Catch the Cougar: A Halloween Novella Read online

  William felt she didn’t need him, but he was staying there just to make sure.

  When she returned to the living room wearing jeans and a sweater and little pink, fluffy slippers, he had to smile. She didn’t though. She looked furious.

  “Are you all right?” William asked.

  “Yes. Thanks. You can go now.”

  “Good.” He knew when he wasn’t wanted. A lot of she-cats found him appealing. He had no idea why Vanessa didn’t. He headed out the door, glad she wasn’t hurt at least and that they’d arrested the convict. So much for saving her and changing her mind about him.

  * * *

  “What was the man wanted for?” Vanessa asked Dan as Midnight came out and greeted them, and the guys petted and cuddled her.

  “The man just robbed a store in Loveland and crashed a stolen car near here. Then we learned he was an escaped felon from the Loveland jail, and we organized a search party. We were all trying to locate him and started to put the town on alert that he would be on foot close by where he left the car and not to open the door to anyone. But when I called you to warn you—based on your response—I knew you were in trouble.”

  “I saw him hitchhiking on the road headed for town. He looked like he wasn’t wearing enough clothes to keep himself warm so when he came to my door, I couldn’t let him die of hypothermia. Even so, it was a mistake to answer the door and let him in.” She sat down on her couch and Midnight jumped on her lap and curled up, purring and watching Dan and Hal—everything right with her world again.

  “You were able to shift out of his sight?” Dan asked, frowning.

  “I removed my clothes in front of him. That’s all he saw.”

  Smiling, Hal shook his head.

  “Remind me not to piss you off,” Dan said.

  She rolled her eyes. “I was trying to stall him from stealing my car, taking me hostage, and driving me somewhere else. That was his plan. Anyway, then one of you guys knocked on the door and that made him turn his head. And I shifted and took him down. So he never saw me shift.”

  “That’s what we had to know,” Dan said. “Are you going to be all right by yourself?”

  “Yeah, thanks, Dan. I’m fine. I’m just going to grab some beef stew and watch something lighthearted on TV.”

  “If you need anyone, just let us know,” Hal said. “Sometimes after an incident like this, you can feel…unnerved.”

  Now would be the time to have a boyfriend. Real, not pretend. But she was really too busy for that. She was glad to move to Yuma Town where there were so many cougars willing to help each other in a pinch. She wasn’t one to ask, but it was nice knowing she could. Take this situation. She’d never lived anywhere that she could talk to the sheriff during a crisis and he would know right away that she was in trouble and he would call up the troops.

  They seemed reluctant to leave her alone though, which she thought was sweet.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come out to the ranch and stay with Tracey and me?” Hal asked. “We have plenty of room and you might feel a bit more secure.”

  “Or you can stay with Addie and me,” Dan said. “When you’ve had trouble like this, you can feel unsettled.”

  “I’ll be fine. Thanks for the offers though. You caught the escaped convict and I’m good. Thanks, guys.”

  Dan and Hal hesitantly left, after they wished her a good night, and she did feel a little bad that she’d dismissed William like she had. But she was still sore about how he thought a medical doctor had to be smarter than a veterinarian. She was proud of what she did and wouldn’t have wanted to be a medical practitioner and take care of human patients. Though here, they were cougars, but when she first got her license to practice, she didn’t even know about Yuma Town.

  She turned on a light comedy on TV about an undercover bodyguard serving as a bridesmaid at a wedding when she detested weddings, all due to being jilted at the alter by her fiancé.

  Vanessa scoffed and served up her hearty beef stew, then carried her tray to the couch. Try two weddings where she’d been stood up and the protagonist could hate weddings and definitely not trust suitors to follow through. Not that anyone in Yuma Town knew that about her. She didn’t want anyone to know it. The pain from two groom no-shows at her weddings had still been raw after she first had moved to Yuma Town. What did that say about her? That she couldn’t keep a man?

