Wild On My Mind

by Laurel Kerr

  “You must volunteer here a lot,” Katie said.

  Abby nodded solemnly. “I help out all the time. I want to be a veterinarian or a zoologist.”

  “Ah, you’re an animal lover then,” Katie said.

  “I love them! I’m glad it’s summer, so I can hang out here more. I like school okay, but the other kids…”

  Abby suddenly trailed off as if realizing what she was about to admit to a stranger. When Abby shot her an embarrassed look, Katie recognized the expression, because she had felt it too. Too many times to count, in fact. The pain of not fitting in, no matter how hard she’d tried. Of always saying or doing something that set her apart. Of just not understanding what seemed to come so naturally to everyone else.

  Instantly, Katie realized the reason for part of Abby’s passion for animals. In some ways, it wasn’t much different than what had driven Katie to sketch daring princesses and heroic princes in her school notebooks as she dreamed of escape.

  “You know, when I was your age, I preferred drawing to hanging out with other kids.”

  Abby leaned forward as if Katie had just spilled a shocking secret. “You did?”

  “Yeah,” Katie said, holding the younger girl’s gaze over the nursing cougar kits. “The characters in my sketches never picked on me or called me names. They were easy to interact with. No secrets, no whispering, no mean jokes. Animals are pretty much the same, aren’t they?”

  “You were made fun of too?” Abby asked. “For being smart?”

  Katie nodded, but Abby didn’t seem entirely convinced. “You don’t look like you’d be picked on.”

  Katie laughed and had the strange urge to ruffle the girl’s hair. “Are you saying that I don’t look smart?”

  Horror crossed Abby’s face, and she quickly shook her head. “No, it’s not that. You look pretty, like a popular girl.”

  Katie shrugged. “Well, you know the story The Ugly Duckling? That could have been about me.”

  “When I was little and the girls in first grade were mean, Dad read me that book. I don’t think I’ll turn into a swan. I think I’ll stay ugly forever. Dad says I’m pretty, but he has to. He’s my dad.” When Abby spoke, she focused on Tonks, gently stroking the kit’s grayish-brown fur.

  “My dad always told me the same thing. It turns out he was right, and your dad is too,” Katie said. Abby looked like any other cute eleven-year-old girl with petite features, jet-black hair, and gray eyes. Her problem was the same Katie’s had been. She simply didn’t care about her appearance. Although Katie didn’t know much about preteen fashions, she highly doubted oversized T-shirts and baggy, boyish jeans were popular. The girl’s short bob was too bluntly cut and her glasses a touch out of style.

  Abby made a face. Clearly, she didn’t believe Katie any more than she did her father. “I don’t care if I don’t turn into a swan. I’d rather be successful. Dad always repeats a saying about being nice to geeks ’cause you might work for them. I like that better than The Ugly Duckling.”

  “So did I,” Katie said, and then she leaned in conspiratorially, “but you know what? You can be the pretty girl and the smart one.”

  Abby frowned skeptically. Katie didn’t blame her. She sensed in Abby a true kindred spirit. “All through public school, I believed that I had to choose between being intelligent or being popular. Then I met my college roommate, June Winters, and she showed me that I could be smart and have fun wearing girlie clothes.”

  Abby bounced with excitement, almost upsetting the cougar cub in her lap. Tonks emitted a disgruntled squeak but calmed when Abby brushed a hand over the kit’s fur.

  “You’re friends with Miss Winters? She comes to my Girl Scout troop to give talks about the places she’s been. When she was little, she grew up all over the world ’cause her dad was in the air force. She has all this cool stuff from Korea and Germany!”

  Katie nodded, unable to hold back a grin at the girl’s obvious excitement. “Yep. The one and only June Winters.”

  “I love her stories,” Abby practically shouted as she clutched the little cougar to her chest. “Someday, when I grow up, I’m going to visit those places. My dad and I don’t have a lot of money, but he says that it shouldn’t stop us from experiencing other cultures. When there’s a place that I really like where Miss Winters lived or that I learn about in school, my dad and I look it up on the internet or get books out of the library. We find recipes from there and try them out. My dad does most of the cooking. He’s really good at it.”

