The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 5 (21 page)

“We’re not doing anything.”

She got a line between her eyebrows—he’d liked to have kissed it—and her voice firmed up. He just kept smiling.

“I mean it.” Exasperated now, she pointed the index fingers of both hands at him. “I’m going to check in with Lil, then I’m going home. And—Oh, wipe that stupid smile off your face.”

She spun around, stalked away.

Her temper turned his smile into a mile-wide grin.

He’d kissed Tansy Spurge, he thought. And before she’d gotten her dander up, she’d kissed him right back.

 

 

 

LIL TOOK THREE extra-strength Tylenol for the stress headache and topped it off with a long, blistering shower. Dressed in flannels, thick socks, and a comfortably tattered University of North Dakota sweatshirt, she added logs to the flames in her compact fireplace.

Heat, she thought. She couldn’t seem to get enough of it. She kept the lights blazing, too. She wasn’t ready for the dark yet. She gave some thought to food, but couldn’t work up the energy or the appetite.

She’d called her parents, so that was crossed off the list. She’d reassured them, promised to lock her doors, and reminded them she had a refuge loaded with early warning signals.

She’d work. She had articles to write, grant proposals to complete. No, she’d do laundry. No point in letting it pile up.

Maybe she should upload her photos. Or check the webcams.

Or, or, or.

She paced like a cat in a cage.

The sound of the truck had her pivoting toward the door. The staff had been gone nearly two hours now, and Mary would have locked the gate across the access road behind her. They all had keys, but . . . given the circumstances, wouldn’t whoever might have forgotten something, wanted something, needed something have called first to alert her?

Baby gave a warning cry, and in the big-cat area, the old lioness roared. Lil grabbed her rifle. Farley beat her outside by a step.

In contrast to her thudding heart, his voice was calm as a spring breeze. “Why don’t you go on back inside, Lil, while I see who . . . Okay.” He shifted the shotgun he’d carried out, angled the barrel down. “That’s Coop’s rig.”

Farley lifted a hand in greeting as the truck eased to a stop, and Coop climbed out.

“This is a hell of a welcoming committee.” Coop glanced at the guns, then over to where the animals let the newcomer know they were on alert.

“They set up a ruckus,” Farley commented. “Sure is something hearing those big jungle cats carry on, isn’t it? Well.” He gave Coop a nod. “I’ll be seeing you.”

“How did you get in the gate?” Lil demanded when Farley had slipped back inside.

“Your father gave me his key. Lot of keys floating around, from what I understand. A lock’s not much good if everybody’s got a key.”

“Staff members have keys.” She knew her voice lashed out in defense because she’d been frightened. Really frightened for a moment. “Otherwise somebody’d have to open it every damn morning before anybody else could get in. You should’ve called. If you came by to check on me, I could’ve told you and saved you the trip.”

“It’s not that long a trip.” He stepped up on the porch, handed her a covered dish. “My grandmother sent it. Chicken and dumplings.” He picked up the rifle she’d leaned against the rail and walked into the cabin without invitation.

Setting her teeth, Lil went in behind him. “It was nice of her to trouble, and I appreciate you bringing it by, but—”

“Jesus, Lil, it’s like a furnace in here.”

“I was cold.” It was warmer than it needed to be now, but it was her damn house. “Hey look, there’s no need for you to stay,” she began as he stripped off his coat. “I’m covered here, as you can plainly see. It’s been a long day for both of us.”

“Yeah. And I’m hungry.” He took the dish back from her, then strolled toward the back of the cabin to her kitchen.

She hissed under her breath, but hospitality had been ingrained since childhood. Visitors, even unwelcome ones, were to be given food and drink.

He’d already turned on her oven, and he stuck the dish inside as she came in. As if, she thought,
she
were the guest.

“It’s still warm. Won’t take long to heat it through. Got a beer?”

And visitors, she thought resentfully, should wait to be
offered
food and drink. She yanked open the refrigerator, pulled out two bottles of Coors.

