by Amy Summers
He moved. Her eyes were closed. She could feel him pulling open her dress and she arched, wanting him to see her breasts, aching for his hot mouth to touch her. And when she did feel it, when his lips closed on her, tugging and stroking, she cried out softly, her hands going to his head, fingers digging into his hair, pulling him harder against her. A fierce fire was building inside her, a need so strong it would sweep her away.
Again and again he touched her as no man ever had before him. Her body felt alive, her skin tingled, her blood pounded. She gasped as the sensations built, one upon another. She wanted more, needed more as she’d never needed anything before.
And then he seemed to slow the intensity, bringing her carefully to rest again. She stirred, disappointed, wanting his lovemaking to go on and on and never, never slacken.
“I want you, Kendall,” he was whispering gruffly. “Make love with me tonight. Right now.”
Her eyes opened and she stared at him. He’d pulled away the fabric and her breasts were bare, feeling slightly cool now that his hands and mouth weren’t touching them. She drew her hands out of his hair to cover them, but he held her back, holding her wrists.
“No,” he whispered. “Let me look at you. You’re so beautiful.”
She was coming out of the stupor he’d so easily spun her into. He was watching her, and she knew he was waiting for her head to clear on purpose.
“I don’t want to con you, Kendall,” he said softly, his hand stroking her cheek. “I want you to know what we’re doing. I want you to agree you want it too.”
A surge of anger spilled through her. Why hadn’t he just gone ahead and done what he wanted to do... what she wanted him to do? Why hadn’t he let her be overwhelmed by the sensual forces he so easily unleashed in her? Didn’t he know she needed to be swept away? That she couldn’t agree to do something so self-destructive once he’d given her the option of refusing?
“Brett...” She pulled at her clothes, covering herself and avoiding his eyes. “We can’t. Danni’s in the next room.”
He looked surprised. “Danni’s here?”
She nodded. “She was worried about Greyboy so I let her stay to wait with me.”
His face darkened, and he pulled back, his expression hard. “There will always be some excuse, won’t there?” he said coolly.
She tried to reach for him, to explain, but he pulled away, turning to stare at her. “If you don’t want me, why don’t you just tell me so?”
But she did want him! Her mouth opened but the words wouldn’t come. How could she explain? What could she say that would make him see that she did want him, need him, but that she couldn’t trust him?
He was angry. Rising from the couch, he began to pace about the small room like one of her huge cats, full of growing frustration. “Is this how you want it?” he demanded of her. “Do you really want to be alone for the rest of your life?”
Her mouth was dry, but she tried to defend herself. “I’m not alone. I have my animals.”
He spun to glare down at her. “Can they take the place of humans?”
She swallowed hard. “In a way. They’re a lot easier to live with than humans are. They don’t require explanations all the time.” She looked up into his eyes. “They don’t hurt you,” she whispered, then stopped, appalled that she’d let that slip.
His face changed. Reaching down, he framed her face with his hands. “What is it?” he demanded. “What’s hurt you?”
She tried to shake her head, avoid his searching examination. “Nothing... I... nothing...”
His fingers dug into her scalp. “Was it your husband?”
She closed her eyes.
“Of course it was,” he said more to himself than to her. His hands caressed her, moving to comfort, not control. “Tell me, Kendall. What did that bastard do to you?” he asked softly, agony in his voice. “What is it, Kendall? Tell me so I can make it better.”
She opened her eyes and her gaze was locked into his. For just a moment, she believed. One hand reached up and touched his face, her fingertips barely grazing his sun-darkened skin. No other man had ever been so dear to her. He would hold her, heal her. She could trust him. Maybe.
And then a sound came from the next room. Danni was waking up.
Kendall withdrew her hand and ripped her gaze away from his, and felt a second of emptiness before relief came. She had almost given in to his goodness and trusted him. Thank God she’d pulled back just in time.
“Kendall...” He took her by the shoulders and stared intently into her eyes. “Kendall...”
