Saving the White Cougar by Terry Spear

 

Chapter 1

Stella White was one of the extremely rare white cougars in existence. She was leucistic, not albino. Yet she wasn’t just a white cougar, but a shifter too. And she’d never met one of her kind before either.

Most of the time, being a white cougar didn't give her trouble because she ran in her cougar coat when she felt the urge—after work hours and mostly at dusk or dawn—where no one lived or worked or played. Until today.

When she went into work on Friday, she had her whole day planned—take care of all the legal duties she needed to accomplish as a paralegal for a high-powered lawyer firm, humans only. Have dinner home alone, since she didn't have a current boyfriend. No other cougars were living in Grand Junction, Colorado, and so she was stuck dating humans from time to time. Just like cougar shifters could be, the humans she'd dated hadn't been faithful either. She enjoyed having a boyfriend and dating. She wasn't that into being single. But she did have the one major drawback. She was a shifter and turning a human into one of her kind wasn't a great idea. Now, if she found one she was totally into, she might change her mind. But she hadn't found anyone like that yet.

After work, she was running as a cougar. With the passing days approaching Halloween, it was getting darker earlier. She would go before sunset to enjoy a rock-climbing expedition and check out some waterfalls she had seen on a map. Rainbow Falls were situated about four miles from the rocks she would climb. During a search for places she could safely run as a cougar, she had checked out the location earlier in the week. A place that had signs posted: No Trespassing, No Hunting allowed. Almost as good as a wildlife reserve. That's what she was looking for.

"Are you going out to dinner with Frankie?" Tori Stone was another paralegal at Brown and Sons and Stella thought she was interested in dating her ex-boyfriend.

"Nope. We're through. You can have him if you want. But I have to warn you, he has a roving eye."

"Nah, I’m not interested," Tori said, but Stella knew differently.

The guy was cute, but Stella wasn’t into a guy who couldn’t stick with the woman he was currently dating. It was totally rude the way he engaged in conversations with women all the time when he was on a date with Stella as if he were available and looking for a new hookup.

Stella glanced at the clock. Time to go. "See you Monday."

“See you.”

First, Stella dropped by her apartment to change out of her suit pants and into jeans, hiking boots, and a long-sleeved T-shirt that said: Cougars make the best friends. She threw on her jeans jacket, needing just something light for the trip to the place she planned to run at. She thought about making a quick grilled chicken sandwich, but she wanted to hit the road, do her cougar run, and she could make dinner when she returned home.

She loved exploring new places, hoping she would find the idyllic spot to call her own as a cougar—not for real, but just for visits. It was pumpkin time, but she couldn't wait for the snow to fall. She loved the snow because that's when she could hide the best—white on white, nothing could be better.

Though she really didn't stand out all that much at any time of the year as long as she was in the tall grasses or forests. She would leap into a tree and practically disappear. Maybe not as much as a tan cougar would, but if she didn't switch her tail, she would be good.

Last year, hunters had been trespassing on the land she normally ran on and shot at her, just missing her. Her shifter healing ability meant she healed in half the time that humans would heal, if she didn't bleed out first. But she didn’t want to get shot on a cougar run ever. She had to find a hunter-free zone and she hoped the place she had found would be that for her. At least for a while until she could locate another such place. She was always afraid if anyone spied her, it would be all over the media. Rare white cougar spotted and then she’d have nowhere to run.

She finally reached the turnoff that she'd checked out before. It looked like an old road once used by wagons or maybe more modern vehicles but was overgrown now and it didn’t look like anyone had used it in a long time. Her off-the-road, white Jeep Wrangler was perfect for it as she drove toward the barbed wire fence where she would park and strip and shift. She finally reached the fence and parked. She got out of her Jeep and stretched, loving the fall colors in Colorado, the aspens in their golden finery, the green firs in all their greenery, the blue spruce adding a majestic touch of silver blue to the landscape. A mountain of red rocks and boulders were a few hundred yards from the fence, and she was eager to jump up on the rocks clear to the top and see the panoramic vista.

