“He’s a pretty boy,” Beth said in baby talk without looking up. “Yes, he is.”
The scrappy dog snarled and growled under its breath, but at least it had quit snapping at them. Two mornings ago, they’d arrived at Heidi’s clinic and found the mutt tied to the front door. A note stapled to the leash revealed he’d been found in the woods.
Heidi, Leavenworth’s only veterinarian, loved all animals but couldn’t blame whoever had delivered the scrawny critter—a cross between a terrier, maybe some poodle and possibly muskrat-to her door. She probably wouldn’t have kept the thing if she’d been the one to find it either.
They’d tentatively named him Fugly at Beth’s husbands’ suggestion. It had taken one whole day before Fugly finally let Beth get close to him. The dog didn’t care much for Heidi, and that was okay with her. Watching as her sister-in-law pampered the little rat, Heidi shook her head. She still wasn’t sure what Beth saw in the yappy, ill-tempered mongrel. Bath time was obviously not Fugly’s favorite pastime.
“What are the boys going to say when you bring that thing home?”
Beth glanced up from the soggy dog. “What can they say?” She giggled, and, true to his nature, Fugly growled.
Heidi rolled her eyes and grinned. “Been married a year and they still bow down to your whims. I swear.”
Beth’s smile transformed into something secretive, something private Heidi had seen pass between her brothers and sister-in-law. Whatever their secrets, the three of them were deliriously happy together.
Heidi clenched her teeth and kept her own smile in place, even though that deep, niggling jealousy tried to worm its way to the surface. “I’m going to...” She pushed away from the doorjamb.
Beth’s expression changed to concern. “You okay?”
“Of course.” Heidi couldn’t let her family know what went on in her mind and heart when she saw the happiness in her mated brothers and their wives. Would she ever have a turn? Not here. That was for sure. But how could she ever leave her family to find it?
“Doctor Falke?”
Relieved, she turned her attention to her receptionist. “Yes?”
“There’s a call for you. Ritchie Handleman. He says it’s an emergency.”
Heidi made a face and headed toward her office. “Thanks, Mrs. Blake.” Ritchie Handleman had been her first boyfriend in high school. He worked at the Bavarian Inn now, but she hadn’t talked to him in ages and didn’t know he had a pet that might warrant an emergency call to the town vet. She sat at her desk, lifted the receiver on the phone and poked the flashing button.
“Hey, Ritchie. What’s up?” There was a lot of static on the line, and she missed his first few words.
“You’re breaking up. What did you say?”
“Heidi?” Still a lot of static, but at least she could hear him. “I’m up near Beaver Pond. Dave and I are bear hunting.”
She flipped through a stack of bills, only half listening. “And?”
“I shot something I thought was a bear. I mean it was all black. But it’s a cougar.”
She stopped reading. “A black cougar?” Her mind raced. A black cougar? They didn’t exist. “Is it dead?”
“No. Do you want to me to finish it off?”
“No! God, no. Is it conscious?”
“Well, it’s breathing. It tried to run after I shot it, but not far. Looked like I got it in a leg. It’s bleeding pretty badly.”
“Tell me exactly where you are.”
He did one better and gave her GPS coordinates.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Beaver Pond was just barely off her fathers’ property, a popular bear baiting spot. She could get there easily by ATV from the edge of Falke land. “Keep a safe distance from it, but keep it in your sights.”
“Gotcha. Will do. Hurry. He doesn’t look good.”
“On my way.”
She dropped the phone into the cradle and ran out of her office and down the hall, calling for Beth.
“Yeah?”
Heidi spun around as Beth came out of an examining room. “Put that rat in a cage. We got something big to go see.” Excitement coursed through her, and she couldn’t contain it. “Come on, hurry. And grab your tranq gun.” She rushed into another room, unlocked a drawer with the key she pulled from her pocket and grabbed a variety of bandages.
Beth met her in the hallway, tranq gun in one hand and several red-and-white tipped darts in the other. “What is it?”
“Whatever it is, it doesn’t belong in our woods,” Heidi said with a giddy laugh as she led the way through the lobby. “Mrs. Blake, please cancel my appointments for the rest of the day and reschedule what you can. We’ll be back as soon as possible.”
She didn’t wait for a response but jogged outside to her Land Rover. Having planned to go four-wheeling after work, she’d lucked out—her ATV was already on the trailer attached to the SUV.
She sure hoped Ritchie wasn’t wrong about the cat. A black cougar... “This might be your big break, Beth.”
“Tell me!”
Heidi laughed and her tires threw up some gravel as she squealed onto the highway to her fathers’ property. “Ritchie thinks he’s shot a black cougar.”
Beth’s mouth drop open. “That’s...impossible.”
“I know. But still, it’s worth checking out. He obviously shot something, and if it’s not a bear...”
They reached Ritchie and his brother Dave in less than the fifteen minutes she’d promised. Heidi killed the ATV’s engine, and she and Beth jumped off at a dead run up the short hill.
“Glad you made it,” Ritchie said. “It’s right over there.”
“Oh...my...God...” Beth stopped beside Heidi, who stared at the massive cat sprawled on the pine needle–covered ground not ten feet away.
Definitely not a bear, although it was as big as some bears she’d seen in Washington. Its side rose and fell with fast, shallow breaths, but it looked unconscious. Though Heidi wasn’t willing to get too close until she was certain.
“That’s not a cougar,” she said, her breathing a little hard.
“It’s not?” Ritchie asked.
Heidi shook her head, but didn’t respond further. The jaguar seemed to awaken at the sounds of their arrival. It began to struggle weakly, growl and hiss. Relieved to see it still had some fight left, she glanced at Beth and nodded.
Beth loaded a tranquilizer dart into the gun and took aim. “That cat does not belong in the Wenatchee Forest.”
Heidi believed her. Beth was the resident expert, having just finished her Ph.D. dissertation on big cat genetics. Beyond typical family pets, Heidi knew everything there was to know about cougars, bears, wolves and even coyotes, but beyond simple recognition, anything that lived outside of the Pacific Northwest was beyond her specialty or concern.
She glanced at Ritchie. “You really mistook that for a bear?”
“Yeah, well, it’s got black fur. And it grunted like one.” He looked a little sheepish, his cheeks turning pink. “You gotta admit it’s bigger than any cat I’ve ever seen ’round here.”
“Go ahead, Beth. Tranq it. We’ve got to get it back to the clinic ASAP.”
Beth shot the dart into the cat’s shoulder. The cat flinched and growled, letting them know it was definitely still alive and pissed off. They waited a few minutes for the drug to take effect. After checking the cat’s heartbeat, Heidi went to work bandaging the wound on its right hindquarter to stem the blood and discovered the bullet had passed through the leg.
Beth was there with her, helping her reposition him when needed. This cat was bigger than her brothers. A good fifty pounds, at least. And her brothers in catamount form were larger than the average cougar.
“He might need surgery if the bullet hit the bone.”
“I’m really sorry,” Ritchie said, still standing next to his younger brother. “I hope he’ll be okay. I didn’t know who else to call.”