But she was safe again. Her own eyes were hooded, protected. “Danni’s waking up,” she said evenly. “You’ll want to be getting home now.”
He pulled back and stood up straight, shaking his head. “Whatever you want,” he said softly.
And then Danni was in the room and the air was full of questions about Greyboy and what Brett had done in the mountains, and Kendall felt herself pulling back into the tight little ball that always had comprised her life, …and always would.
Chapter 7
“Are you ever going to marry again?”
Kendall looked up, startled. Danni was helping her store supplies in the warehouse and chatting away as she worked.
“I don’t know,” she hedged, breaking open a box of paper cups. “I haven’t really given it a lot of thought.”
“Are you going to my sisters’ wedding?”
It was not something she was looking forward to, but she supposed she would survive it. “Yes. It sounds like it’s going to be the wedding of the year for this town. Are you looking forward to it?”
Danni moved her stepladder to a new location and climbed up again, putting cans on high shelves, but she didn’t answer the question. “I think it’s silly to have a double wedding. It’s not as if they’re twins.”
Kendall stopped what she was doing and looked at the girl, remembering things she’d said before. Poor Danni felt so left out. For just a moment she considered calling Sandi and asking if she realized how her closeness with Anne left Danni in the lurch, but immediately she thought better of the impulse. It was none of her business. She could just imagine how well she would receive a similar phone call from someone she knew. No one liked a busybody. She would keep out of it and hope for the best.
“I’m sure the wedding will be lots of fun,” she said carefully. “What’s your dress like?”
Danni shrugged. “Pink. It’s yucky.”
“You’ll be a knockout. I’d bet on it.”
The girl turned and gave her an ear-to-ear smile, then turned back to her work. “You’re so pretty and so neat,” she said casually. “You ought to be the one getting married. You’ve got to do it. Anyway, you want to have kids someday, don’t you?”
Kendall stared at the back of her head, wondering if she’d been talking to her brother lately. But no. Brett certainly wouldn’t discuss things like that with Danni. Would he?
“I’m not so sure I’ll ever have time for kids,” she answered, trying to keep her voice light and breezy. “After all, I’ve got all the ‘kids’ I can handle right here.”
Danni turned and regarded her solemnly. “I don’t know if Brett will ever get married either.”
Kendall put away the cups and looked around for something else to open, something difficult, so that she would have an excuse to give it a savage yank. “Would you like him to?” she asked.
“No. Not to any of the girls I’ve seen him go out with. They all think I’m a little kid who can be shoved aside and forgotten. If he married one of them, I would hate it.”
Kendall got very busy stuffing shredded paper in a trash bag. “I don’t think you really need to worry about it. Brett doesn’t seem like the marrying kind to me. He’s the type of man who likes a lot of women around, wouldn’t you say?” She gave the bag a solid smash. “I don’t think he’d be happy with just one.”
Danni didn’t answer and when Kendall looked up, she was shocked to s
ee how desolate the girl’s face looked. What had she said to disturb her so?
“But then again, I don’t really know your brother that well. You know him much better than I do, don’t you? What do you think?”
Danni came down off the ladder and very deliberately looked everywhere but into Kendall’s face. “I’m finished with the supplies,” she said evenly. “Shall I check the water before I go home?”
Kendall watched as she left the building. Her heart went out to the girl. The teenage years were hard enough without the added burden Danni seemed to be carrying. She wished she knew what she could do about her. It came to her at last that she would have to discuss her with Brett. He would know what to do, once he knew what was going on.
Strange how comforting that thought was. The man wasn’t Superman, after all. But just the same, he did exhibit an air of confidence that seemed to help. Or at least, stir things up.
Kendall sat very still and watched Chelsea with her babies. The big, sleek cat was still calm and tame, but something subtle had changed. Was it in her or in her cat? Somehow the tie between them had loosened. They weren’t the close unit they had once been.
