He smiled down at her and kissed her. “I’ll let Leyton know it’s up in the air. I wouldn’t want to commit to anything if I was up here alone managing the resort.”

  She kissed him back, and then he went off to speak with Leyton, and she went back to working on her story, feeling lighthearted that the bears were mostly harmless, and his uncle wasn’t under any kind of threat. She was glad he had a home to come back to since it sounded like being with Robbie hadn’t worked out at all.

  She sure hoped someone in Yuma Town would be right for him.

  Chapter 16

  Paul was ecstatic about going home. Everything had worked according to plan.

  “So is everything all good?” Robbie asked him.

  “Oh, yes, my plan worked perfectly. I couldn’t be happier.”

  She raised a brow. “You got lucky.”

  “I’m intuitive.”

  Robbie laughed, sounding suspiciously like she didn’t think he had any intuition.

  But Paul knew it had worked and that’s all that mattered, and his nephew and Jessie still loved him. “Are we still friends?” Paul asked, because he hadn’t meant to create hard feelings between them.

  Robbie fixed him a cup of coffee. “Yeah, sure, I’ll be out next summer to stay at your resort with my friends and you’re welcome to come visit me out here anytime you like.”

  He wasn’t sure if she was being sincere or so glad he was going to be gone soon that she would say just about anything. “You’ve got a deal.” About her staying at the resort, not about him visiting her in Naples, Florida.

  He hurried to pack his stuff and couldn’t believe his fortune that Emerson had decided to come home for good, and Paul suspected he was already hooked on little Miss Jessie Whittington.

  Then Paul frowned. Why had Emerson quit his job before he’d even learned Paul had supposedly died of a heart attack?

  When Emerson arrived at cabin number five to tell Leyton and the others the good news about his uncle, he knocked on the door. Jack answered it. He and Chet had returned, and Leyton said, “You learned something. I can see it in your expression. You’ve learned your uncle is with that Robbie Randall.”

  “Yes. And the bears are friends of his. My uncle’s coming home.”

  “Well, halleluiah. That’s good news,” Leyton said, slapping Emerson on the shoulder. “We love it when the case we’re working on has a happy ending.”

  “So the bad news is you’ll have to go home and make snowmen and snow angels,” Emerson said.

  The guys all laughed.

  “But the other news is that I’ll accept your offer to do contract work for you to handle rogue cougar cases if there are in my area, if I have a partner running the resort while I have to be away,” Emerson said.

  Leyton asked, “Partner?”

  “Yes, if you all can help me convince Ms. Whittington of that—she said she would be willing, but we’re not all the way there yet.”

  Smiling, Leyton shook his hand. “We’ll welcome you to the team. Since our job is done here, we’ll look into this business with Smith with Flo’s help. She has resources we don’t have. We also have a couple of retired FBI agents who might be able to come up with some ideas. So I guess the question is, are you and Jessie safe here on your own, or do you want us to work from here?”

  “Go home to be with your families. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, but I imagine you can work just as well from home,” Emerson said. “Smith might never figure out where I am and there’s no sense in you being here forever waiting on something that might never happen.”

  Leyton glanced at the other agents who inclined their heads in agreement. “All right. We’ll leave first thing in the morning. But I want to say we’ve had fun with the two of you while we’ve been trying to track down your uncle, and I’m glad the outcome was good.”

  “I agree with Leyton on that,” Jack said.

  “Yeah. And having you on the team up here will really be an aid to us,” Chet said “Otherwise we can get spread pretty thin.”

  Emerson nodded, glad to be of assistance. “We can have dinner tonight and breakfast in the morning together, before you all leave.”

  “Okay, that sounds good. We’ll leave whatever we haven’t eaten with you,” Leyton said, “before we head out in the morning. There’s no sense in us taking it with us.”

  “Sure, that sounds good. I’m headed over to the cabins to figure out what they might need to have updated.”

  “I think you’re going to have to make some reservation time for cougars to come up here, once we tell them what you have up here,” Jack said. “I know my family would love it. Some of the residents of Yuma Town could rent all the cabins out at the same time and just have a big cougar party.”

  “Hey, I like that idea. And, Chet, even you could join us,” Leyton said.

  Emerson smiled. “We can certainly arrange for that.” He was thinking Jessie had been a real boon for business.

  Emerson left their cabin, then checked over the outside of cabin four. Everything looked fine that he could see. He went inside and closed the door, then headed into the kitchen. The door to the cabin opened and he turned to see Jessie. “Hey, so now that your uncle is coming back, what are you going to do about living arrangements?”

  Hell, he hadn’t thought that far in advance. Emerson pulled her into his arms, liking that she was even thinking of that. “If my uncle still wants to have his hand in managing the resort still, I can understand that. If you decide you want to stick around long-term, we’ll figure something out. We could find another home close by, maybe, build a home for you and me and my uncle could continue to live in his own home.”

