A Touch of the Beast

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “Sure,” she said, her heart fluttering briefly.

  Donovan obviously didn’t want to talk about the deer, and maybe that was for the best. As she watched his profile and tried to make sense of everything she’d seen of this man, she got the distinct feeling that she didn’t want to know all his secrets.

  Chapter 4

  Hawk almost groaned aloud when he reached the top of the pull-down stairs, flipped the switch that turned on the uncovered bulb that hung in the center of the room and peered into the attic. There were dozens of cardboard boxes stored here and there, most of them unmarked, all of them showing signs of years of wear and neglect. He glanced over his shoulder and down to where Sheryl stood at the foot of the rattletrap steps.

  “You moved all these boxes up here by yourself?”

  She shrugged and smiled.

  In spite of the fact that she didn’t look strong enough to handle the task on her own, he wasn’t really surprised. Moving all these boxes from the clinic to this attic had been a tough job, but Sheryl Eldanis had energy. Not a too-much-caffeine kind of energy, but a real, pure strength and quiet enthusiasm. He didn’t imagine she’d ever considered a chore and wondered whether she could handle it. Besides, when he’d lifted her onto the mare he’d discovered that, petite or not, she had muscles. Even though his reason for being here was an important one, the man in him couldn’t help but wonder what she’d look like in something other than those baggy clothes. Or even better, in nothing at all.

  He stepped into the center of the attic and turned around slowly. It was an ordinary enough attic, with bare wood floors and exposed beams and two windows that looked down on the front yard. The ceiling was high enough for him to stand here in the middle of the space, but if he moved more than a step or two to the side he’d have to duck.

  And like most other attics, it was full of junk. Along with a broken lamp, a rusty birdcage and a rocking chair that had to be older than the house, there were newer boxes mixed in with the older ones he was interested in, most of them labeled with black marker. Kitchen. Bedroom. Linens. Winter clothes. Sheryl’s own things stored with the rest. Unlike her boxes, the ones he needed to search weren’t marked at all. Where to start?

  Sheryl didn’t join him, but she climbed up the stairs to peer through the square opening in the attic floor. “If you need help, I can come back after I get the animals fed.”

  “No,” he said, his eyes on one particularly nasty-looking stack of mildewy boxes. “I can’t even tell you what I’m looking for. I guess I’d better just dig in and see what I can find.” He grabbed a box at random and set it on the floor, then knelt down to open it. It smelled of musty old paper, and while there were a few file folders in the box, most of the paperwork was loose and completely unorganized.

  “Okay.” Sheryl backed away slowly. “Holler if you need anything.” And then she was off to feed her animals. From what little he’d seen as he’d walked in through the kitchen and to the stairway, she had a few. Cats, dogs, a colorful parrot that had called him “meathead” as he’d walked past the living room downstairs.

  Hawk had learned to tune down his abilities when he needed to, and he did that now. He adjusted the part of his brain that could see and feel and hear things others couldn’t even imagine and concentrated on the papers before him.

  Somewhere in here was information that could help Cassie. The woman in the pharmacy hadn’t sent him on a wild-goose chase. What they needed had to be in one of these boxes; he couldn’t entertain any other possibility.

  A fertility clinic. Even though he had never expected to find such a place in his background, he shouldn’t be surprised. All his life he’d wondered about his parents. Who were they? Why had they given their twins away? When he’d discovered his gift with animals he’d wondered if they’d known. Was that the reason they’d given him up? Now there were Cassie’s flashes of precognition to take into account. But how could their parents have known when they looked at their infant twins that they’d be different?

  He hadn’t given his biological parents much thought in the past few years. In adolescence he had almost become obsessed with them, but eventually he’d decided to put them, and their reasons for giving him up, out of his mind. If his parents hadn’t wanted him, then why the hell should he care who they were and what they were like? It was easier to put them out of his mind than it was to wonder all the damn time. Cassie’s seizures had fired up his curiosity all over again.

  Hawk took his time with the task before him, carefully studying each sheet of paper. Most of what he scanned didn’t make any sense to him. Chemistry had never been his best subject in school, and this… A lot of what he discovered were formulas and medical data. Much of what he found in the manila folders was private information, women’s medical files. He felt strange, perusing such personal information. But he couldn’t set aside the papers without checking each one. Notes were scribbled in the margins here and there. Names that meant nothing to him appeared more than once. He tried to drink it all in, just in case a name or a date came to mean something to him later.

  Hawk tossed one useless folder aside and grabbed another. Maybe Cassie was right and he should’ve hired this chore out. He didn’t know what he was looking for, and besides, he didn’t spend his time at home sitting in a cramped room going through papers. He practically lived outdoors. He needed fresh air in his lungs, sunshine and moonlight on his face.

  But this was not a job he was willing to hand over to anyone else, no matter what the cost might be. His secrets, and Cassie’s secrets, wouldn’t be safe with anyone else.

  Not even an unusually pretty vet.

  “You stink.”

  Sheryl added water to Bruce’s dish. “Can’t you say ‘Polly want a cracker’ like a normal bird?”

  “Bite me.”

