Page 7 of Wrong Number, Right Cougar

And infuriating. It had my beast ready to fell a deer or five. It had been a long time since he’d been out for blood like this. I knew better than to get in his way when he was like this. The thing was, I didn’t fully grasp why.

It wasn’t as if someone had shown up and threatened our land or that there was a tax sale I needed to worry about. For all I knew, that person had never so much as stepped foot in this country, much less my land. But the why didn’t matter right now, the only thing that did was letting my cougar wear himself out.

Some rustling in the brush caught my cougar’s attention. Good. Let him be distracted by the hunt, to fully take over and push me down. Right now, I was a mess and could use the break from my overthinking.

He circled around, getting closer and closer to our prey. It was one of his favorite strategies, the fear it instilled in his prey only encouraged him. When the creature finally bounded out, my cougar didn’t even stop long enough to scent which type of animal it was—and it was a freaking house cat.

I drew the line at household pets, and using all my strength, pushed back, stopping him dead in his tracks.

No!I was insistent, and thankfully, he agreed and started toward the river. I’d been afraid that I’d relinquished too much of my control and wouldn’t be able to rein him in quickly enough.

He was still hyper-focused on the hunt, and devoured not one but two squirrels along the way. I wasn’t the biggest fan of squirrel—it was a lot of work for little meat—but it kept him busy. And distracted me from the stupid phone call.

The river was higher than normal, which was my cat’s favorite. We lapped up the cold water and then ran along the riverbank, jumping in and out of the running water along the way. I hadn’t realized where we were going until we ended up at Old Man Blaze’s, and that’s when it clicked.

They weren’t asking me to sell my place. They were asking me to sell Blaze’s. They probably saw the obituary and somehow got my information instead of theirs. It made sense… sort of… if making sense included mental gymnastics.

The entire thing was so confusing and there was a good chance I was blowing things out of proportion and it was a scam call. Only a scam call would have spoofed a real business number, wouldn’t they?

Once my cougar was exhausted, full, and sated, he made his way back to the house. Unlike my cougar, I was still wired. I needed to do something more than sit at home and rerun the conversation over and over again. I threw on some clothes, grabbed my phone, and drove into town. It was time to call in some favors.

I drove straight to the police station to see if Stan was around. He would be able to help me hunt down information that I didn’t have access to. Or at least that was the story.

“What brings you in?” He was the only person in the place.

The station had a total of three people on the payroll, one part-time officer who took over when Stan had a day off or when there were town-wide events, and Jaylin who worked as the office manager four days a week. In some ways, this town was like stepping onto the set of an old sitcom.

“I need a favor. Do I have any built up?”

He looked at me and laughed. He often said to people, “I owe you one, I owe you one, I owe you one,” for the littlest things.

And he caught my joke, even though it wasn’t really one. I did need the favor. I’d do whatever he needed to if I didn’t have enough goodwill banked up for him. I was too hyper-focused to let it go.

“It’s a slow day. What you need?”

“I got a phone number. Can you tell me who it is?” I wasn’t sure how all that worked, but on cop shows they could pretty much find anything tapping away on their computers screens.

“Maybe. I can use some of our resources.” Which meant he wasn’t going to break any rules. While I appreciated that in concept, I wouldn’t have been sad if he bent them a little for me.

He tapped away on the computer, double-checking the phone and tapped some more.

“No.” He handed the phone back. “All I can get is that it’s a city slicker. Or at least they were when they got the phone. Sorry.”

“Why would they want property here?” I was so frazzled. I explained the situation. Sheriff Stan didn’t seem to think it was as big of a deal as I did. But then again, it wasn’t his place.

“They either want to buy your place or buy Old Man Blaze’s place.” He leaned back in his chair.

“Neither one of those is a good idea.”

“Why not?” Stan didn’t get it. How could he not get it?

“Because we don’t need freaking condos and city folks and humans ruining Cougar Lake.” Once they came in, the rest of what made this place special would be gone. We’d have fast food and gift shops filled with crappy t-shirts and keychains.

Because it was Old Man Blaze’s, and I didn’t want him to be really gone.

“Well, you know, there’s a solution to work around that, don’t you?”

“Scare off buyers?” Because I was willing to do that. My cougar was fierce, and while people around here wouldn’t be fazed, someone who came from a place where the fiercest creatures were trash pandas might be.

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