  “Well, I had thought your uncle might find a woman in Yuma Town, but then I was thinking, what if—now that he’s learned you’ve quit your other job for good—he’s decided he still wants to help manage the resort, and even give you a break if you need it from time to time, just like you can give him a break. Maybe he really won’t ever settle down with another woman because he’s too set in his ways.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know really. This is all new territory for me. But I don’t want to lose you. We’re going to make this work, if it’s something you want to do, no matter what my uncle wants to do.”

  “I don’t want to upset him,” Jessie said.

  “Are you kidding? He set this all up for you to meet me and fall head over heels for you. And he did that already. So he’s probably thinking all this over too. And then your offer to have Christmas with your family and meet some eligible ladies? He might still end up meeting someone he needs in his life and want to live there with her in Yuma Town.”

  “Or move here with her.”

  “True.”

  Jessie began looking over the cabin. “This one is really differently decorated than mine. I have pictures of cougars in mine. What if we had pictures of bears in one, foxes in another, snow leopards in another, naming the cabins for animals, instead of numbered cabins. It could be more fun. We could even have a plaque on the outside of the cabin with a hand-carved animal to match.”

  “I like that idea.”

  She looked out the window. “It has a nice view of the lake.”

  “They all do. Yours is the most private, off in the corner like it is with woods between yours and the next four cabins.”

  “Yeah, I love it because they can’t see what I do when I run as a cougar at night.”

  “Speaking of which, I wanted to go back to the lighthouse park and see which of us can reach the bottom as a cougar first. Why not do it with the guys too before they leave?” Emerson asked.

  “Sure. It gets dark early and the park will be closed. We could do it and then return home for dinner if everyone wants to. I’ll call them and see.” Jessie got on her phone and said, “Leyton? We wanted to go to the Split Rock Lighthouse and see who could run down the 174 steps to the shore as cougars the fastest. Are you guys game?” She smiled. “We can go, then return to have dinner. All right. See you in a little bit.” She turned to Emerson, while he was checking out drawers and cabinets in the kitchen to make sure everything was stocked well and didn’t need any replacements. “Leyton said it was unanimous and he would win.”

  Emerson laughed. “Okay, sounds like fun. Kind of our last hurrah with them before they leave tomorrow.”

  “All right. I’m returning to work on my book then before we go.”

  “We’ll work things out to everyone’s satisfaction,” Emerson said, wanting to make sure Jessie knew he wanted to make this work between them no matter what his uncle wanted to do.

  “I just couldn’t imagine what we were going to do. I don’t want to live with your uncle in the same house. Not because I don’t love him, I do. But because with writing I need some quiet time and your uncle tends to talk my ear off—which I knew was all because he was lonely and so I gave him the time. But I could always go back to my cabin when I needed to write. If we all lived together, it would never happen.”

  Emerson smiled and kissed her. “We won’t be living with him.”

  When it got dark, Jessie started some wassail in a slow cooker to go with the evening meal and then she and Emerson drove over to the lighthouse, the others following in another car. They parked as close as they could get to the park without arousing suspicion and then ditched their clothing in their respective vehicles. Leyton got out into the snow and left the SUV door open for the other guys to jump out as cougars, locked the door with the keypad and turned into his cougar. Emerson did the same for Jessie, then locked his door the same way and shifted.

  They leaped over a fence and headed straight for the area of the park where they could reach the stairs. That was one nice thing about being a cougar. They could leap as high as sixteen feet in the air, and at a run, they could leap forty-five feet!

  When they reached the stairs, they had to make a decision. It was wide enough for one or two people to walk abreast, and certainly two cougars could manage. All five of them would be a crowd. Next to the stairs was the old tramway, an elevated railway that had hauled supplies up on a flat car to the dock where the ships tenders were docked. A spur of the rail system was used so the lighthouse keepers could push a carload of supplies to the oil house and storage barns where the supplies were stored until they needed them since it was a 130-foot high cliff. The wooden part of the structure was gone, leaving the concrete bases as the foundation for the tramway for all time all the way down the hill. As springy big cats, they could leap and dive over the rocky terrain too. The three CSF agents indicated they would leap down the concrete bases, letting Jessie and Emerson take the stairs.

  Jessie was thinking the agents might even have the advantage because the bases were so large and there were boulders or solid ground they could leap onto all the way down. She only wanted to beat Emerson down. The other guys were eager to best each other so this gave them all the same playing field.

  Leyton snarled, telling them all it was time to test their agility and speed and they all sprang into action. Jessie was thinking what a beautiful shot that would have been if she’d had her camera on a tripod down below, capturing the picture of all five cougars leaping into the air at the same time. Better still, a video of the action in case someone won by only a nose would have been great.

  Jessie was giving it her all to reach the bottom before Emerson, but she didn’t think he was trying very hard to win—unless he was trying to win her favor! Which she thought was nice of him. She wasn’t really all that much of a competitive sport, instead just enjoying the process. She had envisioned Emerson pulling away from her with a longer and more powerful leap than she could make because he was a male and he would reach the bottom a couple of minutes before she did—not to mention the other men were so gung-ho and would be down at the rocky shore before they would be—so this was an unexpected pleasure.

