Black Hills

  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 counti
ng 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.