Maybe she could even spy the waterfalls from there.

The air was chilly as she hurried to pull off her clothes, threw them in the Jeep, locked the keypad on her vehicle, and shifted. Then as a cougar she stretched again, eyeing the red cliffs she wanted to race up. She leaped over the old barbed-wire fence half dipping, the posts leaning over and then raced for the rocks. Signs were posted No Trespassing, No Hunting, but they didn't pertain to a cougar. With leaps and bounds, she finally reached the top of the rocks and sat up above, smelling the fresh air, seeing the pale glow of the crescent moon against the blue sky, whisps of clouds floating by.

It was just beautiful. She could sit up here all day and breathe in the fresh air and enjoy the fall chill in the air that didn’t affect her as warm as her coat was.

From this vantage point, she saw a ranch way off in the distance. She hadn’t been able to spy it from down below. She narrowed her eyes, looking to observe what she could see. Horses, maybe? Little dots moving around. Cows, maybe. It was a long way off.

Being a curious big cat, she wanted to learn if they were really horses or cows, and she wanted to see who all lived there. But she knew that ranchers wouldn't appreciate a cougar prowling around their ranch and their livestock and would shoot to kill. Not that she had any intention of hunting livestock. The no trespassing signs would be meant for her then, and the no hunting? It didn't count when their livestock could be at risk.

A pickup truck pulled up near where she’d parked her vehicle, and her heart took a dive. What if whoever it was stole her vehicle? Or was the owner of the property having her vehicle towed for abandoning it? Police could be investigating who the vehicle belonged to. And if it was impounded, she’d be stuck here as a cougar without a stitch of clothes to wear!

“Hey, Sims, this looks like a prime hunting spot. But what about the other vehicle here?”

There was one thing she hated about fall. That hunters hunted and she was hunting game. Even if they were trespassing and not supposed to be hunting on the property.

Sims said, "Yeah, I recognize that vehicle. It belongs to one of the paralegals at the lawyer's office in Grand Junction where I had legal representation."

Omigod, Jeffrey Sims? He was a hulking six-foot-six brute and he looked like the kind of man who could be into a lot more illegal stuff than just trespassing and illegally hunting, though that was bad enough.

But his buddies, Clayton and Braxton, made an even more menacing trio—probably all thinking she was running around out here as a human.

"So? You think she's here to catch you illegally hunting?" The man snorted.

"Maybe she's hunting illegally too, Clayton. Wouldn't that be a hoot. She's out here trespassing like us, when her lawyer represented you on the hunting charges," Braxton said.

She recognized their voices from when they’d been in the lawyer’s office.

"I don't see her, do you?" Sims asked.

"Hell, no, but look up there," Clayton said.

She'd already moved behind rocks to jump down the cliffs on the backside, but her darned tail was whipping about in a response to the mixture of frustration and anger she was feeling.

She wanted to bite the men, but not turn them, and that probably wouldn't fare well. They would be turned and then be rogue cougars, and she would have to terminate them. Which she didn't want to do. Then there would be a hunt for the killer cougar, and any puma would be on the hunters’ hit list.

The men had already made it over or through the barbed-wire fence and were running around to the other side of the cliffs before she reached the bottom. One of the men fired a shot at her, the bullet hitting the cliff and splintering the rocks. Her heart skittered as she dodged through the rocks to the base, trying to find cover.

She considered leaping up the bare-faced cliffs again and over to the other side, clearing the fence, and returning to her vehicle. But she was afraid they would wound her or kill her before she could make it. And climbing up the cliff would make her freely visible and the perfect moving target. Racing through the tall grasses was a better bet.

She could hear their heavy breathing and pounding boots on the ground some distance back.

"I'll be damned! A white cougar!" Clayton said.

"No way in hell. Shoot it!" Sims said.

