“He’s going to be a knight and fight the bad knight,” Jeff said, as if anyone might have forgotten.
Jack ruffled Jeff’s hair. “You’re right. And a knight has to ride a horse.” He mounted Lucy, and Ted reminded him how to balance himself in the saddle so he was riding in harmony with the horse, how to hold the reins, how to signal to her which way he wanted to go, how to signal to make her go, and how to signal her to stop, since it had been a couple of weeks since the first lesson and they hadn’t been at it for very long.
Ted helped the kids on the ponies they always rode—Tippy and Talia—and then the three of them walked their horses around a yard while Dottie sat on a chair and watched them.
“Your kids are doing great,” Ted said. “And after a few lessons, Jack will have this down. Now as to jousting, he’ll need a lot more time in the saddle or he won’t stay in it after the first round.”
Dottie laughed. “He’s our knight even if he’s not jousting.” Unfortunately, the kind of work he did was just as dangerous. But at least he knew how to do it.
Jack had to admit he felt a little foolish being such a newbie at this. He hadn’t taken up any new activities in so long that everything he did was something he’d practiced at for years. So he had to keep telling himself this was his second horse ride ever and if he kept at it, he’d get really good at it. In fact, he was thinking that he wouldn’t mind buying horses for the family, renting out space here at the ranch, and giving the kids the chance to really help raise their own horses. He’d ask Dottie first. Of course, that meant they would have a whole herd of horses at Hal’s ranch once the new baby was old enough to ride.
He smiled at the thought—riding off on picnics, camping out, riding on horse trails, just all kinds of family activities that they could do around riding. But also, they could do things with the others who rode horses, big gatherings. It could be fun.
Someday, he supposed, he’d have to get a knight’s costume to wear at Renaissance fairs when he took the family, and even around here, if the kids wanted to dress up for a ride like that.
Jeff and Trish looked so comfortable on their ponies, he was glad that Ted and the other ranch hands had been so good with teaching them. When Dottie was able to ride again, he would love for the family to do this together.
When Jack and the kids came in from riding, he realized his butt was sore, and he felt a little unsettled as he was walking on the ground. He figured the more he rode the horse, the more used to it he would get. He did love it, and was glad the horses had been raised by cougars and weren’t afraid of the shifter kind.
“Thanks so much for the second lesson. I’ll come back when I can,” Jack said, “and bring the kids.” He wasn’t sure how long it would be before Dottie felt too uncomfortable seated in a chair at the ranch while he and the kids rode.
“You’re on,” Ted said, smiling. “Did great for your second time. You looked much more relaxed.”
Dottie gave Jack and then the kids hugs. “All of you did great, and I can’t wait to go riding with you again. Are you ready to go see Kate?” Dottie was thrilled Jack was so eager to take her to see the doctor and wanted to learn what the sex of the baby was.
“Absolutely.”
They left the kids with Shannon—since Chase was back home from tracking down a stolen car, after finding it, turning the thief in to the local police department—and could now help to protect the kids…just in case. No one was letting their guard down for anything in the event Hellion or the others showed up in town. Not that there was anything that led them to believe he would, but they were still concerned about it because of Jack trying to take them down, and they might go after his family.
As soon as Dottie was lying down on the exam table at the clinic, Kate began doing an ultrasound, frowning as she looked at the monitor. “Omigod.” She listened to the baby’s heartbeat and smiled at Jack and Dottie. “Looks like you’re going to have triplets. I hear three heartbeats. Though sometimes it can be the sound of the mother’s heartbeat too.”
“I can’t believe it,” Dottie said and had her phone out to take a picture of the monitor. She couldn’t wait to tell her aunt, yet she had already been getting psyched to have twins, not triplets.
Dottie and Kate were looking at the ultrasound when they heard a thumping noise on the floor.
Jack had disappeared on the other side of the exam table.
“Jack?” Dottie couldn’t believe he had passed out. He couldn’t have.