  She snorted.

  * * *

  At his townhouse, William grabbed a package of the last two slices of sharp cheddar cheese to make a grilled cheese sandwich before they went bad and frowned at the green mold growing on it. Skip that. He put away the bread and threw out the cheese. He knew he should have eaten it sooner. He pulled out frozen burritos, heated them, grabbed a beer, and settled down on the couch to watch a thriller on TV, but—despite the riveting action as the protagonist chased the villain’s henchman on motorcycles through the streets of Paris—he couldn’t stop thinking about Vanessa and the way she had been sitting as a cougar on top of the armed, escaped convict in her home.

  He grabbed his phone to call her and make sure she was okay but then thought better of it. He set his phone on the console. He watched more of the show, then sighed and picked up his phone again. It rang in his hand and he almost dropped it. He glanced at the caller ID and smiled. Vanessa…DVM.

  “Hello?” He quickly paused the movie. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry I was so short with you. I…shouldn’t have been.”

  “After going through what you did, it was understandable. Any of us could have felt that way.”

  “Yeah, but I only reacted that way to you. I’m sorry.”

  “Apology excepted. Hey, did you want to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

  “Uh, no, thanks for the offer. Well, I’m going to go. Good night.”

  “Thanks for calling, and I’m glad you are okay. Good night.”

  “Thanks.” Then she ended the call.

  He sat there staring at the phone. Then he smiled. She had finally talked to him. He didn’t know why he was so hung up on her. He never had trouble with making friends with women, though sometimes his hours were long and that cut into his dating time. But for some reason, he just wanted to get to know her. Maybe because she was as dedicated to her work as he was. Maybe because she went out of her way to avoid him. And that made her a challenge.

  He really wanted to be friends with her. Not that it would lead to courting or anything, though that certainly was something he was willing to explore. But he just hated that she didn’t even seem to want to be friends. He wondered—as he started his movie again—if she thought he was a womanizer. He wasn’t. He really hadn’t dated anyone here. He was just…friendly. He wondered if she took that as him not being able to commit to a relationship. The only reason he hadn’t yet was that no one had interested him enough to make a commitment here in Yuma Town.

  Would Vanessa? Maybe not, but he loved the way she smiled when others were visiting with her at cougar activities—not at him though, and he wanted to change that—how she talked so animatedly with her hands, how, it didn’t matter where she was, she would address pet issues with her clients. Heck, at a party, he wouldn’t discuss medical issues with his own patients! He would tell his patients it all had to do with privacy issues. Of course that was some of it, but when he was off from work, he wanted to be off.

  His cell rang again and he thought he got lucky and Vanessa had changed her mind about going out with him for dinner tomorrow night, but it was Kate, and that probably meant he had to go in about an emergency.

  “I heard about tonight.” Kate didn’t say anything further.

  He sighed. “Yeah, Kate?” He wasn’t going to volunteer anything and feel foolish because he said too much.

  “Hal said that Vanessa dismissed you when you were there in case that convict had injured her.”

  “Uh, yeah, well, you know, she was under a lot of strain. She called and apologized.”

  “
Oh.” Kate sounded immensely relieved. “Good, I’m so glad to hear it. So what are you going to do about it?”

  “About what, exactly?” Again, he wasn’t second-guessing Kate. She had said any number of times that he should ask Vanessa out, but he’d done that now, and it was still a no-go.

  “Asking her out?”

  He let out his breath in a heavy sigh. “I asked her when she said she was sorry, and she said no.”

  “Oh. Well, keep trying. Everyone in the cougar community loves you.”

  “Except for Vanessa.” William paused the movie.

  “So what’s the deal with that? We kept thinking that things would change between the two of you.”

  He scoffed. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Maybe she thinks I’m too flirtatious with other women or something.”

  “But you aren’t. You know, she’s really secretive about her past.”

  Now that revelation made William curious. “I figured you ladies would know all about her because of your little shopping trips and get-togethers.”