Why would anyone want to kill a rare white cougar? Asses. Then a shot rang out and she felt a nip in her shoulder. Damn it. She'd been hit. She stumbled. Somehow, she had to swing on back to reach her car, dress, and get out of here. But who could take care of the bullet wound now? The police would be called in to investigate a bullet wound. And that was only if she could make it to her car in time, shift, get into her car, lock it, dress, and tear out of there, and reach a hospital.

The men were coming around down below. Another shot was fired, and it hit her arm. The same arm. She was so pissed off she wanted to scream. A good cougar screech could curdle their blood. But she didn't want to alert them as to where she really was. And then she wanted to pounce on them and bite them. No running away in fear of her life, damn it!

She was running full out as a cougar though, the adrenaline surging through her veins in flight mode. All she could do was head this time for the ranch. She’d seen several outbuildings. Maybe one of them would provide her cover where she could hide until she could heal enough and then make her way back to her Jeep.

With her cougar shifters’ faster healing abilities, she thought she might make it. Worst-case scenario, she would just shift in a shed and if anyone found her, they would discover a naked woman was all. No cougar. No rare white cougar to kill. A bleeding woman that someone could take care of. How would she explain the part of how she was naked? That was going to be more difficult to deal with.

Maybe someone would have left some clothes in one of the sheds and she could at least be partially dressed. She figured that would be wishful thinking.

She wasn’t sure about going to one of the buildings off in the distance though as she slowed her pace and began sneaking through the tall grasses now like a predator on a hunt, trying to keep as low a profile as she could so the hunters wouldn't see her, instead of like a cat who was being hunted and running off, trying to leave the danger behind.

"Where is she?" one of the hunters asked as they were still looking around the rocks.

Far away from you, she wanted to say, and she was glad they hadn't discovered she'd moved far away from the rocks.

"Watch for her. She's wounded and will be more dangerous," Sims said.

"She has run this way," Clayton said. "You can see where she has trampled down the grass some and it hasn't sprung back up. And there's some blood on the grass here."

Damn, at least one of the men was a good tracker. She wanted to sprint, run as fast as she could again to reach the buildings so she could hide. She was moving too slowly while trying to keep a low profile. The pain in her shoulder and arm hadn't kicked in yet at least.

Then Stella heard the rattle of a snake's tail, a big one as many rattles as she heard. For a split second, she was torn between leaping out of its way or avoiding jumping above the tall grasses she was navigating to keep out of the line of sight from the hunters. She didn't react fast enough, and the rattlesnake struck her in the back leg, damn it. Her heart was already racing, slow it down! She could imagine the poison pumping through her blood faster.

She was batting zero. She knew she needed to lie down and stop the poison from speeding through her blood, but she also knew that she needed to stop the blood loss from the bullet wounds. Her only chance was hiding in the red barn, the outbuilding closest to where she was running. She could even cry out for help, once she shifted.

Immediately, the snake's bite on her hindleg began burning. Great. Just great.

She smelled the scent of horses ahead, but she realized she hadn’t smelled the scent of the men behind her even when they had circled around her and she had outmaneuvered them. If they were wearing hunters’ concealment, even if the wind direction was right for her to smell them, she wouldn't be able to. She came to the end of the tall grasses and found a pasture where the horses had been grazing and that meant short grass. She hadn’t figured that into her plans.

A large red barn was closest to her location and both barn doors were wide open, offering her refuge from the hunters. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she knew she had to make a mad dash for it. She saw a couple of beautiful Australian shepherds off in the distance, chasing each other around the ranch. Some guard dogs, but at least that was a good thing for her, and they were cute. She loved dogs.

Focus, Stella!

Hopefully, the dogs wouldn't see her at the last minute. She planned to hide, heal, and leave when it was pitch black out—if she could survive that long if she couldn't shift back to her human form—return to her vehicle as a cougar and get out of there. So much for this being a safe place to run as a cougar.