Kate hurried around the exam table to check on him. “Are you all right?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said, sounding a little rattled, and when he stood up, he looked pale as a ghost.
Kate smiled at Dottie. “Maybe your Aunt Emily should hold your hand when the triplets are born.”
“Jack’s or mine?” Dottie smiled at her tough-as-claws cougar, who fainted over the sight of seeing their triplets. “You’re all right with having three more kids, correct? Not that you have any choice.”
Kate poured him some water while he sat down. “Uh, yeah. I’m thrilled.” He smiled. “But I’m making that appointment for me right after the kids are born.”
Dottie nodded. “You’d better, or we’ll overpopulate the town with the next batch.”
“Well, congratulations, you two,” Kate said. “The blood test came back. If you had only XX chromosomes in your blood, you’d know you were having three girls. But it detected a Y chromosome, so you have at least one boy. I would say from the look of the fetuses on the monitor, you’re going to have two girls and a boy. We’ll keep monitoring them to see if we can determine for sure.”
“Thanks, Kate,” Jack said, finally getting off the chair and hugging Dottie. “I’m thrilled. Really.”
Shaking her head, Dottie laughed.
Kate smiled and patted him on the arm. “Tracey and Hal are doing fine. You will be too.”
That made Dottie wonder if she was going to have more than triplets, just like Hal and Dottie had.
When they left the clinic, Dottie insisted on driving. “Are you sure you’re ready for triplets?”
Jack rubbed her back. “Is anyone ever ready for triplets?” He chuckled. “Sure, honey. I will be. I must be the luckiest cougar alive.”
She laughed again. “You still look awfully pale. What are we going to do about decorating for three more kids?”
“At least the renovations on the house are well under way.”
In the middle of the night, Jack was still thinking about having triplets and how to accommodate them when Jeff came to the bed and said, “Can I keep the pretty cat?”
Dottie and Jack lifted their heads to see Jeff standing next to his side of the bed, as serious as could be.
Turning on the bedside light, Jack frowned at him. “What’s wrong, son? Are you having a nightmare?”
“A pretty cat came to my window and started meowing, and I let her in. Can I keep her?”
Dottie groaned. “You know what I said about taking in strays.”
“Okay, but you said we could give them to Mrs. Sorenson when people just dump them. Can she stay with me ‘til then?”
“She’ll need a litter box,” Jack said. “Go back to bed. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Thanks, Jack.” Dottie closed her eyes to go back to sleep.
The babies had been kicking and keeping her up at nights, and with Jack being here for the time being, he wanted to do anything to help her get a good night’s sleep. He was glad she wasn’t working now so she could take naps during the day.
Jack threw on some boxer briefs and headed for Jeff’s bedroom. He heard Jeff telling the cat, “Daddy and Mommy said you could stay with me for the night. Daddy’s gonna get you a litter box.”
Jack looked in on Jeff and the cat, guessing it would be a black and white like he had growing up, or maybe a pretty calico. When he saw one beautiful red caracal cat sitting on Jeff’s pillow, her pointy ears perked as her golden eyes watched Jack, his jaw dropped.
br /> He quickly said, “Jeff, go tell your mom we found the caracal cat.”
“What’s that?”
“The kind of cat she is. But she’s a shifter, like us.” Unless there were more of them and this wasn’t the one that Stryker had tranquilized earlier, and then she’d run away.
Jeff ran down the hall yelling, “Mommy, mommy, daddy wants you. We got a caracal cat! Can I keep her now?”
Hoping Jeff didn’t wake Trish, Jack considered the cat. “I’m Jack Barrington, and nobody’s going to hurt you. Yuma Town is a predominately cougar shifter town so our policy is to take care of our shifters and real cougars whenever we can. In fact, I work for the Cougar Special Forces Division that takes care of the rogues and protects the innocent.” Then he thought the cat could be a rogue herself. What did he know?
Dottie hurried into the room dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She also had brought some other clothes for the cat to wear. “You can shift and wear these and tell us about yourself. I’m Dottie and that’s Jeff, our son. His twin sister is Trish and sound asleep. You’re welcome to stay with us. We’ll just wait outside Jeff’s bedroom so you can shift and dress.”
