As soon as they saw the police, they explained who they were and how Smith had taken Jessie hostage.

  “We dated before,” she said. “He was angry I was dating Emerson now.”

  “Smith orchestrated the hit on us. When he took Jessie hostage, I took after him.”

  Barrett said, “I did too. Emerson and Smith got into a scuffle as Emerson was trying to free his fiancée. Then while they were fighting, they both fell off the cliff. Jessie and I feared they had both died. But when we looked over the cliff’s edge, we found Emerson on a small ledge and he was making the climb up. Smith had fallen to the rocks below.”

  “My Uncle Paul was serving us hot cocoa when we were putting up video cameras. The storage unit had been broken into a few days earlier, but nothing seemed to be missing and I replaced the doorknob, so I didn’t report it,” Emerson said. “But still, I wanted to get some security cameras up. That’s when all hell broke loose. Also, you’ll find bullet casings where Smith was trying to shoot me as I ran after him to free Jessie.”

  “We wounded the three other men,” Luke said. “They appeared to be well-trained, whoever Smith had hired.”

  “Why were they after you?” the officer asked, taking notes, acting as though they hadn’t explained to him about the relationship Jessie and Smith had had.

  “Jessie was the reason. Some men just go off the deep end when they can’t have a woman they want. How he knew the other men, I have no clue,” Emerson said. “Oh, except for Reginald Bates. We served in the army together—a fellow ranger. I couldn’t believe he would stoop so low.”

  The officer shook his head. “You’ll have to identify him for us. None of the men had any IDs on them and they won’t talk.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll take you to where Smith fell,” Barrett said.

  Emerson cleared his throat. “If we’re free to go, Officer, Jessie and I need to get to the hospital to see my Uncle Paul.”

  The wounded men had already been taken away by ambulances, or Emerson would have just identified his ass right there.

  “Yeah, sure, you’ll be staying here then?” the officer asked.

  “Yes, we will,” Emerson said.

  “And we live nearby here also,” Luke said. “Wish Paul the best from us, Emerson, Jessie.”

  “We will.”

  “I’ll meet up with you at the hospital,” the officer said. “The men are being treated for wounds they received in the shootout and you can ID Bates. I need to get Paul Merriweather’s statement also when he comes out of surgery.”

  Then Emerson and Jessie took off in his car and headed to the hospital. “I can’t believe Smith got into the house while Uncle Paul came out to bring us hot chocolate.”

  “He was waiting for the right moment to begin the shootout. I imagine he would have sneaked in anyway and shot Paul, just to alert the hired mercenaries to take you all out.” She explained what Smith had said to her. “I think he really didn’t want to shoot me, but he knew he had to. Leave no witnesses behind.”

  “I thought you would have stayed with my uncle when he was shot.”

  “I would have but I heard you calling an ambulance for your uncle and I had to go after Smith. I couldn’t let him get away and continue to send men after us.”

  “I knew I’d met the right she-cat when I’d met you.” Emerson had to let her know with all his heart that she’d made all the right choices.

  Chapter 22

  As soon as Paul was out of surgery and had finally been moved from the ICU to the recovery room, Jessie said to Emerson, “Thank God, he’s fine.”

  “Yeah, a Christmas miracle.” Emerson hugged and kissed her as they stood over his uncle, waiting for him to wake from the anesthesia, then got some chairs and sat down next to him.

  “I need to call my family again and tell them we won’t make it for Christmas. I’m sure they assumed that when we took him to the emergency room for surgery, but I just need to confirm we’re not coming,” Jessie said.

  “You could—”

  “No way. I want to be with my mate and Uncle Paul needs me too.”

  Emerson smiled and reached over and squeezed her hand.

  She squeezed his back and then called her sister. “Hey, Tracey, Uncle Paul is out of surgery and in recovery. He’s going to do fine the doctor says. But we won’t be able to come down there for Christmas.”

