Wild Men of Alaska 02 - Moosed-Up

the grass that needed to be mowed in her front yard. It was so close to the house there was no way she’d be going anywhere. The moose glanced up.
    Hey, she recognized that look in his eye.
    It was the same damn moose who’d chased her up a tree last week. Was he the town mascot? Welcoming committee? That would explain one reason for the small population. A rogue moose chasing people off.
    “Shoo!” she hollered and received a bored blink for her efforts.
    “Get!” she tried again. This time the moose took a big step toward her. She squealed again, and jumped back into the house, slamming the door. Her heart pounded, and her breath came out in loud gasps. What did she do now? She ran to the window and looked out.
    The intimidating animal was still there. She’d slammed the door hard enough to sway the trees and yet he still stood there. He turned back to his lunch and continued grazing as though h e had no intentions of leaving.
    Was this a common occurrence in Alaska? Could you be held hostage in your own house by a moose? She did not want the headline of The Daily News Miner to read: Woman expires as a Bull Moose held her prisoner in her house .

    She wasn’t dying this way.
    And she wasn’t dying without sleeping with Lynx first.
    This was ridiculous. She needed something to scare the thing away. A gun was a thought. It was the second time she’d had that thought, so she’d better look into it. First, she had to learn how to shoot one so she didn’t accidentally kill herself or someone else. She headed to the kitchen. There had to be something in there that she could use.
    Knives? Right, get serious. Pans? No, she liked her pans. They’d come with her from Cincinnati, and it wasn’t like there was a Williams Sonoma down the street, or probably in the state. Nope. Not taking that chance. She saw the bowl of fruit and reached for the apples. Maybe she could scare him away with these. She didn’t want to hurt him, just startle him into scampering off.
    She returned to the window to see him munching away as though he had nowhere else to be. Slowly, she cracked open the front door. His ears twitched, and his head came up. She let an apple fly. It hit him on the front flank and bounced off. The moose blinked again and then ambled over to where the apple had rolled to a stop. It sniffed and then ate it in one bite. His head came up with what she could assume was more interest. He took a step toward her, and with his long legs, his step was considerable. She screamed and threw all the apples at him. He bobbed his head and went after each one. She slammed the door.
    That wasn’t the smartest thing she could have done. She’d fed a wild animal.
    Yeah, you sure taught him .
    So much for taking care of this problem herself. She prided herself on being smart enough to realize when she needed back up.

Chapter Ten

    Lynx stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “Gotta go, kid.”
    “Poachers again?” Fox gathered up the scraps of cardboard Kiski had torn into little pieces while she currently investigated a butterfly.
    “Nope. BW has Eva trapped in her house. I’ve been called to play hero again.” This time he wasn’t moosin—messing it up either.
    “Take her flowers!” Fox hollered as Lynx jumped the last three steps from the deck.
    “Right. Thanks.” That kid was a freaking genius.
    Lynx yanked flowers in his sprint to Eva’s. She wouldn’t slam the door in his face this time. He exited the trees with a handful of sweet-smelling wildflowers intermixed with some weeds. While he approached the moose, he attempted to clean up the mess and rearrange the blooms. BW was doing a fine job of mowing Eva’s front yard.
    Maybe he should mow it for her. Chances were she didn’t have a lawn mower. There wasn’t much of a lawn either, more like forest carpet than grass.
    “What are you up to, BW?” Lynx slowly drew near the big Bull Moose, glancing around the opening, suddenly conscious that he had a handful of flowers and was talking to a moose. There was no sign of Eva, but he could feel eyes on him and knew she watched from the window.
    Now how did he talk a moose into leaving an all-you-can-eat buffet of sweet greens?
    At the sound of Lynx’s voice, BW bobbed his head a few times, much like a horse that was happy to see him.
    “You can’t keep doing this,” Lynx tried to reason, knowing he was setting himself up for a psych evaluation. He hoped Eva couldn’t hear him. It was bad enough she was