LITMIR.BIZ

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quilt, her mind racing as fast as her heart. Someone—or something—prowled downstairs. She eyed her window and the black night beyond it, pine branches tracing the panes like fingers. If she opened the sash and screamed, who would help?

      Her nearest neighbors lived fifteen miles down her Adirondack Mountains road and were on vacation to boot. Emergency services? She’d be a headline before they fired up their engines. Besides, the only phone in her two-hundred-year-old farmhouse was downstairs, and cell service didn’t exist this far off the grid. Why hadn’t the intruder tripped her home alarm?

      Was her mind playing tricks? Mistaking her old dog’s after-hours trip to the water bowl for something more ominous? He usually slept like the dead, though, so it seemed unlikely... There was only one way to find out. She wouldn’t cower in fear that her life might be in danger.

      Not again.

      With a clattering bang, she swung her feet over the side of her bed where they dangled, frozen. She had to move. Do something. Stop whatever darkness crawled her way. Her eyes slid to her nightstand drawer. Pepper spray. Maggie, her business partner, had gifted it to her at her housewarming party three years ago. She sent her friend a silent thank-you as she snatched the canister.

      On quaking legs, she crept down her staircase. Careful, she warned herself and skipped over the creaky fifth step. Surprise. Her best weapon and only defense. She forced herself off the last tread and peered at the canister rattling in her hand. How much help would it be? Nightmarish scenarios looped through her mind. She’d never forget that long-ago night and the attack that haunted her still.

      A snuffling noise whispered to her left. The kitchen. She inhaled the cinnamon-scented air, picturing the ten pies she’d baked tonight for The Homestead, her diner. They were up high, cooling on open cabinet shelves beyond her yellow Lab’s reach. No. Scooter wouldn’t be after those. Then—what?

      Courage starched her spine. She needed those desserts. Loggers returned from their runs tomorrow. Hungry for a taste of home, they’d want pie. Hers.

      But the phone rested on a distant end table in her living room... Where to go first?

      A hard thunk convinced her, as did the spring breeze that fluttered her kitchen curtains and curled around her throat like an accusation. Fatigue had made her sloppy. She should have closed the window before bed. She squared her shoulders, leaped through the archway and flicked on the light, her pepper spray extended on a shaking arm.

      Her eyes darted around the space, frustration washing through her when she surveyed her mostly decimated pies. Many were overturned, nearly empty or dumped on the floor, oozing into the cracked boards. Pie crust bits coated surfaces like dust.

      “Darn it!” she exclaimed and advanced into the room, agitation temporarily overriding her fear. Hours of work down the drain. She eyed her half-open window. Whoever or whatever it was had to have squeezed through that.

      She reached up and unhooked a skillet from her pot rack. There was no prowler in sight but the pantry door was ajar. Maybe her trespasser lurked there. Hiding. Sweat beaded her forehead; cold shuddered through her. She forced herself onward. No backing down. The pan handle slipped in her sweating palm, and she grabbed it before jumping into the dim entranceway.

      “Stay where you are!”

      She stepped forward, then remembered the dangling chain in the middle of the deep, dim pantry. Nerves vacuumed her mouth dry. She slashed the air with her pot, her unsteady legs carrying her forward. Just as her fingertips brushed the metal links, a furry body swept by her calves and jetted into the kitchen, snorting.

      “What the—?” A wild animal!

      She pivoted, heart thumping. Where was Scooter when she needed him? She peered through the archway into the living room and glimpsed her ancient, snoozing Labrador. He was too far away to assist in her catch and release, especially now that he’d lost his hearing and slept heavily.

      Shivers danced along her spine. What if it was a skunk? Or a porcupine? If Scooter woke and went after it, he’d take a mouthful of quills.

      As for the creature, it skittered beneath her table, a dark thing the size of a microwave. What was it? A raccoon? Fisher? Woodchuck? Living in the wilderness made for a long list of suspects.

      She crouched and slid back a seat. With her skillet shielding her face, she braced herself for an odorous spray. A high-pitched yip sounded instead.

      The pan dipped and a pair of fearful, velvety-black eyes met hers. Dark fur puffed around a tiny triangular face, the petite snout ending in a quivering black nose.

      A bear cub.

      Her muscles loosened, her insides melting. Oh. Adorable. And frightened, despite the “terrifying” noises it emitted to scare her off. Poor thing. After eating half a pound of sweets, it should be in a sugar coma by now.

      Instead, the bear cowered against the chair legs, pawing at the air. Where was its mother? The thought cooled her warm rush of affection. An angry black bear could be roaming her property. An adult—worse, a mother searching for her child. Reuniting them personally, in the dead of night, would be suicide. But other threats skulked in the surrounding forest. If she simply tossed the cub out, it might get killed before finding its mom.

      She gnawed a cuticle, vacillating.

      From the living room, Scooter’s breathing deepened into a full-on snore. No threat to the baby animal there. She could chase it back to the pantry, lock it in, then put it outside in the morning once she called 911 and got an officer’s approval. Watch for a parent to lumber along and claim it... Yes. The best compromise. Now, to grab the cub.

      “Stay still little guy. I won’t hurt you,” she crooned.

      When she stretched for it, her fingers grazed its silky pelt before the bear raced across the room. It wriggled behind her recycling bin and got stuck, its protruding rump shaking. She grinned. Despite her ruined desserts, who could stay mad at such a cute little bum?

      She stole across the sticky floor. When she pulled back the plastic bin, the cub barked, then bolted for a towel-drying rack in an opposite corner, squirming on its belly to hide. A whimper rose from behind the straw and her heart broke.

      How scared it must be. Motherless, hungry and now chased by a human. No living thing should feel such terror. She fingered the scar that snaked across her throat.

      Maybe if she stayed still, lay down and left out one of the demolished pies, it might come out. Either way, hounding it didn’t work. She’d only terrify it more and risk waking Scooter. A yawn escaped her. First she’d clean up the mess, late as it was. She sighed. Would her ant crusade ever end?

      She kept an eye on the black snout poking from behind her laden towel rack while she wiped the table, mopped her floor and rinsed out the pans. At least five pies had escaped the little marauder, including her diner’s specialty—raisin. She shot a glare in the cub’s direction, then softened at the sight of its nose, now resting on the floor, flanked by two paws. How had one minuscule creature created such havoc?

      At least she had enough pie for the morning and lunch rushes. The rest she’d make at the diner while Maggie ran the front counter alongside the waitresses. Inconvenient, but doable. Once she got her little fur ball squared away, life would return to normal—relatively speaking. For a restaurant owner, that meant controlled chaos. She draped a wet dishrag over her faucet, closed her window and pulled off her rooster-patterned apron.

      After untying a couple of seat covers, she made them into a makeshift pillow and stretched against the wall. She thought of Jinx outside on her cat prowl. Hopefully she knew enough to steer clear of a mother bear circling the property.

      Vivie listened to the scratch of claws against the floor. A round eye, shiny as a brown button, peeked around a towel on the bottom rack. Holding still, she watched it roam around the room then alight on her. Her breath hitched. Friend or foe? She willed it to know she was the former.

      “Come on, little one. Come out,” she crooned. A frustrated breath escaped her

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