  Abby’s dad was starting to sound more and more interesting. Since Abby had mentioned her father several times and not her mother, Katie suspected that Abby’s mom wasn’t in the picture. Now, why couldn’t Katie’s mother try to set her up with someone like Abby’s dad? Someone who read his daughter Harry Potter books and cooked her international dishes so she could explore the world even when stuck in Sagebrush Flats. Now that was the kind of man who would interest Katie.

  “Dad!” Abby sang out just as Katie heard the door open behind her. “Katie came early. Oh, and she told me to call her Katie, not Ms. Underwood.”

  Katie swung around, eager to meet Abby’s father—only to have her eyes fall upon Bowie Wilson.

  Chapter 3

  Katie glanced quickly back at Abby in confusion. Then suddenly, everything gelled in her mind. No wonder Abby looked familiar. She was a perfect blend of Sawyer Johnson and Bowie Wilson. If Abby hadn’t inherited Bowie’s coloring, she would be an exact doppelgänger of Sawyer. Of course, even at eleven, Sawyer would never have worn such frumpy clothes. She would have painted her nails, styled her hair, and accessorized.

  Any daughter raised by Sawyer would look like a fashionista. Abby did not. That, even more than Abby’s stories, left Katie with no doubt that Sawyer had absolutely no part in Abby’s life. That didn’t surprise Katie. She had known Sawyer for thirteen years, and nothing in her character had indicated that she would put her life on hold for an unexpected teenage pregnancy.

  What stunned Katie was that Bowie had. He was obviously doing an excellent job at single parenting. Sure, she had only spent a handful of minutes with Abby, but anyone listening to her talk about her dad could sense the solidness of their bond. Abby might have trouble fitting in at school, but she possessed the confidence of a child who’d grown up in a stable environment, who simply accepted her parent’s love as automatic and natural.

  Katie couldn’t reconcile the boy who’d tormented her with the father who stood before her now.

  “Katie’s really nice,” Abby told her dad cheerfully.

  “Is that so?” Bowie shot Katie a warm smile.

  Her stomach flip-flopped—the traitorous organ. She really should have developed an immunity to Bowie’s charming good looks, but at the age of twenty-nine, she couldn’t blame teenage hormones this time.

  Abby nodded. “We’re a lot alike. She says kids teased her in school too.”

  Bowie’s gaze flew to Katie. His look—both panicked and protective—seared her. Over Abby’s head, Katie gave a quick negative shake to indicate that she had not exposed him as her bully. A tick of irritation struck her. Did the man really believe she would use a child to enact revenge?

  Bowie relaxed marginally and turned his attention back to his daughter. “It’s getting late.”

  Abby treated her father to a look that only a preteen could achieve with such perfection—the adorable pout. “Can I stay with the cougars a little longer, puh-leese? I think Sylvia needs a break, and I don’t mind cuddling the babies for a while.” As if on cue, the capybara lifted her head a couple of inches from the floor as if she didn’t have the strength to raise it any farther. Her huge, almond-shaped black eyes mirrored the pleading look in Abby’s. Tonks, the cub on Abby’s lap, emitted a sigh-like sound as it nestled closer to the girl.

  Katie probably would have caved. Bowie didn’t. Instead, he rea
ched out and ruffled Abby’s hair. “Sorry, kiddo. No can do.”

  “Will you at least read me a story tonight?” Abby asked.

  Katie could see by the slight change in Bowie’s expression that this question affected him.

  “Not tonight, sweetheart. Lou will have to put you to bed again. I can’t leave Katie alone with the cubs on her first night. I promise, though, that I will tomorrow.”

  Abby looked a little crestfallen, but she didn’t argue. “Pinkie swear?”

  Bowie crouched and crooked his little finger. “Pinkie swear.”

