Hot Touch (11 page)

He cursed the bittersweet anticipation that tugged at him. Anger overwhelmed it as he dug his palms into the faded denim of his jeans.

She’d gone to California to take care of the need he’d created in her. She’d taken the passion he’d cherished and given it to some other man—why else would she sneak away without offering him the honor of an explanation or a good-bye?

She hadn’t had the honesty or the courage to make love with him. He’d thought that he understood her, but he was wrong. He’d thought that deep down they shared the same need for friendship and tenderness as well as sex. He was wrong.

There was a wide streak of tolerance in him; he tried to look inside people and animals, then understand their motivations without passing judgment. He got angry easily, and he forgave easily too. But this he couldn’t forgive.

“No more foolishness for me,
chère
,” he said fiercely. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

He certainly wasn’t going to stand here like a wistful kid, waiting to greet her. He stood, feeling miserable and furious, swung about on one heel, and walked back toward the wild animal compound.

All four of his cats bolted out of the honeysuckle. Two of them dived between his work boots, nearly tripping him. They headed for the driveway at top speed.

Paul came to an astonished halt. Caroline’s arrival was responsible for the animals’ strange behavior, he realized.

No, that was ridiculous. It went beyond rational explanation. He’d worked with animals all his life and he’d never seen anything like this before.

Paul rammed his hands through his hair. He’d never seen anyone like Caroline Fitzsimmons before either.

Okay. Think. She used some subtle training technique to make animals respond to her this way.

Sure, man. And that makes them sense that she’s arriving before they see her
.

No, that was a damned impossibility. Then what? Some psychic connection? Paul grimaced with disgust at that notion. In New Orleans there were modern-day voodoo witches who said they could control animals and people through their magic. He found voodoo at least as reasonable as psychic mumbo-jumbo.

Paul shook his head, slapped the air violently with one hand, and walked on. Bewitched, then. She’d bewitched his animals, but she’d sure as hell lost her chance to bewitch him.

Master sad. Hurt. Miss you
.

Caroline inhaled raggedly and cupped Wolf’s head in her hands. She’d barely had time to swing her feet out of the limo before he shoved past the driver and plopped his large gray head on her knees.

When Master with you—good. You stay!

I had to go away and think. Where is he, Wolf?

Wolf took her hand in his mouth and tugged gently.
Follow
.

Caroline managed to tell the driver where to leave her suitcases before Wolf dragged her away from the limo. He was so impatient that she almost toppled over on the stiletto heels of her scarlet shoes, and had to withdraw her hand from his grip.

The rest of her was the same fiery shade of red as the shoes—her voluminous silk jacket with padded shoulders that a defensive tackle would envy, the cowl-neck blouse underneath, and the slinky, tapering pants with their scarlet buttons at the ankles.

She’d wound her hair up in a knot and adorned it with a scarlet and gold comb. Even the rims of her sunglasses blazed with the warning red color.

It was the kind of outrageous outfit women called dramatic and men called embarrassing; it would surely help in her campaign to keep distance between herself and Paul.

Wait a minute. Weren’t bulls enraged by bright reds? Caroline shook the anxious thought away and followed Wolf down a path bordered by honeysuckle bushes taller than her head.

She and Wolf came in sight of the movie crew, who were eating breakfast at long tables on the lawn in front of the caterer’s trailer. People stopped what they were doing, turned around in their chairs, and stared unabashedly at her.

Caroline waved at Frank, who stood up with his mouth ajar and pointed behind her. She glanced back.

She was being trailed by four cats, a small squadron of white ducks from the plantation’s pond, and a squirrel.

Caroline winced. Blue’s animals were truly dear, but this was getting out of control. “They like the color,” she called stoically, pointed to her outfit, and trudged on.

Now her face matched her clothes.

Wolf led her to Paul’s veterinary hospital, a small white stucco building nestled beside a barn. Wolf settled on its concrete stoop. Caroline turned toward the rest of her menagerie.

Sweet babies. Now go about your business before a freak show asks me to audition
. They scattered politely.

