Nora Roberts - Black Hills

The next bolt dug into the ground to her right.

“You’ve got until I reload. Say thirty seconds.”

Not close enough, not for the knife.

“What do you say? Starting now. Thirty, twenty-nine-”

She sprang up, wheeled back, and pitched the rock with the heart of a girl who’d believed she could play in the majors. It struck his temple with a crack of stone on bone.

When he staggered, when the bow fell from his hands, she charged forward, screaming.

He pulled the gun he’d taken off the ranger, plowed a bullet into the ground at her feet.

“On your knees, you bitch.” Though he swayed, and blood dribbled down from the wound, the gun held steady.

“If you’re going to shoot me, just shoot me. Goddamn you.”

“I might. In the arm, in the leg. Not a kill shot.” He slid the knife out of his sheath. “You know how it’s going to be. But you did well. Even drew first blood.”

He swiped at it with the back of his knife hand, glanced down at the smear. “I’ll sing a song in your honor. You brought us here, where it’s right to end. Destiny. Yours and mine. Full circle, Lil. You understood all along. You deserve to die clean.”

He started toward her.

“Stop where you are. Put the gun down. Step away from him, Lil,” Coop ordered as he stood on the edge of the grass.

Shock had Ethan’s gun hand jerking. But the barrel stayed beaded on Lil. “She moves, I shoot her. You shoot me, I still shoot her. You’re the one, the other one.” He paused, nodded. “It’s only right you’re here, too.”

“Put the fucking gun down or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

“It’s aimed at her belly. I can get one off, maybe two. You want to watch her bleed? You back off. You fucking back off. We’ll call this a standoff. There’ll be another time. If you don’t lower that gun, I’ll put a hole in her. Lower it and I’ll ease back. She’ll live.”

“He’s lying.” She’d seen it. That slyness again, sliding into his eyes and out. “Just shoot the bastard. I’d rather die than see him walk away.”

“Can you live with that?” Ethan demanded. “Live with watching her die?”

“Lil,” Coop said, trusting her to read his eyes, to understand. His finger twitched as he lowered his gun an inch.

The cat leaped out of the brush, a streak of gold, of flashing fang and claw in the streaming moonlight. Its scream sliced through the night like silver swords. Ethan stared, eyes dazed, mouth slack.

Then it was his scream as the cougar sank its teeth into his throat and took him down.

Lil stumbled back. “Don’t run, don’t run!” she shouted at Coop. “It might go for you. Stop!”

But he kept coming. Coming after her, she thought dully as her vision hazed. Kept coming to catch her when her knees finally gave way.

“We found you.” He pressed his lips to hers, to her cheeks, her throat. “We found you.”

“Have to move. Too near the kill.”

“It’s Baby.”

“What. No.” She saw the eyes gleam at her as the cat sat in the grass. Saw the blood staining his muzzle. Then it walked to her, bumped its head against her arm. And purred.

“He killed.” For me, she thought. For me. “But he didn’t feed. It’s not-he shouldn’t-”

“You can write a paper on it later.” Coop pulled out his radio. “I’ve got her.” Then he brought her hand to his lips. “I’ve got you.”

“My mother. She’s-”

“Safe. You’re both safe. We’re going to get you home. I need you to sit here while I check on Ethan.”

“He went for his throat.” She buried her face against her knees. “Instinct. He followed instinct.”

“Lil. He followed you.”

LATER, WHEN THE worst was over, she sat on the sofa with the fire roaring. She’d taken a hot bath, sipped brandy. And still, she couldn’t quite get warm.

“I should go see my mother. I should.”

“Lil, she’s sleeping. She knows you’re safe. She heard your voice on the radio. She’s dehydrated, exhausted, and bruised up. Let her sleep. You’ll see her tomorrow.”

“I had to go, Coop. I couldn’t wait. I had to go after her.”

“I know you did. You don’t have to keep saying it.”

“I knew you’d come after me.” She pressed his hand to her cheek, closing her eyes, absorbing the warmth. “But Matt and Tansy had to be crazy to release Baby that way.”

“We were all crazy. It worked, didn’t it? Now he’s eating his feast of chicken and has hero status.”

“He shouldn’t have been able to track me, not like that. He shouldn’t have been able to find me.”

“He found you because he loves you. The same goes for me.”

“I know.” She cupped his face in her hands. “I know.” She smiled when he leaned in to brush his lips to hers.

“I’m not going anywhere. It’s time you believed that, too.”

She let her head rest on his shoulder, studied the fire. “If he’d won, he’d have come back for my parents eventually. Killed them, or tried. He’d have come here, and killed. He liked to kill. Hunting people excited him. It made him feel important, made him feel superior. The rest, the sacred land, the revenge, the bloodline, that was smoke. I think he’d come to believe it, or parts of it, but it was smoke.”

“He didn’t win.” He thought of how many dead might never be found. How many he’d hunted and killed they’d never know. But those, Coop decided, were thoughts for another day.

He had Lil, had her safe in his arms.

“You were going to shoot him.”

“Yes.”

“Lower your gun enough to make him believe you meant it-so he’d swing his toward you. Then you’d have killed him. You figured I had brains enough to get out of the way.”

“Yes.”

“You were right. I was about to dive when Baby came out of nowhere. We trusted each other-life-and-death trust. That’s pretty damn important. Anyway.” She let out a long breath. “I’m tired. God.”

“Can’t think why.”

“One of those days. Do me a favor, will you? I left the trash in the laundry room this morning. Would you take it out for me?”

“Now?”

“I’d appreciate it. Small change compared with saving my life, but I’d appreciate it.”

“Fine.”

She folded her lips on the smile when he strode out, so obviously annoyed. She took another sip of brandy, and waited.

When he came back, he stood in front of her, looking down. “You put that trash in there this morning?”

“That’s right.”

“Before I saved your life-or had some part in it?”

“Right again.”

“Why?”

After shaking back her hair, she stared straight into his eyes. “Because I decided you’re not going anywhere, and since I’ve loved you most of my life, I want you not to go anywhere with me. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and the only man I’ve ever loved. Why should I live without you just because you were a moron at twenty?”

“That’s debatable. The moron part.” He skimmed a hand over her hair. “You’re mine, Lil.”

“Yes, I am.” She got to her feet, wincing only a little. “And you’re mine right back.” She went into his arms. “This is what I want,” she told him. “So much of this. Will you walk with me? I know it’s silly, but I want to walk in the moonlight, safe and loved and happy. With you.”

“Get your jacket,” he said. “It’s cool out.”

The moon beamed down, pure and white, as they walked. Safe and loved and happy.

In the stillness, in that chill of early spring, the cougar’s call echoed over the valley. And it carried into the hills looming black in the night.

Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring Maryland, the youngest of five children. After a school career that included some time in Catholic school and the disciplines of nuns, she married young and settled in Keedysville, Maryland.