  Normally finding a home for a beautiful talking bird wasn’t a problem, but Bruce had been trained in a home where his primary teacher had been a teenage boy who thought it was funny to train the colorful parrot to insult everyone who passed by. “You stink” and “bite me” were actually not too bad, considering Bruce’s repertoire.

  Sheryl’s mind was elsewhere as she fed the other animals. Two dogs, three cats and a bird. Some of them she’d brought to Wyatt with her; others she’d collected since her arrival in town. They’d all taken to the new house well, settling in as if they’d always lived here. She had a variety of animal beds here and there, and there was a small doggie door in the kitchen that allowed the animals to go into the fenced backyard at any time.

  The pets she had accumulated over the years were her family. They loved without question or demand, and it was nice to have them waiting for her when she came in the door after a long day. They needed her; she needed them. And yes, they were her family. Like most families they were a bit dysfunctional. Bruce was temperamental and was given to bad language. Bogie was the shy ugly duckling, and Howie could be aggressive on occasion, like all Chihuahuas. There were times when Smoky and Princess tormented the dogs, as cats often do, but the situation never got out of control.

  Laverne was independent and thought herself better than all the pets who had come after her, which was why she usually went to work with Sheryl. It was just safer that way.

  The other animals in Sheryl’s house were suspicious of Baby at first, but once they’d all sniffed one another properly, they got along just fine. Besides, the big yellow dog had the Laverne seal of approval, and the others all knew that didn’t come easily.

  Considering the way animals took to Donovan, Sheryl was a little surprised that they didn’t all climb the rickety stairs to stand watch while he pored through the files. But they didn’t. The animals left him alone.

  So did she, even though she was dying to go up there and jump into that nasty chore with him. There was something desperate and touching about his need to find this information about his mother, and she wanted to do what she could. Sympathy: it was her downfall. It was the reason she had three t
emperamental cats, two ugly dogs and a personality-challenged bird no one else wanted. The last thing she needed to do was add a surly man to her menagerie.

  Dinner at the hotel restaurant had been pleasant enough, even though she’d done most of the talking. Donovan had paid attention, especially when she’d spoken about her practice. His love for animals was genuine and deep. If they had nothing else in common, they had that. But there was a definite wall, a barricade so tangible she could almost count the bricks. She just didn’t have the time, or the heart, to try to break through that wall.

  Besides, Donovan would be gone as soon as he found whatever he was looking for in her attic. He might thank her, and he might even mean it, but once he had what he’d come here for, he’d go home to Texas and she’d never see him again. So it would be foolish to get interested.

  She’d been foolish before, and it was no fun.

  When he’d been up there for more than three hours, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She made a large glass of iced tea and carried it up the stairs. All the kiddies—her animals—were sleeping. Even Baby. She needed to get to sleep herself. Tomorrow would be an early day, as every day had been since opening her practice. Besides, her animals wouldn’t let her sleep late, even on Sundays. The cats might let her lie in bed past six on occasion, but the dogs were relentlessly cheerful in the morning, and they wanted everyone to rise with the sun.

  Donovan was startled to see her when she popped into the attic. The strain of sorting through the mess was showing on him already. His eyes looked tired, and he’d run his fingers through his dark hair more than once, probably in sheer frustration. The heavy stubble on his cheeks indicated that it had been a long day.

  He looked much too tempting, sitting there. Sheryl wanted to do more than bring him tea. She wanted to run her fingers through his hair, lay her hands on those broad shoulders, tell him everything was going to be all right, even though she had no idea if anything would ever be right again.

  At some time during the evening he’d set a couple of boxes to one side. He’d probably been through those already. A few pages that had caught his interest had been set aside. It was a dismally short stack.

  When she offered him the tea, he stood and stretched out a few muscles before taking the cold glass. Hmm. Donovan looked as if he’d just climbed out of bed in the morning and was working the kinks out of that incredibly fit body. Even when he stretched and turned, there was a sleekness about him, a masculine grace.

  If he moved this way when he was working out the kinks in his muscles, then what might he be like when he—

  Oh, dear. Her mind simply could not go there.

  “I guess you want me to get out of here,” he said, casting one glance into the box he was currently sorting through. “I know it’s getting late.”

  Yeah, she was such a sucker. Hawk Donovan was not the kind of man anyone took pity on. Ever. Was that almost-desperate expression a put-on? Did he know that no red-blooded female could say no to a face like that?

  “You can stay awhile longer if you want,” she said softly. “I’m going on to bed. Lock up when you leave.”

  He nodded, obviously grateful that she wasn’t going to kick him out, and then he took a long swig of the tea. He drained the glass quickly, then returned to his knees to continue sorting through the box in the center of the attic floor.

  Sheryl watched Donovan as she carefully moved down the steps. He was already intent on the contents of that box again, as if she’d never been here, as if he had never been interrupted.

  She hadn’t even offered to ship the documents to Texas and let him go through them there, at his leisure, away from her house and out of her hair. That would have made perfect sense. The files would be out of her possession and no longer her concern, and Hawk Donovan would be out of her life for good. The man was definitely trouble—even if he was on the up-and-up. Especially if he was on the up-and-up! Her life was settled now; it made sense. The last thing she needed was trouble.

