You Had Me at Cougar (Heart of the Cougar #9) - Terry Spear
Chapter 1
Heart pounding, Ava Lamar, cougar shifter and baker extraordinaire, was running away from a large male cougar. He was angry and in hot pursuit. She didn't know why he was targeting her, but she felt he was dangerous and if she didn’t lose him before he caught up to her, she could die.
She needed to reach the river well ahead of him and hide her scent to escape the danger. But he was hunting her with fierce determination. If, as a cougar she could sweat, she would have been melting.
She made it to the river, no sign of him and she had hope that she could actually lose him. She started to swim across the river. Don’t look back. Don’t look back. It will only slow you down.
She wished she could swim faster, but the current was strong, and she was only making negligible headway.
When she finally reached the riverbank, she looked back. He was leaping into the water. Damn it.
She headed straight for the forest. He would be able to track her scent. She wished she was a wolf and she could howl her distress. She ran through the forest, her thoughts switching from where she needed to go to how far he had made it across the river.
Through the woods, the cliffs were looming ahead. She knew she couldn’t outfight him or even outrun him now. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she had to keep her wits about her. All she could think of was getting to the top of the cliffs and then deciding what to do next.
She was certain no one would find her missing until it was too late.
The phone rang and Ava was suddenly yanked out of the world she’d found herself. She glanced at the phone. And blinked. She was in her living room, watching a movie that night, and she'd totally zoned out. She wasn't having a nightmare. She hadn't lived the experience. She'd been having a premonition, as real as it had been. And, judging by the color of leaves on the trees, it was still summer when she would be on the run for her life.
Early the next morning, a special agent with the Cougar Special Forces, CSF, who took down rogue cougar shifters and humans who killed cougars, Chet Kensington had finally finished up a big case of eliminating three cougar shifters who had been killing cougars for the sport of it, hunting out of season, without licenses, and leaving the carcasses behind. And they had killed five hunters who had tried to turn them in. It made no sense to Chet that anyone, especially shifters who understood how it felt to be in cougar form and hunted, would be so cruel to any of the cougar kind. But rogues were rogues, and they didn't have to have a lot of motivation to kill.
Chet was so ready to take a well-deserved break and enjoy a fun 4th of July holiday with the cougars of Yuma Town. They took care of their own and everyone got along exceptionally well. He envisioned swimming in Lake Buchanan at Chase and Shannon Buchanan’s Pinyon Pines Resort, getting some fishing in, water sports, fireworks, visiting with his friends. That’s what he was looking forward to. Besides, his boss, Chuck Warner, had put him on sick leave after being injured in the fight with the rogue cougars.
Chet called up his former partner and friend, Travis MacKay, in the Cougar Special Forces branch located in Yuma Town, to see if he, or someone else, could put him up for the next couple of nights. Chet usually stayed at the CSF safe house for special agents when he visited Yuma Town, but Travis had told him that they were doing a lot of renovations, so he was going to see if anyone else could take him in.
As soon as Chet arrived at Travis and Bridget’s house—Bridget also worked for CSF—they had him come in and have a beer. He'd had the fleeting notion while he'd been working with Bridget on cases out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, where they had all worked until Travis and Bridget came here, that he could even date her. But Bridget and Travis had connected in a way that Chet and she hadn't. He was glad for them. Though he was still looking for that special cougar to be his one and only.
“So,” Bridget said, “Stryker said his mate, Nina, is checking with her sister, Ava, to see if