Perhaps it was just as well. She’d been a little goofy about it. Kendall sighed and rose to her feet. “’Night Babe,” she whispered to her cat.
As she turned to go, a flash of something moving caught her eye. Looking again, she realized it was Ringo, the ocelot, streaking for the hills.
“What?” She whirled. There was the cage, standing open. It had happened again.
Her first impulse was to run after Ringo, chase him down in the hills. But she quickly abandoned that. She would have to call Brett. She was neither as quick nor as skilled as he was, and she didn’t want anyone to get hurt, including the ocelot. She ran to the office and called him, then waited for him to arrive.
Ringo hadn’t got much of a head start, and Brett found him quickly, bringing him back like a bad tabby cat. The beautiful cat blinked at Kendall as if to say, “Well, I tried.”
Once they had him safely encaged again, Kendall’s anger surfaced. “Someone is deliberately doing this,” she said. “Can we call the police? What can we do?”
Brett considered for a moment. “If you call the police, it will be common knowledge in town in twenty-four hours. That might not be good.”
She threw out her arms in despair. “Then what can we do?”
He raised an eyebrow at the word “we.” “Be vigilant,” he told her. “Call me when it happens. And for the rest...” He shrugged. “See if we can figure out who’s doing it.”
“Great.” She didn’t hold out much hope for those methods. She looked up at him, very much aware that they were alone as nightfall approached.
He saw her look and grinned. “I caught your ocelot, and you haven’t even offered me soup.”
She flushed. “I... are you hungry? Would you like something?”
He touched her hair softly, looking slightly abstracted. “You know what I’d like,” he said softly. “But don’t worry. I’m learning to live without it.” With another grin, he turned on his heel and was out the gate, striding for his car.
She watched him go and swallowed hard. Fool, she told herself silently. Being careful had its drawbacks. And right now she couldn’t even remember what its advantages were.
Her cellphone rang bright and early Thursday morning.
“Did I wake you up?” It was Brett’s deep voice.
“No, not really.” She was still in her nightgown and she curled her toes in her slippers. The man’s voice did things to her. “What is it?”
“We’re coming over at nine.”
She shot up straight. “What? Who’s coming over?”
“Dr. Granger, Miss Jones, and a few other people I’ve gathered together. They’re all interested in seeing your operation. Get everything spiffy, okay?”
“How... how many people?”
“Oh, about twelve.”
“Brett!”
“It’ll be great. Just wait and see. Nine o’clock.”
A whole tour coming to inspect and she wasn’t ready. Ninety seconds later she was in shorts and a safari shirt and running for Pedro’s little trailer, her mind full of things that had to be accomplished in the next three hours. By nine o’clock, every cage was sparkling, every walkway raked, every food trough cleaned. She and Pedro were about to collapse, but they were ready.
The gate was open and at precisely nine, a caravan of cars came gliding into the compound, led by Brett’s Bronco. Then came a station wagon full of happy faces. Six others were in a Cadillac convertible, one of them whooping as they arrived, another waving a hat in the air. Kendall caught a glimpse of Brett in the driver’s seat of the Bronco as he passed her. The window on the passenger’s side was rolled down and a pretty young woman looked out and waved. All in all, a party atmosphere prevailed.
Kendall and Pedro exchanged glances. “Ho boy,” Pedro muttered, moving away. “Call me if you need me.” And he began to lope off toward the tool shed.
“Coward,” she hissed after him, but then it was too late for more. The visitors were disembarking.
Brett introduced her all around, but there were too many people and she was nervous, so they were pretty much a blur. A few stood out, beginning with Flora Mae Partridge, the pretty redhead who’d been riding with Brett.
He introduced her.
“You’ve heard of Elmer Partridge, the mayor. Well, Flora Mae is his wife.”
Flora Mae looked about twenty-two. Kendall had met the mayor. He was at least sixty.
“How do you do?” she said politely, shaking hands.
