Cougar Christmas Calamity (Heart of the Cougar Book 8) Read online

  Cougar Christmas Calamity

  Heart of the Cougar, Book 8

  Terry Spear

  Contents

  Cougar Christmas Calamity

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Acknowledgments

  Author Bio

  Also by Terry Spear

  Cougar Christmas Calamity

  Heart of the Cougar, Book 8

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Terry Spear

  Cougar Christmas Calamity

  Copyright © 2020 by Terry Spear

  Cover by Terry Spear

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  Discover more about Terry Spear at:

  http://www.terryspear.com

  ISBN Print: 978-1-63311-065-6

  ISBN E-Book: 978-1-63311-064-9

  To Stephanie Plumb, another Christmas book to put you in just the right mood for this Christmas season. Thanks for loving my books!

  Foreword

  Synopsis

  Cougar shifter Jessie Whittington plans to work on her psychic romance book before Christmas at the Whispering Pines Resort on the North Shore of Lake Superior, but peace and quiet aren’t exactly what she’s going to get right before Christmas.

  Former army ranger Emerson Merriweather has returned home after being ambushed on a Black Ops mission, and now learns his uncle has died. When he meets his only guest at the cabin resort, he’s surprised she’s a cougar too. Before long, a blizzard hits, bear shifters wreak havoc, and he’s helping Jessie decorate for Christmas. Something he never thought he would be doing.

  Jessie’s definitely the light in his life but he still has to take care of the man who set him and his team up during the mission. He knows he will be looking for Emerson to finish the job. Mystery and intrigue are the name of the game and things aren’t always as they seem.

  Prologue

  Three former army rangers and two navy SEALs made up the Black Ops team that had the mission of rescuing a group of kids from insurgents in South America. The insurgents were waiting for a payoff that wasn’t coming—at least not the kind of payoff they were expecting.

  The men were all eager to save the kids. Ex-army ranger and cougar shifter Girard Smith had given the men the mission. He’d worked with them before and Emerson Merriweather—though he went by the alias of Thor—and his team had no reason to believe that this would be different from any other deadly mission they were being highly paid to handle.

  “Hey, Condor,” Kline, a former navy SEAL, said, as they were being helicoptered to the secret location, “I hear you’re up to number seven on potential wife choices.” He was the joker of the bunch, fun to have around, whether they were planning a mission, in the middle of a fight, or at the end of the mission.

  Emerson smiled. Condor was a wolf shifter like Emerson was a cougar shifter, but the other three men on the team were strictly human. They wouldn’t know just how important it was for a wolf to find the right mate.

  “Six,” Condor corrected Kline. They’d trained together in the navy and were the only two who actually knew each other’s real identities. “That other woman didn’t count.”

  The guys all smiled.

  “Hey, Gardiner, I heard you were in a club brawl last night. Kind of cutting it close to mission time, aren’t you?” Condor said to the former army ranger, getting the heat off him and his love life, and putting it on the team member who should have known better.

  Gardiner shook his head. “I had to let off some steam.”

  He was always letting off steam. He was a real asset on the mission, focused, dedicated, but when he was Stateside, he was a drinker, been through three wives already, but thankfully hadn’t had any kids. He was currently divorced and always eager for a mission.

  Emerson didn’t like that Gardiner would start a fight at a club right before a mission though. Not when he could have ended up in jail and put the rest of the team in a bind. He was always the instigator of the brawls, so Emerson didn’t have to ask what led up to the fight.

  Next mission, Emerson might have to bring on a different guy to replace him. The kind of jobs they went on were too dangerous to allow one person to jeopardize the whole team.

  Robertson was quiet as usual. He only went with them on this trip to be able to afford Christmas presents for his children, otherwise he wanted to be home for them. His wife was a gambler and all the decent money Robertson made on these risky missions went to feed her addiction. Robertson was intending to sock this money away this time, divorce his wife, and take care of his kids, no more Black Ops. He didn’t trust that his wife was looking out for the kids while he was away.

  But on the mission when Emerson and his men arrived at the school where they were to rescue the kids, they discovered the building was in ruins, rubble everywhere, partially standing brick walls, partially standing classrooms and roofs. It didn’t look at all like the reconnaissance photos Smith had shown them. The coordinates were correct, so that wasn’t the issue. Emerson had a twitchy feeling crawling around his skin. There were no kids here.

  No one was here—they thought. Until the shooting began.

  They’d been misled, misinformed, or sold out. Right now, all that mattered was that Emerson—as team leader—got his team out before they all were killed.

  When the gunfire began, Emerson and his team ducked for cover among the ruins, trying to learn where the two snipers were and where the others who were shooting at them were situated.