Then Dottie and Jack took Jeff out of the room and shut the door.
“But I liked her as a cat,” Jeff said.
“We need to know why she’s here.” Jack was afraid she’d slip out the window and disappear, if she was the same one who had run away from the clinic. But the fact she had returned to another home in the outlying area made him believe she was attempting to seek their help.
When she opened the door to Jeff’s bedroom, she was wearing Dottie’s light pink sweatpants and shirt, which puddled around her ankles, and she’d had to push up the sleeves because they were so long on her. She was about four-ten, red hair, and golden eyes.
“I’m Carolyn Summers and my family needs to be rescued.”
Dottie put Jeff back to bed while Jack and Carolyn went into the living room where he offered her something to drink. She asked for water.
“You say your family. Which includes?” Jack gave her a bottle of water and sat down in the living room with her.
“My parents and sister. I’m nineteen and escaped captivity. There’s a man who captured us and was looking to sell us as pets. I found your town and nearly everyone smelled like cougars. I couldn’t believe you could be shifters too. Then the deputy sheriff shot me and I was afraid for my family. That they had already been sold off. I couldn’t learn the truth. Can you help me?”
“Yes, of course. We have a couple of agents who look into the exploitation of wild animals. Hal and Tracey Haverton. Tracey is on maternity leave. Those of us in the CSF, and even the local sheriff’s department, can take care of it. I’ll make some calls. Can you identify the location of the place?”
“Yes.”
Holding onto a glass of milk, Dottie joined them in the living room and asked, “Where are you from?”
“Originally we’re from upstate New York. We moved to Breckenridge last year and then when we were on a family run in the woods, we were captured. The people who caught us must have seen us before and were prepared.”
Dottie drank some of her milk. “Are the people responsible humans? Or cougars?”
“Cougars. I wasn’t sure who to trust because of it. What if cougars trafficked caracal or other big cats?”
“Some do. We stop them when we learn about them.” Jack got on the phone to Hal, “Hey, we have a trafficking case we need to resolve, but with your new babies…”
“I’m on it. Just tell me what’s going on.”
At the same time, Dottie had a call on her cell phone to Dan. “The caracal is at our house.” She told him what was happening. When they ended the call, she said, “Dan and Stryker will handle it. They don’t want you leaving us alone, Jack.”
“All right. I agree. Hal’s on his way here now also.”
“Thank you,” Carolyn said.
Twenty minutes later, Dan, Stryker, and Hal were heading out with Carolyn to rescue her family. Jack escorted Dottie back to bed.
“The way the caracal was glaring at Stryker, I was afraid she might bite him,” Jack said. “Probably because he’d tranquilized her before.”
“Yeah, maybe that’ll be the beginning of a new romance.”
Jack laughed.
They’d stripped off their clothes and were just about to climb back in bed when Dottie received a call. She glanced at the caller ID. Chase. She answered the phone. “Yeah, is anything wrong?” At this time of night, she didn’t expect it to be anything really good.
“Stryker locked the caracal in a jail cell and called me in to watch over her while they go to rescue her family. She’s furious and wanted me to call you. I figured you might still be awake or I would have waited until morning.”
“Why in the world would Stryker have put her in jail?” Dottie was furious, and getting ready to dress again.
“What’s going on?” Jack asked, though he had to know who the she was that Dottie was referring to.
“Stryker locked up Carolyn at the jail.”
“He has to have a good reason. Maybe he was afraid she’d be recaptured by the people who have her family.”
“As a human? I don’t think so.”
“Well, you know Stryker better than I do. I wouldn’t think he’d lock up a shifter for no good reason.” Jack rubbed Dottie’s back. “If you want us to pack up the kids and take them over there and talk to her, we can. But I don’t want to leave you and the kids here alone, and I don’t want you running into town in the middle of the night by yourself.”