* * *

Ted Weekum wasbusy showing his triplet brother, Bill, younger by five minutes, and an FBI agent, around the horse ranch Hal and Tracey Haverton owned out of Yuma Town, Colorado. Tracey was out with her four-year old quadruplets setting up more Halloween and fall decorations, though he told her if she needed help with anything heavy, to let him know and he would take care of it. They'd been decorating all week because of the Halloween party they were having here at the end of next week. All suited up and looking distinguished, Larry Pierce was talking to her, their new lawyer in town, leaving a successful practice in Denver behind, wanting to join his only family, Yvonne Mueller, his sister, and Rick, his brother-in-law. Larry had been in an all-human practice before. They’d needed their own lawyer in Yuma Town to make up wills, take care of estate planning, and anything else that folks in the area needed legal counsel for. He’d just made up some sales contracts for Tracey and her mate for the sale of a couple of their horses. Larry had his leather briefcase in hand and was just saying goodbye to Tracey before he returned to town. Everyone loved that the lawyer was great about making house calls even! He was truly enjoying being here with a whole town of cougars.

"So what kind of FBI cases have you been working on?" Ted asked Bill. He thoroughly enjoyed visiting with his twin brother, though with Bill's FBI work and helping their sister to run a quarter horse ranch out of West Texas, Ted didn't get to see him very often.

Ted was glad his brother had come out to visit. Ted usually was the one to return home to visit since they lived in the Panhandle of Texas—his sister and his niece, and her two children. And his nephew had just mated, so he had them to see too. And Bill, unless he was on a big FBI case, was always there too.

But for Halloween, this was the place to be. Bill had spent several days even helping with decorations for the big party, though he wasn't staying for it.

Bill had his thumbs hooked in his belt loops and said, "We had to track down a horse theft ring. They put me in charge of the case because I help our sister run the ranch."

"Sounds like a good thing. Did you catch them?"

"Yeah. And we were able to rescue all the horses. Good thing too because they weren't taking care of them. They were just looking for a new buyer for them when the first buyer backed out of the deal."

"Why?"

"The horse thieves killed a ranch hand while stealing the horses, and that wasn't part of the deal. We caught the original buyer, who had traded in horseflesh before. And he told us who he thought was buying the horses and where they might be holding them so we wouldn’t look into what he was up to these days. We were too busy trying to apprehend the murderers."

"Good thing you got them then."

Ted was going home to see his mom and sister and her kids for Thanksgiving this year. And he knew his sister would ask the question she always asked. When was he finding a mate, and why couldn't he work for her at her ranch instead of in Colorado? But Hal had hired him after he had worked as a ranch hand at another Colorado ranch when he couldn't work with his dad at all in Texas. His dad was dead, but Ted had been a foreman at the Haverton’s ranch for several years now and enjoyed the work, and the people he worked with. Not to mention the whole town was cougar run, so he had a lot of cougar friends here.

As to finding a mate, he would have much better success at finding one here and not in West Texas. Even his niece was having trouble finding a new mate, though having a couple of boys, aged five and seven, didn't help either.

"When are you going to retire from the FBI and take over as foreman of the ranch?" Ted asked Bill.

"A few more years. Though that may change if I meet a pretty cougar."

Ted smiled. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Then you'll want to settle down and start having kids."

"I don't know about the kids’ part, but I wouldn't mind finding a filly of my own. I thought you would be mated by now. You've got several choices here."

"Nah. I mean, yeah, I've dated some, but I haven't found anyone that I'm ready to settle down with yet." Ted knew his brother would build a house on the ranch in Texas if he settled down with a she-cat then and have a home near their sister’s place.

Out of the corner of Ted's eye, he thought he saw a flash of white. A shot was fired from a hunting rifle. Then another. He saw hunters then, three of them running through the tall grass, headed straight toward one of the red barns on the acreage, all three in camo gear, two with longish hair, the third man’s hair cut short, military style.