  She glanced at the guys and saw Chet and Leyton were concentrating on beating each other, but Jack was the one in the lead by a nose. She wanted to laugh. Chet and Leyton, having worked together as a team previously with CSF seemed to be the best of friends, but, boy, were they competitive.

  She made a huge leap from forty feet above, which Emerson hadn’t accounted for and she hit the bottom and made a sharp turn, accidentally running into Chet who had reached the bottom too. Jack was already at the bottom, beating them all.

  Emerson and Leyton landed next to them, and they all took off on the path through the woods. They could have run back up the stairs to the top to see who would be the winner climbing, but Jack had won the prize today.

  Then they ran the long way around the path through the woods, racing each other. Even though she knew Emerson could keep up with the guys, he lagged back to run with her, which made him the perfect hero in her story. The others waited for them at the place where they needed to jump over the fence and return to their vehicles.

  They all began jumping over the fence and then Leyton and Emerson shifted and unlocked their respective cars and opened doors. The other cougars jumped into their vehicles, shifting and dressing and then Leyton and Emerson climbed in and did the same. Then they drove back to the resort.

  “That was so much fun,” Jessie said. “You didn’t even try to beat me.”

  He smiled. “I was enjoying running with you. But I hadn’t expected you to make that last final jump or I would have done the same.”

  She laughed. “I was waiting until the end to make my move. I wanted to win. And I had fun with you too. Chet and Leyton were so intent on beating each other, they weren’t paying any attention to Jack and he ended up winning.”

  “I thought the same.”

  “I think we’ll miss them.” Though she realized they had another problem. Emerson’s uncle would return and then he would stay at the house. Having relations would be impossible in the same house. “When your uncle comes in tomorrow night—”

  “I was thinking we need to move to your cabin so my uncle can live in his house and you and I can continue to enjoy our time together, if you’re comfortable with that, and I’m hoping that you are.”

  She was glad Emerson was feeling the same way as she was. “What about doing research on the internet, if I need to?”

  “I’ve got a technician coming in to hook it up at all the cabins in the morning.”

  “Oh, terrific. That will work, and yes, I want you to stay with me. What if I need protection still?”

  He smiled. “I will be that for you.”

  And more. She was getting way too use to being with him at night and she didn’t want to end a good thing. “Do you think Paul will really come home with us to see the family for Christmas?”

  “Yeah, I do. He won’t want to spend Christmas alone and there’s no one at the resort which would require him to stay, but more than anything, he’ll want to meet the rest of the family he’s sure to hope will be part of his own extended family. Maybe he’ll even attempt to convince you I’m good enough for you.”

  She laughed. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed being with you.”

  “That’s good to hear. When I came home from that mission, all I wanted to do was have peace and quiet. If my uncle had been here when I arrived, I’d planned to spend Christmas with him, naturally. So when I learned he was dead, I just shifted gears. Instead of running around some other country, handling a mission, I would be chilling and catching up on movies I hadn’t seen yet and trying to learn what I could about where Smith had gone to.”

  “You haven’t watched the one Christmas movie I borrowed yet.”

  He smiled. “All right. We can watch it tonight, and if my uncle is in the mood for it, we can watch another with him tomorrow night.”

  “Yes! What are we going to have for dinner tonight?”

  “If you want to brave the cold again, we could all have hamburgers over the fire pit on the shore.”

  “Okay, that sounds like fun. I’m sure the guys would like that since they won’t have a chance to do that again, unless they come up here for a vacation with their families.”

  “Or a rogue ends up in my area, you’re helping me out with managing the resort, and I have to chase the rogue down. I’m sure I’ll have assistance from the other agents.”

  “True.” She got on her phone and called the guys. “Hey, how does cooking hamburgers over the fire pit on the shore sound to you? We thought you might enjoy one last night on the shore before you leave tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” Leyton said on Bluetooth.

  “Sounds good to me,” Jack said.

  “I’m all for it,” Chet agreed.

  “Okay, we’ll grab the stuff and meet you down at the shore,” Emerson said.

  “We’ll help you take the stuff down,” Leyton said.

  It wasn’t long before they pulled into the resort and parked their vehicles. Then they gathered the supplies and went down to the shore with the hamburgers, bags of chips, and the hot wassail Jessie had made for dinner in thermoses to keep it hot.

  “I wish I’d had a video of all of us racing down to the bottom of the hill today,” Jessie said as Emerson and Leyton began grilling the hamburgers and she and the others set up the folding chairs.

  “Not me,” Chet said.

  “Nor me,” Leyton said.

  “Yeah,” Jack said, toasting them with his thermos of apple cider, “I wish you had too.” Since he’d won!

  Everyone laughed.

  They heard someone drive into the parking lot above at the house and two car doors open and shut. Jessie hoped it didn’t mean trouble, but at least they had several men here who could deal with a threat.

  Emerson said, “There shouldn’t be anyone turning up, unless they think they can get a cabin for a night or something, which they can’t.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Jack said and Chet took over Emerson’s grilling job.

  “Are you armed?” Emerson asked Jack as they headed for the stairs.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “No. I thought with my uncle telling the bears we’re good now, we wouldn’t have any more issues.” Now Emerson wished he had brought a gun.