something unimagined. She gripped his hips, and reared up to find it, to know it.

The pain struck again, another shock and burn-and he was inside her. With her.

“It fit,” she managed.

He dropped his head on her shoulder with a breathless and choked laugh. “Oh, God, Lil. Oh, God. I don’t think I can stop now.”

“Who asked you to?” She dug her fingers in, lifted her hips again, then felt him move in her.

He trembled above her, and it seemed to her the ground trembled beneath. Inside her, everything opened, everything filled, and she knew.

She cried out with pleasure as she hadn’t with the pain, and rode the crest of it with him.

5

They played in the stream, washing in the cool water, teasing and tormenting each other’s bodies until they were breathless.

Wet and half naked, they fell on the food Lil had brought like a pair of starving wolves. With the horses tethered and dozing, they donned light packs to hike a short way along the trail.

Everything seemed brighter to her, clearer and stronger.

She paused among the shelter of the pines, pointed at tracks. “Wolf pack. The cats compete with them for prey. Mostly they leave each other alone. There’s a lot of game, so…”

He gave her a poke in the belly. “I should’ve known there was a reason you picked this way.”

“I wondered if the female I spotted covered this ground. She’s probably more west of here, but it’s good territory, as the wolves would tell you. We’re going to build a refuge.”

“For what?”

“All of them. For endangered and injured and abused. For the ones people buy or capture as exotic pets then realize they can’t possibly keep. I’m still talking my father into it, but I will.”

“Here? In the hills?”

She gave a decisive nod. “Paha Sapa-Lakota for Hills of Black, a sacred place. It seems right. Especially right for what I want to do.”

“It’s your place,” he agreed. “So yeah, it seems right. But it seems like a lot.”

“I know. I’ve been studying how other refuges are built, set up, how they run, what it takes. I have a lot more to learn. We’ve got some overlap with the National Park, and that could work in our favor. We’ll need some funding, a plan, some help. Probably a lot of help,” she admitted.

They stood on the trail of a world they both knew, but it felt to him as if they stood at some kind of crossroads. “You’ve been doing a lot of thinking, too.”

“Yeah. I have. I’m going to work on it in school. Build a model, I hope. Learn enough to make it happen. It’s what I want to do. I want to be a part of protecting all this, learning and educating. Dad knows I’m never going to be a beef farmer. I guess he’s always known.”

“That’s where you’re lucky.”

“I know it.” She ran her hand down his arm until their fingers linked. “If you decide being one of New York ’s Finest doesn’t suit you, you could come back and give us a hand with it.”

He shook his head. “Or sheriff of Deadwood.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Cooper.” She turned into his arms.

So she felt it, too, he realized, and he only held her tighter. “You couldn’t.”

“I don’t want to be with anyone but you. I don’t want anyone but you.”

He turned his head to rest his cheek on top of her head. Looked at the tracks they’d left behind. “I’ll come back. I always come back.”

She had him now, and tried to hold on to that as tightly as she held on to him. She would will him back if need be. Back to her, back to where he was happy.

One day they’d walk through this forest again, years from now. Together.

As they walked back to camp, she put everything between now and then out of her mind.

That night, while the stars seared the sky overhead, she lay in his arms, and heard the cry of the cat.

Her talisman, she thought. Her good-luck charm.

Because she couldn’t understand why she felt so weepy, she turned her face into his shoulder and lay quiet until she could sleep.

JENNA WATCHED OUT the window. The hard, hot day threatened storms with a mottled bruising in the eastern sky. There would be other storms, and more bruising, she thought as she watched her girl and the boy she loved ride back from checking fences with Joe and Sam.

Even at that distance she could see what they were. Lovers now, so young, so fresh. All they could see were the summer blue skies, and not the storms blowing in.

“He’ll break her heart.”

“I wish I could say otherwise.” Behind her, Lucy put a hand on Jenna’s shoulder and watched as she watched.

“She thinks it’ll all fall into place, the way she wants, the way she plans. That it’ll be what it is now forever. I can’t tell her different. She wouldn’t believe me.”

“He loves her.”

“Oh, I know. I know. But he’ll go, just as she will. They have to. And she’ll never be quite the same again. There’s no stopping that either.”

“We hoped he’d stay. When he told us he wasn’t going back to college, I thought, Well, that’s all right. You’ll stay here, and take over the farm one day. I had just enough time to think it-and to think how he might’ve given his education a better try if his father hadn’t pushed so hard. Then he told us what he aimed to do.”

“The police force.” She turned from the window to study her friend. “How do you feel about that, Lucy?”

“Scared some, that’s a fact. Hopeful he’ll find his feet, and some real pride in himself. I can’t tell him any more than you can tell Lil.”

“My biggest fear is he’ll ask her to go back with him, and she will. She’s young and in love and, well, fearless. The way you are at that age.” Jenna walked over to get out the pitcher of lemonade to give her hands something to do. “She’d just let her heart pull her along. It’s so far away. Not just the miles.”

“I know. I know what it was like when my Missy lit out, like there was a fire under her feet.” At home in Jenna’s kitchen as she was in her own, Lucy went to the cupboard for glasses. “He’s not like his mother, not a bit. Neither’s your girl. Missy, she never had a thought for anybody but herself. Just seemed to be born that way. Not mean, not even hard, just careless. She wanted anything but here.”

She took her drink back to the window, sipping as she looked out. “Those two might want different things, but here’s a part of it. Your girl has plans, Jenna. My boy there? He’s trying to make some.”

“I don’t know if you ever get over your first love. Joe was mine, so I never had to get over him. I just hate knowing she’s going to hurt. Both of them are going to hurt.”

“They’ll never let loose of each other, not all the way. Too much there. But, well, nothing we can do about it in the meantime but be here. Storm’s coming in.”

“I know.”

THE WIND KICKED high and hard, ahead of the rain. Lightning slashed over the hills in whips of eerie blue, blinding white. It struck a cotton-wood in the near pasture, cleaving it like an ax. Ozone burned the air like a sorcerer’s potion.

“It’s a mean one.” Lil stood on the back porch scenting the air. Inside the kitchen, the dogs whined, and were, she imagined, huddled under the table.

It could pass, she knew, as quickly as it came. Or it could beat and strike and wreak destruction. Hail to batter the crops and the stock, twisting winds to shred them. In the hills, in the canyons, animals would take shelter in lairs and dens, in caves and thickets and high grass. Just as people took it in houses, in cars.

The feeding chain meant nothing to nature.

The cannon blast of thunder boomed, rolled, echoed, and shook the valley.

“You won’t get this in New York.”

“We have thunderstorms back east.”

Lil just shook her head as she watched the show. “Not like this. City storms are inconveniences. This is drama, and adventure.”

“Try hailing a cab in Midtown during a storm. Baby, that’s an adventure.” Still, he laughed and took her hand. “But you’ve got a point. This is E Ticket.”

“Here comes the rain.”

It swept in, fast-moving curtains. She watched the wall rush through, and the world went a little mad. Pounding, roaring, slashing in one titanic roar.

She turned to him, clamped around him, and took his mouth with as much fury and power as the storm. Rain dashed them, hard pebbled drops the wind shoved under the porch roof. Thunder crashed, an ear-ringing explosion. The wind chimes and dinner bells clanged and rang insanely.

She drew back, but not before she’d added a quick, teasing bite. “Every time you hear thunder, you’re going to remember that.”

“I need to be alone with you. Somewhere. Anywhere.”

She glanced toward the kitchen window. Her parents and the Wilkses stood watch on the front porch as she and Coop had chosen the back.

“Quick. Run!” Laughing, she pulled him off the porch, into the wild rain and wind. Instantly soaked, they raced for the barn.

Lightning forked the sky, electric sizzle. Together they dragged the door open to stumble inside, breathless and drenched. In the stalls, horses shifted restlessly as the rain pounded, as thunder rolled.

In the hayloft, they stripped off wet clothes, and took each other eagerly.

IT WOULD BE their last day together. When it was over he would say his goodbyes to Joe and Jenna, and then somehow to Lil.

He’d said goodbye before, but he knew it would be harder this time. This time, more than ever before, they were each taking different directions at that crossroads.

They walked their horses as they had so many times before, to the place that had become theirs. The fast-running stream at the verge of the pines where the wildflowers danced.

“Let’s keep going. We’ll come back,” she said, “but when we stop, it’ll be the last time. So let’s keep going for a while.”

“I might be able to come out for Thanksgiving. It’s not that far away.”

“No, it’s not that far away.”

“Christmas for sure.”

“Christmas for sure. I’m leaving in eight more days.” She hadn’t started to pack, not yet. She’d wait until Coop had gone. It was a kind of symbol. As long as he was here, everything stayed. Everything was solid and familiar.

“Nervous yet? About college.”

“No, not nervous. Curious, I guess. Part of me wants to go, get started, find out. The other part wants everything to stop. I don’t want to think about it today. Let’s just be.”

She reached out, took his hand for a moment. They walked in a silence full of questions neither knew how to answer.

They passed a little falls engorged from summer storms, crossed a grassland green with summer. Determined not to drop into a brood, she took out her camera. “Hey!” He grinned when she aimed it at him. Then, with their horses close abreast, she leaned over, held the camera out.

“You probably cut off our heads.”

“Bet I didn’t. I’ll send you a print. Coop and Lil in the backcountry. See what your new cop friends think about that.”

“They’ll take one look at you and think I’m a lucky guy.”

They took a spur trail through tall trees and hefty boulders, with views that swept to forever. Lil pulled up. “Cougar’s been through here. The rains washed most of the tracks away, but there’re markings on the trees.”

“Your female?”

“Maybe. We’re not far from where I spotted her that day.” Two months before, she thought. The kittens would be weaned by now, and big enough for their ma to take them with her when she hunted.

“You want to try to track her.”

“Just a little ways. I’m not sure I can anyway. We’ve had a lot of rain in the last few days. But if she’s territorial, she could be in the area where I first saw her. It’d be good luck,” she decided on the spot. “For us both to see her on your last day, the way I did on your first.”

He had the rifle if he needed it, though he didn’t mention it. Lil wouldn’t approve. “Let’s go.”

She led the way, searching for signs as the horses picked and plodded. “I wish I was better at tracking.”

“You’re as good as your father now. Maybe even better.”

“I don’t know about that. I was going to practice a lot more this summer.” She sent him a smile. “But I’ve been distracted. The brush, the boulders. That’s what she’d stick to if she was hunting. And I’m not sure…” She stopped, and eased her horse to the right. “Scat. It’s cougar.”

“I think it’s good tracking to be able to tell one pile of shit from another.”

“Tracking 101. It’s not real fresh. Yesterday, the day before. But this is part of her territory. Or if not hers, probably another female. Their territories can overlap.”

“Why not a male?”

“Mostly they steer clear of females, until mating season. Then it’s all, Hey, baby, you know you want it. Of course, I love you. Sure, I’ll respect you in the morning. Get it, then get gone.”

He narrowed his eyes as she grinned. “You have no respect for our species.”

“Oh, I don’t know, some of you are okay. Besides, you love me.” The minute the words were out, she straightened in the saddle. Couldn’t take them back, she realized, and shifted to look him in the eye. “Don’t you?”

“I’ve never felt about anyone the way I do about you.” He gave her an easy smile. “And I always respect you in the morning.”

There was a nagging thought at the back of her brain that it wasn’t enough. She wanted the words, just the power of those words. But she’d be damned if she’d ask for them.

She continued on, aiming for the high grass shelf where she’d seen the cat take down the calf. She found other signs, more scrapings. Cougar and buck. Brush trampled down by a herd of mule deer.

But when they reached the grass, nothing roamed or grazed.

“Nice spot,” Coop observed. “Is this still your land?”

“Yeah, just,” she replied as she gazed across the vista.

She started across the grass toward the trees where she’d once watched the cougar drag her kill. “My mother said there used to be bear, but they got hunted out, driven out. The cougar and the wolf stay, but you have to look to find them. The Hills are a mixing bowl, biologically speaking. We get species here that are common to areas in every direction.”

“Like a singles bar.”

She laughed at him. “I’ll take your word. Still, we lost the bear. If we could… There’s blood.”

“Where?”

“On that tree. On the ground, too. It looks dry.”

She swung her leg across the saddle.

“Wait. If this is a kill site, she could be close. If she’s got a litter she won’t be happy to see you.”

“Why is it on the tree? So high on the tree.” Drawing out her camera, Lil walked closer. “She could’ve taken out an elk or deer, I guess, and it fought, or it hit the tree. But it just doesn’t look like that.”

“And you know how that would look?”

“In my head I do.” She glanced back, saw he had the rifle. “I don’t want you to shoot her.”

“Neither do I.” He’d shot nothing but targets, and didn’t want to shoot the living, especially her cat.

Frowning, Lil turned back to the tree, studied it, the ground. “It looks like she dragged the kill off that way. See how the brush looks? And there’s more blood.” She crouched, poked at the ground. “There’s blood on the ground, on the brush. I thought she took the buffalo calf that way. More east. Maybe she had to move her den, or it’s another cat altogether. Keep talking and stay alert. As long as we don’t surprise her or threaten her or her young, she won’t be interested in us.”

She inched her way, trying to follow the signs. As she’d said, the trail was rough here, steep, rocky. It didn’t surprise her to see some signs of hikers, and she wondered if the cat had moved to avoid them.

“There’s more scat. Fresher.” She looked over and just beamed. “We’re tracking her.”

“Whoopee.”

“If I could get a shot of her and her young…” She stopped, sniffed. “Do you smell that?”

“Now I do. Something’s dead.” When she started forward, he took her arm. “I can follow it from here. You stay behind me.”

“But-”

“Behind me and the rifle, or we turn back. I’m stronger than you are, Lil, so believe me when I say we’ll turn back.”

“Well, if you’re going to get all macho.”

“I guess I am.” He walked forward, following the stench.

“West,” she directed, “a little more west. It’s off the trail.” She scanned brush, trees, rocks as they moved. “God, you wonder how she can stomach anything that smells like that. Maybe they abandoned the kill. Chowed down, moved on. Nothing picked clean is going to smell like that. It looks like a lot of blood around here, and then into the brush.”

She stepped over. She didn’t move in front of him, but beside him. It wasn’t her fault the signs were on her side. “I see something in there. Definitely something there.” She strained to see. “If she still considers it hers, and she’s around, she’ll let us know quick. I can’t see what it is, can you?”

“Dead is what it is.”

“Yes, but what was the prey? I like to know what… Oh, my God. Cooper. Oh, my God.”

He saw it as she did. The prey had been human.

LIL WASN’T PROUD of the way she’d handled herself, the way her legs had buckled, the way her head had gone light. She’d damn near fainted, and certainly would’ve gone down if Coop hadn’t gotten hold of her.

She managed to help him mark the spot, but only because he’d ordered her to keep back. She made herself look, forced herself to see and remember what had been done before she’d gone back to her mount for her canteen to drink deeply.

She’d been steadier, and able to think clearly enough to mark the trail for those who would have to come for the remains. Coop kept the rifle out as they rode back home.

There’d be no final tryst by the stream.

“You can put the rifle away. It wasn’t a cat that killed him.”

“Her, I think,” Coop said. “The size and the style of the boots, and what was left of the hair. I think it was a woman. You think wolves, then?”

“No, I didn’t see any signs of wolves near there. It’s the cougar’s habitat, and they’d leave her alone. It wasn’t an animal who killed her.”

“Lil, you saw what I saw.”

“Yeah.” It was etched in her mind. “That was after. They fed after. But the blood on the tree, it was high, and there weren’t any cat tracks there. No tracks until a good ten yards off. I think someone killed her, Coop. Killed her and left her there. Then the animals got at her.”

“Either way, she’s dead. We have to get back.”

When the trail opened enough, they spurred to a gallop.

HER FATHER GAVE them whiskey, just a swallow each. It burned straight down to the sickness in her belly. By the time the police arrived, the idea of being sick had passed.

“I marked the trail.” She sat with Coop and her parents and a county deputy named Bates. She used the map he’d brought, highlighting the route.

“Is that the way you went?”

“No, we took scenic.” She showed him. “We weren’t in a hurry. We came back this way. I saw the blood on the tree here.” She made a mark on the map. “Drag marks, more blood. A lot probably washed away in the rain, but there was enough cover so you can see there’s blood. Whoever killed her did it there, at the tree, because the blood’s a good five feet up-close to five and a half, I’d say. Then he dragged her off the trail to about here. That’s where the cougar found her. She must’ve dragged her from there, to better cover.”

He made notes, nodded. He had a weathered and quiet look about him, almost soothing.

“Any reason you think she was murdered, Miss Chance? What you’re describing sounds like a cougar attack.”

“When’s the last time we had a cougar attack a person around here?” Lil demanded.

“It happens.”

“Cats go for the throat.” Bates shifted his gaze to Coop. “Isn’t that right, Lil?”

“Yeah, their typical kill method is the neck bite. It takes the prey down, often breaking the neck. Quick and clean.”

“You rip out somebody’s throat, there’s going to be all kinds of blood. It’d gush, wouldn’t it? This was more like a smear. It wasn’t… spatter.”

Bates lifted his eyebrows. “So, we’ve got a cougar expert and a forensic specialist.” He smiled when he said it, kept the remark friendly. “I appreciate the input. We’ll be going up, and we’ll look into all that.”

“You’ll have to do an autopsy, determine cause of death.”

“That’s right,” Bates said to Coop. “If it was a cougar attack, we’ll handle it. If it wasn’t, we’ll handle that. Don’t worry.”

“Lil said it wasn’t a cougar that killed her. So it wasn’t.”

“Has a woman gone missing? In the last few days?” Lil asked.

“Might be.” Bates rose. “We’ll head on up now. I’m going to want to talk to you again.”

Lil sat silent until Bates went out to mount up with his two-man team. “He thinks we’re wrong. That we saw what was left of a mule deer or something and got spooked.”

“He’ll find out different soon.”

“You didn’t tell him you were leaving in the morning.”

“I can take another day. They should know who she is and what happened to her in another day. Maybe two.”