  “Nope. All we know is she came through here on a trip up north and realized we were cougar run, we didn’t have a vet clinic, and she wanted to start one. We were thrilled of course.”

  “You haven’t ever talked to her about dating?”

  “No. And if we had, we wouldn’t share that with anyone.”

  He sighed. “Okay, thanks, Kate, and we’re good.”

  Kate didn’t say anything, and he knew what she was thinking. Vanessa still didn’t care for him for whatever reason, and yet, the oddest thing was, he sometimes caught her looking at him, as if she was interested in him—not as though she couldn’t stand the sight of him. He sighed. Women. There was no figuring them.

  “Good night, Kate.”

  “Night, William. See you tomorrow at the clinic.”

  He set his phone down on the console and restarted his movie. How was he going to learn more about Vanessa’s past if she wouldn’t speak with him?

  Then the phone rang again. He was popular tonight. He checked the phone and saw it was Vanessa. He frowned and said, “Hey, is anything wrong?” Maybe she was calling to tell him she was having dinner with him after all.

  “You think veterinarians aren’t as smart as family physicians or they would have been able to go to medical school.”

  His jaw dropped. Hell, when had he said that? He’d always joked with a childhood friend—who had become a vet—about that, but William had only been having some fun. And Matt had always told William right back that he didn’t have to know how to take care of tons of different species of animals. Which William agreed with. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been talking to his friend about it where she would have overheard him.

  “Uh—”

  “So you do.” She sounded annoyed with him.

  He had to rectify this situation in a hurry, if that was all that was keeping her from being friends with him. “When did you hear me say that? I was talking to a friend from my youth who became a vet. We kidded each other all the time about it. But he always told me he was so much smarter than me because he had to deal with so many different kinds of animals.”

  “What?”

  “When did you hear me talking to my friend about it?”

  “When the town celebrated my arrival and the opening of my vet clinic. You were having a beer and talking with Leyton when you got a call. You weren’t very far away from me when you made the comment, though with our cougar hearing, I could have heard you even if I had been further away.”

  “Well, Vanessa, I’m so sorry. I was just joking with my friend. He’d called while I was at the party and I was telling him we had our first vet who had just opened her clinic and that’s when we got into the same old thing we always did—me being smarter than him, him being smarter than me. He’s human or I would have told him he should set up a practice here.”

  She sighed. “Where are you taking me for dinner tomorrow night?”

  He smiled. “Anywhere you would like.”

  “Your place, grilled barbecue chicken, hamburgers, steak, whatever you’re good at.”

  “Tomorrow night.” Hell, William didn’t have a grill. He was always working or going to Hal’s, Leyton’s, Chase’s, Dan’s, Jack’s, or Stryker’s place for barbecue. He always got invited and he always went.

  “Yeah. Is that okay? Around six-thirty?”

  “Yeah, sure. That would be great.” He looked at his messy townhouse: clothes strewn all about, pots and pans in the sink. At least he put his dishes in the dishwasher. “I can’t wait to see you then.”

  “I’m sorry for thinking the worst of you.”

  “No problem. I’m just glad we cleared the air.” He had to call Leyton pronto and work down the list to see who could loan him a grill that wouldn’t be too much trouble to haul over to his back patio, if Leyton couldn’t loan his. William smiled. He was finally going to have a date with Vanessa.

  “Okay, me too. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She ended the call.

  He wished his nurse friend, Marcus Jones, who lived in the townhouse adjoining his, had a grill, but his stopped working a month ago and he hadn’t replaced it. William called Leyton first. “Hey, uhm, I’ve got a date with Vanessa for tomorrow night, but she wants me to barbecue.”

  “That’s great. I’m so glad to hear it.”

  “I don’t have a grill.”