"Damn it to hell," Ted said, racing to get his rifle, his heart drumming.

Bill had his gun out. He was always armed. Now Ted was glad he was, if anyone ever came after Bill because of an FBI case he'd been working on. “Hold it there! FBI agent!”

"Get the kids inside, Tracey!" Ted shouted.

Larry had a gift of gab and was still talking to Tracey when the shooting began. He dropped his briefcase and grabbed up the two boys, one under each arm and ran for the house. Tracey was already grabbing the two girls’ hands and rushing the crying, terrified kids to the house while she shouted for the dogs, "Zula! Koda! Come!" She was a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services special agent and could arrest the men, or Bill could. Ted knew she would be calling her mate too, who was a part-time deputy sheriff of Yuma Town also, working on a car theft case right now.

In fact, everyone from the sheriff's department, and the Cougar Special Forces special agents, would be here as soon as they could, once they heard about this.

Ted was glad Tracey had thought to take the dogs in the house. They had looked back at him to see if it was all right, and he had quickly motioned with his hand to command them to stay with the kids and their mom and Larry. The dogs were all shook up because they knew Ted and Bill were riled up and the kids were crying, so they hadn't known who to stay with.

"They're shooting at the barn," Bill shouted, then called out to the hunters, again, pulling his badge out this time, "FBI agent. Drop your weapons. Hands in the air."

"No way in hell, man," one of the men shouted, as if it was all right for them to be shooting up private property in pursuit of their prey, when it was illegal as hell.

Ted was running with his rifle to join his brother and leveled his weapon at them. "Do as the agent says, now!"

"Listen, we’re tracking a wounded white cougar and we're doing you a big damn favor by killing it for you," the one hunter said.

"Down on the ground now!" Bill said again.

"Hell, they want the white cougar for their own," the one man said and spit on the ground.

Ted frowned. Was that the white flash of something he had seen out of his peripheral vision? But he was damned concerned that the cougar was so gravely injured, he might die on them. He thought the men had to be mistaken. Ted had never seen a white cougar in his life. Never even heard of one either. But was the cougar they shot a shifter or a wild cougar?

Tracey came out of the house, her gun and badge in hand. "I'm a special agent with the Wildlife Service. You picked the wrong property to shoot up while hunting illegally on our property and trespassing. Do as the FBI agent said. Put your weapons down and put your hands up." Without taking her gaze off the men, she said to Ted and Bill, "I've notified the sheriff and everyone's on their way. CSF special agents also." Though she didn't say what that stood for. Humans didn't have a clue, but the CSF special agents took down hunters who illegally shot cougars, and rogue cougars who were on their terminal list for crimes they'd committed. They couldn't go to jail. Not when they could shift into a big bad cougar in a jail cell.

"Hell," one of the men said, and carefully put his rifle down. He must have been the leader of the band because the others did the same thing.

"Move away from the rifles," Ted said, meaning to let Tracey or Bill say it since they had more authority. He had to get to the wounded cougar though at once.

And they had to get these men away from here. The problem was that the ranch was a way out from town. Tracey moved to Bill and handed him zip ties to confine the men. Ted knew she had to get back inside to her kids who were probably scared to pieces about what was going on. Their nanny had gone into town to buy groceries for Tracey.

Just then, Kolby, their other ranch hand came around the barn carrying a rope and his mouth gaped.

Ted turned to him and said for his ears only, "Go get a first aid kit from the bunkhouse. We've got a wounded cougar in the barn if these men are right and they haven't killed him."

"Yes, sir." Kolby dropped the rope and raced off.

Ted kept his rifle trained on the men while Bill zip tied their wrists.

Then Kolby returned with the first aid kit and handed it to Ted.

"Call the vet," Ted said as an afterthought.

"I already did."

"Good." Then Ted handed Kolby the rifle to watch the men. The kid was bright and had been a real welcome addition to the staff at the ranch.