“Nice to meet you,” Flora Mae returned. “Brett has promised to protect me from the big bad lions and tigers. Haven’t you, Brett?” She giggled and batted her eyelashes and Brett grinned as though she were just cute as a button and Kendall nearly gagged.
Dr. Granger and Millie Jones said “hello.” Then Brett brought her aside to meet George Fuentes.
“I’m completely impartial,” George told her, his dark eyes appraising her and everything all around her coolly. “But I follow my conscience. I’m going to be giving this place a hard look.”
“He’s on the city council,” Brett murmured to her as George walked away. “Treat him nice, okay?”
“Like you’re treating Flora Mae?” she murmured back out of the corner of her mouth.
He grinned. “Naw, maybe not that nice.”
She glared at him and he laughed, taking her hand and pulling her over to meet an angular-looking woman in jeans and a plaid shirt.
“This is Gladys Beckman. She has a column in the local paper. She’s planning to do a spread on the shelter.”
“I’m a nature freak,” said Gladys, peering through bangs that looked as though they hadn’t been cut since the Sixties. “I’m a charter member of Women for Wildlife. You’ve heard of us? We do many good things. We’ve closed down zoos from here to Barstow.”
“This isn’t a zoo,” Kendall said quickly.
Gladys squinted at her. “We’ll see about that,” she promised ominously.
Kendall’s smile wavered, but she took a deep breath and pressed on. She began the tour with the wolves. Greyboy was the only wolf out of his den. He lay under a bottlebrush tree and regarded the group dispassionately with his cold golden eyes.
Flora Mae shuddered and moved closer to Brett. “Ooh, I’d hate to think what might happen if he ever got out,” she said.
Brett looked at Kendall over Flora Mae’s red head and winked. “Don’t you worry, Flora Mae,” he drawled. “I’ll make sure he never does get you.”
Kendall groaned inwardly, but turned away, giving them all a short description of where Greyboy had come from. “He was used in movies until he became too stubborn to cooperate any longer. Then the man who owned him wanted to get rid of him, but no zoos would take him. He was too old. And too used to living with humans to be sent back into the wild.”
Gladys sniffed lou
dly. “You should let him out. He’d be better off. Animals were meant to run free, not to be put in cages for people to stare at.”
Kendall had a feeling her temper was going to get a real workout from this woman today. She tried to smile and remain calm. “Well, I’ll tell you, these animals aren’t really here for people to stare at,” she began.
“Oh, excuse me!” Gladys interrupted. “Look at the way you’ve got them all lined up, their cages all in a row, like little mannequins on display. How much do you charge anyway?”
Kendall gritted her teeth. “This is not a zoo,” she repeated evenly.
“Right,” Gladys said sarcastically. “And I’m not a reporter.”
Kendall deliberately ignored her remark, turning to the group as a whole. She told them more about the wolves, then moved them on to where the cages for the birds were set up: macaws, a falcon with an injured leg, and a lone golden eagle.
“This isn’t right,” Gladys said as they approached the cage where the eagle sat on a huge, leafless branch, as patient as stone. “This is an outrage! You have this eagle in a cage much too small for him.”
A murmur washed through the crowd. The cage did seem small. For the first time, Kendall felt sympathy was with Gladys instead of with her.
The woman was almost jumping up and down in her angry excitement. “He needs room to fly! This is overt cruelty to animals. I think you should definitely be reported on this one. I, for one, am going to see that something is done about it.”
The group murmured again, some nodding in agreement. Kendall felt panic nipping at her heels. She threw Brett an angry look. What were these people doing here, anyway? She didn’t want them. She didn’t really care what they thought. It was none of their business what she did with her animals.
Brett caught her eye, saw her anger, and frowned, shaking his head ever so slightly. She knew what he was trying to say. She really did need these people. She needed their approbation for what she was doing, or she just might find herself without the means, or zoning, to do it. She couldn’t just turn her back and walk away, although that was tempting. She had to convince them. It was very important.