“I’m hoping for ten thousand.”

“I like the way you hope.”

“It’s not an impossible dream,” Lil told her. “I just Googled the owners. They’re rolling in it. They’re ready to pay all expenses and fees to get her here, the transportation, the cost of sending a team to Montana for her-and indicated there would be a prize in the box if we could move quickly. I asked her to give me a day to consider the logistics.”

Lil’s eyes lit up as she tossed the pencil down. “A black jaguar, Tansy. Young, healthy. We could breed her. And God knows she’d be happier and better off here than on some ranch in Montana. We have most of the materials we need for a temporary habitat. In the spring, when the ground’s thawed, we can expand, put in a permanent one.”

“You’ve already decided.”

“I don’t see how we can resist. I think I can get the cat and five figures out of this. I think I can make this woman so happy and grateful we may end up with a valuable supporter. I’m going to think about it more. You do the same. We’ll talk about it in the morning, and decide.”

“Okay. I bet she’s beautiful.”

Lil tapped her computer screen, so Tansy skirted around the desk. “She e-mailed me pictures. We’ll get the rhinestone collar off her. She’s gorgeous. Look at those eyes. I’ve seen them in the wild. They’re dramatic and mysterious and a little spooky. She’d be an amazing addition. She needs a refuge. She can’t be introduced to the wild. We can give her a good home here.”

Tansy patted Lil’s shoulder. “Oh, yeah, you think about it more. See you in the morning.”

It was full dark by the time Lil left the office. When she stepped out and spotted Coop’s truck, she hunched her shoulders. She hadn’t heard him drive up. Too involved, she admitted as she crossed the compound, with refreshing herself on jaguars, working out the logistics of transportation and habitat. They’d need a vet to clear her, Lil thought. She couldn’t trust the word of the owner on that. Still, if the cat had any medical problems it might be even more important to give her sanctuary.

She’d wheedle money out of Cleo’s owner. She was good at wheedling donations. It might have been far from her favorite part of the job, but she was good at it.

She stepped inside.

A fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth. Coop sat on the sofa, his feet on her coffee table, a beer in his hand. With the other he worked on a notebook computer on his lap.

She shut the front door with a little more force than necessary. He didn’t bother to look up.

“Your mother sent over a chunk of ham, some sort of potatoes, and I think it might be artichokes.”

“I can make my own food, you know. I just haven’t had a chance to get to the store for supplies in the last few days.”

“Uh-huh. I brought over a six-pack if you want a beer.”

“Coop, this can’t… This is wrong in so many ways.” She pulled off her coat, tossed it aside. “You can’t just live here.”

“I’m not. I’ve got my own place. I’m just sleeping here for a while.”

“And how long is a while? How long do you plan to sleep on my sofa?”

He sent her a lazy glance as he took a pull of his beer. “Until you loosen up and let me into your bed.”

“Oh, well, if that’s all, let’s go. Come on, let’s hit the sheets. Then we can both get back to our regularly scheduled lives.”

“Okay. Just give me a minute to finish this up.”

She clamped her hands on her head, paced a circle. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck, f**k, f**k.”

“I might’ve put it more delicately than that.”

She stopped, then squatted on the other side of the coffee table. “Cooper.”

He took another sip of his beer. “Lillian.”

She shut her eyes a moment because there had to be some sense, some shade of sanity in the chaos murking up her brain. “This arrangement is awkward and unnecessary, and just weird.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why? Because we have a history, because we had a… thing. You do realize that everyone in the damn county figures we’re sleeping together again.”

“I don’t think everyone in the county knows either one of us, or cares. And so what?”

She had to scramble for an answer to that. “Maybe I want to sleep with somebody else, and you’re in the way.”

Coop took a long, slow pull from the beer this time. “Then where is he?”

“Okay, forget that one. Just forget that one.”

“Happy to. It’s got to be your turn to put the meal on.”

“See?” She jabbed a finger in the air. “There. What is this ‘turn’ crap? This is my house. Mine, mine, mine. And I come in to find you on my sofa, with your feet on my coffee table, drinking my beer-”

“I bought the beer.”

“You’re deliberately missing the point.”

“I got the point. You don’t like me being here. The point you’re missing is I don’t care. You’re not staying here alone until this trouble is resolved. I told Joe I’d look out for you. That’s it, Lil.”

“If it makes you feel any better I can arrange for an intern to stay in the next cabin.”

The faintest trace of impatience flickered over his face. “Would the average age of your interns be maybe twenty? I wonder why the idea of some skinny college kid as your backup doesn’t ease my mind. You’d save yourself from aggravation if you just accept that I’m going to be around until this is settled. Did you make that list?”

“Until” was the sticking point, wasn’t it? she thought. He’d be around until… he was finished, he decided to move on again, he found something or someone else.

“Lil?”

“What?”

“Did you make that list?”

“What list?” When he smirked, it came back to her. “No, I didn’t make any damn list. I had a few other minor things on my mind today.” Though she knew it was a kind of surrender, she dropped down to sit on the floor. “We took two thirty-two slugs out of the gray wolf.”

“I heard.”

“They have to run ballistics, but we all know it was the same gun, used by the same man.”