  Hawk woke up to a familiar sound and sensation. Baby was licking his face and saying good morning with a growl and a whine. But this morning Baby was not alone. Laverne was curled up on his stomach, and two other cats—one black and the other calico—had burrowed into the crook of his elbow. A Chihuahua who thought he was a rottweiler stood on Hawk’s chest, staring at his face and waiting for a response, and another dog—a black-and-white mixed breed with the homeliest face Hawk had ever seen—panted close by.

  Hawk lifted his head from the attic floor, and the animals all perked up considerably. Even Laverne, who refused to be disturbed from her perch on his stomach, seemed to smile.

  It was nothing compared to the smile he got from the woman standing above him.

  “Coffee,” she said.

  She was dressed for the day in sensible trousers and a cotton blouse that should have been plain but somehow looked sexy. Like the smile, and the way she pulled her hair away from her face, and the way her fingers wrapped around the white mug she carried.

  Hawk closed his eyes and took a deep breath, breathing in the scent of coffee and old paper and animals. And her. She’d had a shower, and she smelled faintly of shampoo and soap. The soap was scented with a trace of lavender.

  “I didn’t intend to stay the night,” he said, ignoring the way Sheryl smelled. He moved Howie from his chest and Laverne from his gut and sat, then stood slowly. When he reached out for the coffee cup Sheryl offered, her smile faded. Just a little. “I decided to rest my eyes for a few minutes and—”

  “I know that feeling,” she interrupted. “It usually hits me when I’m trying to watch TV, even though I’m too tired, and I decide to close my eyes during the commercial. The next thing I know it’s three in the morning and I wake up to find that I’ve missed the end of my movie and some cheesy infomercial is on.” Her voice was too bright, too quick, as if she were trying to hide the fact that she was uncomfortable. Of course she was uncomfortable. He’d been here all night, sleeping above her head.

  “Yeah.” He took a long sip of coffee and glanced down at the box he’d been going through when he’d decided to take a break. This chore was taking much too long, but an extended break was not an option. This was too important, and he didn’t have a day to waste. Not an hour or even a minute. A good night’s sleep was a luxury he could do without for a while. “I know you have to work, but if you don’t mind I’m going to—”

  “I do mind,” she said sharply.

  He was disappointed, but not surprised. It was more than he’d expected that she’d allowed him to spend all night up here, though that hadn’t been his intention. Or hers. Of course she wasn’t going to trust him to stay here in her house while she was at work.

  She shook her head as if she could read his mind. “You’re exhausted. You spent way too much time going through those files last night, and I can tell just by looking at you that even if you came upon something important this morning you wouldn’t see it. Go back to the hotel, get a shower and a few more hours of sleep, and after lunch you can start again.” To his surprise, she handed him a single key on a simple key chain.

  “Don’t look so shocked,” she said with a smile. “I don’t have anything worth stealing, unless you want to take Bruce with you when you go.”

  “Bruce?”

  “The parrot who called you meathead last night. Trust me, it could have been worse.”

  Hawk wanted to argue with her, but like it or not she made a lot of sense. He probably needed to go through that last box all over again, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything thanks to sheer exhaustion.

  “There’s a price, don’t forget,” Sheryl said, wagging a finger at him but not quite poking him in the chest.

  “A price?”

  “You can spend all afternoon up here if you want, but when I get off work you’re taking me to Dermot’s farm and giving me a lesson.”

  He had promised her that, he supposed. What was he going to do when that time rolled around? Wha
t he did couldn’t be taught. It couldn’t even be explained.

  “Don’t give me that look,” Sheryl said lightly. “You’re not weaseling your way out of this one, mister.”

  No, he probably couldn’t weasel his way out of anything where Sheryl was concerned. He could only hope he’d find what he was looking for before she got off work today.

  Sheryl was having a surprisingly good day, all things considered, until Doc Murdock came in and asked if she needed any help. The gleam in his eyes when he looked around her place told her more than she needed to know.

  He missed working. One of these days he was going to decide to reopen his veterinary practice, at least part-time, and all his old customers—Sheryl’s customers—were going to flock to him because they’d known him all their lives and he was their beloved friend. And her business would go under in a matter of months. She just didn’t have enough cash to sustain that kind of hit.

  She could go to her folks for money if that happened, but she didn’t want to do that. This was her business. Her life. She wanted to make it on her own, not go running home to Mom and Dad when the going got rough. She could pack up and start over in a bigger town where it wouldn’t be a problem if there were more than two practicing veterinarians. But giving up and starting over would feel an awful lot like failure. Besides, starting over meant start-up costs again, and she didn’t have the cash handy.

  She was already envisioning the worst. First thing, she’d have to sell her house. It was old and needed work…. But she loved her house!

  While Doc Murdock followed her around the office, admiring the way she had the clinic set up, Sheryl’s mind wandered to another place. Her attic. Was Donovan there yet, going through those old boxes? Of course he was. He probably hadn’t waited until after lunch, but had grabbed a shower and an hour or so of sleep at the Wyatt Hotel and then headed back to her place.