  Condor took out one of the snipers. Emerson maneuvered behind partial brick walls and finally reached the other. He shot the shooter in the head and the man dropped to the ground, dead. The rest of the team were shooting at the other gunmen, the firepower way too much for Emerson and his team to handle, he was afraid. Emerson and the team were outnumbered and didn’t know the terrain like the insurgents did.

  It was a bad situation, but Emerson was determined to get his team out alive.

  Gardiner tried to reach another wall, fire rang out, and he went down. Emerson fired at the man who had shot him, just as the gunman made a move to turn and hightail it to another location. The man dropped his weapon and did a face plant in the rubble and didn’t move.

  Emerson made a low dash to Gardiner to see to his injuries and hurried to field dress the bullet wound on his leg. Condor raced to reach them and dropped in beside them. The SEAL shook his head. “I told you I had a bad feeling about this.”

  Yeah, Condor had and once they got here, Emerson had too. Sure, Emerson had smelled Smith’s stress when he had signed them up for the job. It was a stressful mission, but now Emerson was thinking Smith wasn’t as stressed out about the case of them rescuing the children as he was of the members of the team returning to hunt him down if any should survive.

  The insurgents w
ere still shooting in their direction and Emerson and Condor were hunkered down, saving their rounds until they could take shots that counted.

  “Smith sold us out,” Condor said.

  “Yeah,” Gardiner ground out. “I’ll kill him.”

  Emerson nodded. He hated to think that of another cougar, but it did happen. Anything for money—or revenge. He couldn’t think of a reason for Smith to go after them for revenge though. Emerson had no idea what Smith’s finances looked like.

  The last mission they’d worked with Smith on was to rescue American college students in South America, and they pulled that off without a hitch. This time, Condor swore Smith had looked shifty-eyed when he told them about the mission.

  “I’ll kill that SOB,” Condor said.

  “Agreed.” Emerson felt the same way and would do something about it as soon as he could. “We need to get out of here and reach the pick-up zone—a new one though. We’re not going to beat this firepower, I don’t think.”

  “Gardiner’s wounded,” Condor said, as if that was a reason to kill everyone who was out to get them.

  “He’ll live,” Emerson said, hoping he was right. But they needed to regroup. If Smith was behind the ambush, he needed to be the one they took out—permanently.

  “Robertson got hit when I took out the one sniper.” Condor motioned to a broken section of wall. “I checked on him and bandaged him up. It’s a shoulder wound.” Condor let out his breath. “I got to get back to potential wife number six,” he said as if that decided it.

  The women Condor dated were always potential wives. Emerson swore Condor would never settle down. He was too easily bored. This is what he lived for. Fighting, killing, freeing hostages, the adventure, the grittiness. Settling down with a she-wolf wasn’t really in the plans for now.

  After this for Emerson? He wanted something else out of life. He didn’t want to give up his life so that someone could get rich by it. This was his last mission.

  Another burst of gunfire from the other ranger and from the ones shooting at them stole Emerson and Condor’s attention.

  Kline wasn’t too far away, but they couldn’t see him now. Most of the heat was on him though. Emerson couldn’t give up, trying to get his men out of this situation no matter what. “I’m going behind these suckers and you draw their fire.”

  “Go for it.” Condor got ready to shoot the insurgent who was trying to hit him.

  Emerson moved low around the piled-up rubble and finally reached a vantage point where he could see a nest of three shooters. He lobbed a grenade into their hiding place, and it went off, killing all three men.

  Emerson continued around to the other side of the building and saw a man raise up to take aim at Kline down below. Emerson fired a shot and killed the man, but another shot Kline, who was concentrating on two other men who were shooting at him.

  Emerson raced through the rubble to get to the other men and killed two, Condor taking out a third, but then Condor went to Kline’s aid.

  Two more shooters were climbing through the rubble, trying to get a better vantage point to shoot at Kline and Condor. Emerson couldn’t get a good shot at the gunmen. Damn it. But as soon as one raised up to shoot Condor, Emerson took the man out. The second one targeted Emerson and hit him in the arm. Emerson ducked back behind some pilings.

  He’d seen at least three more shooters, could hear them coming for him, and he was ready to shift into a cougar and just take them out. He could maneuver a hell of a lot better on all this rubble as a cougar, for one thing. Leaping into the fray and tearing them to pieces suited him just fine.

  He moved out of the shooters’ view, afraid that his friends were wounded or dead since he hadn’t heard any gunfire from any of them.

  He came out from behind one of the partial walls and saw a man trying to sneak his way around him. Emerson shot him, then ducked back and headed in the direction of Condor and Kline. When he was a few hundred yards from their location, he saw the two shooters making their way to where he was going. He shot one of them, and the other hid.