  “We all discussed it—Mom and Dad and the rest of us. We’re coming up there if you have enough room for us. You said you have several cabins and they’re not rented out right now.”

  “Oh, yeah, we would love that.” Jessie said to Emerson, “Tracey and the family want to come up here and stay in the cabins.”

  “Absolutely. Would they make it in time for Christmas though?”

  “We could have Christmas late,” Jessie said.

  “Nothing doing. We’re flying up there in a private jet that another cougar owns, and we’ll be up there before you know it,” Tracey said. “The kids can’t wait. They were so excited when they saw the pictures of you with the snowman and making snow angels and stacking rocks, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows on the firepit, they’re ready for the adventure. Not to mention they’re thrilled about flying in a private jet.”

  Tears filled Jessie’s eyes and she sniffled. She hadn’t wanted to miss Christmas with her family when she was finally mated, and she’d wanted them to meet Emerson and Uncle Paul too. She knew that Paul would be thrilled to meet them. “That would be wonderful.”

  “Yeah, Sis, you know we got your back. Besides, you finally found the right man for you and no way are we going to miss seeing him for your first mated Christmas together.”

  “We’ll be all set for you.” That meant she and Emerson needed to decorate the other cabins for Christmas too. So much for Uncle Paul and Emerson not decorating the cabins before that, feeling there was no need.

  “We ought to get together, you and me, if you’re not mated,” Paul said to the nurse before Emerson and Jessie left the room.

  Marjorie checked his heart rate and pulse. “I’m not mated, but I like my freedom.”

  “Going out for a bite to eat doesn’t mean I’m mating you,” Uncle Paul said, sounding a little growly.

  Emerson thought his uncle needed to work on his dating social skills a bit.

  “My momma used to always say at this age in life, men are only looking for a nurse or a purse, or both.” Marjorie wrote on his chart.

  “Well, you’re the nurse, and I’ve got the purse.” Paul winked at her.

  Jessie was smiling. Emerson couldn’t help but smile. Even Marjorie wore a hint of one, thankfully.

  “The doctor wasn’t happy you faked your death.” She raised her brows at Paul.

  “It’s all my nephew’s doing. You see what happened when I returned to see him after he quit that dangerous job? I get shot.”

  “What if it happens again? If someone else comes for Emerson? I’m only interested in doing fun things after I’m done with my duty,” Marjorie said.

  “Well, that’s my plan too.”

  “We’re going to get out of your hair,” Emerson said to his uncle before Jessie yanked him out of the hospital room.

  “You’re getting me out of here before Christmas, aren’t you?” Uncle Paul was frowning, looking worried he might be stuck at the hospital.

  “As long as the doc says you’re good to go, yes,” Emerson said. “We’re having the bears over also for Christmas dinner, a buffet probably.”

  “Oh, you’ve got to see them Marjorie,” Paul said.

  “Bears?”

  “Shifters. Right. They came to help take Smith down.”

  “Now that sounds interesting,” Marjorie said.

  Then Emerson and Jessie gave him a hug and kiss and they left the room.

  “I’ve got to make my patient rounds,” Marjorie said to Paul.

  “You could come to the Christmas dinner,” Paul said to her.

  “Hmm, I have other plans, but thanks for the offer.”

  Emerson shook his head at Jessie as they were unable to hear any more of the conversation before they met up with the officer in the lobby so Emerson could identify Reginald. “I think my uncle needs some guidance in dating.”

  “Are you kidding? Marjorie was definitely interested in him. Why do you think she hung out in his room for so long? She doesn’t want to give him the idea she’s too eager to go out with him though.”

  “Are you sure? I was thinking she was like Robbie.”

  “No. She wasn’t brief and to the point and hightailing it out of there as if she hadn’t been interested in him. She genuinely wanted to be there with him. Not that it’s a sure thing as far as dating him and mating him—but hey, maybe, given a few months of dates, if they’re that interested in each other, it will work out.”

  “You think it will take that long?” Emerson asked, seeing the officer in the lobby and he waved to him. “Look at us.”