“Can you eat?” Jenna asked.

When Lil shook her head, Jenna wrapped an arm around her, stroking when Lil turned her face to her mother’s breast. “It was awful. So awful. To be left like that. To be nothing but meat.”

“Let’s go up for a while. I’m going to draw you a hot bath. Come on with me.”

Joe waited, then got up and poured two mugs of coffee. He sat, looked Coop in the eye. “You took care of my girl today. She can take care of herself, I know that’s true, most ways, most times. But I know you saw to her today. You got her back here. I won’t forget it.”

“I didn’t want her to see it. I’ve never seen anything like it, and hope I never do again. But I couldn’t stop her from seeing it.”

Joe nodded. “You did what you could, and that’s enough. I’m going to ask you for something, Cooper. I have to ask that you don’t make her any promises you’re not sure you can keep. She can take care of herself, my girl, but I don’t want her holding on to a promise that has to be broken.”

Coop stared into the coffee. “I don’t know what I could promise her. I’ve got enough to rent an apartment, as long as it’s cheap, for a few months. I’ve got to try to make the grade at the academy. Even if I do, a cop doesn’t make a lot. I come into some money when I’m twenty-one. A trust fund thing. I get more when I’m twenty-five, then thirty, and like that. My father can tie it up some, and he threatened to, until I’m forty.”

Joe smiled a little. “And that’s worlds away.”

“Well, I’ll be living pretty thin for a while, but I’m okay with that.” He looked up again, met Joe’s eyes. “I can’t ask her to come to New York. I thought about it, a lot. I can’t give her anything there, and I’d be taking away what she wants. I’ve got no promises to give her. It’s not because she doesn’t matter.”

“No, I’d say it’s because she does. That’s enough for me. You’ve had a hell of a day, haven’t you?”

“I feel like pieces of me are coming apart. I don’t know how they’re going to go together again. She wanted to see the cougar-for us to see it together. For luck. It doesn’t feel like we have any right now. And whoever that is up there, she had it a lot worse.”

HER NAME WAS Melinda Barrett. She’d been twenty when she’d set out to hike the Black Hills, a treat for herself for the summer. She was from Oregon. A student, a daughter, a sister. She’d wanted to be a ranger.

Her parents had reported her missing the same day she’d been found, because she’d been two days late checking in.

Before the cougar had gotten to her, someone had fractured her skull, then stabbed her violently enough to nick her ribs with the blade. Her pack, her watch, the compass her father had given her, the one his father had given him, weren’t found.

Because she’d asked, Coop drove his bike to the start of the Chance farm road at dawn. Melinda Barrett’s murder had delayed his start by two days, and he couldn’t delay it longer.

He saw her standing in the early light, the dogs milling around her, the hills at her back. He’d remember that, he thought. Remember Lil just like that until he saw her again.

When he stopped and got off the bike, the dogs raced and leaped. Lil simply went into his arms.

“Would you call, when you get to New York?”

“Yes. Are you all right?”

“It’s so much. I thought we’d have more time alone. Just alone to be. Then we found her. They don’t have any idea who did that to her, or if they do, they’re not saying. She just walked that trail, and someone killed her. For her pack? Her watch? For no reason? I can’t get it out of my mind, and we haven’t had our time.” She tipped her face up, met his lips with hers. “It’s just for a while.”

“For a while.”

“I know you have to go, but… did you eat? Do you need anything?” She tried to smile as tears drenched her throat. “Watch how I stall.”

“I had flapjacks. Grandma knows my weakness. They gave me five thousand dollars, Lil. They wouldn’t let me say no.”

“Good.” She kissed him again. “Good. Then I won’t worry about you starving to death in some gutter. I’ll miss you. God, I miss you already. Go. You need to go.”

“I’ll call. I’ll miss you.”

“Kick ass at the academy, Coop.”

He got on the bike, took one last long look. “I’ll come back.”

“To me,” she murmured when he gunned the engine. “Come back to me.”

She watched until he was out of sight, until she was sure he was gone. In the soft, early light, she sat on the ground, and gathering the dogs to her, wept her heart out.

6

SOUTH DAKOTA

February 2009

The little Cessna shuddered, then gave a couple of quick, annoyed bucks as it buzzed over the hills, the plains and valleys. Lil shifted in her seat. Not from nerves-she’d been through worse air than this and come out fine. She shifted for a better view. Her Black Hills were white with February, a snow globe of rises, ridges, and flats, rib-boned by frozen streams, laced by shivering pines.

She imagined the wind on the ground was nearly as raw and mean as it could be up here, so a good, strong inhale would be like gulping down broken glass.

She couldn’t have been happier.

She was nearly home.

The last six months had been incredible, an experience she’d never forget. She’d been drenched, had sweltered, been frozen, been bitten and stung-all while studying pumas in the Andes.

She’d earned every penny of the research grant, and hoped to earn more with the papers and articles she’d written, and would write.

Money aside-though in her position that was a luxury she couldn’t afford-every mile she’d hiked, every bruise, every sore muscle had been worth the sight of a golden puma stalking prey in the rain forest, or perched like an idol on a cliffside.

But now she was ready for home. Back to her own habitat.

Work waited, and plenty of it. Six months equaled her longest field trip, and even keeping in touch when she could, she’d face mountains of work.

The Chance Wildlife Refuge was her baby, after all.

But before she dived in, she wanted a day, even a day to wallow in home.

She stretched out her legs as best she could in the confines of the cabin, crossed her hiking boots at the ankles. She’d been traveling, one way or the other, for a day and a half, but this last leg washed away any travel fatigue.

“Gonna get bumpy.”

She glanced over at Dave, the pilot. “And it’s been smooth as a lake so far.”

He grinned, winked. “Gonna seem like it.”

She gave her seat belt an extra tug, but wasn’t worried. Dave had gotten her home before. “I appreciate you making the detour.”

“No problem.”

“I’ll buy you a meal before you head up to Twin Forks.”

“I’ll rain-check that.” He turned his Minnesota Twins fielder’s cap bill-back as he always did for luck before a landing. “I figure I’ll take off as soon as I refuel. You’ve been gone awhile this time. Must be anxious to get home.”

“I am.”

The wind slapped and yanked at the little plane on the descent. It rocked and kicked like a bad-tempered child in mid-tantrum. Lil grinned when she saw the runway of the municipal airport.

“You call me when you’re back this way, Dave. My mother will fix you the prince of home-cooked meals.”

“I’m on that.”

She shoved her thick braid off her shoulder, peering down, her dark eyes searching. She spotted the blop of red. Her mother’s car, she thought. Had to be. She braced against the turbulence, keeping that spot of red as her focal point.

The landing gear rumbled down, the red became a Yukon, and the plane dipped toward the runway. When the wheels touched, her heart lifted.

The minute Dave gave her the nod, she unbuckled to grab her duffel, her pack, her laptop case. Loaded, she turned to her pilot, managed to get a hand on his beard-grizzled face, and kissed him hard on the lips.

“Almost as good as a home-cooked meal,” he said.

As she clanged her way down the short steps to the tarmac, Jenna rushed out of the tiny terminal. Lil dumped her gear, and met her mother on the run.

“There you are. There you are,” Jenna murmured as they gripped each other in rib-crushers. “Welcome back, welcome home. Oh, I missed you! Let me look at you!”

“In a minute.” Lil held on, breathed in the scents of lemon and vanilla that said Mom. “Okay.”

She eased back, and the two women studied each other. “You look so beautiful.” Lil reached out, flicked her fingers over her mother’s hair. “I still can’t get used to it short. Sassy.”

“You look… amazing. How can you look amazing after six months of tramping around the Andes? After spending nearly two days on planes, trains, and God knows what else to get home? But you look amazing, and ready for anything. Let’s get your stuff, get you out of the cold. Dave!”

Jenna hurried toward the pilot, caught his face, as Lil had, kissed him, as Lil had. “Thanks for bringing my girl home.”

“Best detour I ever took.”

Lil hefted her pack, her duffel, let her mother take the laptop. “Safe skies, Dave.”

“I’m so happy to see you.” Jenna wrapped an arm around Lil’s waist as they walked against the wind. “Your dad wanted to come, but one of the horses is sick.”

“Bad?”

“I don’t think so. Hope not. But he wanted to stay close, keep an eye on her. So I get you all to myself for a while.”

Once the gear was loaded, they settled into the car. The hybrid her green-minded parents used was neat as a parlor, and roomier than the Cessna’s cabin. Lil stretched out her legs, let out a long sigh. “I’m dreaming of an endless bubble bath, with a bottomless glass of wine. Then the biggest damn steak this side of the Missouri.”

“We happen to have all those in stock.”

To cut the glare from the snowpack, Lil dug out her sunglasses. “I want to stay at the house tonight, catch up with you guys before I go to the cabin, get back to work.”

“I’d kick your butt if you planned to do anything else.”

“Yay. Tell me everything,” Lil insisted as they drove out of the lot. “How is everybody, what’s been going on, who’s ahead in the Joe v. Farley Never-Ending Chess Tournament? Who’s fighting, who’s having sex? Note I’m trying not to ask specifically about the refuge, because once I get started I won’t be able to stop.”

“Then I’ll just say everything’s fine in the area you’re not asking about. I want to hear all about your adventures. The journal entries you e-mailed were so rich, so interesting. You need to write that book, honey.”

“One of these days. I have enough already put together for a couple more solid articles. Got some great photos, more than I sent you guys. I looked out of my tent one morning, not fully awake, really, just glanced out, and I saw a puma up in a tree, maybe twenty yards away. Just sitting up there, studying the camp, like she was thinking, What the hell do they think they’re doing here?

“There were mists rising, and the birds had just started to chatter. Everyone else was asleep. It was just the two of us. She took my breath, Mom. I didn’t get a picture. I had to force myself to ease back and get my camera. It only took seconds, but when I looked back out, she was gone. Like smoke. But I’ll never forget how she looked.”

Lil laughed and shook her head. “See, you got me started. I want to hear about here. About home.” She flipped open her old sheepskin jacket as the car’s heater pumped out blissful warmth. “Oh, look at the snow. You’ve all been hammered. Two days ago I was sweltering in Peru. Tell me something new.”

“I didn’t tell you when you were gone. Didn’t want to worry you. Sam fell and broke his leg.”

“Oh, God.” Instantly the pleasure on her face, in her heart, dissolved. “When? How bad?”

“About four months ago. His horse shied, reared-we’re not quite sure-but he fell, and the horse tromped on his leg. Broke it in two places. He was alone, Lil. The horse headed back without him, and that’s what alerted Lucy.”

“Is he all right? Mom-”

“He’s doing better. We were all scared for a while there. He’s fit, but he’s seventy-six, and they were bad breaks. They put pins in, and he was in the hospital for over a week, then in a cast, and then therapy. He’s just starting to get around again, with a cane. If he wasn’t so tough… The doctors say he’s remarkable, and he’ll do fine. But it’s slowed him down, no question.”

“What about Lucy? Is she doing all right? The farm, the business? If Sam’s been laid up all this time, have they got enough help?”

“Yes. It was a little rough at first, but yes, they’re doing okay.” Jenna took a quick breath, which told Lil more tough news was coming. “Lil, Cooper’s back.”

It was a sucker punch to the heart. Just reflex, she told herself. Just old memories taking a cheap shot. “Good, that’s good. He’d be a lot of help. How long is he staying?”

“He’s back, Lil.” Jenna reached over to rub her hand on her daughter’s thigh. Both the tone and the touch were gentle. “He’s living at the farm now.”

“Well, sure.” Something inside her jittered, but she ignored it. “Where else would he stay while he’s helping them out?”

“He came out as soon as Lucy called him, stayed a few days, stayed until we were all sure Sam wasn’t going to need more surgery. Then he went back east, settled whatever he had to settle, and came back. He’s staying.”

“But… He has his business in New York.” That something inside squeezed her sternum now, making it hard to breathe. “I mean, after he quit the police force and went private, he… I thought he was doing okay there.”

“I think he was. But… Lucy told me he sold the agency, packed up, and told her he’d be staying. And he has. I’m not sure what they’d have done without him, truth be told. Everyone would’ve pitched in to help, you know how it is. But there’s nothing like family. I didn’t want to tell you about it on the phone, or by e-mail. Baby, I know it might be hard for you.”

“No. Of course not.” Once her heart stopped aching, once she could take a deep breath without pain, she’d be fine. “That was a long time ago. We’re still friendly. I saw him, what, three or four years ago, when he came out to visit Sam and Lucy.”

“You saw him for less than an hour, before you suddenly had to go to Florida, for the full two weeks he was here.”

“I did have to go, or the opportunity came up. Florida panthers are endangered.” She stared out the window, grateful for the sunglasses. Even with them everything seemed too bright, too much. “I’m fine about Coop. I’m glad he’s here for Sam and Lucy.”

“You loved him.”

“Yes, I did. Past tense. Don’t worry.”

It wasn’t as if she’d run into him every five minutes, see him everywhere. She had her work, her place. He, apparently, had his. Plus, no hard feelings, she reminded herself. They’d been children; they’d grown up.

She ordered herself to put it away, all away, when her mother turned onto the farm road. She could see smoke puffing out of the chimney-a homey welcome-and a pair of dogs racing from the back to see what was up.

She had a quick and poignant memory of weeping into the comfort of another pair of dogs on a hot summer morning. Twelve years ago this summer for that first miserable goodbye, she reminded herself. And really, if she was honest, that had been the end. Twelve years was long enough, plenty long enough, to get over it.

She saw her father coming from the barn to greet them, and pushed all thoughts of Cooper Sullivan away.

SHE WAS HUGGED, kissed, plied with hot chocolate and cookies, slobbered on by the pair of hounds her parents had named Lois and Clark. Out the kitchen window the familiar view spread. The fields, the hills, the pines, the bright wink of the stream. Jenna insisted on washing the clothes stuffed in the duffel.

“I’d like to. Makes me feel like Mommy for the day.”

“Far be it from me to deprive you, Mommy.”

“I’m not a fussy woman,” Jenna observed as she took the load Lil gave her. “But I don’t know how you can get by with so little for so long.”

“Planning, and the willingness to wear dirty socks when choices are limited. That’s actually still clean,” Lil began when her mother pulled another shirt out of the duffel. Jenna only lifted her eyebrows. “Okay, not so much clean as not filthy.”

“I’ll bring you a sweater, some jeans. That’ll hold you until these are clean and dry. Take your bath, drink your wine. Relax.”

She sank into the tub her mother had drawn. It was, Lil thought with a long, nearly orgasmic groan, nice to have someone fuss over her a little. Working in the field usually meant living rough, and in some cases close to primitive. She didn’t mind it. But she sure as hell didn’t mind having her mom draw her the Jenna Chance special bubble bath, and knowing she could indulge in it until the water went cold.

Now that she was alone, now that there was plenty of time, she let Coop back into her head.

He’d come back when his grandparents needed him-she had to give him credit for that. The fact was, no one could question his love or loyalty in that direction.

How could she hate the man, one who had, apparently, changed his life to see that his grandparents’ home and their business were protected?

Besides, she had nothing to hate him for.

Just because he’d broken her heart, then squeezed the still dripping juices of it onto the ground so they had clung to his boot heels when he’d walked away from her-really, was that a reason to hate anyone?

She sank in a little more, sipped her wine.

But he hadn’t lied, she had to give him that one, too.

He’d come back. Not at Thanksgiving, but at Christmas. Only for two days, but he’d come. And when he hadn’t been able to come that summer, she’d accepted an offer to work in a refuge in California. She’d learned a lot over those weeks, and she and Coop had kept in touch as much as possible.

But things had already started to change. Hadn’t she felt it even then? she asked herself. Hadn’t some part of her known?

He hadn’t been able to come out the next Christmas, and she’d cut her own winter break short for a field study.

When they’d met at a halfway-between point the following spring, it had been the end. He’d changed, she could see it. He’d been harder, tougher-and yes, colder. Still, she couldn’t claim he’d been cruel. Just clear.

She had her life west, he had his east. Time to toss it in and admit they’d never make it work.

Your friendship matters to me. You matter. But, Lil, we’ve got to get on with what we are. We’ve got to accept who we are.

No, he hadn’t been cruel, but he’d shattered her. All she’d had left was pride. The cold pride that had allowed her to say he was right, and to look him in the eye when she’d said it.

“Thank God I did,” she muttered. Otherwise his coming back would be both mortification and misery.

The best way to deal with it, to get everything off on the right foot, was to face it head-on. As soon as she could manage it, she’d go over to see Sam and Lucy, and Coop. Hell, she’d buy him a beer and play catch-up there, too.

She wasn’t a teenager with a fluttering heart and raging hormones anymore. As of the previous summer she was Dr. Lillian Chance, thank you very much. She was cofounder of the Chance Wildlife Refuge right here in her own corner of the world.

She’d traveled to, studied and worked in other corners of the world. She’d had a long-term, monogamous, serious relationship with a man. A couple of others not so long-term, not so serious, but she’d basically lived with Jean-Paul for nearly two years. Not counting the times she’d been traveling-or he’d been traveling-in different directions.

So she could handle sharing her corner of the world with a childhood sweetheart. Really, that’s what they’d been, all they’d been. It was simple, even sweet, she decided.

And they’d keep it that way.

She dressed in the borrowed sweater and jeans, and lulled by the bath, the wine, her old room, opted to take a power nap. Twenty minutes, she told herself as she stretched out.

She slept like the dead for three hours.

THE NEXT MORNING, she woke in the hour before dawn, rested and ready. Because she hit the kitchen before her parents, she made breakfast-her specialty. When her father walked in for coffee, she had bacon and home fries in the skillet, and eggs already whisked in a bowl.

Handsome, his hair still full and thick, Joe sniffed the air like one of his hounds. He pointed a finger at her. “I knew there was a reason I was glad you’re back. I figured I’d be eating instant oatmeal for breakfast.”

“Not when I’m around. And since when have you had to eat instant anything in this house?”

“Since your mother and I compromised a couple months ago and I agreed to eat oatmeal twice a week.” He gave her a mournful look. “It’s healthy.”

