He shrugged and sipped as if it didn’t matter. But she knew it did.

“I’d have the first chunk from the trust coming along so I could live thin for a while. I didn’t know what thin was. But I found out.”

“You must’ve been scared.”

“Sometimes. I felt defeated and pissed off. But I was doing what I needed to do, and I was pretty good at it. Getting good at it. When he blocked the trust payment and froze my accounts, what there was of them, it turned desperate. I had the job, so it wasn’t like I’d be on the street, but thin got thinner. I needed a lawyer, a good one, and a good one wants a good retainer. I had to borrow the money for that. Brad lent it to me.”

“I knew I liked him.”

“It took months, close to a year, before I could pay him back. It wasn’t just the money, Lil, breaking my father’s hold on the trust payment. It was, finally, breaking his hold on me.”

“His loss. And I don’t mean the control. He lost you.”

“And I lost you.”

She shook her head, turned back to the stove.

“I had to prove myself before I could be with you, and proving myself meant I couldn’t be.”

“Yet here we are.”

“And now I have to prove myself to you.”

“That’s not it.” Fresh annoyance shimmered in her voice. “That’s not right.”

“Sure it is. It’s fair. A pisser, but fair. There’s a lot of thinking time when you’re working with horses. I’ve spent a good chunk of that thinking about this. You’ve got me on probation, and that’s a pisser. You want to make sure I’m not going to leave again, and you want to make sure you want me to stay. But in the meantime, I get to have you in bed, and now and then I get a hot meal I didn’t have to make myself. And I can watch you through the kitchen window. That’s fair.”

“Sex and food and occasional voyeurism?”

“And I can look in your eyes and see that you love me. I know you can’t hold out forever.”

“I’m not holding out. I’m-”

“Making sure,” he finished. “Same thing.” He moved, fast and smooth, and had her wrapped in a kiss, layered in the warmth, in the need. He let her go slowly, and with a soft, lingering bite.

“The chicken smells good.”

She eased him back a little farther. “Sit down. It should be done.”

They ate, and by tacit agreement turned the conversation to simple things. The weather, the horses, the health of her new tiger. They did the dishes together. After he’d checked the locks-the only outward sign of trouble-they settled in to watch the ball game. They made love while the waxing moon poured its light through the windows.

And still, in the night, she dreamed of running. A panic race through the moonstruck forest with terror galloping in her chest and her breath a harsh echo. She felt the sweat of effort and fear slick her skin. Brush tore at that skin as she fought through it, and she scented her own blood.

So would he.

She was hunted.

The high grass slashed at her legs when she reached the flats. She heard the pursuit, steady, always closer no matter how fast she ran, which direction she took. The moon was a spotlight, mercilessly bright, leaving her no place to hide. Flight, only flight could save her.

But his shadow fell over her, nearly bore her to the ground with its weight. Even as she turned, to face, to fight, the cougar sprang out of the high grass, its fangs bared for her throat.

27

A day passed, then another. There were reports of sightings of Ethan in Wyoming as far south as Medicine Bow, as far north as Shoshoni. But none panned out.

The search team in Spearfish thinned, and talk in town and the outlying farms turned to other matters. Spring plowing and planting, lambings, the cougar who’d perched in an apple tree in a yard not a quarter-mile from downtown Deadwood.

People agreed over pie at the diner, across the counter of the post office, between sips of beer at the bar that the man who’d killed that poor guy from St. Paul had run off.

The trail had gone cold.

But Lil remembered the dream, and knew they were wrong.

While those around her lowered their guard, she only strengthened hers. She began to slip a knife in her boot every morning. Its weight gave her peace of mind even as she resented the need for it.

Good weather brought the tourists, and the tourists meant increased donations. Mary reported their seven percent increase for the first quarter held steady for the first weeks of the second. Good news, Lil knew, but she couldn’t work up enthusiasm.

The more settled and ordinary the days became, the more her nerves frayed. What was he waiting for?

She asked herself that question as she carried hampers of food, or hosed down enclosures, as she uncarted supplies. Every time she made her rounds of the habitats her muscles braced for attack.

She all but willed it to come. She’d rather see Ethan leap out of the woods armed to the teeth than wait and wait for some unseen trap to spring.

She could watch Boris and Delilah curled together, or see him lead, and her tentatively follow into the grass, and feel pleasure, a sense of accomplishment. But under it brewed worry and stress.

She should be helping Mary and Lucius plan the summer open house, or put real effort into helping Tansy plan her wedding. But all she could think was: When? When would he come? When would it be finished?

“The waiting’s driving me crazy.” Following another new habit, Lil circled the habitats with Coop after the staff had gone for the day.

“Waiting’s what you have to do.”

“I don’t have to like it.”

She wore one of their new Chance Wildlife Refuge hoodies under her oldest jacket, and couldn’t seem to stop playing with the strings.

“It’s not like sitting in a jeep half the night waiting for a pride of lions to come to the watering hole, or even sitting at a computer tracking a collared cougar for a report. That’s doing something.”

“Maybe we were wrong. Maybe he did head west.”

“You know he didn’t.”

Coop shrugged. “Willy’s doing the best he can, but he’s got limited resources. There’s a lot of ground up there, and a lot of hikers, trail riders, and campers making tracks.”

“Willy’s not going to find him. I think we both know that.”

“Luck plays, Lil, and you have a better chance at getting lucky with persistence. Willy’s damn persistent.”