  She smiled. “When I make up my mind about something, there’s no sense in putting off the inevitable.”

  He kissed her. “That just the way I feel.”

  “I know. That’s why we’re mated.”

  Then Emerson went with Jessie and the officer to the room where Reginald was manacled to a bed, his arm and leg bandaged, though Jessie waited outside for him.

  “Hey, Reginald, looks like you should have gone with the good guys this time. That’s him, Officer. Reginald Bates,” Emerson said.

  “It wasn’t personal. The pay was just too good,” Reginald said, shrugging.

  “Yeah, prison time is the best kind of pay for a guy like you, I guess.” That was all Emerson had to say to him and then he left with the officer.

  The officer walked with Emerson and Jessie down to the lobby. “Did you ever have a falling out with Bates?”

  “No, sir. He was on my team in the army. We did our job. End of mission. Like he said, it was nothing personal. He did it for money. Unfortunately, there are a lot of men in the world who would do the same for monetary gain.”

  “But with the man you knew as Smith?”

  “It definitely was personal for him.”

  “It seems odd,” the officer said.

  Emerson figured the officer had some bit of information on Smith that Emerson wasn’t privy to.

  “While you were visiting with your uncle, we had a team retrieve Smith’s body from the rocks below. I was checking over his phone and he had a Facebook account.”

  “Did he have another girlfriend on there? He friended me right away, but the last time I saw him, I knew he’d been with another woman,” Jessie jumped in to say.

  “Over a dozen in all parts of the world. But you’re the only one he seemed interested in taking hostage,” the officer said.

  “You’ll have to check with the other women he dated. I have no idea why he suddenly went after me.”

  “Had you been dating other men?” the officer asked.

  Her heart skipped a beat, Emerson swore. He knew why she would be worried if they investigated her background. The men she had dated were all dead. Even this one now. But they’d been rogue cougars and the cougar law enforcement would have hidden the fact any of that had happened. Still, Emerson didn’t know if Jessie had posted anything about the men she’d dated, anything that showed she had a connection with them. And then they had all vanished over the years.

  “Oh, I travel a lot, with the kind of work I do. Photographic books? So when I happened to be in some new area, I might have dated a guy, but just once. Nothing that was long-term. I don’t even remember the guys’ names. Certainly, we didn’t share last names, just our first names. And Smith knew that. I always told him about the guys I had dated when I was seeing him. He didn’t go by Smith, but Samuel, no last name.”

  “So you had an open relationship,” the officer said.

  “Right. I mean, I saw him five times in two years. We certainly weren’t a couple.”

  “But for some reason, he felt differently this time. Why?” the officer asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “On his phone, he had a text from you in response to a text he’d sent, planning to see you after the new year. You wanted to see him before. But I thought you were dating Mr. Merriweather. That he was your fiancé.”

  “Sure. I wanted to see Samuel before the new year to tell him that I was seriously dating Emerson. I didn’t want to do it in a text. Samuel had always been really nice to me, so I felt I owed it to him to speak with him in person, as long as he was going to be in the area. I had no idea he was monitoring where I was and knew I was here, or that he was already close by. I suspect he felt I was being dishonest with him because this time when he got a hold of me, I didn’t tell him I was seeing someone else, and I guess he knew it.”

  “He lived in Minnesota,” the officer said, looking at both their reactions.

  Since neither of them had known that, they both looked sufficiently surprised.

  “Hell,” Emerson said, “I wonder just how long he had known she was up here.”

  “Did you often tell him where you would be?” the officer asked Jessie.

  “I didn’t. But I did mention it on Facebook. All he would have to do was check out my page, and see I was at the resort, taking pictures of the sunset and stacking rocks on the shore.”

  “And he must have realized you were close to where he lived then. But why not ask to see you here? Why would he want to wait until you returned to Colorado?”

  “Maybe because I didn’t mention I was seeing Emerson and he already knew it.”

