He waited where he was, holding onto a spruce sapling, hoping for good news about the phone, not expecting any when he didn’t hear her shout that she got it!
When she ran down to him with the phone in her mouth, shook her head, and waited for him to retrieve the phone, he took it from her mouth and shoved it in his pocket. She raced back down to the road and he made his way more carefully to join her. She shifted when he made it to the road and said simply, “The battery’s dead.”
“Hell.”
“Yeah, exactly. But right before it went out, it looked like there were no bars anyway.”
“Okay. Let’s head back down,” he said, stripping already. “We’ll have to rethink our situation.”
* * *
Hal dropped by the clinic to pick up Kate’s keys from her nurse Elsie and headed on over to Kate’s house, assuring Elsie nothing was wrong. Just Ricky being worried. If Elsie hadn’t had a patient she was seeing to, he was sure she would have given him the third degree, but he had a million errands to run, so he just needed to do this quickly and let Ricky and his mate know everything was fine. He’d tried calling Kate’s cell phone first thing before he’d even hit the road, and there had been no answer, but he knew that in the mountains reception could be spotty.
He unlocked her back door and called out, “Kate? Just me, Hal, checking to see if you’re okay.” Which seemed foolish because he knew she was gone, but he had to alert her anyway just in case she was at home. An unfamiliar male cougar scent instantly got his attention. And then a hint of the smell of blood.
His heartbeat accelerating and his adrenaline soaring, he pulled his gun out and began checking every room. He found her bed was unmade and the smell of the man clung to the mattress. But he and Kate hadn’t had sex.
Hal frowned, not knowing what to think, but he wondered if she had a male friend she’d been keeping secret, or someone who she’d known before she moved to Yuma Town, he met up with her at the clinic, and they became reacquainted again.
But the blood…
He went into the bathroom and smelled the man had been in there too, used a towel also.
Hal headed for the garage and poked his head in. Her car was gone. Just like it should be if she had gone on her trip as she’d planned.
He sniffed the air in there, the same male scent. He had to have gone with her.
Hal whipped his phone off his belt and started checking her kitchen trash. “Hey, Dan, what did Kate say to you last night again, about returning to her house and staying the night, and how did she say it, exactly? And do you know which camping areas she was staying at?”
* * *
When Leyton and Kate finally made it to the bottom of the ravine, she hurried to shift and pull off the backpack so he could shift. Then she jerked her clothes out of her bag and began yanking them on.
Leyton shifted, then pulled her into his arms. “It’s all right, Kate. I don’t know how many times the GPS has led me on a wild cougar chase in the wrong direction, taken me down streets I didn’t need to go on, and misdirected me to the wrong town completely one time. It happens.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “It’s time to do this your way.”
“I don’t think I can manage a travois up the cliff.”
“We’ll wait another day to rest since we’ve shot part of today. We can start out first thing tomorrow morning. Give the fire signal a chance today, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll hike out of here. That’ll give us another day to rest our injuries, if we quit climbing and running all over the place.”
“Okay. So we’ll have to figure out what we can take up the mountain.”
“We can drag a deer into a tree as a cougar. We’re strong enough. Maybe we should just try to drag our backpacks up that way.”
“We can give it a shot.”
“I’m so sorry. If it hadn’t been my stupid idea to try to make up for lost time—“
He rubbed her back. “We would have been all right. We would have turned around and lost time that way, but the bears were the ones that caused the accident, not you. We’ll be fine.” He lifted her chin when she wouldn’t meet his gaze, sensing how disheartened and frustrated she was, and leaned down and kissed her, just sweet and unassuming. Not that he didn’t want more, but they had their work cut out for them and they really needed to get to it and then rest. She seemed to feel as reluctant about pulling away from him as he did with her. But business first.
They spent the day figuring out what they were going to take with them, building the fires and making an SOS pile of rocks to direct aircraft to the accident site. They’d leave a note saying which direction they’d gone in too, and that they were fine.
Late that afternoon, exhausted, they settled in the tent to nap some before it was a little darker and they could light the fires and cook supper.
He only meant to rub her back muscles to massage the ache out of the muscle strain, her purring making him smile. But when she turned slowly onto her back, she pulled him down for a kiss. Not hard, because he imagined the strain of doing so would have hurt, but coaxing, encouraging, enticing.
He wasn’t sure what she had in mind when he leaned in for a kiss, but she tightened her hold on his arms, drawing him in, and he kissed her slow and deep, the melding of their lips making his blood hot with desire. Every time he got close like this, every time they kissed, he wanted more. He cupped a breast, his hand molding to the shirt and bra covering it, massaging, feeling the nipple tighten and protrude through the fabrics, her heartbeat accelerating, her breathing becoming unsteady.
He continued to kiss her, felt her hands sliding underneath his T-shirt, her warm, soft fingertips caressing his back in a gentle caress. He pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside, then carefully pulled off hers. He massaged her breasts through the pale blue bra, loving the feel of her nipples pressing against the lace. He slid his hands behind her back and fumbled with the hooks until it was undone. He ran his hands under the unfastened bra to have maximum contact with her breasts, his hands covered in the lace for a moment as he massaged and caressed, her nipples taut and peaked against his palms.