  Chapter 3

  Vanessa sighed and went to bed. She felt bad that she had thought the worst of William when he had just been joking with his friend. Though the part of his conversation that she had overheard had sounded bad. Having dinner with William didn’t mean anything more would come of it, but it was the least she could do since he’d already asked her, and she wanted to make amends.

  She hoped he was fine with barbecuing their meal. She should have let him choose what he wanted to do rather than request that, if he wanted to order takeout or something. She wasn’t picky about food and she figured he might be as tired as she was after a long day in the clinic. She thought of calling him back, but she didn’t. It was time to sleep, work tomorrow, and then have dinner with William, and she was looking forward to it.

  If things worked out well at dinner that night, she could have him over for dinner sometime at her place, but she didn’t want to tell anyone else in Yuma Town about it. Her long-term relationships had led to an almost-marriage both times, and she didn’t want anyone to even speculate that having dinner once or twice with William meant they were headed in that direction. As close-knit as the cougar family was, she could just imagine everyone suddenly inviting them to their homes as if they were a couple already, hoping to ensure the fantasy became a reality—as if pretending it was so, made it so.

  After two grooms had stood her up at the altar, she certainly wasn’t looking for that kind of relationship again. Then again, what if she and William had nothing to talk about, nothing in common, and the dinner conversation was a total fizzle? Anything was possible.

  She closed her eyes and felt Midnight jump on the bed and curl up between her legs. And that made Vanessa wonder if William even liked cats. Or pets in general. She knew he didn’t have one.

  She rolled onto her side, forcing Midnight to move and she curled up next to Vanessa’s waist. Midnight was a rescue cat, at a time when Vanessa was through with men and Midnight had been a welcome addition to her little family.

  Vanessa sighed. She was way overthinking this business with William and if she didn’t get some sleep, she would be worthless at the clinic in the morning and even worse by tomorrow night when she went over to have dinner with him.

  * * *

  Kate entered William’s office at the clinic early the next morning, and said, “Okay, Leyton dropped off his grill this morning at your townhouse before he had to run off to chase down a renegade cougar down south.” Leyton, Kate’s mate, was an agent with the Cougar Special Forces, and he was always having to run off after some rogue cougar or another.


  “Tell him thanks so much.”

  “What else can we do to help?”

  “I’ve got it under control. I just didn’t have the grill.”

  Kate frowned at him and folded her arms. “What made her change her mind about you?”

  William told her about the party celebrating her joining them in Yuma Town and what he’d said to his vet friend.

  Kate laughed. “Oh, if that is all.”

  “That’s enough. I mean, if the roles had been reversed, and I didn’t know she was talking to a friend of hers in jest, I might have taken offense, figuring she didn’t see my worth as a vet. So I understand how she felt.”

  “Okay, it’s a relief that you two are finally socializing and she’s not going to be glowering at you whenever she sees you. Oh, and by the way, if you really want to get on her good side, she adores animals, so get a pet. That’s why she’s a vet. She’s kind of a wallflower when it comes to large gatherings. But put her in a room full of pets and she’s in her element.” Kate patted him on the shoulder. “And don’t let this one go.”

  William smiled. Getting a pet wasn’t something he had in mind to do and he had no idea if he and Vanessa would even like each other enough to date. They were only having dinner, at least for now. Maybe he would be able to get to know her a little better and things between them would really change.

  * * *

  “We’ve got a mission,” Bridget MacKay told Addie Steinacker, a deputy sheriff on maternity leave from the deputy sheriff’s office in Yuma Town, who was mated to Dan, the sheriff. Once Kate had called Bridget to see if she could do some undercover work while she was on maternity leave also, except she was with the Cougar Special Forces, or CSF, as a special agent, Bridget knew she and Addie had to do the job together. Bridget’s mate, Travis, was also CSF and she was sure he would frown on what she and Addie were about to embark on—a mission to learn about Vanessa Vanderbilt’s romantic relationships in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she had come from. Addie’s mate would probably tell them both to butt out too.