Page 9

"You're getting so many cookies when we get home." I gathered up my breakfast sandwich and coffee, doing one last sweep of the salon to make sure everything was shut down and secure, then we left together, locking up behind us.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd spent a Sunday morning at home. Usually I stayed at work until around noon, taking my time going over the receipts and papers from the week. I'd already taken care of the animals, and the house was as clean as it got, thanks to my insomnia, so for the first time in a while, I found myself at loose ends.

Standing on the back porch, I looked over my property while sipping my cooling coffee, making sure everything was secure. The panic and fear were gone, but an oily, sick feeling lingered in my stomach, ruining my appetite for food. I hated what I was doing now, how my eyes automatically went to the motion-lights and security cameras set around the house and all along the yard. I hated that I had them in the first place, but when I'd first bought this place, I couldn't sleep at all until they were installed.

Now, anything bigger than a cat would trip the motion detectors, and I'd get an alert on my phone. It'd taken months for me to get over the immediate panic whenever I got an alert. The chickens had set it off a few times, as had Hash Brown every time he escaped his enclosure. Once, a coyote had slipped into the backyard and triggered it, but the lights that automatically blazed to life scared it away before it could get close to the chicken coop.

Thinking of the coyote, I glanced toward the far end of my land, where I'd seen those golden eyes in the trees. Twice I'd seen them now, which was unusual. If it were a wild animal, it would have left after being seen, right?

Unless it's injured.

The thought pushed into my brain, and I immediately fixated on it.

"It was probably just a coincidence," I muttered. Rom had fallen asleep on the kitchen floor with the kittens climbing on him, so I couldn't even pretend I was talking to him instead of myself. I took another sip of coffee, studying the distant trees, and for a moment, I could have sworn I saw those eyes again.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep making me stupid. Maybe it was just reckless insanity, brought on by the crushing fear that still lived within me or the sick, greasy, lingering feeling that swallowed any survival instincts I had left, smothering them in a fatalistic emptiness.

Or maybe I just didn't have it in me to walk away when I thought an animal might be injured.

Whatever it was driving me forward, I surrendered to it. I sat my coffee cup down and walked off the porch, grabbing my abandoned breakfast as an afterthought.

Don't do this.

If it's a wild animal and it's hurt, you're going to get mauled, at best.

This is stupid. Why are you so stupid?

Aaron's voice again, asking a question I'd heard from him too many times toward the end. It shouldn't have spurred me on. I shouldn't let him have that level of control over me, but even years later, I couldn't shake it.

The trees at the edge of my property line loomed overhead, and my steps faltered for a moment as my common sense tried to reassert itself.

"Hello?" I called out, watching for any hint of movement. Winter had just barely released its hold on Lowery's Crossing, so the branches were still bare and brown, with no foliage yet for anything to hide in. "Is anything there?"

Yes, because an injured cougar is going to respond.

"Shut up," I hissed, this time to the voice in my head. "I sound like a crazy person."

What was I even doing? Standing near the woods, arguing out loud with myself, running on two days with no sleep, all because my ex had spoken to me? I was standing out here, actively looking for a dangerous animal, just because I could still feel his touch on my arm like a burning brand?

"This is ridiculous."

I turned to leave, but before I could take a step, the barren bushes underneath the trees rustled, and I froze in place. A moment of silence, then a stick snapped behind me, closer than the rustling had been. I knew I should be afraid, but even knowing I was likely in very real danger couldn't cut through the choking cloud of depressed apathy weighing me down.

Another sound, closer this time, almost directly behind me. I couldn't place what that sound was. Something dragging on the ground, maybe? It sounded strange, though, like dry paper against the dead winter grass.

I didn't dare move, just waited, holding my breath, staring ahead at nothing while straining my ears to listen.

For endless seconds, the only sound I could hear was the whispering of the wind as it danced through the bare trees and brushed against my cheek as it passed by. I wondered for a moment if I'd just been hearing things, but I didn't walk away. I just waited…and waited…until it wasn't the wind I felt on my face, but the hot breath of something far too large to be any type of wild cat.

A shivery, shaky feeling rattled my spine and some ancient, primordial part of my mind shrieked, warning me that a predator stood at my back, one that could rip me to shreds before I took another breath. That fear finally cut through the depression that had me buried so deep, and a faint tremble shook my body, my breath escaping on a soft gasp.

The creature behind me shifted, and I heard that strange sound again, that odd dragging noise. Rather than move closer and latch onto me, though, something snuffled down my shoulder and my arm, to the hand where I still clutched my breakfast sandwich. I barely even remembered grabbing it, but the smell of bacon and cheese drew the creature.

Slowly, as slowly as I could manage, I lifted my hand behind me, carefully balancing the sandwich on my palm in offering. It was still wrapped in brown paper, but I didn't want to risk trying to open it and startling whatever was behind me.

Something brushed the bare skin of my hand, but it wasn't fur like I would have expected. Instead, it reminded me of when I held Priscilla and her cool, soft scales ran across my fingers. Whatever was behind me, it wasn't any animal I'd ever seen or heard of. I froze, holding as still as I possibly could, still offering it the food in the hope that it would sate its hunger before it turned on me.

An impossibly long minute stretched, then the weight of the sandwich disappeared. Paper rustled, and I heard the creature devouring the food. It didn't even run away to eat it, which told me it either didn't view me as a threat or was so hungry it couldn't wait any longer to eat.