  Then, in what had to be one of the top ten surreal moments of Katie’s life, she witnessed her high school’s biggest jerk pinkie swear with his adorable daughter. Was this the same man who had run Katie’s bra up the school’s flagpole after his girlfriend had stolen it from her gym bag? Bowie wasn’t just the fun parent either. The dispute about Abby’s bedtime showed that he set rules for his daughter and enforced them. The scene grew sweeter as Abby laid Tonks back down on Sylvia and flung her arms around Bowie for a good-night hug. He planted a quick kiss on the girl’s head before she skipped out of the building.

  “If you need to walk her home, I’m sure I’ll be fine with the cubs for a little bit,” Katie said.

  Bowie shook his head, and Katie thought his voice seemed a little strained when he said, “No need. We live on the property, and Lou’s expecting her.”

  She was about to ask where on the property they lived when Bowie whirled on her. Like heat lightning in July, anger flashed over his features, and Katie realized why his voice had sounded odd—constrained ire.

  “What the hell game are you trying to play?”

  Katie met his blast of fury with icy indignation. “I don’t know. The kind where I volunteer to help you and your zoo?”

  Bowie took a threatening step toward her. “Look, I’ll do practically any humiliating thing you ask me to do. I probably owe you that, but keep my daughter out of this.”

  Katie didn’t back up. In fact, she moved forward. Although she wasn’t a short woman, Bowie still had a few inches on her. That didn’t matter. She jutted her chin and met his angry expression with one of her own.

  “I think you’ve forgotten who is the master at manipulation and mind games,” she shot back at him. “I’m not so twisted or vindictive that I’d prey on a little girl’s emotions.”

  “Then why did you bring up high school?”

  Katie didn’t even try to stop her aggravated sigh. “I didn’t bring up high school! Do you think I go around terrifying elementary students with how horrible middle school and high school can be? ‘Hey, kids, you think getting picked on now is bad, wait a couple of years and that boy you like will steal your journal so that his girlfriend can read your most private thoughts aloud during a school-wide talent show.’”

  Bowie had the grace to wince, but he didn’t back down. “Why did you tell her about being picked on?”

  “First of all, I didn’t know she was your daughter.”

  That news calmed him slightly, but he didn’t appear convinced. “She looks like Sawyer and me.”

  Katie delivered her driest expression. “I see that now, but I wasn’t expecting you to have a kid. Sure, she looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. It’s been over ten years since I last saw Sawyer.”

  Bowie’s muscles started to uncoil. He rubbed his hand over the back of his skull—a tic that Katie remembered from high school. All through her freshman and most of her sophomore year, she used to covertly watch him make that gesture and imagine running her own fingers through his hair.

  “Why did you bring it up?”

  Katie exhaled. “I didn’t… At least I wasn’t the one who introduced the topic. Abby indicated that she liked working with the animals because they didn’t make fun of her like the kids at school. I saw a fellow nerd, and I empathized. I told her that I used to sketch fantasy characters for the same reason, and I tried to tell her that things got better. I don’t know. I guess I was trying to build her confidence.”

  At her words, Bowie froze, his expression almost comical as he realized his screwup. A cocktail of emotions swirled in his gray eyes—dismay, contrition, and a touch of embarrassment. Back in high school, Katie had dreamed of eliciting just such an expression.

  She couldn’t help it. A smug smile tugged at her lips. After all he’d put her through in the past, the man deserved to squirm a little.

  * * *

  Bowie was a first-class a-hole. Again.

  He shouldn’t have flipped out. He knew it, but his protective instincts had surged into overdrive. Abby had always been vulnerable about how her classmates treated her. He had no idea how to help. Although he’d never been wildly popular until he’d hooked up with Sawyer, he’d also never been picked on. Yeah, sure, through the years, there’d been some boys who tried to talk trash, but his fists had always been able to take care of that. However, he didn’t think that telling his daughter to slug the other girls in her class would resolve anything. So he just comforted her the best he could when she came home in tears. The last thing he needed was Abby learning that he’d been a bully himself.

  “Uh, look, I’m sorry about that,” he told Katie. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” she said crisply as she petted the cougar cub in her arms. By the large splash of black between the cub’s tiny ears, Bowie identified it as the male that his daughter had named Dobby.