Tracey said, "I'll be right back. Shoot them if they try to get away." She smiled at Bill, but it was more sinister than sweet and then she ducked inside.

Ted ran toward the building, and inside, he immediately smelled the scent of a female cougar and fresh blood—presumably hers.

"Hell, man, do you want to get yourself killed? We told you it's wounded," one of the shooters said.

"No thanks to you." Ted shut the barn doors. The darkness didn't bother him. He could see well enough as a cougar at night. But he did worry that the cougar might be just a cougar. He couldn't take the chance that it would die on him before he checked her out though, if she was a shifter like they were. "I'm Ted Weekum, a cougar shifter, so if you're one too, you don't have to worry about my intentions. I'm the foreman for the horse ranch and all of us working here and in Yuma Town are cougars. I've got a first aid kit so I can take care of you until the vet comes. She's a cougar also. The men who shot you are human and are being taken into custody. You won't have to see them again. They'll be up on charges for shooting up the property and endangering the people on the ranch."

He peered around the place. "If you don't believe me, I can strip and shift for you. Anything to reassure you were the good guys." That was if the cougar was a shifter like them. Otherwise, there was a big cat reserve he would take her to, once she was healed up and it was safe to leave her at the reserve.

* * *

Stella groanedas she lifted her head, her shoulder and her arm hurting like the devil, her leg where she’d been bitten by the rattler feeling numb and swollen. She wanted to shift, but when she hurt like this, it was like her brain short-circuited and she couldn't shift back. Which shot her whole plan to pieces because she had planned to turn into a human and then the men wouldn't shoot her. So if the man talking to her was a cougar shifter for real like her, then she was finally having a bit of luck.

She heard sirens in the distance, and she'd heard another man say that he was FBI and a woman say she was a special agent with the Fish and Wildlife Services outside the building Stella was hiding in. She knew that woman would protect her. She hadn't been sure about the FBI agent who would have probably wanted to put her out of her misery, but if they were all cougar shifters, that was a whole different story.

She snarled at Ted to let him know she was up in the loft, hiding behind some stacks of hay.

The police cars pulled close to the house, and then there were others shouting orders as Ted climbed the ladder to reach her. She was hoping her snarl hadn't sounded angry, but she couldn't seem to make any sound other than a hurt, growly one.

When he reached the top, he peered into the gloom, a little light coming through a few slats of wood and she saw a dark-haired man with blue eyes, and a concerned expression furrowing his brow. He was wearing a light-colored Stetson, a blue plaid western shirt, well-worn jeans, and a pair of scuffed-up cowboy boots. He looked like a real cowboy. If she wasn't so injured, she would have smiled at the sight. He would make for the perfect, handsome cowboy in a historical western. Well, or a modern cowboy. Yeah, riding the ranges, corralling cattle, and coming to take her out on a date. Maybe even teach her to ride a horse. But she wasn't sure he would be interested in a woman who couldn't ride a horse.

"Can you shift? It would be easier to bandage you," Ted said.

She wanted to shift. She wanted to tell him she had been bitten by a rattlesnake. Though when she'd had a German shepherd as a kid and the vet had told her mother that they didn't need to do anything, the dog would recover. Except they had to keep it calm, not like what she'd been doing, running to the barn. But now? She wasn't going to move a muscle. She was desperately trying to shift, but sometimes when wounded, injured, or sick a shifter couldn't easily shift from one form to another. This appeared to be one of those times and she should have thought of that too. She guessed she’d been too panicked to think clearly when she had been trying to find a safe spot to hide.

"Are you injured anywhere else?" Ted pulled bandages out of the first aid kit.

He was lucky she wasn't all cougar.

"Your shoulder," he said, answering himself since she couldn't. "And your arm. I'm going to apply a bandage to each wound to stop the bleeding. Dr. Vanessa Rugel should be here soon." He worked on her as gently as he could, but the pain was hitting all at once and she snarled at him because it hurt, and she instantly felt guilty. He was only trying to save her life. "Sorry. Do you have any other injuries?”