Caroline took a deep breath, swung a plain wood door open, and stepped into an anteroom that smelled of antiseptic and medicine. A couple of male college students sat at battered desks amid stacks of books.

“We’re trying to figure out why the panther won’t mate,” one of them explained. “We don’t have a female panther of his species, but we’ve got a female cougar from Texas. At least we could get genetically similar
cross-bred kittens, but he won’t have anything to do with her.”

“Sounds like a problem for Dr. Ruth.”

The boys grinned.

Caroline pointed toward a closed office door. “Blue’s?”

“Yes.”

She went over and knocked, wishing her heart weren’t drumming in her chest.

“Yeah,” she heard him say. His deep, slightly accented tone sent shivers down her spine and made her breath pull short. Caroline squared her shoulders, straightened her sunglasses, and invaded Blue’s small office with haughty grandeur.

He sat at an old wood desk cluttered with files and letters. The floor was stacked with professional journals, charts were thumbtacked to every available inch of wall space, and his bookshelves overflowed with medical texts. This was one place where the Belue penchant for spareness and simplicity had failed to take hold.

Because he cares so much about his work
, she thought with admiration.

His head jerked up at the sight of her, his blue eyes flaring, his mouth a grim line of distaste. His long black hair was ragged, as if he’d been running his fingers through it violently. He flattened his big hands on the desktop and leaned forward, a muscle flexing in his jaw. He radiated a crackling energy that made him seem bigger, more dangerous, and more breathtaking than she’d remembered.

“This building is off limits to Hollywood people.”

Caroline fought to keep from gaping at him. Her proud demeanor nearly drained away in the face of his hostility. She’d expected him to be puzzled, maybe a little angry, but not furious.

“I … I just came to tell you that I was back and that I’d take charge of Wolf on the set today.”

“Fine. I’ll let you take care of him from now on. Just stay out of my way, ’cause I’m busy, see? Good-bye. I have work to do.”

She raised her brows at him and shot back, “And a lovely Monday morning to you too.”

Caroline pivoted on one heel and strode to the door. His voice assaulted her with low, controlled anger.

“Was he worth the long trip home? Did he take care of the itch I gave you, yes?”

Shock poured through her. Of course he’d think that she’d returned to California for the weekend to see one of the man friends she’d mentioned.

The ridiculous pads in her jacket shoulders disguised the sudden slumping of her back. This was for the best, she told herself. The perfect way to keep Paul from pursuing her anymore.

“He was terrific,” she answered softly, and slammed the door behind her as she left the room.

It was a good thing Paul’s animals adored her, because they were her only company.

She barely saw him over the next two weeks. Caroline found herself keeping a quiet vigil on the movie set. When they filmed in the marshes bordering the barns she strained her eyes to glimpse Paul as he walked from one to the other.

When they filmed in the mansion she kept a watch on the doors, hoping that he’d have some reason to come in during the day. He never did.

Rain poured down one night. Caroline got out of bed and opened her window so that she could inhale the wet, fresh darkness. She was startled when she heard a phone ring upstairs, followed by hurried sounds.

She identified Paul’s heavy footsteps plus the clicking cadence of Wolfs feet as Wolf followed him; the two rhythms descended the long front staircase quickly and ran out the front doors.

There must be an emergency; she recalled hearing Ed say that an elderly gazelle had developed pneumonia.

Caroline considered the consequences for a moment, then threw some clothes on and ran after Paul. There was too much at stake to let his anger or her defensiveness intrude.

She headed for the veterinary building, where lights blazed with watery luminescence in the heavy rain. Soaked and shivering, Caroline burst into the anteroom. Wolf, dripping water, got up from his place on a muddy rug and came to her, his eyes solemn.

Master needs you
.

I’ll help him
.

One of the students, a veterinary intern she’d met before, came through double doors at the back of the building’s central hallway. Her eyes were swollen from crying.

She stopped at the sight of Caroline and wiped them with quick, embarrassed motions. “Yes?”

“I came to see the gazelle.”

The young woman sighed raggedly. “Dr. Blue’s with her in the back. She’s dying.”

