He pushed those thoughts away. He didn’t make mistakes.

So they’d found him.

He frowned at the handset he’d stolen weeks before. He’d heard them on their radios, scattered all over hell and back. He’d gotten a good laugh out of it, too.

Until that ass**le got lucky.

Gull Nodock. Maybe he’d look up ass**le Gull one of these days. He wouldn’t be so damn lucky then.

But that would have to wait, unless the opportunity jumped up and bit him. It was thinking time now.

What he should likely do was pack it up, move on. Cross over into Wyoming and set up for a few weeks. Let things cool off. Asshole cops would take a dead tourist more seriously than a dead wolf or cat.

To his mind the wolf and the cat were worth a hell of a lot more than some f**ker from St. Paul. The wolf, now, that had been a fair hunt. But the cat, he had had some bad moments over that cougar. Bad dreams about the cougar’s spirit coming back and hunting him.

He’d just wanted to know what it was like, that’s all, to kill something wild and free while it was caged up. He hadn’t known it would feel so bad, or the spirit of the cat would haunt him.

Hunt him. In the dreams, under a full moon, it stalked him, and screamed as it leaped for his throat.

In dreams the spirit of the cougar he’d killed stared at him with cold eyes that left him shaking with sweat and waking with his heart pounding.

Like a baby, his father would’ve said. Like a girl. Sniveling and shaking and afraid of the dark.

Didn’t matter, over and done, he reminded himself. And he’d given pretty Lil a good scare, hadn’t he? Have to weigh the good against the bad there.

They’d be looking for him hard now, over good old Jim. It’d be prudent-like his old man used to say-it’d be prudent to put some miles between himself and the hunting ground.

He could come back for Lil, for their contest, a month from now, six months if the heat stayed on. Leave those cops and rangers chasing their tails.

The trouble was, he wouldn’t be around to see it. No fun in that, no kick, no punch.

No point.

If he stayed, he’d feel them hunting him. Maybe he’d hunt them, too. Take a couple out along the way. Now, that would be worth the risk. And it was the risk that got the blood moving, wasn’t it?

It was the risk that proved you weren’t a baby, you weren’t a girl. You weren’t afraid of any goddamn thing. The risk, the hunt, the kill, they proved you were a man.

He didn’t want to wait six months for Lil. He’d waited so long already.

He’d stay. This was his land now, as it was the land of his ancestors. No one would run him off it. He’d take his stand here. If he couldn’t beat a bunch of uniforms, he wasn’t worthy of the contest.

Here was his destiny, and whether she knew it or not, he was Lil’s.

WORK IN THE compound moved efficiently, even more so to Lil’s eye when Brad Dromburg arrived. He cracked no whips, pointed no fingers, but everything seemed to move faster when he was on-site.

Lil’s only problem with the nearly completed system was the learning curve.

“You’ll have some false alarms,” Brad told her as he walked the paths with her. “My advice would be to limit access to the controls to your head staff, at least for now. The fewer people have your codes, know the routine, the less margin for error.”

“We’ll be fully operational by the end of the day?”

“Should be.”

“That’s fast work. Faster, I know, than usual-and smoother because you came out to oversee. It’s a lot, Brad. I’m grateful.”

“All part of the service. Plus I’ve had a few days of what we’ll call a working vacation, a little time to catch up with a friend, and the best damn chicken and dumplings this side of heaven.”

“Lucy’s masterpiece.” She stopped to stroke the sweet-eyed donkey who called to her before moving on again. “I have to say I was surprised you stayed at Coop’s instead of a hotel.”

“I can stay in a hotel anytime. Too many times. But how often does a city boy get to stay in a refitted bunkhouse on a horse farm?”

She glanced at him and laughed because he sounded very much like a kid who’d been given an unexpected holiday. “I guess not often.”

“And it’s given me some insight on why my friend and fellow urbanite traded the concrete canyons for the Black Hills. It’s just like he always described,” Brad added, looking off to the hills, green with the burgeoning spring.

“So he talked about it, about coming out here as a boy?”

“About how it looked, felt, smelled. What it was like to work with horses, fish with your father. It was clear that while he lived in New York, he considered this his home.”

“Odd. I always thought he considered New York home.”

“My take? New York was something Coop had to conquer. This was where he always felt… well, at peace. That sounds a little strong. The way he talked about out here, I thought he was romanticizing, putting the pretty touches on it the way you do when you remember something from childhood. I have to say I thought he was doing the same when he talked about you. I was wrong, in both cases.”

“That’s a nice compliment, but I imagine everyone romanticizes or demonizes their childhood to some extent. I can’t imagine Coop had that much to say about me. And, wow, that was such obvious fishing,” she added quickly. “Picture me packing up my rod and reel.”

“He had plenty to say about you, when you were kids-when you weren’t exactly kids anymore. He’d show me articles you’d written.”

“Well.” Baffled, Lil simply stared. “That must’ve been fascinating for the layman.”

“Actually, they were. Into the Alaskan wilderness, deep in the Ever-glades, on the plains of Africa, the American West, the mysteries of Nepal. You’ve covered a lot of the world. And your articles on this place helped me with the security design.”

He walked another moment in silence. “It’s probably a violation of a buddy rule to tell you, but he carries a picture of you in his wallet.”

“He stayed away. That was his choice.”

“Can’t argue with that. You never met his father, did you?”

“No.”

“He’s a cold son of a bitch. Hard and cold. I had some issues with my father off and on. But under that? I always knew I mattered to him. Just as Coop always knew the only part of him that mattered to his father was the name. Takes a while to build up self-esteem when the person who should love you unconditionally continually chips away at it.”