“Ah, and this was oatmeal day.”

He grinned and gave her long ponytail a tug. “Not when you’re around.”

“Okay, full cholesterol plate for you, then I’ll help you with the stock before I ride over to the refuge. I made enough for Farley, assuming he’d be here. Does oatmeal put him off?”

“Nothing puts Farley off, but he’ll be grateful to get the bacon and eggs. I’ll ride over with you this morning.”

“Great. Depending on how things go, I’m going to try to drive over and see Sam and Lucy. If you need anything from town I can head in, take care of it.”

“I’ll put a list together.”

Lil forked out bacon to drain as her mother came in. “Just in time.”

Jenna eyed the bacon, eyed her husband.

“She made it.” Joe pointed at Lil. “I can’t hurt her feelings.”

“Oatmeal tomorrow.” Jenna gave Joe a finger-drill in the belly.

Lil heard the stomp of boots out on the back porch, and thought: Farley.

She’d been in college when her parents had taken him on-taken him in was more accurate, she thought. He’d been sixteen, and on his own since his mother took off and left him, owing two months’ back rent in Abilene. His father, neither he nor his mother had known. He’d only known the series of men his mother had slept with.

With some vague idea of going to Canada, young Farley Pucket ducked out on the rent, hit the road, and stuck out his thumb. By the time Josiah Chance pulled over and picked him up on a road outside of Rapid City, the boy had thirty-eight cents in his pocket and was wearing only a Houston Rockets windbreaker against the wicked March winds.

They’d given him a meal, some chores to work it off, and a place to sleep for the night. They’d listened, they’d discussed, they’d checked his story as best they could. In the end, they’d given him a job, and a room in the old bunkhouse until he could make his way.

Nearly ten years later, he was still there.

Gangly, straw-colored hair poking out from under his hat, his pale blue eyes still sleepy, Farley came in with a blast of winter cold.

“Whoo! Cold enough to freeze the balls off-” He broke off when he saw Jenna, and his cheeks pinked from cold flushed deeper. “Didn’t see you there.” He sniffed. “Bacon? It’s oatmeal day.”

“Special dispensation,” Joe told him.

Farley spotted Lil and broke out in a mile-wide grin. “Hey, Lil. Didn’t figure you’d be up yet, all jet-lagged and stuff.”

“’Morning, Farley. Coffee’s hot.”

“It sure smells good. Gonna be clear today, Joe. That storm front tracked east.”

So as it often did, morning talk turned to weather, stock, chores. Lil settled down with her breakfast, and thought in some ways it was as if she’d never been away.

Within the hour, she was mounted beside her father and riding the trail to the refuge.

“Tansy tells me Farley’s been putting in a lot of volunteer hours at the refuge.”

“We all try to lend a hand, especially when you’re away.”

“Dad, he’s got a crush on her,” Lil said, speaking of her college roommate and the zoologist on staff.

“On Tansy? No.” He laughed it off. Then sobered. “Really?”

“I got the vibe when he started volunteering regularly last year. I didn’t think much of it. She’s my age.”

“Old lady.”

“Well, she’s got some years on him. I can see it from his end. She’s beautiful and smart and funny. What I didn’t expect was to get the vibe-which I did reading between the lines of her e-mails-that she may have one on him.”

“Tansy’s interested in Farley? Our Farley?”

“Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the vibe. Our Farley,” she repeated, taking a deep breath of the snow-tinged air. “You know, in my world-weary phase of twenty, I thought the two of you were insane to take him in. I figured he’d rob you blind-at the least-steal your truck and that would be that.”

“He wouldn’t steal a nickel. It’s not in him. You could see it, right from the start.”

“You could. Mom could. And you were right. I think I’m right about my college pal, the dedicated zoologist, having eyes for our own goofy, sweet-natured Farley.”

They followed the track at an easy trot, the horses kicking up snow, their breath steaming out like smoke.

As they approached the gate that separated the farm from the refuge, Lil let out a laugh. Her coworkers had hung a huge banner across the gate.

WELCOME HOME, LIL!

She saw the tracks as well-from snowmobiles and horses, animals and men. Through January and February, the refuge saw little in the way of tourists and visitors. But the staff was always busy.

She dismounted to open the gate. When they could afford it, she thought, they’d replace the old thing with electric. But for now, she waded through the snow to work the latch. It squealed as she dragged it clear so her father could lead her horse through.

“Nobody’s been bothering you, have they?” she asked as she remounted. “I mean the public.”

“Oh, we get somebody comes by every now and then, who can’t find the public entrance. We just send them around.”

“I hear we had good turnout, and good feedback, from the school field trips in the fall.”

“Kids love the place, Lil. It’s a good thing you’ve done here.”

“We’ve done.”

She scented animal before she saw them, that touch of wild in the air. Inside the first stretch of habitat a Canadian lynx sat on a boulder. Tansy had brought him in from Canada, where he’d been captured and wounded. In the wild, his maimed leg was a death sentence. Here, he had sanctuary. They called him Rocco, and he flicked his tufted ears as they passed.

The refuge gave homes to bobcat and cougar, to an old, circus tiger they called Boris, to a lioness who had once, inexplicably, been kept as a pet. There were bear and wolf, fox and leopard.

A smaller area held a petting zoo, what she thought of as hands-on education for kids. Rabbits, lambs, a pygmy goat, a donkey.

And the humans, bundled in cold-weather gear, who worked to feed them, shelter them, treat them.

Tansy spotted her first, and gave a whoop before racing over from the big-cat area. A pink flush from cold and pleasure bloomed on the cheeks of her pretty, caramel-colored face.

“You’re back.” She gave Lil’s knee a squeeze. “Get on down here and give me a hug! Hey, Joe, I bet you’re happy to have your girl back.”

“And then some.”

Lil slid off the horse and embraced her friend, who swayed side-to-side making a happy mmmm sound. “It’s so good, so good, so good to see you!”

“Likewise.” Lil pressed her cheek to the soft spring of Tansy’s dark hair.

“We heard you’d caught Dave and managed to get back a day early, so we’ve been scrambling.” Tansy leaned back and grinned. “To hide the evidence of all the drunken parties and fat-assing we’ve had going on since you left.”

“Aha. I knew it. And that’s why you’re the only member of the senior staff out and about?”

“Naturally. Everyone else is nursing hangovers.” She laughed and gave Lil another squeeze. “Okay, truth. Matt is in Medical. Bill tried to eat a towel.”

Bill, a young bobcat, was renowned for his eclectic appetite.

Lil glanced back at the pair of cabins, one housing her quarters, the other offices and Medical. “Did he get much?”

“No, but Matt wants to check him out. Lucius is chained to his computer, and Mary’s at the dentist. Or going to. Hey, Eric, come take the horses, will you? Eric’s one of our winter-term interns. We’ll make the introductions later. Let’s-” She broke off at the harsh, bright call of a cougar. “Somebody smells Mama,” Tansy said. “Go ahead. We’ll meet you in Medical when you’re done.”

Lil wound her way, following the trail formed by feet trampling through the snow.

He was waiting for her, pacing, watching, calling. At her approach, the cat rubbed its body against the fencing, then stood, bracing his fore-paws against it. And purred.

Six months since he’d seen her-scented her, Lil thought. But he hadn’t forgotten her. “Hello, Baby.”

She reached through to stroke the tawny fur, and he bumped his head affectionately to hers.

“I missed you, too.”

He was four now, full-grown, lithe and magnificent. He hadn’t been fully weaned when she’d found him, and his two littermates, orphaned and half starved. She’d hand-fed them, tended them, guarded them. And when they’d been old enough, strong enough, had reintroduced them to the wild.

But he’d kept coming back.

She’d named him Ramses, for power and dignity, but he was Baby.

And her one true love.

“Have you been good? Of course, you have. You’re the best. Keeping everybody in line? I knew I could count on you.”

As she spoke and stroked, Baby purred, hummed in his throat, and looked at her with golden eyes full of love.

She heard movement behind her, glanced back. The one Tansy had called Eric stood staring. “They said he was like that with you, but… I didn’t believe it.”

“You’re new?”

“Um, yeah. I’m interning. Eric. I’m Eric Silverstone, Dr. Chance.”

“Lil. What are you looking to do?”

“Wildlife management.”

“Learning anything here?”

“A lot.”

“Let me give you another quick lesson. This adult male cougar, Felis concolor, is approximately eight feet long from nose to tail and weighs about one-fifty. He can outjump a lion, a tiger, a leopard, both vertically and horizontally. Despite that, he’s not considered a ‘big cat.’ ”

“He lacks the specialized larynx and hyoid apparatus. He can’t roar.”

“Correct. He’ll purr like your aunt Edith’s tabby. But he’s not tame. You can’t tame the wild, can you, Baby?” He chirped at her as if in agreement. “He loves me. He imprinted on me as a kitten-about four months of age-and he’s been in the refuge, among people, since. Learned behavior, not tame. We’re not prey. But if you made some move he sensed as attack, he’d respond. They’re beautiful, and they’re fascinating, but they’re not pets. Not even this one.”

Still, to please herself and Baby, she pressed her lips in one of the small openings of the fence, and he butted his mouth to hers. “See you later.”

She turned and walked with Eric toward the cabin. “Tansy said you found him and two other orphans.”

“Their mother got into it with a lone wolf-at least that’s how it looked to me. She killed it, must have or it would have taken the litter. But she didn’t survive. I found the corpses, and the litter. They were the first cougar kittens we had here.”

And she had a scar near her right elbow from the other male in that litter. “We fed them, sheltered them for about six weeks, until they were old enough to hunt on their own. Limited human contact as much as possible. We tagged them and released them and we’ve been tracking them ever since. But Baby? He wanted to stay.”

She glanced back to where he’d joined his companions in his habitat. “His littermates reacclimated, but he kept coming back here.” To me, she thought. “They’re solitary and secretive and cover a vast range, but he chose to come back. That’s the thing. You can study and learn the patterns, the biology, the taxonomy, the behavior. But you’ll never know everything.”

She looked back as Baby leaped on one of his boulders and let out a long, triumphant scream.

Inside, she shed her outer gear. She could hear her father talking to Matt through the open door of Medical. In the offices, a man with Coke-bottle glasses and an infectious grin hammered away at a keyboard.

Lucius Gamble looked up, said, “Yeah!” and tossed his hands in the air. “Back from the trenches.” He jumped up to give her a hug, and she smelled the red licorice he was addicted to on his breath.

“How’s it going, Lucius?”

“Good. Just updating the Web page. We’ve got some new pictures. We had an injured wolf brought in a couple weeks ago. Clipped by a car. Matt saved it. We’ve gotten a lot of hits on the pictures there, and the column Tansy wrote for it.”

“Were we able to release it?”

“It’s still gimpy. Matt doesn’t think it’ll make it out there in the world. She’s an old girl. We’re calling her Xena, because she looks like a warrior.”

“I’ll take a look at her. I haven’t done the tour yet.”

“I put your shots from the trip on here.” Lucius tapped his computer monitor. He wore ancient high-tops rather than the boots most of the staff favored, and jeans that bagged over his flat ass. “Dr. Lillian’s Excellent Adventure. We’ve been getting beaucoup hits.”

As he spoke, Lil glanced around the familiar space. The exposed log walls, the posters of wildlife, the cheap, plastic visitors’ chairs, the stacks of colorful brochures. The second desk-Mary’s-stood like a trim, organized island in the chaos Lucius generated.

“Any of the hits come with…” She lifted her hand, rubbed her thumb and fingers together.

“We’ve been going pretty steady there. We added a new webcam, like you wanted, and Mary’s been working on an updated brochure. She had a dentist deal this morning, but she’s going to try to make it in this afternoon.”

“Let’s see if we can get together for a meeting this afternoon. Full staff, including interns, and any of the volunteers who can attend.”

She walked back and peeked into Medical. “Where’s Bill?”

Matt turned. “I cleared him. Tansy’s taking him back. Good to see you, Lil.”

They didn’t hug-it wasn’t Matt’s style-but shook hands, and warmly. He was about her father’s age, with thinning hair streaked with gray, and wire-rimmed glasses over brown eyes.

He was no idealist, as she suspected Eric was, but he was a damn fine vet, and one willing to work for pitiful pay.

“I’d better get back. I’ll try to cut Farley loose some tomorrow, so he can give you a couple hours.” Joe tapped a finger on Lil’s nose. “You need anything, you call.”

“I will. I’ll pick up the stuff on your list later, drop it off.”

He went out the back.

“Meeting later,” she told Matt, and leaned on a counter that held trays and bins of medical supplies. The air smelled, familiarly, of antiseptic and animal. “I’d like you to brief me, and the rest, on the health and medical needs of the animals. Lunchtime would be best. Then I can do a supply run.”

“Can do.”

“Tell me about our newest resident. Xena?”

Matt smiled, and the amusement lightened his often serious face. “Lucius named her that. It seems to have stuck. She’s an old girl. A good eight years old.”

“Top of the scale for the wild,” Lil commented.

“Tough girl. Scars to prove it. She took a pretty hard hit. The driver did more than most people do. She called us, and stayed in the car until we got there, even followed us back here. Xena was too injured to move. We immobilized and transported, got her in here, into surgery.” He shook his head, removing his glasses to polish the lenses on his lab coat. “It was touch and go, given her age.”

Lil thought of Sam. “But she’s recovering.”

“Like I said, tough girl. At her age, and given the leg’s never going to be a hundred percent, I wouldn’t recommend releasing her. I don’t think she’d last a month.”

“Well, she can consider this her retirement home.”

“Listen, Lil, you know at least one of us has been staying at night while you were in the field. I was on a couple nights ago. Just as well, as I’d had to extract a tooth that morning from the queen mum.”

Lil thought of their ancient lion. “Poor grandma. She’s not going to have a tooth left at this rate. How’d she do?”

“She’s the Energizer Bunny of lions. But the thing is, there was something out there.”

“Sorry?”

“Something or someone was out there, around the habitats. I checked the webcam, and didn’t see anything. But hell, it’s pretty damn dark at two in the morning, even with the security lights. But something had the animals stirred up. A lot of screaming and roaring and howling.”

“Not the usual nocturnal business?”

“No. I went out, but I couldn’t find anything.”

“Any tracks?”

“I don’t have your eye, but we looked the next morning. No animal tracks, no new ones. We thought-we think-there were human ones. Not ours. No way to be sure, but there were tracks around some of the cages, and we’d had some snow after the last feeding of the day, so I don’t know how else there’d have been fresh tracks.”

“None of the animals were hurt? Any locks tampered with?” she added when he shook his head.

“We couldn’t find anything, nothing touched, taken. I know how it sounds, Lil, but when I went out, it felt like someone was there. Watching me. I just want you to keep an eye out, make sure you lock your doors.”

“Okay. Thanks, Matt. Let’s all be careful.”

There were strange people out there, she thought as she put her coat back on. From the No Animal Should Be in Prison-as some thought of a refuge-to Animals Are Meant to Be Hunted and Killed. And everything in between.

They got calls, letters, e-mails from both ends of the spectrum. Some with threats. And they’d had the occasional trespasser. But so far, there’d been no trouble.

She wanted to keep it that way.

She’d go have a look around herself. Odds were, after a couple of days there would be nothing for her to find. But she had to look.

She shot a wave to Lucius, opened the door.

And nearly walked straight into Cooper.

7

It was a toss-up who was more surprised, and disconcerted. But it was Lil who jolted back, even if she recovered quickly. She plastered on a smile and put a friendly laugh in her voice.

“Well, hi, Coop.”

“Lil. I didn’t know you were back.”

“Yesterday.” She couldn’t read his face, his eyes. Both, so familiar, simply didn’t speak to her. “Coming in?”

“Ah, no. You got a package-your place got a package,” he corrected, and handed it to her. He wasn’t wearing gloves, she noted, and his heavy jacket was carelessly open to the cold.

“I was sending something off for my grandmother, and since I was heading back to the farm, they asked if I’d mind dropping it off.”

“Thanks.” She set it aside, then stepped out and closed the door rather than let the heat pump out. She fixed her hat on her head, the same flat-brimmed style she’d always favored. Standing on the porch, she pulled on one of her gloves. It gave her something to do as he watched her in silence. “How’s Sam? I just heard yesterday that he’d gotten hurt.”

“Good, physically. It’s hard on him, not being able to do everything he wants, get around the way he did.”

“I’m going by later.”

“He’ll like that. They both will.” He slid his hands into his pockets, kept those cool blue eyes on her face. “How was South America?”

“Busy, and fascinating.” She pulled on her other glove as they walked down the steps. “Mom said you’d sold your detective agency.”

“I was done with it.”

“You did a lot, left a lot, to help two people who needed you.” The finality in his voice, the flatness in it had her stopping. “It counts, Cooper.”

He only shrugged. “I was ready for a change anyway. This is one.” He glanced around. “You’ve added more since I was here.”

She sent him a puzzled look. “When were you here?”

“I came by when I was out last year. You were… somewhere.” He stood at ease in the cold, while the brisk wind kicked through the already disordered waves of his dense brown hair. “Your friend gave me the tour.”

“She didn’t mention it.”

“He. French guy. I heard you were engaged.”

Guilt balled in her belly. “Not exactly.”

“Well. You look good, Lil.”

She forced her lips to curve, forced the same casualness he projected into her voice. “You too.”

“I’d better get going. I’ll tell my grandparents you’re going to try to come by.”

“I’ll see you later.” And with an easy smile, she turned to walk to the small-cat area. She circled around until she heard his truck start, until she heard it drive away. Then she stopped.

There, she thought, not so bad. The first time would be the hardest, and it wasn’t so bad.

A few aches, a few bumps. Nothing fatal.

He did look good, she thought. Older, tougher. Sharper in the face, harder around the eyes. Sexier.

She could live through that. They might be friends again. Not the way they’d been, even before they’d become lovers. But they might be friendly. His grandparents and her parents were good friends, close friends. She and Coop would never be able to avoid each other gracefully, so they’d just have to get along as best they could. Be friendly.

She could do it if he could.

Satisfied, she began to scout around the habitats for signs of trespass-animal or human.