  Emerson listened. He didn’t hear any other movement, no gunfire. He prayed there were no others than the one he needed to eliminate and that he could reach his friends and get them out of here. But he knew if he tried to go for his friends, the lone gunman would shoot him down. Instead, Emerson went way around through the rubble, using the piles of bricks and cement and partially standing walls to hide himself. He moved like a cat, careful not to expose his position.

  And then he was upon the guy, shooting him before he could get off a shot. Being shot once was bad enough, Emerson thought, as he considered his own wound. The pain hadn’t set in yet, but he was bleeding, and he knew he needed to take care of the injury. He hurried to Condor and Kline’s location. Kline had been hit in the shoulder. Condor had a head wound and was holding on.

  “Smith,” Condor rasped under his breath and motioned to a section of building still standing.

  “He’s here?” Emerson couldn’t believe the bastard would send them to their deaths and watch to see that it was done. He figured he would have waited like a coward to get word somewhere far from here.

  “There.” Condor motioned to the building. “Get me out of here.”

  “Yeah, buddy.” Emerson bandaged Condor’s head wound. “I’m going after him. I don’t want to move you or the others and have him shoot us while I’m doing so.”

  “Yeah, just hurry,” Condor said.

  At least the wolf had faster healing genetics like the cougar shifters. “You got it.” Emerson headed for the area that Condor had pointed to and he even smelled Smith’s scent, but then he came across tire tracks and heard a vehicle start up somewhere beyond the building.

  Smith had to be fleeing, figuring Emerson would kill him! No one was left to deter Emerson from eliminating Smith.

  Emerson took off running, trying not to sprain an ankle or break a leg in the rubble. He saw the dust-covered, camouflaged-painted Jeep, Smith’s head poked out the window and looking back, his black hair longer, his face unshaven, his signature ears sticking out, and his blue eyes wide—caught in the act. He jerked his head back inside the Jeep and tore off. Emerson immediately fired several shots, but he couldn’t hit Smith before the Jeep raced off down the dusty, dirt road, and disappeared around a bend, past some more bombed-out buildings.

  Emerson ran back to where Condor was before Smith called in reinforcements and tried to finish the job. “Remember, you have your sixth-maybe wife to get home to so don’t you go dying on me.”

  “Hell no. Smith sold us out. We have a new unsanctioned mission—eliminate Smith for the team. I’m not dying today because of that traitor.”

  But this would be the last official Black Ops mission Emerson was going on.

  Emerson called in a new pickup point. He had to. Smith knew the other one. Though Emerson realized the pickup point might have all been a ruse and no one planned to come for them—because they were all supposed to be dead. He told the crew that normally extracted them that Smith was a traitor and not to give him their new pickup location if he called them for it. Then Emerson lifted Condor in a fireman’s carry, Emerson and Condor both groaning in pain, and he urged Kline up. They went to get Gardiner and Robertson, both of them taking care of a couple more shooters that had shown up from out of the blue. Gardiner had been shot again, this time in the chest. Emerson checked for a pulse. The ranger was dead, damn it. Robertson was looking worse for wear, his face ashen, but he and Kline managed to carry Gardiner while Emerson carried Condor as they headed to the pickup point.

  “Did you get him? Smith?” Condor asked. “Hell, did you get shot?”

  “Yeah. Arm. And no, I didn’t. He tore off in a Jeep.”

  “I thought you were quicker on your feet than that.”

  Usually, Emerson was. “I was afraid I’d break a leg or ankle on all that rubble. Then where would we have been?”

  “True, thanks for coming back for me. Did you change t
he pickup location?” Condor asked.

  “Hell, man, how can you even talk with a bullet rattling around in your skull?”

  Kline and Robertson chuckled. “Condor never shuts up,” Kline said.

  “The bullet didn’t penetrate, I don’t think. But I’m too dizzy to walk and my vision is blurred,” Condor said.

  “Yeah, yeah, any excuse.” Emerson gave him a wry smile. “Are the rest of you okay?”

  Kline was quiet. “Yeah, just pissed off,” he finally said.

  Robertson didn’t say anything, but Emerson couldn’t look back at him to check on his condition. He just had to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other and pray that Robertson went home to his kids all in one piece. “I think that’s how we all feel.”

  They finally reached the pickup point and Emerson was damn glad Smith hadn’t learned of it or they probably would have been in another firefight. And this time he doubted they would have made it.

  “We have to kill him,” Condor said again as they got into the helicopter.

  “Yeah, but we need to heal up first.” Emerson would recuperate at his uncle’s home at the Whispering Pines Resort and give Uncle Paul the news he wanted to hear more than anything else in the world—Emerson was quitting his dangerous job for good and helping him to manage the resort, taking over even, if his uncle was ready to retire.