Saving the White Cougar by Terry Spear

Chapter 2

Ted had a job to do here at the ranch, otherwise he wanted to check on the cougar. He told himself it was because he had taken care of her first. But it was more than that. He had to have closure, and he was praying she would make it through surgery all right. But his place was here at the ranch. He still had blood on his hands from when he had bandaged her to try and stop the bleeding. And some on his clothes even. He hoped she hadn't lost too much blood.

He hurried to wash the blood off his hands outside at the spigot.

Tracey was on her cell while Hal was watching the kids. "Okay, Vanessa." She glanced at Ted and Bill. "Do either of you have O negative blood?"

"I do," Bill and Ted said at the same time.

"Vanessa needs you to donate blood."

Ted was already headed for his pickup. Bill was going with him. "Probably only one of us needs to give her blood," Ted said to his brother.

"Yeah, I was thinking the same." But from the way he spoke the words, Bill intended to be the one who gave her his blood.

"I guess she can't have too much blood, if Vanessa needs more," Ted said.

"Right." Bill gave him a quirky smile as Ted drove them off the ranch.

They drove in silence for a while, then Bill said, "She might be too old for us."

Ted cast him an annoyed look. "She might be mated or seeing someone. What has that got to do with anything?"

"She probably didn't run here from miles away. Those hunters were on foot. They must have been nearby too."

Ted frowned, then snapped his fingers. "Vehicles. They've left their vehicles somewhere nearby."

"Right. Somewhere they could park and then access the property without being seen."

"Off the main road, there's an old turnout. It used to be a road through the property—old dirt road, once even used by wagons. But the road running through the property from that direction has been fenced off for ages." Ted got on his phone and called Tracey. "Hey, Bill had an idea. The hunters, and the cougar, probably parked somewhere close by. Maybe on the old wagon road."

"We'll check it out and if we find a couple of vehicles there, we'll confiscate them," Tracey said.

Ted smiled.

"Thanks, Ted, Bill. I told Vanessa you're both on your way," Tracey said.

"How badly wounded is the cougar?" Ted asked.

"Bad enough to need a blood transfusion. She must have run some distance while she was bleeding with no pressure to stop it. I'm calling Dan to see if I can get some backup to look for the cars. Kolby's got babysitting duty and Hal's going with me, but we'll need a couple of tow trucks too once we find them. Dan's booked the men and they're all sitting in jail for now because of shooting at the property when the kids and I were out and could have been hit by the bullets. Same with you all."

"Okay, good. Let us know what happens."

"We will. Once we find the vehicles, we'll be able to verify license plates and who owns them and then hopefully learn who the woman is."

"All right, thanks." Then Ted ended the call with Tracey.

"Here I thought the business I did could be dangerous," Bill said.

"When hunters want something, there's no telling how dangerous some of them can be. Most are fine, obey the laws, and don't cause trouble. But then you've got a few bad eggs who ruin it for the rest," Ted said.

When they finally reached the animal clinic, Ted knew the woman would get the best of care. One of the beds was set up like a human bed, so that if a cougar was injured as a cougar, when the person shifted, he or she would be on a human-sized bed. They had the same for the surgery ward in the event the shifter turned into their human form during the surgery and they would be too large for a standard pet surgery table.

"Is she all right?" Ted asked Pamela Lang, the receptionist. "We're here to donate blood."

"I'll call right back." Pamela called to one of the rooms in the back.

Riley Manning, one of the vet techs, hurried out to usher them back to give blood. "You've got to strip and shift. She's still a cougar and we need cougar blood."

As soon as Ted and Bill had stripped off their clothes, they shifted and hopped up on tables where they laid down to give blood—something they normally didn't have to do. One shifter, maybe, but not two. Ted again hoped the woman would be all right. But he was thinking, if she shifted during the surgery, or before, he and his brother would have to give human blood.

Vanessa came into the room in a hurry. "No, no, one has to give human blood in case she needs it."

"Sorry," Riley said. “Hey, Ted, if you can shift back, I’ll take blood from you then.” He'd already started the IV on Bill who was in his cougar form.

Ted shifted and tugged on his boxer briefs, but he wouldn't fit on the animal table to give blood now. They had him sit in a chair that could be leaned back, then started the IV on him. He smiled at his brother. "This is one time that I can say things to you, and you can't talk back."

His brother gave him a toothy grin.

Ted really wanted to know what was going on with the woman—and learn who she was—not in a way that meant he wanted to date her. What if she had family? They had to let them know what had happened to her.

She appeared to be about thirty or so and he and his brother were thirty-three, so the right age for dating, though. Okay, so he was interested. He was fascinated by the fact she was a white cougar. He could just imagine all the kids in Yuma Town wanting to see her for show and tell. Poor cougar.