COOP LOOKED INTO the rearview mirror as he drove away, but she didn’t glance back. Just kept going.

That’s the way it was. He wasn’t looking to change it.

He’d caught her off-guard. They’d caught each other off-guard, he corrected, but her surprise had shown on her face, just for a beat or two, but clearly. Surprise, and a shadow of annoyance.

Both gone in a blink.

She’d gotten beautiful.

She’d always been so, to him, but objectively he could look back now and see that she’d been poised for beauty at seventeen. Touched by beauty at the cusp of twenty. But she hadn’t crossed the finish line then, not like now.

For a second there, those big, dark, sultry eyes had taken his breath away.

For a second.

Then she’d smiled, and maybe his heart had twisted, just for another second, over what had been. What was gone.

Everything easy, everything casual between them. That’s the way it should be. He didn’t want anything from her, and had nothing to give back. It was good to know that, since he was back for good.

Oddly enough, he’d been considering coming back for several months. He’d even looked into what steps he’d need to take to sell his private investigator’s business, close his office, sell his apartment. He hadn’t moved on it, had simply continued his work, his life-because not moving was easier.

Then his grandmother had called.

With all the research done and filed in Maybe Someday, it had been a simple matter to make the move. And maybe, if he’d made the damn move earlier, his grandfather wouldn’t have been alone, and in pain after his fall.

And that kind of thinking was useless, he knew it.

Things just happened because they did. He knew that, too.

The point was he was back now. He liked the work-he always had-and God knew he could use a little serenity. Long days, plenty of physical labor, the horses, the routine. And the only real home he’d ever known.

The Maybe Someday might have come before but for Lil. The obstacle, the regret, the uncertainty of Lil. But that was done now, and they could both get back to their lives.

She’d created something so solid and real, so Lil, with her refuge. He hadn’t known how to tell her that, how to tell her that it was a source of pride for him, too. He didn’t know how to tell her he remembered when she’d told him she would build this place, he remembered the look on her face, the light on it, the sound of her voice.

He remembered everything.

Years ago, he thought. A lifetime ago. She’d studied and worked and planned, and made it happen. She’d done exactly what she’d set out to do.

He’d known she would. She wouldn’t have settled for less.

He’d made something. It had taken a lot of time, a lot of mistakes, but he’d made something of himself, and for himself. And he could walk away from that because the point had been to make it.

Now the point was here. He turned onto the farm road. Right here, he thought, right now.

When he went inside, Lucy was in the kitchen, baking.

“Smells good.”

“Thought I’d do a couple of pies.” She offered a smile, strained around the edges. “Everybody get off all right?”

“Group of four. Gull’s got them.” The blacksmith’s son hadn’t followed in his father’s footsteps, but served as trail guide and man-of-work for Wilks’s Stables. “Weather’s clear, and he’s keeping them to a couple of easy rides.” Since it was there, he poured himself some coffee. “I’m going to go out and check on the new foals and their mas.”

She nodded, looked in on her pies, though they both knew she could time them by instinct to the minute. “Maybe, if you don’t mind, you could ask Sam to go out with you. He’s having a mood today.”

“Sure. He upstairs?”

“Last I checked.” She flicked her fingers at the hair she now wore short as a boy’s and had let go a stunning and shining silver. “Checking’s one of the things, I expect, put him in the mood.”

Rather than speak, he just put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

She would’ve checked, Coop thought, several times. Just as he had no doubt she’d been out to the barn to check on the foals. She’d have seen to the chickens and the pigs, getting all the chores done she could manage before Sam could try to do them.

And she’d have fixed his breakfast, just as she’d fixed Coop’s. Seen to the house, the laundry.

She was wearing herself out, even with him there.

He went upstairs.

For the first couple of months after his grandfather had been released from the hospital, he’d stayed in the parlor they’d outfitted as a bedroom. He’d needed a wheelchair and help with the most personal functions.

And he’d hated it.

The minute he’d been able to manage the stairs, however long it took, however hard it had been, he’d insisted on moving back to the room he shared with his wife.

The door was open. Inside Coop saw his grandfather sitting in a chair, scowling at the television and rubbing his leg.

There were lines in his face that hadn’t been there two years before, grooves dug by pain and frustration more than age. And maybe, Coop thought, some fear along with it.

“Hey, Grandpa.”

Sam turned the scowl toward Coop. “Not a damn thing worth looking at on the television. If she sent you up here to check on me, to see if I need something to drink, something to eat, something to read, somebody to burp me like a baby, I don’t.”

“Actually, I’m heading out to check on the horses and thought you could give me a hand. But if you’d rather watch TV…”

“Don’t think that kind of psychology holds water with me. I wasn’t born yesterday. Just get me my damn boots.”

“Yes, sir.”

He got the boots, one of the pairs set neatly on the closet floor. He didn’t offer to help, something his practical and insightful grandmother couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing. But Coop judged that came from fear, too.

Instead he talked about the business, the current trail ride, then his stop at the refuge.

“Lil said she’d stop by and see you today.”

“Be pleased to see her, long as it’s not a sick call.” Sam levered himself up, bracing a hand on the back of the chair as he got his cane. “What did she have to say about running around in those foreign mountains?”

“I didn’t ask. I was only there a couple minutes.”

Sam shook his head. He moved well, Coop thought, for a man who’d busted himself up four short months before. But the stiffness was there, the awkwardness, enough to remind Coop just how easy and economic Sam’s gait had once been.

“Gotta wonder about your brain, boy.”

“Sorry?”

“Pretty girl like that, and one everybody knows you had a hankering for once upon a time, and you can’t spare more than a couple minutes?”

“She was busy,” Coop said as they started toward the stairs. “I was busy. Plus, that was once upon a time. Another plus, she’s involved with someone.”

Sam snorted as he clumped downstairs, with Coop positioned to catch him if he lost balance. “Some foreigner.”

“Have you developed a prejudice against things foreign just recently?”

Though his mouth was tight from the effort to negotiate the stairs, humor twinkled into Sam’s eyes. “I’m an old man. I’m allowed, even expected, to be crotchety. ’Sides, involved ain’t nothing. You young people today don’t have the gumption to go after a woman because she’s involved.”

“ ‘You young people’? That would be part of the new and expected crotchety?”

“Sass.” But he didn’t complain when Coop helped him into his outdoor gear. “We’re going out the front. She’s back in the kitchen, and I don’t want her raining all her worries and don’t-do’s down on my head.”

“Okay.”

Sam let out a little sigh, and put on his old, rolled-brimmed hat. “You’re a good boy, Cooper, even if you are stupid about women.”

“I’m stupid about women?” Coop led Sam outside. He’d shoveled the porch, the steps, a path to the trucks, others to outbuildings. “You’re the one who has his wife nagging at him. Maybe if you did more in that bed at night than snore, she’d leave you alone in the daytime.”

“Sass,” Sam repeated, but he wheezed out a laugh. “I oughta give you a good whack with this cane.”

“Then I’d just have to help you up when you fell on your ass.”

“I can stand long enough to get the job done. That’s what she won’t get through her head.”

“She loves you. You scared her. And now neither one of you will give the other one a break. You’re pissed off because you can’t do everything you want, the way you want to do it. You’ve got to walk with a stick, and might have to for the rest of it. So what?” he said without letting a drop of sympathy escape. “You’re walking, aren’t you?”

“Won’t let me step out of my own house, on my own land. I don’t need a nursemaid.”

“I’m not your nursemaid,” Coop said flatly. “She fusses around you, and at you, because she’s scared. And you snap and slap back at her. You never used to.”

“She never used to dog me like I was a toddler,” Sam said with some heat.

“You shattered your goddamn leg, Grandpa. The fact is you’re not steady enough to walk around in the damn snow by yourself. You will be, because you’re too stubborn not to get where you want to go. It’s going to take more time. You just have to deal with it.”

“Easier to say when you’re still eyeball-to-eyeball with thirty than when you’re getting a glimpse of eighty.”

“Then you should appreciate time more, and stop wasting it complaining about the woman who loves every crotchety inch of you.”

“You’ve got a lot to say all of a sudden.”

“I’ve been saving it up.”

Sam lifted his weathered face to the air. “A man needs his pride.”

“Yeah, I know.”

They made their slow, laborious way to the barn. Inside, Coop ignored the fact Sam was out of breath. He could catch it while they looked at the horses.

They’d had three foalings that winter. Two had gone smooth and one had been breech. Coop and his grandmother had helped bring that one into the world, and Coop had slept in the barn that night and the next.

He stopped at the stall where the mare and the filly stayed, and slid over the door to go inside. Under Sam’s watchful eye, Coop murmured to the mare, ran his hands over her to check for heat, for strain. Carefully, he examined her udder, her teats. She stood placidly under the familiar touch while the filly butted her head to Coop’s ass to get his attention.

He turned, rubbed her pretty buckskin coat.

“That one’s yours as much as hers,” Sam told him. “You named her yet?”

“Could be Lucky, because God knows. But it doesn’t suit her.” Coop checked the filly’s mouth, her teeth. He studied the big doe eyes. “It’s clichéd, but this one’s a princess. She sure thinks of herself that way.”

“We’ll put it down that way. Cooper’s Princess. The rest is yours, too. You know that.”

“Grandpa.”

“I’ll have my say here. Your grandmother and I talked about it over the years. We couldn’t be sure you wanted it or not, but in the end, we made that legal. It’s yours when we’re gone. I want you to tell me if you want it or you don’t.”

Cooper rose, and immediately the filly deserted him to nurse. “Yes, I want it.”

“Good.” Sam gave a quick nod. “Now, are you going to play with those horses all day or see to the others?”

Coop stepped out, secured the gate, then moved on to the next.

“I got something else.” Sam’s cane rang on the concrete as he followed. “Man your age needs a place of his own. He’s got no business living with a couple of old people.”

“You sure are into ‘old’ these days.”

“That’s just right. I know you moved in to help out. That’s what kin does. I’m grateful nonetheless. But you can’t stay in the house this way.”

“You kicking me out?”

“I guess I am. Now, we can build something. Pick out a spot that suits you.”

“I don’t see using the land to plant a house when we could be using it to plant crops or graze horses.”

“You think like a farmer,” Sam said, with pride. “But still in all, a man needs his place. You can pick out some land and go that way. Or if that’s not what suits you, at least not right yet, you can fix the bunkhouse up. It’s a good size. Few walls in it, better floor. Might use a new roof. We can do that for you.”

Coop checked the next mare, the next foal. “The bunkhouse would work for me. I’ll get it fixed up. I won’t take your money for it, Grandpa. That’s the line. A man has to have his pride,” he said. “I’ve got money. More than I need now.”

Which was something he wanted to talk to his grandparents about. But not quite yet.

“So I’ll look into it.”

“That’s settled then.” Sam leaned on his cane and reached out to stroke the mare’s cheek. “There’s Lolly, there’s a girl. Given us three fine foals over the years. Sweet as a lollipop, aren’t you? Born to be a ma, and to take a rider up and give him a good, gentle ride.”

Lolly blew at him, affectionately.

“I need to sit a horse again, Cooper. Not being able to makes it feel like I lost this leg steada busting it.”

“Okay. I’ll saddle a couple up.”

Sam’s head snapped up, and in his eyes shone both shock and hope. “Your grandma’ll skin us.”

“She’ll have to catch us first. A walk, Grandpa. Not even a trot. Deal?”

“Yeah.” Sam’s voice quavered before he strengthened it. “Yeah, that suits me.”

Coop saddled two of the oldest and quietest mounts. He’d thought he’d known, thought he’d understood how hard this enforced convalescence was on his grandfather. The look on Sam’s face when he’d said they’d ride told him he hadn’t. Not nearly.

If he was making a mistake, he was making it for the right reasons. It wouldn’t be the first time.

He helped Sam mount, and knew the motion and effort caused some pain. But what he saw in his grandfather’s eyes was pleasure, and relief.

He swung into the saddle himself.

A plod, Coop supposed. A couple of old horses wading through snow, and going nowhere in particular. But by God, Sam Wilks looked right on horseback. Years fell away-he could watch them slide off his grandfather’s face. In the saddle his movements were smooth and easy. Economic, Coop thought again.

In the saddle, Sam was home.

White stretched out and gleamed under the sun. It trimmed the forests that climbed the hills, tucked outcroppings of rocks under its icy blanket.

But for the whisper of wind, the jingle of bridle, the world was as still as a painting in a frame.

“Pretty land we got here, Cooper.”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“I’ve lived in this valley my whole life, working the land, working with horses. It’s all I ever wanted in this world except for your grandma. It’s what I know. I feel I’ve done something, knowing I can pass it to you.”

They rode nearly an hour, going nowhere in particular, and mostly in silence. Under the strong blue sky, the hills, the plains, the valley were white and cold. The melt would come, Coop knew, and the mud. The spring rains and the hail. But the green would come with it, and the young foals would dance in the pastures.

And that, Coop thought, was what he wanted now. To see the green come again, and watch the dance of horses. To live his life.

As they approached the house, Sam whistled under his breath.

“There’s your grandma, standing on the back porch, hands on her hips. We’re in for it now.”

Coop sent Sam a mild glance. “We, hell. You’re on your own.”

Deliberately, Sam led his horse into the yard.

“Well, don’t the pair of you look smug and stupid, riding around on horseback in the cold like a couple of idiots. I reckon now you want coffee and pie, like a reward.”

“I could do with pie. Nobody bakes a pie like my Lucille.”

She huffed, sniffed, then turned her back. “He breaks his leg getting off that horse, you’ll be tending to him, Cooper Sullivan.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Coop waited until she stalked into the kitchen, then dismounted to help Sam down. “I’ll deal with the horses. You deal with her. You’ve got the dirty end of the stick on this one.”

He helped Sam to the door, then deserted the field.

He tended to the horses and the tack. Because there was no real need for him to go back to town, he dealt with a few minor repairs that had piled up. He wasn’t as good with his hands as his grandfather, but he was competent enough. At least he rarely smashed his thumb with a hammer.

When he finished, he walked over to take a look at the bunkhouse. It was no more than a long, low-and rough-cabin, in sight of the farmhouse and the paddocks.

But with enough distance, Cooper judged, for everyone to have their privacy. And he could admit, he missed his privacy.

Its use was primarily storage now, though it got put to use seasonally, or when there was a need, or enough money, to warrant a hand or two living on the premises.

The way he saw it there was more money now-his-and more need-his grandparents’. After he fixed up the bunkhouse, it might be time to consider refiguring the tack room in the barn and making it into quarters for a permanent farmhand.

He’d have to take that kind of change slowly, Coop knew. One step at a time.

He went inside the old bunkhouse. Nearly as cold in as out, he thought, and wondered when the potbellied stove had last been fired up. There were a couple of bunks, an old table, a few chairs. The kitchen would serve for frying up a meal and little else.

The floors were scarred, the walls rough. There was a lingering scent of grease and possibly sweat in the air.

A far cry from his apartment in New York, he thought. But then, he was done with that. He’d have to see what could be done to make this habitable.

It could work, and with enough room for a small office. He’d need one here, as well as the one in town. He didn’t want to have to go over to the house and share his grandparents’ office every time he had something to do.

Bedroom, bathroom-and that needed serious updating-galley kitchen, office. That would do. It wasn’t as if he’d be doing any entertaining.

By the time he’d finished poking around, outlining basic plans, he began to think about the pie. He hoped his grandmother had cooled off by now.

He walked over, stomped his boots, and went in.

And there was Lil, Goddamn it, eating pie at the kitchen table. His grandmother gave him the beady eye but rose to get a plate. “Go on and sit. Might as well spoil your supper. Your grandfather’s up taking a nap, seeing as he’s worn out from riding the range. Lil had to make do with me, and she came all the way out to see Sam.”

“Well,” was all Coop said. He took off his coat and hat.

“You keep Lil company. I need to go up and check on him.” She slapped the pie and a mug of coffee down, then flounced out.

“Shit.”

“She’s not as mad as she’s acting.” Lil forked up some pie. “She told me the ride did Sam a world of good, but she’s pissed the two of you went off without telling her. Anyway, it’s good pie.”

He sat, took the first bite. “Yeah.”

“She looks tired.”

“She won’t stop; she won’t even slow down. If she’s got ten minutes to sit down, she finds something else to do. They bicker day and night like a couple of ten-year-olds. Then…” He caught himself, caught himself talking to her as he might have done years before.

Before it ended.

He jerked a shoulder, forked up more pie. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right. I care about them, too. So you’re going to fix up the bunkhouse.”

“Word travels fast, since I only decided on that a couple hours ago.”

“I’ve been here nearly a half hour. Long enough to catch up on current events. You really mean to stay, then?”

“That’s right. Is that a problem?”

She lifted her brows. “Why would it be?”

He shrugged, went back to his pie.

“Not looking to be sheriff of Deadwood, are you?”

He glanced up, met her eyes. “No.”

“We were surprised when you quit the police force.” She waited a moment, but he didn’t respond. “I guess being a private investigator’s more exciting, and pays better than police work.”

“Pays better. Most of the time.”

She nudged the pie plate away to pick up her coffee. Settling in, he knew, to talk. Her lips curved, just a little. He knew the taste of them-exactly-the feel of them on his.

And the knowing was next to unbearable.

“It must’ve been interesting. The work.”

“It had moments.”

“So is it like it is on TV?”

“No.”

“You know, Cooper, you used to be able to actually hold a conversation.”

“I moved here,” he said shortly. “I’m helping run the farm and the horse business. That’s it.”

“If you want me to mind my own business, just say so.”

“Mind your own business.”

“Fine.” She slapped her coffee down and rose. “We used to be friends. I figured we could get back there. Apparently not.”

“I’m not looking to get back to anything.”

“Clear enough. Tell Lucy I said thanks for the pie, and I’ll be around to see Sam when I can. I’ll try to make sure I stay out of your way when I do.”

When she stomped out, he scooped up another bite of pie, glad to be alone again.

8

It took little time for Lil to swing back into routine. She had everything she wanted-her place, her work, like-minded people to work with, the animals. She caught up with the mail and phone calls best dealt with personally, spent time working on proposals for grants.