Coop twisted off the cap, handed it to her. “Nice place.” He leaned back, enjoying the first cold sip as he took a quick survey. Though the kitchen was compact, there were plenty of glass-fronted cabinets and open shelves, a good section of slate-colored counter. A little table tucked in the corner in front of a built-in bench provided eating space.

“You do any cooking?”

“When I want to eat.”

He nodded. “That’s about how it is for me. The kitchen in the bunkhouse’ll be about this size when it’s done.”

“What are you doing here, Cooper?”

“Having a beer. In about twenty minutes, I’ll be having a bowl of chicken and dumplings.”

“Don’t be thick.”

Watching her, he lifted his beer. “There’s two things. Maybe it’s three. After what happened today I wanted to see how you were, and how you were set up here. Next, Joe asked me to look out for you, and I told him I would.”

“For God’s sake.”

“I told him I would,” Coop repeated, “so we’ll both have to deal with that. Last—maybe last—you might think because of the way things turned out with us, you don’t matter. You’d be wrong.”

“The way things turned out isn’t the point. It’s the way things are.”
That,
she thought, was essential to remember. “If thinking you’re looking out for me eases my parents’ minds, that’s fine, that’s good. But I don’t need you looking out for me. That rifle out there’s loaded, and I know how to use it.”

“Ever aimed a gun at a man?”

“Not so far. Have you?”

“It’s a different matter when you have,” he said by way of answer. “It’s a different matter than that when you know you can pull the trigger. You’re in trouble, Lil.”

“What happened today doesn’t mean—”

“He’d been back to the campsite while we were up with the cougar. He used a knife on the tents, tossed some of the gear in the stream.”

She took a breath, long and slow, so fear didn’t get through again. “Nobody told me.”

“I said I would. He dug out the shirt you’d had on the day before and smeared blood on it. That’s personal.”

Her legs jellied on her, so she stepped back, lowered to the bench. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t have to. We’re going to sit here, eat some of Lucy’s famous chicken and dumplings. I’m going to ask you questions and you’re going to answer them.”

“Why isn’t Willy asking me questions?”

“He will. But I’ll be asking them tonight. Where’s the French guy?”

“Who?” Struggling to take it in, she scooped the fingers of both hands through her hair. “Jean-Paul? He’s . . . in India. I think. Why?”

“Any trouble between the two of you?”

She stared at him. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t asking out of personal interest, but as a kind of de facto cop. “If you’re fishing around, thinking Jean-Paul had anything to do with this, you need to cut bait. He’d never kill a caged animal, and he’d never do anything to hurt me. He’s a good man, and he loves me. Or did.”

“Did?”

“We’re not together anymore.” Reminding herself it wasn’t personal, she pressed her fingers to her eyes. “We haven’t been since right before I left for South America. It wasn’t acrimonious, and he’s in India, on assignment.”

“All right.” It was easy enough to verify. “Is there anyone else? Someone you’re involved with, or who wants to be involved?”

“I’m not sleeping with anyone,” she said flatly, “and no one’s made any moves on me. I don’t see why this is about me, personally.”

“Your camera, your cougar, your shirt.”

“The camera is refuge property, the cougar wasn’t mine. She wasn’t anyone’s but herself. And the shirt could’ve been yours just as easily.”

“But it wasn’t. Have you pissed off anyone lately?”

She angled her head, raised her eyebrows. “Only you.”

“I’ve got a solid alibi.” He turned, got bowls down.

It annoyed her, the way he took over, the way he made himself at home. So she sat where she was and let him hunt for hot pads, for spoons.
He
didn’t seem annoyed, she realized. He just found what he needed then went about the business of getting the meal in bowls.

“You had to go through some red tape to put this place together,” he continued. “Licenses, zoning.”

“Paperwork, politicking, paying fees. I had the land, thanks to my father, and was able to buy a little more after we were set up.”

“Not everybody wanted you to succeed. Who bucked you?”

“There was some resistance on every level, local, county, state. But I’d done all the research. I’d been laying the groundwork for years. I spoke at town meetings, went to Rapid City, and into Pierre. I spoke to National Park reps and rangers. I know how to glad-hand when I have to, and I’m good at it.”

