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    Eyes of the Cat: Hell on the Range (Part 2 of a 4 Part Serial)
    Eyes of the Cat: Hell on the Range (Part 2 of a 4 Part Serial)
    Eyes of the Cat: Hell on the Range (Part 2 of a 4 Part Serial)
    Ebook88 pages1 hour

    Eyes of the Cat: Hell on the Range (Part 2 of a 4 Part Serial)

    By Mimi Riser

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    About this ebook

    Part 2 of a 4-part serialized novel...

    Once upon a time, in a far, strange land (1883 Texas, to be precise), there arrived from back East a beautiful and headstrong young princess...um, I mean a scientist...named Tabitha Jeffries. Hardly more than a girl really, but she had the courage of an Amazon and a heart as big as her intellect. To save another girl, named Gabrina, from an arranged marriage to this presumably wicked prince (well, a laird, anyway) called Alan MacAllister, Tabitha switches places with her. Expecting, naturally enough, that the awful Alan’s Highland Scots family (who just happen to live in a full-scale medieval castle) will release her the moment she confesses she’s not Gabrina. Only—and this is the annoying part—Alan’s family is actually more interested in a bride, period, than they are in a specific bride... “Gabby or Tabby, ’tis such a wee dif’rence”... In other words, they keep her—fussing and fuming, kicking, clawing, biting, punching and screaming, notwithstanding.

    And Alan himself, who turns out to have wanted Gabrina even less than Gabrina wanted him, decides that he does want Gabrina’s replacement. He decides this on first sight, in fact. And one can scarcely blame him, because that first sight was a lulu. It was the sight of said replacement—who had just escaped a tower by way of a tree that snagged off most of her clothes on the climb down—leaping wildly out of that tree in her unmentionables. Very interesting. Something to make a man stop and think. Catching her in his arms, Alan thinks he may be in love.

    Numerous battles and embraces, some bloodcurdling adventures, and an emotional triathlon later, Tabitha is beginning to think the same thing. Now all she has to do is solve a ten year old murder, prevent a new one, and save herself and Alan from a horrifying family legacy. There’s always something, isn’t there?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMimi Riser
    Release dateSep 7, 2014
    ISBN9781310782497
    Eyes of the Cat: Hell on the Range (Part 2 of a 4 Part Serial)
    Author

    Mimi Riser

    Mimi Riser is a longtime author of fiction and nonfiction, including several series and spanning a variety of genres (with flavors ranging from sweet to spicy hot). Her books celebrate the upbeat, the offbeat, and “beating the odds.” She began life in the urban northeast, but now resides in the rural southwest with her best friend & husband Rob.

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      Book preview

      Eyes of the Cat - Mimi Riser

      EYES OF THE CAT

      Part 2:

      Hell on the Range

      MIMI RISER

      www.mimiriser.com

      Eyes of the Cat is now released as a serial, which means it has been divided into separate parts that are offered individually. This is the second of four parts.

      Serial Copyright © 2014 by Mimi Riser

      All rights reserved.

      Smashwords Edition, Smashwords License Statement: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      [Note: Eyes of the Cat was originally published by a NY house, in mass-market paperback, under a different title. It has since been revised and re-edited. This is the new, expanded edition and contains material not found in the paperback.]

      Disclaimer: This novel is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

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      Chapter 5

      …Like placing one picture over a similar but not quite identical one, so the lines blurred together and it was difficult to tell where one image ended and the other began. That’s what the dream was like, Tabitha thought, as she lay between the sheets (sensible cotton ones, thank goodness), straining to remember it, her bruised eyes weighted shut with the effort.

      Alan had brought her back to their room, as he called it, after Molly’s skillful doctoring of her injuries. She’d been too drained by then, and too dopey from the painkiller the herb woman had administered to care where she was. She had barely even noticed Alan unwrapping her improvised toga, slipping a nightgown over her head, and tucking her under the covers like she was a small child. Then he’d pulled off his shirt and boots and slid in with her, cradling her against him until deep sleep claimed her.

      Which proved the worth of Molly’s potions. It was outrageous to think she ever could have slept in such a position otherwise, no matter how exhausted she was. Especially given the way Alan had spent the fuzzy interval before slumber rubbing her shoulders and stroking her back through the nightgown, and whispering soft words into her hair. Words Tabitha couldn’t remember now. And didn’t want to.

      That tender side of Alan seemed the most devastating to her. It rattled her to the core, because it was so incongruous to the rest of him. And because she was so defenseless against it. His growling and bullying was something she could lean into, brace herself for, and at least try to resist. But how did you fight gentleness? It was like one of those snares that used your own weight against you. The harder you struggled to loosen it, the tighter it became. She could feel the whole frightening situation closing in on her like a noose around her neck. And that weird dream had only pulled the rope snugger.

      Very weird, more like a memory than a dream, really. But a memory of something that had never happened to Tabitha. She’d been someone else in the dream, a girl slightly older than herself, who’d been locked in the tower room as she had, but during some earlier time. Tabitha had realized that because the tree outside the window had been so much smaller. She’d been squeezed into the window, staring out over the branches and waiting for someone, her heart pounding with a desperate longing and terrified dread at the same time. Who, exactly, she had been waiting for in the dream, she wasn’t sure, but she’d known it was a man, and that he was coming to rescue her. Although from what, she couldn’t remember, nor anything more than that.

      The rest of the dream was a blank. Except for the last part of it. In the final moment before waking, everything had been pitch black around her and heavy with the odors of smoke and blood. She had felt frozen, unable to move, and she hadn’t known where she was anymore. Then came the horrible noise of someone or something screaming in rage—almost like Alan’s cry when they’d pinned him in the yard—and she had awoken with a jolt, the agony of it still ringing in her ears…

      Tabitha? I can tell you’re awake by the way you keep jiggling your knee under the covers. Do you feel well enough to sit up and eat something?

      What… A pair of bruised eyes popped open, saw who it was, and a sore face managed a half normal smile. Oh, it’s you. Good morning, Monique.

      It’s afternoon. And you can forget the Monique. I’m going back to plain old Mary for awhile. She smiled back.

      I’m glad. I always liked the name Mary. What time is it, anyway? Cautiously, Tabitha pulled herself upright in the bed.

      So far, so good. My head hasn’t fallen off yet.

      Mary rose from her chair in a rustle of calico and started fussing with some covered dishes on the nearby table. It’s almost two. You missed Dunstan’s noontime flogging, but I enjoyed it enough for both of us. They gave him twenty lashes. His back looks like a freshly skinned buffalo carcass, and the rest of him is starting to look like a boiled lobster. He has to hang in his ropes in this blistering Texas sun until nightfall. Do you want scrambled eggs, porridge, or both?

      Neither. Tabitha pressed both hands to her suddenly churning stomach. That…that’s barbaric! Poor Dunstan.

      Poor Dunstan, nothing! Mary stared at her in disbelief. How can you say that after what he did? He’s getting off lightly. I’d have beaten him senseless and left him hanging for a week.

      Oh, Mary, you don’t mean that. The poor fool was drunk. He didn’t realize what he was doing. And he’d been punished enough already, between the mauling and me cracking him with the bedpost. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Tabitha dropped to unsteady feet and staggered across the room to fumble her way into a lacy pink dressing gown she’d spotted draped over the top of the steamer trunk. There were matching slippers on the floor in front of it, and she half collapsed onto the trunk to slide them on.

      And just where do you think you’re going? Molly said you’re to stay in bed all day.

      I’ll be back as soon as I’ve cut Dunstan down, Tabitha said, having no idea how she was going to accomplish that feat, but wobbling toward the door to

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