There was never enough money.

She needed time to get to know the new crop of interns who’d come on while she’d been in the Andes, and to look over the reports of animals they’d treated and released-the injured wild brought to them.

She fed animals, cleaned them and their enclosures, assisted Matt in treating them. Days filled to bursting with the sheer physical demands. Evenings she reserved for writing-articles, papers, grant proposals, the bits of behind-the-scenes color that could influence a browser on the website to click on Donations.

Every night, alone, she checked the scope for Baby’s siblings, and other cats and wildlife they’d tagged over the years.

They’d lost some, to hunting season, to other animals, or just to age or accident. But she currently had six cougars who had originated in the Black Hills, tagged by her or one of the staff. One, a young male when tagged, had traveled to Iowa, another had ranged into Minnesota. The female from Baby’s litter had localized in the southwest of the Black Hills, occasionally roaming over into Wyoming during mating season.

She plotted locations, calculated dispersal distances, and speculated on behavior and choice of territory.

She thought it was time to buy a new horse, and go tracking. She had time before the spring season to capture and evaluate, tag and release.

In any case, she wanted some time in her own territory.

“You should take one of the interns with you,” Tansy insisted.

She should, she should. Education and training were essential arms of the refuge. But…

“I’ll be quicker in and out on my own.” Lil checked a radio transmitter, then packed it. “I’ve waited until late in the season for this. I don’t want to dawdle. Everything’s under control here,” she added. “Plus someone’s got to check on the camera up there. It’s a good time for me to take a few days, deal with that and maybe get a capture and release.”

“And if weather comes in?”

“I’m not going that far, Tansy. We’re losing data with that camera out, so it has to be checked. If weather comes in, I’ll head back, or wait it out.”

She added a second transmitter. She could get lucky.

“I’ll have the radio phone.” She swung the tranquilizer gun over her shoulder by the strap, hefted her pack.

“You’re leaving now?”

“Plenty of day left. With luck, I might have a capture tonight or tomorrow, tag it, and be on my way back.”

“But-”

“Stop worrying. Now I’m going to go buy a good horse from a former friend. That works out, I’ll leave from there. I’ll stay in touch.”

She hoped the former friend was in town or at the trailhead, dealing with his rental stock, customers, whatever he did with his days. She could horse-trade with Sam or Lucy, and avoid the annoyance of doing business with Coop.

Especially since he’d made it clear he wanted her to mind her own.

And to think she’d made a sincere effort to be friendly, to let bygones be. Well, screw that. If he wanted to be pissy, she’d be pissy right back.

But she wanted a good horse. Annoyance didn’t mean taking chances on the trail, and her usual mount was getting too old for this kind of trip.

Odds were, Lil thought as she drove to the neighboring farm, she’d be able to do no more than verify territory and activity on this little trip. She might get a sighting, but an actual capture and tag was a long shot. Worth it though, to add to her proposed ten-year study.

And it would give her the chance to see what, if any, human activity there might be.

When she arrived, she noted the ring and buzz-hammer and saw-from the bunkhouse. She recognized one of the trucks parked by the building as belonging to a local carpenter. Curiosity had her heading in that direction.

A mistake, she realized when Coop stepped out.

Business, she told herself. Just do the business.

“I need to buy a horse.”

“Something happen to yours?”

“No. I’m looking for one experienced on the trail. Mine’s getting on. I’d be looking for one between five and eight, say. Steady, mature, sound.”

“We don’t sell horses that aren’t sound. Going somewhere?”

She angled her head, spoke coolly. “Do you want to sell me a horse, Cooper?”

“Sure. I figure we both want me to sell you the right horse. Makes a difference if you want one for some pleasure riding on the trail, or one for working.”

“I work, so I need a horse who’ll work with me. And I want it today.”

“You’re planning on heading up today?”

“That’s right. Look, I’m going to try for a quick trap-and-tag. I need a reliable mount who can handle rough ground and has some nerve.”

“Have you spotted any cats near your place?”

“For somebody who wants me to mind my business, you sure are hell-bent on minding mine.”

“My horse,” he said.

“I haven’t seen anything within the sanctuary. We’ve got a camera out, and I want to check on it. Since I’m doing that, I’m going to set up a live trap and see if I get lucky. I’m planning on two days, three at most. Satisfied?”

“I thought you took a team for tagging.”

“If that’s the primary goal. I’ve handled it myself before. I’d like to buy that horse, Cooper, before spring. If it’s all the same to you.”

“I’ve got a six-year-old gelding that might suit you. I’ll bring him out so you can take a look.”

She started to say she’d just go with him, then changed her mind. She’d stay put. Less need for conversation. Less chance she’d give in and ask if she could see what was going on inside the old bunkhouse.

She liked the look of the gelding right off. He was a handsome brown-and-white piebald with a long slash down to his nose. His ears and eyes stayed alert as Coop led him over to the paddock fence.

The sturdy build told her he’d carry her and her gear without trouble.

He didn’t shy or sidestep when she checked his legs, his hooves. He jerked his head some when she checked his mouth, his teeth, but didn’t try any nip.

“He handles well. Got some spunk so we don’t use him unless the rider’s experienced. He likes to move.” Coop gave the gelding a rub. “He’s steady, he just gets bored if he’s doing nothing but plodding along in a line of others. Tends to stir up trouble. Likes to be in the lead.”

“What are you asking?”

“Since you’re buying a horse, you’ve got your saddle with you. Saddle him up, ride him around some. Take your time. I’ve got a couple things to see to.”

She did just that. The gelding gave her one curious look, as if to say, This isn’t usual. Then stood patiently while she saddled him, switched the tack for her own. When she mounted, he did a little shift and quiver in place.

Are we going? Are we?

She clucked her tongue and sent him into a quick, happy trot. She used sounds, her knees and heels, her hands to test him on commands. Well-trained, she concluded, but she’d expected no less from Wilks’s stock.

She figured her high end, and the price she’d like to pay, while she worked the gelding through paces and turns.

He’d do, she thought. He’d do just fine.

She slowed to a walk when Coop came back, leading a bay mare already saddled. “Has this one got a name?”

“We call him Rocky. Because he just keeps going.”

That got a laugh out of her. “He fits the bill. What are you asking?”

He named a price, right at her high end, then walked toward the house to retrieve a pack he’d set on the porch.

“That’s a little steeper than I’m looking for.”

“We can dicker on the trail.”

“I’ll give you… what?”

“I’m going with you.”

Flustered, she nearly stuttered. “No you’re not.”

“My horse.”

“Listen, Cooper.” She cut herself off, took a breath. “Why do you think, mistakenly, you’re going with me?”

“My grandparents could use some time without me underfoot. I’m tired of hearing the banging. We’re slow right now, so Gull can handle things for a day or two. And I feel like a little camping.”

“Then camp somewhere else.”

“I’m going with the horse. You’d better get your gear.”

She dismounted, looped the reins around the fence. “I’ll give you a fair price for him. Then he’s my horse.”

“You’ll give me a fair price when we get back. Consider it a test drive. If you’re not happy with him after, no charge for the rental.”

“I don’t want company.”

“I’m not looking to be company. I’m just going with the horse.”

She swore, shoved at her hat. The longer this went on, she realized, the more she wanted that damn horse. “Fine. You keep up or I leave you behind. You’d better have your own tent, your own gear, your own food, because I’m not sharing. And keep your hands to yourself, this isn’t a ride down memory lane.”

“Same goes.”

HE DIDN’T KNOW why he was doing it. All the reasons he gave were true enough, but they weren’t the why. The simple fact was he didn’t particularly want to be with her for an hour, much less a day or two-it was just easier to steer clear.

But he didn’t like the idea of her going by herself.

Stupid reason, he admitted as they rode in silence. She could go where she wanted and when. He couldn’t stop her if he’d wanted to. And she could have gone without him knowing about it, and if he hadn’t known about it he wouldn’t have thought about it. And wondered if she was okay.

So when he looked at it that way, it was easier to go than to stay.

In any case, the impulsive trip had some clear advantage. The first was the blessed quiet. He could hear the wind whisper through the trees, and the clomp of hooves on snowy ground, the creak of leather.

For a day or two he wouldn’t have to think. About payroll, overhead, grooming, feeding, his grandfather’s health, his grandmother’s mood.

He could do what he hadn’t had the time, and maybe not the inclination, to do since he’d come back to South Dakota.

He could just be.

They rode for a full hour without a word between them before she pulled up and he came up alongside her.

“This is stupid. You’re stupid. Go away.”

“Have you got a problem breathing the same air as I do?”

“You can breathe all the air you want.” She waved a hand in a circle. “There are miles of air. I just don’t see the point in this.”

“There is no point. We’re just going in the same direction.”

“You don’t know where I’m going.”

“You’re going up to the grassland where you saw the cougar take down the buffalo calf. The same place, more or less, we found the body.”

Her eyes sharpened. “How do you know that?”

“People talk to me whether I want them to or not. They talk to me about you whether I want them to or not. That’s where you usually go when you go on your own.”

She shifted, seemed to struggle. “Have you been back since?”

“Yeah, I’ve been back.”

She clucked to Rocky to get him moving again. “I guess you know they never found whoever did it.”

“He might’ve done others.”

“What? What others?”

“Two in Wyoming, one in Idaho. Solo female hikers. The second one two years after Melinda Barrett. Another thirteen months later. The last six months after that.”

“How do you know?”

“I was a cop.” He shrugged. “I looked into it. Ran like crimes, did some work on it. Blow to the head, stabbing, remote areas. He takes their pack, ID, jewelry. Leaves them for the animals. The others are open and unsolved. Then it stopped, after four killings, it stopped. Which means he’s moved on to other types of kill, or he got busted for something else and he’s inside. Or he’s dead.”

“Four,” she said. “Four women. There must’ve been suspects or leads.”

“Nothing that panned out, or stuck. I think he’s inside, or dead. It’s a long stretch without anything that matches his pattern.”

“And people don’t change that much. Not the basics,” she added when he looked at her. “That’s what killing is. It’s basic. If it’s the same killer, it’s not because he knows the victim, right? Not especially. It’s the type of victim-or prey. Female, alone, in a specific environment. His territory might range, but his prey didn’t. When a predator is successful in its hunting, it continues.”

She rode in silence for a moment, then went on when he didn’t respond. “I thought, or convinced myself, that Melinda Barrett was some sort of accident. Or at least a onetime thing. Someone she knew, or someone who knew her, targeted her.”

“You put a marker where we found her.”

“It seemed there should be one. There should be something. I tagged a young male up there four years ago. He’s moved on to Wyoming. That’s where the camera went down a couple days ago. It’s infrared, motion. We get a lot of hits. The animal cams, on the refuge and in the field, are popular on the website.”

She caught herself. She hadn’t meant to get into conversation with him. Not that it was, really. More of a monologue.

“You’ve sure gotten chatty over the years,” she commented.

“You said you didn’t want company.”

“I didn’t. Don’t. But you’re here.”

So he’d make an attempt. “Do the cameras go out often?”

“They require regular maintenance. Weather, wildlife, the occasional hiker play hell with them.” She stopped when they reached the stream. Snow lay in drifts and piles, crisscrossed with the tracks of animals who came to hunt or to drink.

“It’s not memory lane,” she repeated. “Just a good campsite. I’m going to unload before heading up.”

It was upriver from the spot where they’d often had picnics. From where they’d first become lovers. He didn’t mention it, as she knew it. Lillian Chance knew every foot of this territory as well as other women knew the contents of their closet.

Probably better than most. He unloaded as she did, making quick work of setting up his tent a good five yards from where she set hers.

The deliberate distance might have been the reason for the smirk on her face, but he didn’t comment on it.

“So how’s it going with the bunkhouse?” she asked when they were riding again. “Or does that fall into the area of none of my business?”

“It’s coming along. I should be able to move in there real soon.”

“Your valley condo?”

“Everybody gets their space, that’s all.”

“I know how that is. Before we built the cabin, anytime I’d come home for a stretch I’d start to feel like I was sixteen again. No matter how much room they give you, after a certain age, living with your parents-or grandparents-is just weird.”

“What’s weird is hearing the bed squeak and knowing your grandparents are having sex.”

She choked and snorted laughter. “Oh, jeez. Thanks for that.”

“Makeup sex,” he added and made her choke again.

“Okay, stop.” She looked over, and her quick, full-of-fun smile arrowed straight to his gut.

“You meant it that time.”

“What? To stop?”

“The smile. You’ve been holding back.”

“Maybe.” She looked away, keeping those dark, seductive eyes straight ahead. “I’d say we don’t know what to make of each other these days. It’s awkward. Visiting’s one thing, and we’ve hardly been in the same state at the same time since. Now we live in the same place, deal with some of the same people. I’m not used to living and working in close proximity with exes.”

“Had many?”

She flicked him the quickest and coolest of glances from under the brim of her hat. “That would come under the heading of mind your own.”

“Maybe we should make a list.”

“Maybe we should.”

They wound through the pines and birch as they had years before. But now the air was bright and bitter cold, and what they thought of was in the past, not in tomorrows.

“Cat’s been through.”

She pulled up her mount, as she had before. Coop had a flash of déjà vu-Lil in a red T-shirt and jeans, her hair loose under her hat. Her hand reaching out for his as they rode abreast.

This Lil with the long braid and the sheepskin jacket didn’t reach for him. Instead she leaned over, studying the ground. But he caught a whiff of her hair, of the wild forest scent of her. “Deer, too. She’s hunting.”

“You’re good, but you can’t tell what sex the cat is by the tracks.”

“Just playing the odds.” All business now, she straightened in the saddle, those eyes keen as they scanned. “Lots of scratches on the trees. It’s her area. We caught her on camera a few times before it went down. She’s young. I’d say she hasn’t had her mating season yet.”

“So we’re tracking a virgin cougar.”

“She’s probably about a year.” Lil continued on, slowly now. “Subadult, just beginning to venture out without her mother. She lacks experience. I could get lucky with her. She’s just what I’m looking for. She might be a descendant of the one I saw all those years ago. Maybe Baby’s cousin.”

“Baby.”

“The cougar at the refuge. I found him and his littermates in this sector. It’d be interesting if their mothers were littermates.”

“I’m sure there’s family resemblance.”

“DNA, Coop, the same as cops use. It’s an interest of mine. How they range, cross paths, come together to mate. How the females might be drawn back to their old lairs, birthplaces. It’s interesting.”

She stopped again, on the verge of the grassland. “Deer, elk, buffalo. It’s like a smorgasbord,” she said, gesturing at the tracks in the snow. “Which is why I might get lucky.”

She swung off the horse and approached a rough wood box. Coop heard her muttering and cursing as he tethered his own horse. “The camera’s not broken.” She picked a smashed padlock out of the snow. “And it wasn’t the weather or the fauna. Some joker.” She shoved the broken lock in her pocket and crouched to open the top of the box.

“Playing tricks. Smash the lock, open it up, and turn off the camera.”

Coop studied the box, the camera in it. “How much does one of those run?”

“This one? About six hundred. And yeah, I don’t know why he didn’t take it either. Just screwing around.”

Maybe, Coop thought. But it had gotten her up here, and would’ve gotten her up here alone if he hadn’t impulsively come along.

He wandered away as she reset the camera, then called her base on her radio phone.

He couldn’t track or read signs with her skill, no point in pretending otherwise. But he could see the boot prints, coming and going. Crossing the grassland, going into the trees on the other side.

From the size of the boot, the length of the stride, he’d estimate the vandal-if that’s what he was-at about six feet, with a boot size between ten and twelve. But he’d need more than eyeballing to be sure he was even in the ballpark.

He scanned the flatland, the trees, the brush, the rocks. There was, he knew, a lot of backcountry, some park, some private. A lot of places someone could camp without crossing paths with anyone else.

Cats weren’t the only species who stalked and ambushed.

“Camera’s back up.” She studied the tracks as Cooper had. “He’s at home up here,” she commented, then turned to walk to a weathered green tarp staked to the ground. “I hope he didn’t mess with the cage.”

She unhooked the tarp, flung it back. The cage was intact, but for the door she’d packed on the horse. “We remove the door, just in case somebody tries to use it, or an animal’s curious enough to get in, then can’t get out. I leave one up here because I’ve had luck in this section. Easier than hauling the cage up every time. Not much human traffic up here through the winter.”

She jerked her chin. “He came from the same direction we did, on foot, at least for the last half mile.”

“I got that much myself. From behind the camera.”

“I guess he’s shy. Since you’re here, you might as well help me set this up.”

He hauled the cage while she retrieved the door. On the edge of the grassland he watched her attach it with quick, practiced efficiency. She checked the trap several times, then baited it with bloody hunks of beef.

She noted the time, nodded. “A little more than two hours before dusk. If she’s hunting here, the bait should bring her in.”

She washed the blood off her hands with snow, put her gloves on. “We can watch from camp.”

“Can we?”

She grinned. “I have the technology.”

They started back toward the campsite, but she veered off-as he’d suspected she would-to follow the human trail.

“He’s crossing into the park,” she said. “If he keeps going in this direction, he’s going to hit the trailhead. Alone and on foot.”

“We can follow it in, but eventually you’re going to lose the origin in other traffic.”

“No point anyway. He didn’t go back this way. He went on. Probably one of those survivalist types, or extreme hikers. Search and Rescue’s pulled two small groups out this winter. Dad told me. People think they know what it is-the wilderness, the winter. But they don’t. Most just don’t. He does, I think. Even stride, steady pace. He knows.”

“You should report the camera.”

“For what? Officer, somebody broke my ten-dollar padlock and turned off my camera. Organize a posse.”

“It doesn’t hurt to have it on record.”

“You’ve been away too long. By the time I get back home, my staff would’ve told the delivery guy and the volunteers, who’ll mention it to their boss, neighbor, coworker, and so on. It’s already on record. South Dakota-style.”

But she turned in the saddle, looked back the way they’d come.

