contentedly at the blades of grass growing alongside the fence. Today, he whimpered, stamping his front hooves and testing the strength of his tether.
“Easy, boy,” Nate said. “I’m almost through here, and if you quit kickin’ up a fuss, I’ll give you a good rubdown and add some oats to your feed.”
Good thing you started at the corral, he thought, disconnecting the come-along from the now-taut barbed wire. He stowed it in the burlap sack that hung from his saddle horn, untethered Patches, and climbed into the saddle as the first fat drops began thumping the brim of his Stetson. The air quickly filled with the thick, musky scent of plant oils, bacterial spores and ozone. Nate found it rather pleasant. Patches did not. But the horse, true to form, obeyed his master’s every directive.
The rain was falling in earnest now, hitting the hard ground like wet bullets. It was tough to see more than a few yards ahead, but Nate held tight to the reins to make sure Patches didn’t panic, rocket forward and step into a gopher hole.
“Easy, boy,” he said again, holding the steady pace even as the gusts rustled the grass and bent the trees to the breaking point. A violent boom rolled across the fields, startling Patches and Nate, too, and seconds later, lightning sliced the sooty sky.
Once they reached the barn, man and horse exhaled relieved sighs and shook off the rain. Now Nate wished he’d eaten some pie; when this deluge let up, the pan would no doubt be empty.
Patches nickered and bobbed his head. “You’re right,” Nate said. “Fifteen minutes more and we’d be out in the middle of this bedlam, instead of warm and dry in here.” Plus, the broken latch and leaning gatepost would have blown over. It took only one curious cow to notice the opening for a couple of dozen to follow, and it would require days to round them all up.
If that cat didn’t get them first.
Based on the size of the paw prints, Nate and the ranch hands had decided it was likely a female. They all agreed she had a right to hunt and prowl the territory. But with elk and deer so plentiful in the Rockies, they knew something was wrong. Very wrong. Choosing easy pickings such as tame horses and cows could mean she’d been wounded. She might be pregnant, or have a litter of cubs hidden nearby. Cubs that would learn many lessons in killing from their stealthy mother.
Nate stowed Patches’s combs and brushes in the tack room and walked to the window, where the rain clouded his view of the Front Range. But he didn’t need to see the mountains to know they were there. He’d been living in their shadow since birth, and could point them out with his eyes closed: Grays Peak and Mount Evans, Longs Peak and Mount Bierstadt, and one of the world’s highest, Pikes Peak. Several years ago, Nate had been able to cross an item off his bucket list when he’d reached its summit. Up there, it seemed he could see the whole world. The sight made him pity Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike, who, after a four-month trek, spied the mountain on the horizon and knew even before arriving that he’d never reach its pinnacle.
“Wonder how many cougars old Zeb saw?” he asked Patches.
The horse snorted again, as if to say, “I’m busy eating the treat you gave me and can’t be bothered with such trivial matters.”
Nate’s mood began to lift. It wasn’t so bad, being stuck out here in the barn. He’d spared no expense to equip it with every creature comfort for the horses. In the loft, he’d even constructed a sparsely furnished bedroom and a closet-sized bathroom, and installed grates in the floor to allow heat to rise from the propane-fueled furnace. On the rare occasion one of his mares had difficulty foaling, he wanted to remain nearby, and the space had served its purpose well.
Seated on the corner of his cot, Nate toed off his work boots and changed into dry jeans and a flannel shirt. Everything, even the socks, smelled like mothballs, but the scent was far preferable to the stale, fusty odor of mold or mildew. Back in the main area of the barn, he filled the aluminum coffeepot with water and grounds and set it to boil on the two-burner hotplate. He kept a stash of energy bars in the metal box atop the minifridge, and unless one of the ranch hands had raided it, he’d have one for supper. Not his first choice, but unless he was seriously mistaken, this storm had no intention of letting up anytime soon. He’d take granola over hitting the hay on an empty stomach.
The horses didn’t seem to mind having their nosy, two-legged Pa meander the barn, as evidenced by soft snorts, blows and nickers. There might be a cougar on the prowl, but for the moment, all was well at the Double M.
Sated by his makeshift meal, which he washed down with strong black coffee, Nate lay back on the cot and closed his eyes. Rain pelting the barn’s metal roof made him drowsy.
He remembered the year when he, Zach and Sam had ridden to the Double M’s north boundary to round up two runaway calves. They’d been in high school, and felt proud and manly, being out there on their own. They’d searched until they ran out of daylight, then set up camp and bedded down under the starry sky. Nate was the first to wake up, and after stoking the fire, he’d gone looking for sticks and twigs to get it hot enough to brew their coffee and heat up the bacon biscuits Zach’s mom had packed them. Nate didn’t know what made him look up, but when he did, the breath froze in his lungs. A huge male cougar stood on a rocky outcropping nearby, head high and powerful shoulder muscles undulating under thick, reddish-brown fur. Nate had reached for his revolver, realizing too late that he’d left it near his bedroll. Thankfully, in the blink of an eye, the cat had disappeared, leaving Nate to wonder if he’d imagined the whole thing.
His cell phone rang, startling him so badly he sat straight up on the cot. He didn’t recognize the number and answered with a terse “Yeah?”
A slight pause, and then, “Oh. I’m so sorry to disturb you. I must have dialed the wrong number.”
Eden. “It’s not the wrong number,” he said, softening his tone. “This lousy storm has me stuck out here in the barn. Guess I drifted off and the phone surprised me.”
“Sorry,” she said again. “If I hang up, you can pick right up where you left off.”
Was she kidding? Go back to that pins-and-needles cougar memory, when he could talk with an angel?
“I wasn’t asleep,” he admitted. “This cougar stuff has us all a little edgy.” And so did his reference to her as an angel.
“Cougar stuff?”
He gave her an abbreviated version, leaving out some of the gorier details to avoid scaring her. “I’m sure it’s holed up somewhere in this weather, though, so for the time being, it’s not a concern.”
Liar. Anyone with a functioning brain would be worried, especially after finding that mutilated horse. But she hadn’t called to listen to his woes. Just as well. He wasn’t big on chitchat, either.
“So...what’s up?”
“The boys and I have been talking,” she said hesitantly, “and we’d like you to come for supper. Tomorrow night, if you’re available. I’m making their favorite. Spaghetti and meatballs.”
He’d planned to attend a town hall meeting the next night to discuss possible solutions to traffic problems caused by cattle getting loose. His father and uncles refused to go, citing the fact that their livestock rarely got out, and when the cows did stray, they never went too far for too long. He wouldn’t be missing out on anything he hadn’t heard before anyway.
“Just so happens spaghetti and meatballs is one of my favorites, too. What
