“Sometimes,” he said. “Badgers hunt with coyotes.”
Her heartbeat whipped through her body, and Lila Mae took a deep breath and told herself to be brave. She’d moved halfway across the country by herself to open a new facility that no one believed she could.
She could turn around and look at the landscape behind her. She did, her feet moving an inch or two each time, and it took her probably eight movements until her back pressed against Trap’s.
“Do you see anything?” he asked.
“No,” she whispered, her voice barely louder than the wind in the trees.
“Badgers dig out moles and voles, prairie dogs, mice,” he said. And while Lila Mae had enjoyed his Three Rivers education up to this point, she didn’t much care what badgers did. “As those animals try to escape, sometimes they make it. And if a coyote is smart, he hunts with a badger and catches that animal as it flees from its den.”
“I don’t see anything,” Lila Mae said, except for the last mottled rays of sunlight coming through the leaves on the trees.
“We must have caught this one right as she was leaving the den,” Trap said. “Badgers are nocturnal.”
Lila Mae nodded, though she couldn’t see him. “What do we do?”
“I want you to take the pizza in your hands and start walking very slowly back to the UTV.”
“By myself?” Her voice rose in both volume and pitch, and the air she breathed in did not feel like the right thing to have in her lungs.
“You can do it, Lila Mae,” he said. “She’s not lunging at me. Don’t look back. Just go.”
“What if I see another one?” she asked.
“Then stop.” He made it sound so easy, but it took Lila Mae a good ten seconds of scanning tree trunks, branches, leaves, fallen logs, and more before she dared take a single step away from Trap. To his credit, he waited patiently, oh so still, until she took the first step.
“I’m right behind you, sweetheart,” he murmured, and Lila Mae simply looked forward and took one step after the other, telling herself that each one got her closer to safety.
She’d done a lot of research on the Texas panhandle before moving here, but she hadn’t looked up the dangers of a badger attack. Lila Mae liked to arm herself with knowledge, but she almost didn’t want to know what could’ve happened. She heard rustling behind her, and when she twisted to look over her shoulder, she found Trap piling the second pizza box and the Styrofoam pasta containers on top of the picnic basket, which he then lifted.
She faced forward again, looking left, right, left, right, her heartbeat pounding a staccato rhythm through every cell in her body. This couldn’t be healthy, and Lila Mae started moving diagonally away from the riverbed and out into the more open grasslands of her ranch. She had no idea if badgers lived out here or not, but as that one had come wandering through the trees, she hoped its den was back toward the river.
She reached the road and found the UTV probably twenty-five feet away. She turned back and caught glimpses of Trap’s jeans and gray T-shirt as he moved through the trees. It took her a moment, but then she realized that he was walking backward,and every step he took hardly made a sound, despite the dry twigs, grasses, and leaves on the ground.
“Trap,” she whispered. “Come out to the road.”
He didn’t change his course, and Lila Mae started to walk parallel to him, though from twenty feet away. He finally started to edge closer to the road, and she arrived at the UTV before him, but only by a few steps.
“I think we’re good,” he said. “It didn’t follow me, and at one point I think I heard it scurry off.”
“Where do you think its den is?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I didn’t see any fans of dirt or anything that would indicate a badger den. Jason and I can come look in the morning.”
“No way,” Lila Mae said as she moved over toward the driver’s side of the UTV. That now put the vehicle between her, the trees, the river, and the badger. Of course, something could be behind her, and Lila Mae whipped her attention around, as if a coyote would be flying through the air, teeth bared, ready to sink its fangs into her chest.
There was nothing but her adrenaline pounding through her veins and her mind conjuring up all kinds of wild animal attacks.
She turned around, and Trap pulled her into his chest. “We’re okay,” he said, his voice calm and soothing. “You’re fine. Nothing happened.”
Lila Mae dissolved into tears and clung to him, and not only because he gave the best hugs on the planet, but because he’d protected her. He’d helped her. He’d saved her.
“I don’t want you to come look for the badger in the morning.” She managed to stem the flow of tears and pulled away. She looked up at him. “Let’s just leave it.”
“Lila Mae, this is your ranch,” he said. “We can at least figure out where it is and leave it for this season. Eventually, you’ll havethe whole thing developed, and it will be nice to know what’s living here and where.”
She nodded. “But you don’t have to do it tomorrow, do you?”