She lifted her hind leg a little and he went back to check on it. "Well, damn. The area on your leg is swollen, but there’s no blood from a bullet wound. Were you bitten by a rattlesnake? It has to be a snakebite. We'll have to get you an antidote. As a cougar, you'll be okay, staying quiet, but if you shift—we need to get you an antidote no matter what." He got on his phone and said, "Our cougar had been bitten by a snake." He glanced down at Stella. "Rattlesnake?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, rattlesnake," he told the vet.

"Okay, thanks." He ended the call and said to Stella, "The veterinarian, Vanessa Rugel, is calling someone at her animal clinic to pick up the antidote. She's already on her way here. She's going to patch you up before she takes you to the clinic. If you can hold off, don't shift until you have the antidote for the poison in your blood."

Then they heard another vehicle pull up. "That's the vet," Ted said.

Stella wanted to thank him and everyone else for taking care of her.

Then she heard the doors open to the barn and she was afraid for her life all over again. That the hunters got loose somehow and were going to shoot her for good.

But someone outside was reading the men their Miranda rights, and then loading them up in a couple of cars.

"I've got one of them, Dan," one man said.

"I'll take that one, Dan," another man said.

"I'll take the last one. You stay here, Hal. Your mate will probably be shook up, or at least the kids will be. And, Ricky, if you need to be here for the family since you worked for them for so long as a ranch hand, you're welcome to stay."

"Thanks, Dan," one of the men said. "I'll go in and check on Tracey and the kids." So that had to be Hal.

Then three cars took off and another drove into the parking area while two men entered the barn.

"What did you find?" one of the men asked.

"An injured female cougar, a rare white, and I assume she's one of us, Bill. That's my brother Bill," Ted said for Stella's benefit.

She finally managed to lick Ted’s hand and he smiled at her.

"Can I see her?" another man asked.

"That's Kolby Jones, one of our ranch hands."

"Me too," another man said, that sounded similar to the first.

"Ricky Jones, his brother, a deputy sheriff now, but he used to be one of our ranch hands."

Bill said, "The vet's here."

"Once she sees to her, we can carry her down. I think she's in too much pain to shift," Ted said.

The woman came into the barn. "Where is the cougar?"

"Up here in the loft," Ted said.

"I don't usually climb into lofts to see my patients, but there's always a first time for everything." When the vet reached the loft, she said, "I'm Dr. Vanessa Rugel. We'll get you to the clinic right away."

She checked her heart rate and pulse. She gave her a shot for the pain and Stella felt like she was drifting on clouds. She still felt the pain, but it was duller, farther away, as if she could distance herself from it. Then the veterinarian climbed down the ladder from the loft so the guys could rig up something to carry Stella in and lower her down to the ground. Once they had moved her, they lifted her onto a stretcher and carried her out to a waiting ambulance.

Before the ambulance pulled out, another vehicle raced into the yard, a car door opened, and feet hit gravel. The doctor said, "Thanks!"

Then Stella felt a swipe of a piece of sterile cloth covered in the smell of alcohol and cold and wet against her skin, a sharp jab of a needle after that, and a liquid pouring into her body.

"It's the antivenom," the doctor said, "and it will take care of the poison in your blood."

Stella felt relief, hoping they'd caught the poison in time and counteracted it.

"If they don't get these guys on criminal charges, I'll file a civil suit on your behalf," a suited man said, moving in to speak to her, his kindly blue eyes looking down at her, his hand on her furry cougar head. "They won't get away with it."

"He's our town’s lawyer," Ted said. "Larry Pierce."

Ambulance chaser, Stella thought. She was drifting even more now, but she was surprised she was going for a ride in an ambulance. She figured she would be in a cage in a truck bed or something, but this was nice.

The next thing she vaguely remembered was being carried into an animal clinic and then she was out.