Back at camp she unpacked a small laptop, sat on her pop-up stool, and set to work. Coop stayed in his area, turned on his camp stove, and made coffee. He’d forgotten the small pleasure of that, of brewing a pot of coffee over a camp stove, the extra kick from the taste of it. He sat enjoying it, watching while the water in the stream fought and shoved its way over rocks and ice.

From Lil’s neighborhood it was business, as far as he could tell. She spoke on the radio phone, working with someone on coordinates and data.

“If you share that coffee so I don’t have to make some right this minute, I’ll share my beef stew.” She glanced over his way. “It’s not from a can. It’s my mother’s.”

He sipped his coffee, glanced her way, and said nothing.

“I know what I said, but it’s stupid. Plus, I’m finished being annoyed with you. For now.”

She set the laptop on the stool after she rose, and went to her saddle-bags for the sealed bag of stew. “It’s a good trade.”

He couldn’t argue with that. In any case, he wanted to see what she was doing on the computer. He poured a second cup of coffee, doctored it as he remembered she liked it, then walked it over to her campsite.

They drank coffee standing on the snowy banks of the stream.

“The computer’s linked with the camera. I’ll get a signal and a picture when and if it activates.”

“Fancy.”

“Lucius rigged it. He’s our resident nerd genius. He can get a message to your grandparents if you want to check on them. But I told him to call them, or have Tansy call, and let them know we’re camped. Weather’s holding, so we should be good.”

She turned her head. Their eyes met, held. Something knocked hard and loud in his heart before she turned away. “It’s good coffee,” she said. “I’m going to settle my horse, then I’ll heat up that stew.”

She walked away and left him by the stream.

SHE DIDN’T WANT to feel this way. It annoyed her, frustrated her that she couldn’t just block what she didn’t want, just refuse it.

What was it about him? That hint of sad and mad, still there, still under the surface of him, just pulled at her.

Her feelings, she reminded herself. Her problem.

Was this how Jean-Paul felt? she wondered. Wanting, needing, and never quite getting the real thing in return? She should have every square inch of her ass kicked for making anyone else feel this helpless.

Maybe knowing she was still in love with Cooper Sullivan was her ass-kicking. God knew, it was painful.

A pity she didn’t have Jean-Paul’s option to go, just leave. Her life was here, roots, work, heart. So she’d just have to deal with it.

With her horse fed and watered, she heated the stew.

Dusk floated down as she carried the plate over to him.

“Should be hot enough. I’ve got work, so…”

“Fine. Thanks.” He took the plate, went back to reading his book by the dying light and the glow of his stove.

In the twilight, mule deer came to drink downstream. Lil could see their movements and shadows, hear the rustles and hoof strikes. She glanced at the computer, but there was no movement-yet-on the grassland.

When the moon rose, she took the computer and her lantern into her tent. Alone-she felt more alone with Coop there than she would have by herself-she listened to the night, to the wild. With the night music came the call of the hunter, the scream of the hunted. She heard her horse blow, whinny lightly to Coop’s.

The air was full of sound, she thought. But the two humans in it exchanged not a single word.

SHE AWOKE JUST before dawn, sure the computer had signaled. But a glance showed her only a blank screen. She sat up slowly, ears tuned. There was movement outside the tent, stealthy and human. In the dark, Lil visualized her drug gun and her rifle. She made the decision, and reached out to take the drug gun.

She opened her tent slowly, scanned through the opening. Even in the dark, she recognized the shadow as Cooper. Still, she kept the gun as she slid out of the tent.

“What is it?”

He held up a hand to silence her, used it to gesture her back into her tent. Ignoring that, she moved toward him.

“What?” she said again.

“Somebody was out here. That direction.”

“Could’ve been an animal.”

“It wasn’t. He must’ve heard me inside the tent, opening it. He took off, and fast. What the hell is that for?”

She glanced down at the tranquilizer gun. “For immunizing. Including humans, if necessary. I heard you out here, but I couldn’t be sure it was you.”

“Could’ve been an animal.”

She hissed out a breath. “Okay, yes, you probably know the difference as well as I do. What the hell is that for?” she demanded, pointing at the 9mm in his hand.

“For immunizing.”

“Jesus, Cooper.”

Rather than respond, he went back to his tent, came out with a flashlight. He handed it to her. “Read the tracks.”

She shone the light on the snow. “Okay, that’s you, likely moving off from the campsite to empty your bladder.”

“You’d be right about that.”

“And that’s another set of tracks, coming from across the stream, cutting this way. Walking. Heading north, that’s at a run, or at least a good lope.” She huffed out a breath. “Poacher, maybe. Somebody looking to set up a hunting stand, spotted the campsite. But hell, the tracks look like the ones up by the cage. Could still be a poacher. Just one who likes to screw around.”

“Maybe.”

“You probably still think like a cop, or a PI, so everyone’s a suspect. And you’re probably thinking I’d have had trouble if you weren’t here.”

“Wow, now you’re a mind reader.”

“I know how it goes. Believe me, you wouldn’t be thrilled to take a hit with one of these tranqs. And believe me, I can handle myself. I’ve been handling myself for a long time.” She paused just long enough to make sure that sank in. “But I appreciate the advantage of numbers. I’m not a fool.”

“Then you’re asking yourself how he moved so fast, and straight for the trail, in the dark. Moon’s set. It’s getting lighter now, but it was pitch.”

“His eyes adjusted or he has infrared. Probably the latter if he’s scouting a hunting site in the dark. He knows what he’s doing. I’ll report it, but-”

She broke off at the beep inside her tent. Forgetting everything else, she dashed back, dived inside. “There she is! Son of a bitch. You must be my good-luck charm. I didn’t expect to get a look, not really. There’s that beauty,” she murmured as she watched the young cougar scenting the air at the far end of the grassland. “Coop, come see this. Come on.”

She shifted to give him an angle on the screen when he eased in. “She’s got the scent of the bait. Stalking, keeping to the shadows and the brush. Secretive. She can see in the dark, keen eyes. The cage is an unknown, but inside it? That scent. God, she’s beautiful. Look at her.”

She seemed to swim across the snow, bellying down.

Then she was up, and Lil caught her breath at the flash of speed, the power. Leap, bound, streak. Even as the trap sprang, the cat had the bait in her jaws.

“We got her. We got her!” On a triumphant laugh, Lil grabbed Coop’s arm. “Did you see how-”

She turned her head. Her mouth nearly collided with his in the close confines of the tent. She felt the heat from him, saw the glint of his eyes, those ice blue eyes. For an instant, just an instant, the memory of him, of them, flooded her.

Then she moved back, out of the danger zone. “I need to get my gear. It’s nearly dawn. It’ll be light enough to see the trail soon.”

She picked up the radio phone. “You’ll have to excuse me. I need to make a call.”

9

Since she had more to pack up and deal with than he did, Coop fried up some bacon, made coffee. By the time she’d made her calls, gotten her gear, he’d put a trail breakfast together and set his campsite to rights. He was saddling his horse when she came over to saddle her own.

“What are you going to do with her?”

“Immobilize. With the drug gun I brought, I can get within two feet of her, inject a dart into her without hurting her. I’ll take blood and hair samples, gauge her weight, age, size, and so on. Fit her with a radio collar. Thanks,” she added, obviously distracted when he handed her a mug of coffee. “I plan on giving her a small dose, but it’ll keep her out a couple of hours, so I’ll have to stand by until she comes out of it, recovers. Until she’s recovered fully from the drug, she’s vulnerable. It’s a good day’s work, but if things go well, by noon she’ll be on her way, and I’ll have what I came for.”

“And what does all that give you?”

“You mean besides satisfaction?” As the sun pinked the rims of the eastern hills, she swung into the saddle. “Information. The cougar’s listed as a near-threatened species. Most people, I’m talking people who live and travel in known cougar territories, never see one.”

“Most people wouldn’t be you.” He mounted, offered her one of the bacon biscuits he’d put together.

“No, they wouldn’t.” She looked at the biscuit, then at him. “You made breakfast. Now I feel guilty about bitching about you coming along.”

“That’s a nice side benefit.”

“Anyway”-she took a bite as they turned the horses toward the trail-“most of the sightings reported turn out to be bobcat, or the occasional pet. People buy exotic cats-and we get calls every month from someone who did, and doesn’t know what the hell to do now that Fuzzy isn’t a cute little kitten anymore.” She took another bite. “But mostly, people see a bobcat and think-holy shit, cougar. And even on the rare occasion it is holy shit, cougar, most people don’t understand it isn’t looking for man meat.”

“There was a woman right in Deadwood a year or so ago who almost had one join her in her hot tub.”

“Yeah, that was cool.” Lil polished off the biscuit. “The point that might be missed is it wasn’t interested in her-didn’t attack. It was stalking deer and ended up on her back deck at the same time she was having her soak. It took a look at her, probably thought, Not dinner-went away. We encroach, Coop, and you don’t want to get me started on my conservation riff, believe me. But we do. So we have to learn how to live with them, protect the species. They don’t want to be around us. They don’t want to be around one another unless it’s time to mate. They’re solitary, and while they interact with others higher on the apex in some habitats, we’re their only predator once they reach maturity.”

“Might make me think twice about putting in a hot tub.”

She laughed. “One’s unlikely to join you. They can swim, but they don’t much care for it. The girl up there’s wondering how the hell she got trapped? She’s got about another eight, nine years if she hits the average life span for a female in the wild. She’ll mate every couple of years, have a litter, again on average of three. Two of those three will likely die before their first year. She’ll feed them, defend them to the death, teach them to hunt. She’ll love them until it’s time to let them go. She might range a hundred and fifty square miles of territory during her life span.”

“And you’ll track that with the radio collar.”

“Where she goes, and when, how she gets there, how long it takes. When she mates. I’m doing a generational study. I’ve already tagged two generations through Baby’s littermate and a subadult male I captured and tagged last year in the canyon. I’ll start another with this one.”

They moved into an easy trot when the trail allowed. “Don’t you already know everything there is to know about cougars by this point?”

“You never know it all. Biology and behavior, ecological role, distribution and habitat, even mythology. It adds to the wealth, and the more there is, the better we know how to preserve the species. Plus, funding. Contributors like to see and hear and know cool stuff. I give the new girl up there a name, put a shot of her on the Web page, and add her to the Track-A-Cat section. Funding. And by exploiting her, in a sense, I add to the coffers going to protect, study, and understand her and her kind. Plus, I want to know.”

She looked his way. “And tell the truth, it’s a great way to start the morning.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Fresh air, a good horse under you, miles of what people pay good money for in art books, and an interesting job to do. It’s a good deal.” She cocked her head. “Even for an urbanite.”

“The city’s not better or worse. It’s just different.”

“Do you miss it? Your work there?”

“I’m doing what I want. Just like you.”

“It counts. Being able to do what you want. You’re good at it. The horses,” she added. “You always were.” She leaned over to stroke her gelding’s neck. “We’re still going to dicker over the price for this one, but you were right. Rocky suits me.”

She frowned, slowed. “There’s our friend again.” She gestured at the tracks. “He cut across, picked up the trail here. Long strides. Not running but moving fast. What the hell is he up to?” Something tripped in her heart. “He’s heading toward the grassland. Toward the cougar.”

Even as she spoke, the scream ripped and echoed. “He’s there. He’s up there.” She pushed the horse into a gallop.

The scream echoed again, full of fury. And the third, high and sharp, cut off with the snapping report of a gunshot.

“No!” She rode half blind, dragging at the reins to steer around trees, clinging, pushing as her mount raced through the snowpack.

She slapped out at Coop when he pulled up alongside and grabbed her reins. “Let go. Get off! He shot her. He shot her.”

“If he did you can’t change it.” Shortening Rocky’s reins, he kept his voice low to calm the horses. “There’s somebody up there, armed. You’re not rushing up, risking breaking that horse’s leg and your neck in the bargain. Stop. Think.”

“He’s already got a good fifteen, twenty minutes on us. She’s trapped. I have to-”

“Stop. Think. Use your phone. Call this in.”

“If you think I’m just going to sit here while-”

“You’re going to call it in.” His voice was as cold and flat as his eyes. “And we’re going to follow the tracks. We’re going to take it one step at a time. Call your people, see if the camera’s still up. Have them report the gunshot. Then you’re going to stay behind me, because I’m the one with a real gun. That’s it. Do it now.”

She might have argued with the tone, she might have argued with the orders. But he was right about the camera. She pulled her phone out while Coop took the lead. “I’ve got a rifle if I need it,” she told him.

She reached a sleepy-voiced Tansy. “Hey, Lil. Where-”

“Check the camera. Number eleven. The one I fixed yesterday. Check it now.”

“Sure. I’ve been watching since you called. I went out to check on the animals, brought Eric back with me so… Hell, it’s down again. Are-”

“Listen to me. Cooper and I are about twenty minutes from the site. Somebody’s up there, been up there. There was a shot.”

“Oh, my God. You don’t think-”

“I need you to put the police and game warden on alert. We’ll know in about twenty minutes. Get Matt on call. If she’s wounded I’ll get her in. We may need an airlift for that.”

“I’ll take care of it. Stay in contact, Lil, and be careful.” The line clicked dead before Lil could respond.

“We can move faster than this,” Lil insisted.

“Yeah, and we can move right into the crosshairs. It’s not how I want to spend my morning. We don’t know who’s up there, or what he has in mind. What we know is he has a weapon, and he’s had time to run, or find cover and lie in wait.”

Or he could have doubled back, Coop thought, and even now could be setting himself up for some human target practice. He couldn’t be sure, so he couldn’t follow the urge to immobilize Lil and tie her to a damn tree while he went on without her.

“We’d better go on foot from here.” He turned his head, met her eyes. “It’ll be quieter, and we make smaller targets. Take your knife, the drug gun, the phone. Anything happens, you run. You know the territory better than anyone else. Get lost, call for help, and stay lost until it comes. Clear?”

“This isn’t New York. You’re not a cop anymore.”

His gaze was frigid. “And this isn’t a bag-and-tag anymore either. How much time do you want to waste arguing with somebody who’s bigger than you are?”

She dismounted because he was right, and loaded a small pack with what she felt she needed. She kept the tranquilizer gun in her hand.

“Behind me,” he ordered. “Single file.”

He moved quickly, covering ground. She kept pace as he knew she would. Then he stopped, pulled out his field glasses, and using the brush for cover, scanned the grassland up ahead.

“Can you see the cage?”

“Hold on.”

He could see trampled snow, the line of trees, the jut of boulders. Countless opportunities for cover.

He scanned over. The angle was poor, but he could see part of the cage, part of the cat. And the blood on the snow.

“I can’t get a good look from here. But she’s down.”

Lil closed her eyes for a moment. Even so, he watched grief rush over her face. “We’ll cut over, come up behind the cage. It’s better cover.”

“Okay.”

It took longer, and the way was a battle with incline, knee-deep snow, rough and slippery ground.

She shoved through brush, accepted Coop’s hand for a boost when she needed it.

And on the bright, crisp air, she scented blood. She scented death.

“I’m going out to her.” Lil’s voice held calm and nothing else. “He’d have heard us coming if he stuck around. He’d have had time to circle around, take cover, and pick us off if that’s what he wanted. He shot a trapped animal. He’s a coward. He’s gone.”

“Can you help her?”

“I doubt it, but I’m going out to her. He could’ve shot you last night, the minute you stepped out of the tent.”

“I go first. Nonnegotiable.”

“I don’t care. Go on, then. I need to get to her.”

Stupid, he told himself. A risk that solved nothing. But he thought of helping Lil set up the cage, how he’d watched with her as the trap sprang.

He couldn’t leave the cat there.

“Maybe you should fire a couple of rounds, so he knows we’re armed, too.”

“He might take that as a challenge.” He glanced back at her. “You’re thinking it’s easier to kill a trapped animal, or an animal anyway, than it is a human being. It’s a mistake to think that. It depends on who’s doing the shooting. Stay back, and stay down until I tell you.”

He stepped into the open.

For a moment his skin was alive, his muscles tight and tensed. He’d been shot once, and it wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat.

Overhead a hawk circled and cried. He watched the trees. A movement brought his weapon up. The mule deer waded through the snow, leading the way for the herd that came behind.

He turned and walked to the cage.

He hadn’t expected her to stay once he moved, and of course, she didn’t. She stepped around him, knelt on the frozen ground.

“Would you turn the camera on? If he didn’t wreck it, that is. We need to document this.”

In the cage, the cat lay on her side. Blood and gore from the heat of the shot soiled the ground. She buried the urge to open the cage, to stroke, to mourn, to weep. Instead, she contacted her base.

“Tansy, we’re bringing the camera back up. The female’s been shot. A head wound. She’s gone.”

“Oh, Lil.”

“Make the calls, and make a copy of the video. We need the authorities here, and transportation to get her out.”

“I’ll take care of it right now. I’m so sorry, Lil.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

She clicked off, looked over at Coop. “The camera?”

“Just turned off, like before.”

“There’s a short, restricted hunting season on cougar. We’re outside that now. And this is private land, posted land. He had no right.”

Though her voice remained steady, firm, she’d gone very pale, so her eyes shone like black pools.

“Even if she hadn’t been caged, defenseless, he had no right. I understand hunting. For food, as a sport, the arguments for ecological balance as we take over more and more habitat areas. But this wasn’t hunting. This was murder. He shot a caged animal. And I put her in the cage. I put her there.”

“You’re not stupid enough to blame yourself.”

“No.” Those eyes kindled now with pure rage. “The bastard who walked up to the cage and put a bullet in her head’s to blame. But I’m a factor. I’m the reason he could.”

She sat back on her haunches, took a breath. “It looks like he came up the trail, crossed to the camera, disabled it. He circled the cage, took a look at her, stirred her up. She gave her warning call. He kept her stirred up. Maybe it was more exciting that way, who knows. Then he shot her. Fairly close range, I’d guess. But I don’t know for sure. Can’t tell. We’ll do an autopsy, recover the bullet. The police will take it and tell us what kind of gun he used.”

“A handgun from the sound of it. Small-caliber from the look of the wound.”

“You’d know more about that, I suppose.”