  “Abby has a hard time with the kids at school. I don’t think it would help if she knew what a jerk-off I used to be. I don’t want to see her hurt any more than she already is,” Bowie confessed.

  Katie’s face softened as she watched him with a serious expression. “Bowie, there is a lot of nasty history between the two of us, but I would never drag your child into it. She’s off-limits. I get that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. For whatever reason, you seem like a great dad, and your daughter clearly looks up to you. I wouldn’t jeopardize that…for her sake.”

  Strong emotion clamped down on Bowie’s heart with the force of one of Fluffy’s bites. From the moment that he’d first held his daughter, he’d promised himself he would turn his life around for her. Growing up shuttled between his messed-up parents and foster care, he’d had no idea how to provide a stable home. Lou and Gretchen had helped him, and loving Abby had always just come naturally.

  There were moments, though, when Bowie wondered if he was handling everything right.

  Since Gretchen had died over six years ago, Abby hadn’t had any female influence. Other than Lou, Bowie didn’t have anyone to turn to for advice on raising Abby. Although Lou was an incredible man, he’d never been a father before either.

  Katie Underwood didn’t like Bowie. She might even detest him. He had, unfortunately, given her plenty of cause. She had no reason to praise him and every incentive to criticize him.

  When she called him a great dad, she meant it.

  Those words counted. A lot. Even when Bowie had teased Katie in high school, a part of him had always admired her. No matter how mean the tricks had become, she had never flinched—not once that he’d seen anyway. He couldn’t recall her ever crying. She hadn’t changed her personality either. If anything, she’d become more unabashedly nerdy. During the two weeks that he’d pretended to date her, he recalled her being incredibly straightforward, not like most people in his life. She had also graduated first in their class.

  So, yeah, Katie’s opinion mattered.

  “Abby’s a good kid,” he heard himself say gruffly. “She makes parenting easy.”

  Katie laughed, a bright sound that created an odd ripple effect inside Bowie. It made him feel strangely lighter.

  “From what I hear, being a parent is never completely easy. And speaking of taking care of babies,
what am I supposed to do with these cubs?”

  Grateful for the change of subject, Bowie eagerly switched into his zoo director role. Here, he felt more in control, more balanced. He showed Katie where to find the formula and the supplies for mixing more. Then he demonstrated how to feed the cubs properly. Since the little guys were only about a week old, it was important that all four paws remained on the ground and that the caregiver supported the kit’s head and neck to prevent milk from traveling down the windpipe. He also showed Katie how to massage their bellies to encourage them to go to the bathroom. In order to make sure the cubs were staying healthy, he and Lou kept a detailed record of their eating times, along with when they urinated and defecated.

  “Sylvia is our capybara,” Bowie told Katie. “When you’re done feeding the cubs, put them on her belly. She’s got an amazing maternal instinct and has been a foster mom to a lot of the zoo’s orphaned and abandoned young. We’ve got a couple of coyotes who think they’re capybaras. Sylvia raised them from pups after a local rancher shot their mom for stalking his sheep and killing his chickens.”

  “What is a capybara exactly?” Katie asked as she walked over to scratch Sylvia on the forehead. The animal gave a sigh of happiness as she twitched the tiny ears situated on top of her large head.

  “She’s a hundred-pound rodent, but don’t tell Sylvia. She thinks she’s a pet dog. In fact, other zoos typically use rescue dogs to nurture abandoned babies. A few years back, when orphaned coyote pups were dropped off at the zoo by the Fish and Wildlife Service, I went to the animal shelter to pick up a female Lab mix. It turned out the dog had been adopted, but Sylvia was there. Her owners had bought her as a pup. They hadn’t realized how much she’d weigh as an adult or that she’d chew up their furniture to wear down her sharp teeth. I knew we could give her a better life, so I brought her back to the zoo. I’d heard that capybaras got along well with other species, so I introduced her to the coyote pups. Sylvia immediately trotted over and started nuzzling them. She’s been helping take care of our zoo babies ever since.”