Caroline ran past her. The woman gasped and grabbed for her arm. “You can’t.” But Caroline was already shoving the doors open by then. She walked swiftly through the large-animal quadrant of the hospital, a snug, brightly lit place of large stalls and concrete floors.

Her heart racing with dread, Caroline stopped by an open stall door and stared at an array of sophisticated equipment that surrounded a small, fragile creature that must have been designed as a fairy’s steed.

It lay on its side on a blanket, tubes crisscrossing its fawn-color body. Its eyes were closed and it breathed with a labored, rattling sound.

Paul, his hair and work denims slicked to his wet body, sat beside the gazelle. He had a stethoscope pressed to its chest, and his head was bowed in an
attitude that conveyed both concentration and weary defeat.

Caroline crept into the stall and knelt by the gazelle. Paul’s head snapped up, and he looked at her in astonishment, his eyes trailing down her soaked body.

As he removed the stethoscope Caroline gazed at him stoically, knowing that her hair was slicked back so that her scar must look particularly ugly against the side of her face and that her choice of clothes was not the most practical—tangerine trousers and an oversize purple shirt covered in sequins and gilded butterfly appliqués.

His expression became hard, a retaining wall that kept his emotions in check, by the time his gaze rose to her face. He held her neutral green-gold eyes for a long moment, his blue ones intense and searching. Slowly he nodded toward the gazelle.

“You can do something that will help her, yes?” he asked hoarsely, and the resistance drained out of him.

Caroline’s throat burned with unshed tears. He cared so much for his animals that he would discard his pride gladly if she could save the gazelle’s life.

“I’m not a healer,” she said truthfully.

“She’s too far gone for that, even if you were. You create comfort and trust somehow. Do that for her. Let her die in peace, at least.”

“All right.” Caroline lay down by the gazelle and snuggled an arm around her neck. The touch ignited knowledge swiftly and sadly; Paul was right, it was too late. It was the gazelle’s time; she was old and unhappy, and she wanted to die. But she was afraid to let go.

Sleep. It’s safe. You’re not alone
.

The gazelle’s breathing became less tortured. Tears in her eyes, Caroline looked up to find Paul’s frowning, deciphering gaze on her. He didn’t want to like her or believe in her, she thought sadly, and the realization was almost unbearable.

“Go back to the house. I’ll do better here alone,” she told him crisply. “I’m quite cynical about death and dying. I don’t need you to stare at me and wonder what it is I do that makes animals feel better. I just … I just understand how to give affection to animals. Other than children, they’re the only things on God’s green earth that are worth the effort.”

Something tragic crept into his gaze, and he looked sad rather than forbidding. “Aw,
chère
, you know so little about the world.”

He rose to his feet. She blinked back tears and a traitorous desire to ask him to stay. He looked down at her grimly. “Anna will be here all night to check on things. Thank you for coming to help. You’re not so heartless as you’d like to think, no.”

He left the stall quickly, as if that were the only way he could make himself go, and Caroline blessed the fact that the first tear didn’t slide down her cheek until after he departed.

What a woman. What a bewildering, frustrating, heartbreaking woman, Paul thought as he sat in a rocking chair by his bedroom window, staring out at the black night and the rain. He hadn’t changed clothes; he didn’t attempt to sleep.

His thoughts were bonded to the odd scene he’d left in the hospital; Caroline as beautiful and sleek as any high-fashion model, even soaked with Louisiana rain, even with the scar that caused her so much torment; Caroline lying there in the coarse confines of a concrete stall hugging a gazelle as if it were her child.

He didn’t understand her; he’d never understand her, probably. He didn’t understand his dangerous need for her and the tenderness she created inside him with her perplexing vulnerability. No.
No
.

He’d loved before, but never enough to lose his ability
to reason. This had to be conquered, this foolish impulse to break down her defenses at all costs. She couldn’t be won; she wasn’t meant to be tied to one man or stay in Louisiana among her memories.

Not long before dawn the rain slacked to a warm drizzle. Feeling ancient, nothing resolved, Paul got up and walked back to the hospital. Anna sat at the desk in the anteroom.