When she leaned forward a little to unfasten his belt. He quickly removed his boots and socks, and hers, then his pants. He wasn’t sure if she just wanted to fool around a bit, or fool around a lot, so he wasn’t about to presume anything, but let her go at her own pace.
But the bra had to go. And then he was kissing her mouth-watering breasts, unable to stop himself from licking and tasting and suckling one, while kneading the other. She was so desirable and he couldn’t resist her allure.
He breathed in her kitty-cat pheromones coming to bear, tantalizing his own. The musky heat of their bodies mixed. He unfastened her jeans and carefully pulled them off, then tossed them aside.
Better. He rubbed his stiff cock still clothed in his briefs against her panty-covered mound, wanting to be inside her, thrusting, claiming the cat for his own. But for now, he was kissing her again, rubbing against her like a cat would, showing affection and rubbing his scent over like he was taking her scent with him. He was kissing her again, breathing hard, wanting more when she reached down and tugged at his briefs. When she pulled at them, he was sure she wanted to go all the way, but he still wouldn’t assume it and let her guide their actions.
He slid his hand down her abdomen, loving the soft feel of her skin and belly. Lower still, until he pulled off her panties, and then ditched his briefs. Darkened with interest, her eyes were drawn to his erection. He moved his hand between her legs, spreading her for him, then dipped a finger in, feeling the wetness, the need, and began to stroke her.
He caressed the swollen flesh, his mouth fusing with hers again, wanting this, needing this. She purred and moaned, arching, caught up in the sensation as the late afternoon sounds of nature—the water in the creek rushing on by, the birds twittering and singing, the bugs buzzing and chirping—all faded into the background as he was lost in the feel of her and her respon
ses to his touch.
Her breathing grew labored as she concentrated on his ministrations, but as soon as he probed her parted lips with his tongue, she sucked him right in, devouring him, her hands holding his shoulders, her dark eyes closing.
Then she arched under his strokes and cried out, sinking against the sleeping bag. He was so ready for her, his raw need hungering for her.
“I want you,” she whispered and pulled him closer. “No worries.”
He took that to mean she was protected because he sure didn’t have anything with him for protection.
She licked his ear, then nibbled on it.
He pushed her legs further apart with his knee and centered himself before he guided his cock into her, slowly until he was all the way in. Her wet heat surrounded him, warmed him as he began to thrust.
He slid his mouth over her skin, caressing, enjoying the satiny feel as he continued to thrust into her. Despite his injury, he didn’t feel the pain, everything centered on the intimate act between them.
He felt the end coming, held onto the last vestiges of his sanity and released with a growl. She smiled a little up at him and pulled him down to embrace him. He basked in the sensual state of bliss as she ran her hand over his skin. Then he pulled the sleeping bag over them and moved over so she could lay against him, getting comfortable, and then he began to gently rub her back again, hoping he hadn’t caused her any more pain.
She melted against him, her soft body hot and perfect, and purred.
He hoped she didn’t regret this in the morning, the thought briefly worrying him that she had been his hostage and he had influenced the outcome and not in a good way. He should never have done this with her, unless he had been dating her for a while, and then… well, hell.
9
“Okay, what do we have?” Dan asked his gathered group of deputies, Stryker Hill, his full-time deputy, Chase Buchanan and Hal, his part-time deputies. All of them had been combing through Kate’s house, looking for signs anything was amiss, other than the smell of blood in the house and that a man’s cougar scent was all over the place.
“Scrub pants from the clinic, no matching shirt.” Stryker set it on the dining table with the other evidence they’d gathered. “It’s been freshly washed, folded in a drawer, but it isn’t Kate’s. Elsie wears these.”
Hal motioned to Kate’s lab coat. “Kate’s lab coat with pale blood stains still visible on it in places, also newly washed and hanging in her closet. She always leaves her lab coats at the clinic. They have a wash machine they use to clean sheets and the like at the clinic, no need to bring it here to wash. And gauze pads, washed and tucked in the pocket of her lab coat, when normally if they had been used, they’d be thrown away. Why would they be in her lab coat pocket? No blood is visible to the naked eye, but I imagine if forensics did a test, trace evidence would be found.”
“We need to see if we can pick up the DNA from the blood and run it,” Dan said. “Anything amiss at the clinic?”
“The cleaning staff said the wastepaper basket had been emptied,” Chase said.
Had Kate tried to leave them clues? Damn, now Dan wished he had checked on her in person that night and not relied on a phone call to ensure everything was okay. He’d gone over their conversation a million times in his mind once Hal had called saying he smelled an unknown male cougar’s scent and blood in the house. “How would the cleaning staff know that?”
“Kate had replaced the wastepaper bag, and she did it really sloppy like, not neat like she would have if she’d needed to do it. Which she wouldn’t have because they’d emptied it after the clinic was closed,” Chase said.
“Anything else?” Dan asked, figuring the man had watched her every move, and she hadn’t been able to leave any other clues behind.
“We can’t get hold of her on her cell,” Chase said. “I have Dottie on it, but she’s tried for an hour, intermittently calling, and no response.”