She growled and laid back down. “Let me talk to her, Chase. Sorry, I’m not mad at you.”
When Chase put Carolyn on the phone, Dottie asked, “Why did Stryker lock you up?”
“How should I know?” Carolyn sounded irritated.
Dottie envisioned Carolyn was pacing like a caged big cat from her faster-paced breathing and heartbeat.
“Is it for your protection?”
The girl snorted. “As a human? Get real. As a cat? For that deputy sheriff’s protection, maybe.”
Dottie smiled. She could understand how she felt. Dottie would have felt the same way if Stryker had shot her with a tranquilizer dart. “Why did you leap at Stryker when you were in the tree at Mrs. Sorenson’s house? If you hadn’t, he wouldn’t have tranquilized you.”
“He was going for his rifle. I thought I could knock him down before he used it on me. I was wrong. I thought maybe he was in league with the men who have my family. What do I know?”
“Why did you run off from the clinic? Why not ask someone for help then?”
“After I was shot? Are you kidding? I thought maybe I could rescue my family on my own. But I couldn’t. Okay? So I came back for help.”
“Why my house? Why not Mrs. Sorenson’s?”
“She called the police on me. Well, so did you.”
“To help you. I didn’t think Stryker was going to lock you up in a jail cell. You could have stayed here with us.”
“Well, it was the sheriff’s idea. Though Stryker didn’t object to it.” Carolyn stopped pacing. “Maybe Stryker looked a little guilty about it, like he thought he should try to talk Dan out of it. Then Dan called Chase and said he had someone he needed him to watch in the jailhouse. He didn’t say I was innocent and needed protection!”
“All right. I’m sure once they find your family, everything will be put to right. How far away was the location of the home where your family is?”
“An hour and half away by car. A lot longer running as a cat. Okay, well, if no one’s going to let me out of here, I’m going to sleep.”
“I’m so sorry. We’ll be there first thing in the morning to make sure you’re released. When they free your family, you should be out even before that. I hope you will stay with us.”
“Thanks. Your little boy is nice.”
When Dottie and Carolyn ended the call, Dottie lay in Jack’s arms for a while
, unable to sleep. Then she had the notion that Bridget might be able to “see” what Carolyn knew. Bridget had one of those unique abilities that she didn’t talk to many people about. Bridget was careful not to read people’s thoughts unless she couldn’t help it, and if they needed her to aid them in an ongoing investigation and the perp wouldn’t talk. She would question the person, and then he would think of the answer, but wouldn’t speak, and they’d have the truth anyway.
If Bridget could do that with Carolyn, she could prove the girl had nothing to hide.
Dottie moved off Jack to grab her phone, then settled against him again. He rubbed her arm, being supportive and not annoyed with her for not just going to sleep.
“Bridget, I’m so sorry for calling you at this hour.” Dottie explained to her what had happened and asked if she would mind going to the jail and speaking with Carolyn. Since Bridget was a CSF agent also, she’d know what kinds of questions to ask her to get to the truth of the matter.
“Oh, of course. Absolutely. If her family is being held in captivity, I would hope Dan, Hal, and Stryker are able to free them. If something else is going on, hopefully, I’ll be able to learn of it.”
“Me too. Thanks, Bridget.”
Jack sighed as Dottie put the phone back on the bedside table. “Do you want to go over there?” he asked.
Yes, she did. She just hated that they’d locked up Carolyn. Even if they had thought it was for her own good. But Dottie didn’t want to make the kids get up, and she knew Jack wasn’t going to let her go by herself or have her stay there by herself while he went to check out the situation at the jail.
“Yes, and no. I just need to get another glass of milk to see if it will help me sleep.”
“I’ll get it for you.”
She loved how considerate he was and she settled back against the pillow. Half an hour had passed since the sheriff and the others had left for the place where Carolyn said her family was being held captive, so they still had another hour to go. She prayed they’d be able to free them without them getting hurt.
All of a sudden, Dottie heard Jack running down the hall. She quickly climbed out of bed and was already getting dressed—again.