She did what she needed to do now, and he said nothing about the integrity of a crime scene when she opened the cage. She laid her hand on the ruined head of the young female who by her estimation had lived only one full year. Who’d learned to hunt and ranged free. Who kept to her secret places and avoided company.

She stroked. And when her shoulders began to tremble she rose to walk out of camera range. Because he had nothing else to offer, Coop went to her, turned her, held her while she wept. And wept.

She was dry-eyed and professional when the authorities arrived. He knew the county sheriff slightly, but imagined Lil had known him most of her life.

He’d be in his early thirties, Coop judged. Tough-bodied, tough-faced, sturdy in his Wolverines as he assessed. His name was William Johannsen, but like most who knew him, Lil called him Willy.

While he spoke to Lil, Coop watched a deputy take pictures of the scene, the cage, the tracks. He saw, too, Willy lay a hand on Lil’s shoulder, give it a pat before he stepped away and headed in Coop’s direction.

“Mr. Sullivan.” Willy paused, stood beside Coop and looked at the dead cat. “That’s a terrible, cowardly thing. You hunt?”

“No. Never got the taste for it.”

“I get a buck every season. I like being outdoors, pitting myself against their instincts. My wife makes a good venison stew. Never hunted cougar. My pa, he’s a hunt-it-eat-it man, and taught me the same. Don’t fancy chowing down on cougar. Well, cold out here. Got some wind going. Lil says you’ve got horses standing down yonder.”

“Yeah. I’d like to get to them.”

“I’ll walk you down a ways. Said she called her pa, and he’s on his way to meet you back where the two of you camped last night. Help you load up.”

“She needs to go with the cougar.”

“Yeah.” Willy nodded. “I’ll walk down some with you and you can tell me what’s what. I need more, I’ll get it from you later on, after you’ve had a chance to get back. Warmed up.”

“All right. Give me a minute.”

Without waiting for assent, Coop went back to Lil. Unlike Willy, he didn’t give her a comforting pat. Her eyes were dry when they met his. Dry, and a little distant. “I’ll get the horses, meet Joe back at the campsite. We’ll get your gear to you.”

“I’m grateful, Coop. I don’t know what I’d’ve done if you hadn’t been along.”

“Handled it. I’ll be by later.”

“You don’t need to-”

“I’ll be by later.”

With that, he walked away, and Willy fell into step with him.

“So you were with the police back east.”

“I was.”

“Went into private, I hear.”

“I did.”

“I recall when you used to come out as a boy, visit with your grand-folks. Good people.”

“They are.”

Willy’s lips twitched, and his stride was steady on the trail. “I heard how Gull Nodock, who works for you now, gave you a chaw one day and you about puked yourself inside out.”

The faintest hint of humor touched Coop’s mouth. “Gull never gets tired of telling that one.”

“It’s a good one. Why don’t you just give me the run-down, Mr. Sullivan. You don’t need me telling you what I need to know, seeing as you were police.”

“Cooper, or Coop. Lil and I started out yesterday morning. Around eight, maybe just after eight. We unloaded some of the gear at the campsite, by the stream, and got up here before eleven. Close to eleven, I think.”

“Good time.”

“Good horses, and she knows the trail. She’s got that camera up there. Somebody broke the lock on its cover, switched it off. She said it went down a couple days ago. She reset it. We saw the tracks left by whoever did it. Looks like around a size eleven to me.”

Willy nodded, adjusted his Stetson. “We’ll be checking on that.”

“We set up the cage, and baited it, and we were back at camp before two. She worked, I read, we had a meal, turned in. Five-twenty this morning, I heard somebody moving around. I got my gun. He was already running when I got out of the tent. I heard him more than saw him, but I got a glimpse. I’d guess about six feet tall, male. Most likely male just from the way he moved, the basic shape. He had on a backpack, and a cap. Gimme cap style. Couldn’t tell you age, race, hair color. I just got the shape, the movement as he ran, then he was in the trees. He moved fast.”

“Black as ink that time of day.”

“Yeah. Maybe he had infrared goggles. I only saw him from behind, but he moved like a fucking gazelle. Fast, fluid. Between the two of us, Lil woke up. Not long after, she got the signal the trap had sprung. It took us a good thirty minutes, maybe closer to forty to pack up, for her to contact her base. And we spent some time looking at the cat on her computer. He had a good lead on us. Neither one of us considered he’d head up there, do that.”

“Why would you?”

They’d reached the horses, and Willy gave Coop’s mare a friendly rub.

“We had light by then, but we didn’t hurry. Then she spotted the tracks. We were about halfway between the camp and the cage, and she spotted them.”

“Got an eye for it, Lil does,” Willy commented in his mild way.

“He’d circled around, crossed back to the trail, and headed up. We heard the cat scream, the way they do.”

“Hell of a sound.”

“Third time it screamed, we heard the shot.” He detailed the rest, adding the times.

“There’s no exit wound,” Coop added. “It’s going to be small-caliber. Compact handgun, maybe a thirty-eight. The kind somebody could carry easily under his jacket. Wouldn’t weigh him down on a hike, wouldn’t show if he ran into anybody on the trail. Just another guy out loving nature.”

“We take something like this serious around here. You can count on that. I’m going to let you get on. If I need to talk to you again, I know where to find you. You keep an eye out on the way down, Coop.”

“You can count on that.” Coop mounted, took the reins of Lil’s horse from Willy.

The trip back alone gave him time to think.

It was no coincidence that the camera had been tampered with, an intruder had chosen their campsite, the cougar Lil had trapped had been shot.

Common denominator? Lillian Chance.

She needed to have that spelled out for her, and she needed to take whatever precautions she could.

She assumed it was easier for a man to kill a caged animal than a human.

Coop didn’t agree.

He didn’t know William Johannsen well, and prior to now hadn’t had any professional dealings with him. But his impression had been one of competence and a cool head. He expected the man would do all that could and should be done in the investigation.

And Coop figured unless Willy was really lucky, he’d get nowhere.

Whoever had killed Lil’s cougar knew exactly what he was doing and exactly how to do it. The question was why.

Someone with a grudge against Lil personally, or with a vendetta against the refuge? Maybe both, as Lil was the refuge in most people’s minds. An extremist on either side of the environmental/conservation issue was a possibility.

Someone who knew the area, knew how to live in the wild for stretches, go unnoticed. A local maybe, Coop mused, or someone with local ties.

Maybe he’d tug on a few old connections and see if there’d been any similar incidents in the last few years. Or, he admitted, he could just ask Lil. No doubt she’d know or could find out faster than he could.

Of course that blew to hell the idea of keeping his distance. He’d already blown that, he admitted, when he’d jumped on going with her on this trip. So who was he kidding?

He wasn’t going to stay away from her. He’d known that, however much he’d tried to deny it, the minute she’d opened the door to that cabin. The instant he’d seen her again.

Maybe it was just unfinished business. He wasn’t one for leaving things unresolved. Lil was… a loose end, he decided. If he couldn’t cut it off, he had to tie it off. Screw the guy she wasn’t exactly engaged to.

There was still something there. He’d felt it from her. He’d seen it in her eyes. However long it had been since he’d seen her, been with her, he knew her eyes.

He dreamed of them.

He knew what he’d seen in them that morning in her tent, while on the computer screen the young cougar hissed in the cage. If he’d touched her then, he’d have taken her then. As simple as that.

They weren’t going to get through this new phase of their lives, whatever the hell it was, until they’d gotten past the old feelings, the old connection, the old needs. Maybe once they had, they could be friends again. Maybe they couldn’t. But standing in place wasn’t going to cut it.

And she was in trouble. She might not believe it, or admit it, but somebody meant to hurt her. Whatever they were to each other, whatever they weren’t, he wasn’t going to let that happen.

As the camp came into view, Coop slowed. He flicked back his coat and rested a hand on the butt of his gun.

Long precise slashes ran down the length of both tents. Bedrolls lay sodden in the icy stream, along with the cookstove he’d used that morning to fry bacon, make coffee. The shirt Lil had worn the day before lay spread out on the snow. Coop would’ve made book that the blood that smeared it had come from the cougar.

He dismounted, tethered the horses, then opened Lil’s saddlebag to find the camera he’d seen her put in that morning.

He documented the scene from various angles, took close-ups of the shirt, the tents, the items in the stream, the boot prints that weren’t his, weren’t Lil’s.

Best he could do, he thought before digging out a plastic bag that would stand for an evidence bag. With his gloves on, he bagged Lil’s shirt, sealed the bag, and wished only for a pen or marker to note down the time, date, and his initials.

He heard the approach of a horse, thought of Joe. Coop stowed the shirt in his own saddlebag, laid a hand back on his weapon. He let it drop when the horse and rider came into view.

“She’s fine.” Coop called it out first. “She’s with the county sheriff. She’s fine, Joe.”

“Okay.” Still mounted, Joe surveyed the campsite. “You two didn’t have a drunken party and do this.”

“He had to come back, double around again while we were up above. It’s quick work. Down and dirty. Probably took him ten minutes tops.”

“Why?”

“Well, that’s a question.”

“It’s one I’m asking you, Cooper.” Joe slid off the saddle, held the reins in a hand Coop imagined was white at the knuckles under his riding gloves. “I’m not an idealist. I know people do fuck-all. But I don’t understand this. You’d have a better idea on it. You’d have thought about it.”

Lies often served a purpose, Coop knew. But he wouldn’t lie to Joe. “Somebody’s got it in for Lil, but I don’t have the answers. You’d have a better idea, or she would. I haven’t been part of her life for a long time. I don’t know what’s going on with her, not under the surface.”

“But you’ll find out.”

“The police are on this, Joe. Willy strikes me as somebody who gets things done. I took pictures of all this, and I’ll turn them over.” He thought of the bloodstained shirt, but kept that to himself. A father, already scared, already sick with worry, didn’t need more.

“Willy will do his job, and he’ll do his best. But he’s not going to be thinking about this, and about Lil, every minute of the day. I’m asking you, Coop. I’m asking you to help me. To help Lil. To look out for her.”

“I’ll talk to her. I’ll do what I can.”

Satisfied, Joe nodded. “I guess we’d better clean this up.”

“No. We’ll call it in, and leave it. He probably didn’t leave anything behind, but we’ll leave it for the cops to go through.”

“You’d know best.” On a shaky breath, Joe pulled off his hat, ran a gloved hand through his hair once, twice. “Jesus, Cooper. Jesus. I’m worried about my girl.”

So am I, Coop thought. So am I.

10

Lil shut down her emotions to assist Matt in the autopsy. One of the deputies stood by, going clammy green during the procedure. Under other circumstances, the poor man’s reaction would have amused her a little.

But the blood on her hands was partially her fault. No one would ever be able to convince her otherwise.

Still, the scientist in her collected blood and hair samples from the dead as she’d planned to from the living. She’d analyze, and have the data for her files, for her papers, for the program.

When the vet removed the bullet, she held out the stainless-steel dish. It rang, almost cheerfully, when Matt dropped it in. The deputy bagged it, sealed it, logged it in their presence.

“Looks like a thirty-two,” he said, and swallowed. “I’m going to see that this gets to Sheriff Johannsen. Ah, you verify this as cause of death, right, Dr. Wainwright?”

“A bullet in the brain usually is. No other injuries or insults. I’m going to open her up, complete the exam. But you’re holding what killed this animal.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll send a full report to the sheriff’s office,” Lil told him. “All the documentation.”

“I’ll go on, then.” He bolted.

Matt exchanged forceps for scalpel. “Given her weight, height, her teeth, I’d put the age of this female between twelve and fifteen months.” He looked to Lil for confirmation.

“Yes. She’s not pregnant-though you’ll verify-nor does she show signs of having given birth recently. It’s unlikely she mated this fall, being too young at that time to come into season. All visual indications are she was in good health.”

“Lil, you don’t have to do this, you don’t have to be in here for this.”

“Yes I do.” She made herself cold, and watched Matt make the first precise line of the Y cut.

When it was done, all the data recorded, all the conclusions made, her eyes were gritty, her throat raw. Stress and grief made an uneasy marriage in her stomach. She washed her hands thoroughly, repeatedly, before going into the office.

The minute he saw her, Lucius’s eyes filled.

“I’m sorry. I can’t seem to pull it together.”

“It’s all right. It’s a hard day.”

“I didn’t know if you’d want me to put anything up on the site. Any sort of statement or…”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her hands over her face. Her mind simply hadn’t gone there. “Maybe we should. Yes, maybe we should. She was murdered. People should know about her, what happened to her.”

“I can write something up for you to look over.”

“Yeah, do that, Lucius.”

Mary Blunt, sturdy of body, sensible of mind, rose from her desk to pour hot water into a mug. “It’s tea. Drink it,” she ordered, and she pushed it into Lil’s hand. “Then go home for a while. There’s nothing you have to do. It’s nearly closing time. Why don’t I come over, fix you something to eat?”

“Couldn’t right now, Mary, but thanks. Matt’s doing the paperwork, putting the file together. Can you take it to Willy on your way home?”

“Sure I can.” Mary, hazel eyes full of concern over the silver rims of her cheaters, gave Lil a brief one-armed hug. “They’ll find that motherless coward, Lil. Don’t you worry.”

“I’m counting on it.” She drank the tea because it was there, and because Mary was watching to see that she did.

“We’ve got that Boy Scout field trip coming in next week. I can reschedule if you want more time.”

“No, let’s try to keep it business as usual.”

“All right, then. I did some grant research, and put some possibilities together. You can look them over, see if you want me to take any of them further.”

“All right.”

“Tomorrow,” Mary said firmly, and took the empty mug. “Now, go home. We’ll close up.”

“I’m going to check on everybody first.”

“Tansy and the interns, some volunteers saw to the feedings.”

“I’ll just… check. Go on home.” She glanced over at Lucius to include him. “As soon as Matt’s finished, close up and go home.”

When she stepped outside, she saw Farley coming from the direction of the stables. He raised a hand in salute. “I brought your new horse, and your gear. Gave her a good rubdown, some extra grain.”

“Farley, you’re a godsend.”

“You’d do the same.” He stopped in front of her, gave her arm a little pat and rub. “Hell of a thing, Lil.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Anything need doing?” He squinted into the gathering twilight. “Your dad said I should stay as long as you need. He thought maybe I should bunk down here for the night.”

“You don’t need to do that, Farley.”

“Well, I’d say it was more he said I’d be bunking down here for the night rather than I should.” Farley gave her his appealingly goofy grin. “I’ll use the cot back in the stables.”

“There’s a better one in the offices. Use that. I’ll talk to your boss, but we’ll let this ride tonight.”

“He’ll sleep better.”

“That’s why we’re letting it ride. The fact is, I’ll probably sleep better, too, knowing you’re close by. I’ll make you some supper.”

“No need. Your ma packed me plenty. Wouldn’t hurt to give them a call.” He shifted in his worn-at-the-heels boots. “Just saying.”

“I will.”

“Ah, is Tansy inside?”

“No. She must be out here somewhere.” The little light in his eye made her want to sigh again. It was so damn sweet. “Maybe you could take a look around for her, tell her we’re going to close a little early. If the animals have been checked, she can go on home.”

“I’ll do that. You take it easy, now, Lil. If you need anything tonight, you just give me a holler.”

“I will.”

She turned toward the small-cat area. She stopped by each habitat to help remind herself why she was doing this, what she hoped to do. Most of the animals they sheltered, they studied, would be dead otherwise. Euthanized or disposed of by owners, killed in the wild they were too old or handicapped to survive. They had a life here, protection, and as much freedom as could be allowed. They served to educate, to fascinate, to draw funds to help maintain the whole.

It mattered. Intellectually she knew it mattered. But her heart was so sore it wasn’t the intellect that needed reinforcement.

Baby waited for her, the engine purr in his throat. She crouched, leaning her head against the cage so he could bump his to it in greeting.

She looked beyond him to where the two other cougars they’d taken in tore into their evening meal. Only Baby would leave his favorite chicken dinner for her.

And in his brilliant eyes, she took comfort.

IT TOOK FARLEY a while to find her, but his heart gave a few extra beats when he did. Tansy sat on one of the benches-and for once she was alone, watching the big old tiger (imagine a tiger living right in the valley!) wash his face.

Just like a house cat would, Farley thought, licking at his paws, rubbing them on his face.

He wanted to think of something clever to say, something smart and funny. He didn’t think he was clever when it came to words mostwise anyhow. And he got his tongue tangled and stuck when he was within speaking distance of Tansy Spurge.

She was about the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, and he wanted her for his own so bad it hurt in the belly.

He knew all that dark, curly hair of hers was soft, and kinda springy to the touch. He’d managed to get his hands on it once. He knew the skin of her hands was smooth and soft, but he wondered if her face would be the same. That pretty, golden brown face. He hadn’t had the nerve to try to touch that yet.

But he was working up to it.

She was smarter than he was, no question. He’d finished high school because Joe and Jenna laid that down as law. But Tansy had all kinds of education on him and those fancy college degrees. He liked that about her, too, how the smart of her showed in her eyes. The goodness in them right there with it.

He’d seen how she was with animals. Gentle. Farley didn’t hold with causing an animal harm.

And with all that, she was so damn sexy his blood started humming in his head-and other places-whenever he got within ten feet of her.

Like right now.

He squared his shoulders, wished he wasn’t so damned skinny.

“He sure keeps himself clean and tidy, doesn’t he?” While he was building up the gumption to sit beside her, Farley stopped by the cage to watch the old boy wash.

He’d touched Boris once, too, when Tansy’d had him under to help Matt clean what was left of his teeth. It sure was a big experience, letting your hands walk right over a jungle cat.

“He’s feeling good today. Had a good appetite. I worried if he’d last the winter, sweet old thing, when he had that kidney infection. But he just keeps going.”

The words were easy, casual-like, but he knew-had made a study on-her tones. He heard the tears before he saw them.

“Ah, now.”

“Sorry.” She waved a hand. “We’re all having a rough day. I was mad, just mad, for most of it. Then I sat down here, and…” She shrugged, waved again.