“No doubt.” He set the bowls on the table, joined her on the bench. “But—”

“We had to deal with people who worried about one of the exotic cats getting loose, and diseases. We allayed that by letting people come in, watch the process when we were laying it out, building it. And we gave them a chance to ask questions. We work with the schools and with 4-H, with other youth groups, and offer educational programs, on-site and on the Internet. We offer incentives. It works.”

“Not arguing. But?”

She sighed. “There are always some, and you have extremes on both sides. People who think an animal is either domesticated or prey. And people who think of animals in the wild as gods. Untouchable. That it’s wrong to interfere with what they see as the natural order.”

“
Star Trek
’s prime directive.”

He got a smile out of her for the first time that evening. “Yeah, in a way. Some who see a zoo as a prison rather than a habitat. And some are. I’ve seen terrible conditions. Animals living in filth, with disease, and horribly mistreated. But most are run well, with very strong protocols. We’re a refuge, and a refuge must be just that. A safe place. And that means the people who run it are responsible for the health and well-being of the animals in it—and are responsible for their safety and the safety of the community.”

“You get threats?”

“We report, and keep a file, on the more extreme letters and e-mails. We screen the website. And yeah, we’ve had a few incidents here over the years with people who came to start trouble.”

“Which you documented?”

“Yes.”

“You can get me a copy of the file then.”

“What is this, Coop, a busman’s holiday?”

He turned his head until their eyes met. “I caged that cougar, too.”

She nodded, poked at a dumpling. “You were right about the gun. It looks like it was a thirty-two. And I didn’t think that much of it at the time, but Matt—our vet—he said he thought somebody was on the property one night while I was in Peru, when he bunked here. Someone always stays on-site through the night, so while I was gone, they switched off. The animals got riled up, middle of the night. He came out to check, but he didn’t see anything.”

“When was this?”

“A couple nights before I got back. It could’ve been an animal, and probably was. The fencing is primarily to keep our animals contained, but it also keeps other animals out. They can be a source of contamination, so we’re careful.”

“Okay, but they’d be around other animals in the wild so—”

“They’re not in the wild,” she said shortly. “We re-create, but they’re enclosed. We’ve changed their environment. Other animals—birds, rodents, insects—all potentially carry parasites or disease. It’s why all the food is so carefully processed before feeding, why we clean and disinfect the enclosures, why we do regular physical exams, take samples routinely. Vaccinate, treat, add nutrients to their diet. They’re not in the wild,” she repeated. “And that makes us responsible for them, in every way.”

“All right.” He’d thought he’d understood what she was doing here, but saw now he only understood the more obvious pieces. “Did you find anything off the night the vet thought someone—or something—was out there?”

“No. None of the animals, the equipment, the cages were messed with. I looked around, but it had snowed since, and my people had been all over, so there was no real chance of finding tracks or a trail—human or animal.”

“Do you have a list of all your staff, the volunteers?”

“Sure. But it’s not one of ours.”

“Lil, you were gone for six months. Do you know, personally, every volunteer who comes in here to toss raw meat at the cats?”

“We don’t toss—” She broke off, shook her head. “We screen. We use locals as much as we can, and have a volunteer program. Levels,” she explained. “Most of the volunteers do grunt work. Help with the food, the cleaning, shelve supplies. Unless they’ve had some experience, reached the top level, other than the petting zoo, volunteers don’t handle the animals. The exception would be the veterinary assistants, who donate their time and help with exams and surgeries.”

“I’ve seen the kids around here handling them.”

“Interns, not volunteers. We take interns from universities, students who are going into the field. We help train, help teach. They’re here for some hands-on experience.”

“You keep drugs.”

Weary, she rubbed the back of her neck. “Yes. The drugs are in Medical, locked in the drug cabinet. Matt, Mary, Tansy, and I have keys. Even the vet assistants don’t have access to them. Though you’d have to be jonesing pretty hard to want anything in there, we inventory weekly.”

It was enough for now, he thought. She’d had enough for now. “It’s good chicken,” he said, and took another bite.