Page 47 of Wyoming True

JAKEWASSOsilent that Ida moved up behind him and looked past him at her living room.

“Oh, my God!” She moved forward, but he caught her. “Butler! No,” she sobbed. “No!”

Jake went around her, following the thin blood trail to her big yellow cat. Butler was lying on a throw rug, not moving.

“I wish I knew a hit man!” she sobbed. “I’d send him after Bailey Trent this very minute! He killed my cat! He killed my baby!”

Jake had a hand on the cat. He caught his breath. “He’s still alive. Can you go and have Fred open the back door of the limo? I’ll carry him. We’ll get him to the vet right now!”

“Still...alive?” she choked, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Yes!”

THEYGOTHIMin the back seat. Ida didn’t bother to lock the door. Whoever had injured her cat hadn’t been stopped by a lock, after all.

Fred, Jake’s driver, was a wild man when he was given the green light to break speed limits. They pulled up in front of the vet’s office in scant minutes, where they were met by the vet himself, who’d come from home after Jake’s phone call from the limo.

“Bring him right in,” the vet said quickly.

Jake took the cat, wrapped up in the throw rug on Ida’s lap, and carried him inside. He put Butler on the examination table and then slid an arm around Ida, who was in anguish.

“He’s all I have,” she sobbed. “Please, Doctor, can you save him? I don’t care what it costs!”

The vet, Donald Mulholland, was still examining the cat. “There are some deep lacerations, not fatal, but concerning, and what feels like a broken rib. Probably a broken tail, as well, here at the tip.” He turned to her and smiled gently. “Not fatal injuries. I’ll need an X-ray... There’s Ashley,” he added with a smile at the young woman coming in the door. “My wife,” he said, introducing them, “and my partner in the practice. She’s smarter than I am,” he added in a loud whisper.

Ashley chuckled. “Liar. What have we got?” she asked, moving to stand beside her husband, while he updated her.

“We’ll get him right back to X-ray. Are you going to stay...?”

“Oh, of course,” Ida said at once, biting back another bout of tears.

The doctor picked up Butler and, followed by his wife, went back to the X-ray room.

“You don’t have to stay,” Ida began, looking up at Jake.

He bent and kissed her eyes shut. “Hush,” he whispered. Which did nothing to stem the tears but induced more of them. Tenderness was still new to Ida.

He held her gently while she wept, and then mopped up her face with a spotless white handkerchief.

“I didn’t think men carried handkerchiefs anymore,” she said, her voice hoarse from crying.

“My mother thought that any decent man should have an ample supply,” he teased.

She smiled. “Thanks. For everything.”

“Someone got into your house, and it didn’t look like a forced entry,” he said quietly.

She drew in a long breath. “Yes, I noticed that.” She looked up at him. “Laredo has a key,” she said hesitantly.

Jake pulled out his cell phone and called Cody Banks.

“But I’m not sure...” she began.

“You can’t afford to hesitate,” he interrupted curtly. “A man who’d do that to a cat would do it to a human. Or a horse,” he added angrily. He recalled that her horses had similar injuries to the cat, which might indicate that one perpetrator was responsible for damage to all three of her animals.

She sighed. She nodded.

“Banks,” came a curt voice from the other end of the line.

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