He didn’t need gumption to sit beside her. He’d only needed the tears. “I had a dog run over about five years ago. Hadn’t had him long either. Just a few months. I cried like a baby right on the side of the road.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and just sat with her, watching the tiger.

“I didn’t want to see Lil again until I settled down. She doesn’t need me crying on her shoulder.”

“Mine’s right here.”

Though he’d offered, sincerely, in the spirit of friendship, his heart took that extra beat again when she tipped her head to his shoulder.

“I saw Lil.” He spoke quickly now before his mind went blank with the thrill. “She said to tell you she’s closing a little early, sending everybody on.”

“She shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’m staying tonight. I’ll bunk in the second cabin.”

“Good. That’s good. I’ll feel better knowing that. It’s nice of you, Farley, to-”

She tipped her face up and his tipped over. And in that moment, lost in her eyes, the comfort became an embrace. “Holy God, Tansy,” he managed, and pressed his mouth to hers.

Soft. Sweet. He thought she tasted like warm cherries, and now that he was close enough he could smell her skin, and that had warm in it, too.

He thought a man would never be cold, not a day in his life, if he could kiss her.

She leaned into him, he felt her come in. It made him feel strong and sure.

Then she pulled away, fast. “Farley, this isn’t-We can’t do this.”

“Didn’t mean to. Not just that way.” He couldn’t help himself and stroked a hand over her hair. “I didn’t mean to take advantage of the situation.”

“It’s all right. It’s fine.”

Her voice was jumpy, and her eyes were wide. It made him smile. “It was fine. I’ve been thinking about kissing you for so long I can’t remember how long it is. Now I guess I’ll be thinking about kissing you again.”

“Well, don’t.” Her voice jumped again, as if he’d poked her with a stick. “You can’t. We can’t.”

She got to her feet. So did he, but more slowly. “I think you like me.”

She flushed-God that was pretty-and started twisting the buttons on her coat. “Of course I like you.”

“What I mean to say is, I think you think about kissing me sometimes, too. I’ve got a powerful yen for you, Tansy. Maybe you don’t have the same, but I think you’ve got a little one any way.”

She pulled her coat together, still twisting at buttons. “I’m not… that isn’t…”

“It’s about the first time I’ve seen you all flustered up. Maybe I should kiss you again.”

The button-twisting hand slapped right out onto his chest. “We’re not going to do this. You have to accept that. You should be looking at-having a yen for-girls your own age.”

His smile widened. “You didn’t say you didn’t have one for me. What we need to do is for me to take you out to dinner. Dancing maybe. Do this proper.”

“We’re not doing anything.”

She got a line between her eyebrows-he’d liked to have kissed it-and her voice firmed up. He just kept smiling.

“I mean it.” Exasperated now, she pointed the index fingers of both hands at him. “I’m going to check in with Lil, then I’m going home. And-Oh, wipe that stupid smile off your face.”

She spun around, stalked away.

Her temper turned his smile into a mile-wide grin.

He’d kissed Tansy Spurge, he thought. And before she’d gotten her dander up, she’d kissed him right back.

LIL TOOK THREE extra-strength Tylenol for the stress headache and topped it off with a long, blistering shower. Dressed in flannels, thick socks, and a comfortably tattered University of North Dakota sweatshirt, she added logs to the flames in her compact fireplace.

Heat, she thought. She couldn’t seem to get enough of it. She kept the lights blazing, too. She wasn’t ready for the dark yet. She gave some thought to food, but couldn’t work up the energy or the appetite.

She’d called her parents, so that was crossed off the list. She’d reassured them, promised to lock her doors, and reminded them she had a refuge loaded with early warning signals.

She’d work. She had articles to write, grant proposals to complete. No, she’d do laundry. No point in letting it pile up.

Maybe she should upload her photos. Or check the webcams.

Or, or, or.

She paced like a cat in a cage.

The sound of the truck had her pivoting toward the door. The staff had been gone nearly two hours now, and Mary would have locked the gate across the access road behind her. They all had keys, but… given the circumstances, wouldn’t whoever might have forgotten something, wanted something, needed something have called first to alert her?

Baby gave a warning cry, and in the big-cat area, the old lioness roared. Lil grabbed her rifle. Farley beat her outside by a step.

In contrast to her thudding heart, his voice was calm as a spring breeze. “Why don’t you go on back inside, Lil, while I see who… Okay.” He shifted the shotgun he’d carried out, angled the barrel down. “That’s Coop’s rig.”

Farley lifted a hand in greeting as the truck eased to a stop, and Coop climbed out.

“This is a hell of a welcoming committee.” Coop glanced at the guns, then over to where the animals let the newcomer know they were on alert.

“They set up a ruckus,” Farley commented. “Sure is something hearing those big jungle cats carry on, isn’t it? Well.” He gave Coop a nod. “I’ll be seeing you.”

“How did you get in the gate?” Lil demanded when Farley had slipped back inside.

“Your father gave me his key. Lot of keys floating around, from what I understand. A lock’s not much good if everybody’s got a key.”

“Staff members have keys.” She knew her voice lashed out in defense because she’d been frightened. Really frightened for a moment. “Otherwise somebody’d have to open it every damn morning before anybody else could get in. You should’ve called. If you came by to check on me, I could’ve told you and saved you the trip.”

“It’s not that long a trip.” He stepped up on the porch, handed her a covered dish. “My grandmother sent it. Chicken and dumplings.” He picked up the rifle she’d leaned against the rail and walked into the cabin without invitation.

Setting her teeth, Lil went in behind him. “It was nice of her to trouble, and I appreciate you bringing it by, but-”

“Jesus, Lil, it’s like a furnace in here.”

“I was cold.” It was warmer than it needed to be now, but it was her damn house. “Hey look, there’s no need for you to stay,” she began as he stripped off his coat. “I’m covered here, as you can plainly see. It’s been a long day for both of us.”

“Yeah. And I’m hungry.” He took the dish back from her, then strolled toward the back of the cabin to her kitchen.

She hissed under her breath, but hospitality had been ingrained since childhood. Visitors, even unwelcome ones, were to be given food and drink.

He’d already turned on her oven, and he stuck the dish inside as she came in. As if, she thought, she were the guest.

“It’s still warm. Won’t take long to heat it through. Got a beer?”

And visitors, she thought resentfully, should wait to be offered food and drink. She yanked open the refrigerator, pulled out two bottles of Coors.

Coop twisted off the cap, handed it to her. “Nice place.” He leaned back, enjoying the first cold sip as he took a quick survey. Though the kitchen was compact, there were plenty of glass-fronted cabinets and open shelves, a good section of slate-colored counter. A little table tucked in the corner in front of a built-in bench provided eating space.

“You do any cooking?”

“When I want to eat.”

He nodded. “That’s about how it is for me. The kitchen in the bunkhouse’ll be about this size when it’s done.”

“What are you doing here, Cooper?”

“Having a beer. In about twenty minutes, I’ll be having a bowl of chicken and dumplings.”

“Don’t be thick.”

Watching her, he lifted his beer. “There’s two things. Maybe it’s three. After what happened today I wanted to see how you were, and how you were set up here. Next, Joe asked me to look out for you, and I told him I would.”

“For God’s sake.”

“I told him I would,” Coop repeated, “so we’ll both have to deal with that. Last-maybe last-you might think because of the way things turned out with us, you don’t matter. You’d be wrong.”

“The way things turned out isn’t the point. It’s the way things are.” That, she thought, was essential to remember. “If thinking you’re looking out for me eases my parents’ minds, that’s fine, that’s good. But I don’t need you looking out for me. That rifle out there’s loaded, and I know how to use it.”

“Ever aimed a gun at a man?”

“Not so far. Have you?”

“It’s a different matter when you have,” he said by way of answer. “It’s a different matter than that when you know you can pull the trigger. You’re in trouble, Lil.”

“What happened today doesn’t mean-”

“He’d been back to the campsite while we were up with the cougar. He used a knife on the tents, tossed some of the gear in the stream.”

She took a breath, long and slow, so fear didn’t get through again. “Nobody told me.”

“I said I would. He dug out the shirt you’d had on the day before and smeared blood on it. That’s personal.”

Her legs jellied on her, so she stepped back, lowered to the bench. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t have to. We’re going to sit here, eat some of Lucy’s famous chicken and dumplings. I’m going to ask you questions and you’re going to answer them.”

“Why isn’t Willy asking me questions?”

“He will. But I’ll be asking them tonight. Where’s the French guy?”

“Who?” Struggling to take it in, she scooped the fingers of both hands through her hair. “Jean-Paul? He’s… in India. I think. Why?”

“Any trouble between the two of you?”

She stared at him. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t asking out of personal interest, but as a kind of de facto cop. “If you’re fishing around, thinking Jean-Paul had anything to do with this, you need to cut bait. He’d never kill a caged animal, and he’d never do anything to hurt me. He’s a good man, and he loves me. Or did.”

“Did?”

“We’re not together anymore.” Reminding herself it wasn’t personal, she pressed her fingers to her eyes. “We haven’t been since right before I left for South America. It wasn’t acrimonious, and he’s in India, on assignment.”

“All right.” It was easy enough to verify. “Is there anyone else? Someone you’re involved with, or who wants to be involved?”

“I’m not sleeping with anyone,” she said flatly, “and no one’s made any moves on me. I don’t see why this is about me, personally.”

“Your camera, your cougar, your shirt.”

“The camera is refuge property, the cougar wasn’t mine. She wasn’t anyone’s but herself. And the shirt could’ve been yours just as easily.”

“But it wasn’t. Have you pissed off anyone lately?”

She angled her head, raised her eyebrows. “Only you.”

“I’ve got a solid alibi.” He turned, got bowls down.

It annoyed her, the way he took over, the way he made himself at home. So she sat where she was and let him hunt for hot pads, for spoons. He didn’t seem annoyed, she realized. He just found what he needed then went about the business of getting the meal in bowls.

“You had to go through some red tape to put this place together,” he continued. “Licenses, zoning.”

“Paperwork, politicking, paying fees. I had the land, thanks to my father, and was able to buy a little more after we were set up.”

“Not everybody wanted you to succeed. Who bucked you?”

“There was some resistance on every level, local, county, state. But I’d done all the research. I’d been laying the groundwork for years. I spoke at town meetings, went to Rapid City, and into Pierre. I spoke to National Park reps and rangers. I know how to glad-hand when I have to, and I’m good at it.”

“No doubt.” He set the bowls on the table, joined her on the bench. “But-”

“We had to deal with people who worried about one of the exotic cats getting loose, and diseases. We allayed that by letting people come in, watch the process when we were laying it out, building it. And we gave them a chance to ask questions. We work with the schools and with 4-H, with other youth groups, and offer educational programs, on-site and on the Internet. We offer incentives. It works.”

“Not arguing. But?”

She sighed. “There are always some, and you have extremes on both sides. People who think an animal is either domesticated or prey. And people who think of animals in the wild as gods. Untouchable. That it’s wrong to interfere with what they see as the natural order.”

“Star Trek’s prime directive.”

He got a smile out of her for the first time that evening. “Yeah, in a way. Some who see a zoo as a prison rather than a habitat. And some are. I’ve seen terrible conditions. Animals living in filth, with disease, and horribly mistreated. But most are run well, with very strong protocols. We’re a refuge, and a refuge must be just that. A safe place. And that means the people who run it are responsible for the health and well-being of the animals in it-and are responsible for their safety and the safety of the community.”

“You get threats?”

“We report, and keep a file, on the more extreme letters and e-mails. We screen the website. And yeah, we’ve had a few incidents here over the years with people who came to start trouble.”

“Which you documented?”

“Yes.”

“You can get me a copy of the file then.”

“What is this, Coop, a busman’s holiday?”

He turned his head until their eyes met. “I caged that cougar, too.”

She nodded, poked at a dumpling. “You were right about the gun. It looks like it was a thirty-two. And I didn’t think that much of it at the time, but Matt-our vet-he said he thought somebody was on the property one night while I was in Peru, when he bunked here. Someone always stays on-site through the night, so while I was gone, they switched off. The animals got riled up, middle of the night. He came out to check, but he didn’t see anything.”

“When was this?”

“A couple nights before I got back. It could’ve been an animal, and probably was. The fencing is primarily to keep our animals contained, but it also keeps other animals out. They can be a source of contamination, so we’re careful.”

“Okay, but they’d be around other animals in the wild so-”

“They’re not in the wild,” she said shortly. “We re-create, but they’re enclosed. We’ve changed their environment. Other animals-birds, rodents, insects-all potentially carry parasites or disease. It’s why all the food is so carefully processed before feeding, why we clean and disinfect the enclosures, why we do regular physical exams, take samples routinely. Vaccinate, treat, add nutrients to their diet. They’re not in the wild,” she repeated. “And that makes us responsible for them, in every way.”

“All right.” He’d thought he’d understood what she was doing here, but saw now he only understood the more obvious pieces. “Did you find anything off the night the vet thought someone-or something-was out there?”

“No. None of the animals, the equipment, the cages were messed with. I looked around, but it had snowed since, and my people had been all over, so there was no real chance of finding tracks or a trail-human or animal.”

“Do you have a list of all your staff, the volunteers?”

“Sure. But it’s not one of ours.”

“Lil, you were gone for six months. Do you know, personally, every volunteer who comes in here to toss raw meat at the cats?”

“We don’t toss-” She broke off, shook her head. “We screen. We use locals as much as we can, and have a volunteer program. Levels,” she explained. “Most of the volunteers do grunt work. Help with the food, the cleaning, shelve supplies. Unless they’ve had some experience, reached the top level, other than the petting zoo, volunteers don’t handle the animals. The exception would be the veterinary assistants, who donate their time and help with exams and surgeries.”

“I’ve seen the kids around here handling them.”

“Interns, not volunteers. We take interns from universities, students who are going into the field. We help train, help teach. They’re here for some hands-on experience.”

“You keep drugs.”

Weary, she rubbed the back of her neck. “Yes. The drugs are in Medical, locked in the drug cabinet. Matt, Mary, Tansy, and I have keys. Even the vet assistants don’t have access to them. Though you’d have to be jonesing pretty hard to want anything in there, we inventory weekly.”

It was enough for now, he thought. She’d had enough for now. “It’s good chicken,” he said, and took another bite.

“It really is.”

“Want another beer?”

“No.”

He rose, poured them both tall glasses of water.

“Were you a good cop?” she asked him.

“I did okay.”

“Why’d you quit? And don’t tell me to mind my own business when you’re trashing around in the middle of mine.”

“I needed a change.” He considered a moment, then decided to tell her. “There was a woman in my squad. Dory. A good cop, a good friend. A friend,” he repeated. “There was never anything between us but that. She was married, for one thing, and for another, there just wasn’t anything like that. But when the marriage went south, her husband decided there was.”

He paused, and when she said nothing, drank, then continued. “We were working a case, and one night after shift we grabbed a meal together to talk it through. I guess he was watching, waiting for his moment. I never felt it coming,” he said quietly. “Never got that hum, and she never let on how bad it was, not even to me.”

“What happened?”

“He came around the corner, firing. She went down so fast, fell against me. Maybe saved my life because of the way she fell back against me. He caught me in the side, barely caught me. In and out.”

“Shot? You were shot?”

“In and out, not much more than a graze.” He didn’t dismiss it. No, he never dismissed it. A few inches the other way, a whole different story. “She was taking me down with her. People were screaming, scattering, diving for cover. The glass shattered. A bullet hit the window of the restaurant.

“I remember what it sounded like, when the bullets were going into her, into the glass. I got to my weapon. I got to it as we were going down, as she was taking me down with her. She was already dead, and he kept putting bullets into her. I put five into him.”

His eyes met Lil’s now, and they were ice blue in color, in expression. She thought: This is the change. More than anything else, this is what marked him.

“I remember every one of them. Two mid-body as I was falling, three more-right hip, leg, abdomen-after I hit the sidewalk. It all took less than thirty seconds. Some asshole recorded it on his cell phone.”

It had seemed so much longer, eons longer. And the jumpy video hadn’t captured the way Dory’s body had jerked against his, or the feel of her blood flooding over his hands.

“He emptied his clip. Two bullets went through the glass, one went into me. The rest, he put into her.”

Coop paused, drank some water. “So I needed a change.”

Her chest was full to aching as she put her hand over his. She could see it, so clearly. Hear it-the shots, the screams, the breaking glass. “Your grandparents don’t know. They never said anything about this, so they don’t know.”

“No. I wasn’t hurt that bad. Treat and release. A few stitches. They didn’t know Dory, so why tell them? It was a good shoot. I didn’t get any trouble over it, not with Dory dead on the sidewalk, all the witnesses, and that asshole’s phone recording. But I couldn’t be a cop anymore, couldn’t work out of the squad, couldn’t do it. Besides”-he shrugged now-“there’s more money in private.”

She’d said that, hadn’t she? Casually, carelessly when she’d seen him again. How she wished she could take it back. “Did you have someone? When it happened, did you have someone there for you?”

“I didn’t want anyone for a while.”

Because she understood, she nodded, said nothing. Then he turned his hand over, laced his fingers with hers. “And when I did, I thought about calling you.”

Her hand flexed, a little jerk of surprise. “You could have.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe, Coop. I’d have listened. I’d’ve come to New York to listen if you’d needed or wanted it.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s why I didn’t call you.”

“How does that make sense?” she wondered.

“There are a lot of contradictions and twists when it comes to you and me, Lil.” He brushed his thumb, lightly, over the inside of her wrist. “I thought about staying here tonight, talking you into bed.”

“You couldn’t.”

“We both know I could.” He tightened his grip on her hand until she looked at him. “Sooner or later, I will. But tonight, the timing’s off. Timing counts.”

All her softer feelings hardened. “I’m not here for your convenience, Cooper.”

“There’s nothing convenient about you, Lil.” His free hand snaked up, gripped the back of her neck. And his mouth, hot, desperate, familiar, captured hers.

For the moment he held her, panic, excitement, need fought a short and vicious little war inside her.

“There’s nothing convenient about that,” he muttered when he released her.

He rose, took their empty bowls to the sink.

“Lock up after me,” he ordered, and left her.