“Credit card checks?” Dan asked.
“Still running them down.” Stryker folded his arms. “She wasn’t seeing anyone steadily. I asked all the ladies in case she had talked to one of them about him. Except for the last guy she was dating four years ago, before she came here, she hasn’t seen anyone else.”
“I want to know his whereabouts, ASAP,” Dan said. “Hal, you said you’d check the campsites?”
“The first she was supposed to go to was a tent site. It’s first come, first serve. She hasn’t checked in.”
“Hotels on the trip there?”
“We’ll know when the credit card—“ Stryker held up a finger and answered his phone. “Okay, thanks.” He ended the call. “She used the card at a station to fill up for gas, way the hell off her scheduled route.”
“So she never even headed for the campsite,” Dan said, sick with worry for her.
“No, and that was early. Worse? She stopped at a mountaineering shop and bought a bunch of men’s gear. No hotels, no eating places, and no more gas stops. In her vehicle, they could have driven four hours without stopping for gas again.”
“She might have had some cash with her,” Chase said.
Dan hoped they hadn’t traveled much of a distance from there, and they could find them quickly. Unless they’d headed into the mountains and ditched the car. “Yeah. They could have driven all night at that rate. What about her bank account? Any ATM withdrawals?”
“No,” Stryker said.
“Okay, let’s go,” Dan said. “I’ll call the Muellers and they can pick up this evidence and send it to their FBI buddies in forensics to get a faster response as backed up as they are. I’ll alert the state police to let them know we have a missing person.”
“The guy’s a cougar,” Hal reminded Dan.
“Yeah, I know. When we catch up to them, we’ll handle it.” Dan just hoped the hell Kate was safe and the man hadn’t taken her hostage. But he seriously doubted she had gone with him willingly. Not with the way the blood had been washed out of her lab coat and the gauze, and the scrubs that he must have worn had been washed. “He had to have been a cougar when he arrived.”
Chase and the others headed outside with him. “How do you figure that?”
“He was wearing the candy cane scrubs,” Stryker said. “Elsie loves them, but they’re the longest pair in the clinic so the only ones that he might have been able to wear. I suspect he was a cougar, was injured, met up with Kate at the clinic, probably trying to take care of his injuries, and found her napping there.”
Dan agreed. “She said her cat woke her.”
“Yeah,” Hal said. “Sheba’s pretty feisty when it comes to intruders. Probably clawed him up good.”
“She needs a wolf to protect her, not a pretend tiger,” Stryker said.
Everyone raised their brows at him. Wolves had treed Hal and Tracey a while back. Having a wolf “guard-dog” probably wasn’t a good idea for cat shifters.
“Everyone, remain vigilant,” Dan said and then they climbed into their respective cars and headed out.
* * *
Kate snuggled with Leyton and couldn’t believe that they’d had sex. It felt so right, and yet…so wrong. She knew he’d be off to kill the bad guy. She’d be back to her clinic, and she’d never see him again. No regrets, she told herself. She’d wanted this, and wanted him. Had she fallen into the hostage-falls-for-the-captor syndrome? But she hadn’t been a hostage since yesterday when she drove them off the cliff. She could have left whenever she wanted. And she had no plans to report him to the authorities. At every turn, he’d been kind and gentle with her, even when she was his hostage. He’d proved over and over again that he was one of the good guys. He’d just been in a bind, injured, a cougar without resources, and he’d needed her help badly.
“I’ll pay you back, Kate,” he said, kissing her cheek.
She wanted to slug him.
He must have felt her tense and he tightened his hold on her as if he was afraid she was going to pull away. She wasn’t. She was f
eeling so relaxed, except for when he made his annoying comment, that she planned to nap a little and rest her back longer before they got up and watched the signal fires.
“I mean, as far as the clothes go, and everything.”
She tried to pull away from him then. She should have understood his need to make it up to her, that he wasn’t planning to mooch off her, but she couldn’t help feeling like he wanted to clear his accounts with her and clear out for good, when, well, damn it, she wished it could be different. Despite the mess they’d been in, she would never forget stargazing, cuddling with him at the campfire, sleeping in his arms in the sleeping bag, or in the car, or making love.
“I can’t promise—“
“Oh shut up and go to sleep,” she said crossly.
He inhaled deeply and let his breath out, but he pulled her in close again, and snuggled with her until they both fell asleep.
It was dusk when Leyton woke, having loved making love to Kate, but sorry he had annoyed her with his comment about paying her back. No way was he not reimbursing her for all the clothes she’d bought him. But he guessed the timing for mentioning it had been off. He wasn’t sure why it had set her off exactly.
He sighed and slipped off the mattress and grabbed some clothes and headed outside to dress so as not to disturb her. Then he started the signal fires. He’d planned to make them some stew, then they’d retire to bed and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, they were leaving early. They’d have to hike out of here. No one would have a clue that they had taken this road into the wilderness. No one would ever locate them.
His shoulder was sore, and would likely be that way for a couple of more weeks. He was used to toughing it out. He just hoped Kate could manage. He’d thought if they ran out of water, they could leave the road and search for a water source. But that could take them miles out of their way.