Then he finally finished giving blood and Riley gave him orange juice to drink. Once Ted had finished that, he had to sit for a few minutes, to make sure he wouldn't pass out from giving blood, though his own blood supply would build back up faster than a human's would.

His brother had finished giving blood and looked a little sleepy. He wasn't shifting back either. That's all he needed to do was shift and pass out.

"I've got an orange juice for you too, when you shift," Riley said to Bill.

Bill opened his eyes and nodded. He was strapped to the table so he wouldn't fall off if giving blood had made him feel woozy.

Then the vet tech left with the blood and Ted waited until he was done waiting, got up, and started to pull on his jeans. But the next thing he knew, the whole world was shifting, tilting, half of it turning black and then all of it dissolved in blackness.

"Ted! Ted!" he heard Dr. Vanessa calling from far away and he looked up at her, feeling a killer headache coming on and his stomach was revolting.

"You weren't supposed to move from the chair until I said so," Vanessa said, looking down sternly at him as she applied a bandage to his head.

"What...?" Ted felt disoriented, unsure as to what had happened, realizing he was lying on the cold, linoleum floor.

"You got up too quickly after giving blood, passed out, and hit your head on the edge of the counter. You'll have a goose's egg, bruising, and you had a cut, but not bad enough to require stitches. We're going to help you up, but you have to sit in the chair until I tell you that you can move." Vanessa was part stern, part concerned. She told Riley, "Next time we have one of our shifters donating human blood, strap him or her in too." She shook her head, then she pulled off Ted’s jeans still resting at his ankles.

She and Riley lifted him up and he couldn't believe how unsteady he was on his feet. Then they helped him into the chair. Ted couldn't have been more furious about what had gone down at the ranch. But he'd been just as angry at himself for injuring himself just because he was so damned impatient to see the cougar who'd been shot, once he realized what had happened to him.

"Can we rely on you to stay put?" Doc asked, looking worried again.

He let out his breath in exasperation. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Stella White is out of surgery and in recovery. They found her vehicle and towed it into the sheriff's department's compound along with the hunters' pickup. We know who she is now, but she's still out of it, really groggy."

"Oh, okay. It’s good that she's going to be okay, right?"

"Hopefully. We won't know until she comes out of the recovery room completely. She's still in her cougar form."

Bill had been sleeping, apparently, and now was lying on his table as a human, legs hanging over the end of the table, a blanket over him and a pillow under his head. He was watching Ted, a silly smirk splitting his face.

He'd probably seen what had happened to Ted, or maybe he'd only seen the end result.

When Vanessa and the technician left, Bill shook his head. "You always try to rush things."

Ted scoffed. "As if you wouldn't? You were strapped down as a cougar or you would have done the same thing as me." Ted knew his brother well enough to know he would have too.

Bill only smiled. "Okay, you're probably right. I would hope I would have been more graceful about it. Just so you know, I called for help as soon as you began pulling on your jeans and then threw out your arms as if you were trying to stop yourself from falling. And not in a way that said you were losing your balance, but that you were passing out. You know it's hard to cry out as a cougar when I wanted to yell for help as a human. I even considered shifting, but I was afraid I would do the same thing, and no one would come to assist you."

"I felt fine, just a little dizzy when I rose too quickly, but then I thought I would overcome it."

Family physician Dr. William Rugel came into the room, folded his arms, and looked crossly at Ted.

Ted smiled. "Hey, Doc, what brings you here?"

"I came to check on Vanessa's other patient, but then here you were injuring yourself, so she asked me to step in and take a look at you."

"Is Stella in her human form now?" Ted asked, eager to see her.

"Yeah, she is, which is why I've come to see her."

And his mate, Vanessa, Ted figured. They took every chance they could to see each other as newly mated cougars. Sure, they mated last year, but that still counted as newly mated.

William flashed a light in Ted's eyes and checked over the head wound. "You should be checked over for a concussion."

"I'm fine," Ted said.

His brother was smiling, getting too much of a kick out of this.

"We'll see what Hal wants done," William said.

"Hal? It's my damn head. And he knows how hard it is."

"That's for damn sure," Bill said.

"I’m having it okayed by him because you work for him and he's not going to want you to work at some of the heavy lifting or other chores you do on the ranch until he knows for sure you're all right to finally return to work." Doc got on his phone and said, "Hey, Hal, I'm seeing Ted now. I think he needs an MRI just to make sure he's all right…yes, I will." He smiled. "Right. I'll tell him." Then Doc called another number. "Yeah, have the ambulance brought over to the animal clinic. We're taking a patient to the clinic to have an MRI done. Ted Weekum." Doc looked up at him. "Yeah, he's agreeing to it, per his boss's and my orders."

Bill said, "I'll tell Stella you want to see her as soon as she comes out of recovery."

Yeah, if the cougar was single and lived around the area, Bill was making a move on her. She better not think Bill was the one who had helped her when she'd been wounded, as similar as he and his brother looked.