LITMIR.BIZ

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But the lane remained empty, and there was still no sign of either child or shaggy white-and-fawn dog as Brooke circled the house and drove across the yard to the barn and the feed storage shed next to it. The place seemed deserted.

      That is, until she turned off the motor and opened the door. Then the noise hit her. Hilda’s frantic barking. And something else. Something that made the hair prickle on the back of her neck: the unmistakable scream of an angry cougar.

      Whispering—whimpering—“OhGodohGodohGod, please, God…no…” under her breath, Brooke tumbled out of the pickup and raced through the open middle of the barn. Out the back and down the lane between the animal pens she ran, not even aware of her feet touching the ground. The cougar’s screaming and Hilda’s barking grew louder as she ran, filling her head, filling her with a fear so terrible, she couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, could barely even see.

      What she did see, as if through the wrong end of a telescope, was Hilda, lunging frantically at the gate to the wire-enclosed compound far down at the end of the lane and barking with frustration at her inability to get past the high chain-link barricade. Brooke felt a momentary surge of relief, followed by an even more desperate fear.

       Lady—thank God! She’s not loose, after all! But—oh, God—where is Daniel? Oh, my God—Daniel!

      Her son was nowhere in sight, but for Hilda to be so upset, he had to be here. Which could only mean one thing. He was inside the cougar’s compound.

      But why? Although she and Daniel had raised the cougar together from a tiny kitten, the boy knew very well Lady wasn’t a pet, that she was a wild predator and could never be trusted. Daniel would never go into her cage. Not alone. He just wouldn’t.

      But he had. She could hear him now, his voice quavering and breathless one moment, firm and commanding the next. And he sounds so very, very young.

      Shouting, sobbing “No—no, Lady—back. Lady—back!”

      Sobbing herself now, Brooke reached the cougar’s enclosure, and gripping the wire with both hands, she stared in disbelief at the scene beyond the fence. Daniel, with his back to her, her child, holding a rake aloft like a battle sword and a folded saddle blanket over his other arm like a shield, facing down a full-grown mountain lion. And the lion, teeth bared, screaming and snarling in fury as she backed slowly toward the door to her holding cage, pausing now to swipe at the air with her claws.

      “Daniel!” His name felt ripped from her throat by forces outside herself.

      He didn’t turn, but she heard his breathless “I’m okay, Mom.”

      At that moment the cougar, for whatever reason—perhaps returned to sanity from whatever terrible place she’d been by the voice of the only mother she’d ever known?—gave one last huffing growl, turned and sprang through the door and into her cage. Daniel scrambled after her to throw the bar across the door. By that time Brooke had opened the gate to the compound and was there to catch him when he turned, sobbing, into her arms.

      But he’d only let himself stay there a moment, of course, being all too mindful of the fact that he was the man in their household now. For the space of a couple of deep, shuddering breaths, he gripped her tightly, arms wrapped around her waist, and allowed her to smooth his sweat-soaked hair with her own shaking hands. Then he let go, stepped back and wiped his face with a quick swipe of a forearm, leaving a smear of mud across one hot red cheek.

      “She didn’t mean to, Mom. I know she didn’t mean to.” His words came rapidly, choked and breathless with his efforts to hold the tears at bay.

      “Daniel, honey, what—” She reached for him, but he took another step back, eluding her, and shook his head with a heartbreaking desperation.

      “She didn’t mean to hurt him. I know she didn’t.”

      “Honey, hurt who? What are you—”

      “It’s Dad.” He grew still, with a calm that was somehow more frightening than the tears. He drew a deep breath and brushed once more at his damp cheeks. “I think he’s dead, Mom.” His eyes moved, looking past her.

      Biting back another question, Brooke instead jerked herself around to follow his gaze and saw what she hadn’t before, when her entire focus had been on her son and the cougar. Saw what looked like a pile of tumbled rags lying a little farther along the base of the chain-link fence.

      She stared at it, shock numbing her mind, paralyzing her body, so that for a moment she didn’t register what she was seeing. Then she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Couldn’t let herself believe. The unthinkable.

      Not rags, but clothing. A man’s clothing—jeans and a tan-colored shirt. With blood on them. Scuffed cowboy boots turned at an odd angle. And a brown Stetson, the kind the sheriff’s deputies wore. She knew that Stetson. She knew those boots.

      She didn’t know how long she stood there, unable to move, unable to think. Then Daniel moved, started toward the body—for that’s what it undeniably was—on the ground, and she reached out and grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back. “No, no, honey. Don’t—” Her voice broke.

      “But what if he needs help? What if he’s—”

      Brooke just shook her head. She simply couldn’t make any more words come out of her mouth.

      Then, from far off in the distance, she heard sirens.

      Daniel heard them, too, and caught a quick breath, his face seeming to brighten with hope. “I called nine-one-one. I bet that’s them. Maybe it’s the paramedics. They’ll help him, won’t they, Mom?”

      Hearing the anguish in her son’s voice, seeing the entreaty in his dark blue eyes, Brooke felt a measure of calm come to take the place of the shock that had kept her frozen and numb. She took her son by his shoulders—small shoulders, a child’s shoulders, too small to bear such a burden—and held him tightly and with a terrible urgency so that he had to look at her. “Daniel, quick, before they get here, tell me what happened. How did this happen? How did he—”

      “I don’t know, Mom.” His eyes grew bright, almost glassy, whether with shock or more tears, Brooke didn’t know. “I got home from school and you weren’t here, so I came in the house and got an ice-cream sandwich out of the freezer, because I was hungry. And then I heard Hilda barking. And she kept barking and barking. And I thought maybe something was wrong, and you weren’t here, so I went out to see, and I brought the cell phone, like you told me.”

      The sirens were louder now, coming along the road, almost to the driveway. She gave Daniel’s shoulders another shake. “Yes, yes, and…”

      “And I saw Dad lying there, inside Lady’s pen. I don’t know how he got in there, Mom, I swear. I didn’t leave the gate unlocked.”

      “Never mind that now. And Lady?”

      “She was there, too, sort of crouched down beside %h; him. She had blood on her—you know, on her paws and stuff. When she saw me, she started snarling and screaming. I never saw her like that before, Mom. I didn’t know what to do, so I called nine-one-one. Then I thought maybe he was—maybe Dad was…you know, still alive. So that’s when I got the rake and started making her get away from him. She didn’t try to attack me or anything, Mom, I swear. It was like she was just really upset. I know she didn’t mean to hurt Dad. She wouldn’t.”

      The last words were shouted above the noise of the sirens, which had risen to a deafening crescendo before dying away to a series of wails as the emergency vehicles—several, by the sound of them—pulled one after another into the yard.

      Brooke gripped Daniel’s shoulders harder. “Listen, don’t say anything. I’ll handle this. Let me handle it, okay?”

      Daniel sniffed and nodded, but his eyes were filled with fear, probably the same fear that was in Brooke’s heart. He put both their fears into words, in a very small voice. “They aren’t going to kill her, are they?

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