  “Right,” the officer said. “That’s what I figured. One other thing, one of the men your friends shot said you were Black Ops, that Smith knew it because he’d hired you for a mission, and he was looking to take you down, Mr. Merriweather. Can you shed any light on his statement?”

  “It’s possible that’s what Smith told his henchman. I haven’t a clue,” Emerson said.

  The officer nodded. “So if perchance you all were Black Ops assassins, I should just stop asking questions. Am I right?” the officer asked Emerson.

  Emerson bit back the inclination to smile. “You’re law enforcement and it’s your job to keep asking questions.”

  “Good answer. Here’s one last one for you then. When we brought Smith’s body up, he had teeth marks on his right wrist.”

  Correct. The bastard was going to break Emerson’s cougar forelegs if he hadn’t reacted quickly enough and bit him. He didn’t believe this was the officer’s last question either.

  “I didn’t bite him, if that’s what you’re asking,” Emerson said.

  “Of course not. It didn’t fit with your statement that he had hold of your legs and he was trying to pull you off the cliff. The bite mark was fresh, so he’d gotten it recently. An autopsy will reveal if he got it before or after he died. We know you couldn’t have bitten him unless he had a hold of your wrist and you bit him to force him to let go before he pulled you off the cliff.”

  DNA results would prove the bite mark was made by a cougar so Emerson was off the hook on that one.

  “It was as I said. He had a death grip on my legs”—forelegs in actuality—“and I didn’t bite him.”

  “You’re right. We think a wild animal bit him. DNA will show us what, but…did you see any cougars about?”

  “Not while I was trying desperately to rescue Jessie.”

  “Okay, well, that’s it for now. We’ll be in touch.”

  Emerson suspected the officer would be too. He and Jessie thanked the officer for their quick response to a deadly situation and coming to their aid and then they left the hospital.

  Emerson said, “I’ve got to call Condor and let him know Smith is no longer a problem. He’ll tell the others.”

  “Yes. I’m sure they’ll be glad.”

  “I know he will be, though he might give me grief for not letting him take part in eliminating him.” When Emerson reached Condor, he said, “Smith is history.” And then he explained what had happened.

  “Hell, man, and you didn’t let me help out? The other guys will be pissed too, though Kline’s off on a mission right now. Bears, huh. Barrett? Don’t remember ever working with the guy, but I’m glad it’s done. And thanks for letting me know.”

  “Yeah, just a little Christmas gift for you.”

  “That’s the best ever. Peace of mind. Thanks, Thor. We all owe you.”

  “No. You don’t owe me a thing. Just get better.”

  “I will. Knowing it’s over, I will. Merry Christmas. I’ll let the others know you got him.”

  “Thanks, and Merry Christmas.” Emerson ended the call and smiled at Jessie as they climbed into the car. “I think that’s the best news I’ve ever had to give my team.”

  “I’m so glad for the both of you and for Barrett and his team members too.” She patted Emerson’s thigh as he was driving back to the resort. “You know what we have to do next, don’t you?”

  Emerson smiled.

  She chuckled. “That too, but we need to hang Christmas lights up and decorate the cabins now that the family is coming to stay at the resort.”

  Emerson sighed. She smiled. “Here you hadn’t planned to do any decorating at all for Christmas.”

  “Yeah, but you made it all worthwhile.”

  Three days later, with the whole resort decorated like it was Disney World—they’d had to get extra lights for that—Uncle Paul was coming home after Jessie and Emerson picked up Jessie’s family from the airport. Tracey had insisted they just rent a car, which they had to do because of all the kids, but they had to bring Jessie’s parents home too and Emerson wanted to meet them all.

  Emerson hadn’t known what to expect, but the kids called him Uncle Emerson—and he loved it—and the adults and children gave him heartfelt hugs as if he was just one of the family and had been all along.

  “My daughter Jessie has always been a handful,” her father said to Emerson. “I’m glad she has someone to watch out for her now.”

  She gave her dad a hug. “I just had to find the right cougar for me.”