“Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m quite out of treats. Next time, I promise I shall bring you some lovely walnuts or oranges, or perhaps an … Oh!”
A door slammed nearby, and Mollie jumped at the sudden noise. As she reached the corner at the end of the row of enclosures, a man suddenly rushed past her, his hat slapped down askew on his head. He struggled into his coat as he strode rapidly down the path, away from the large, barn-like building he’d just exited. She noticed he still wore a heavy butcher’s or doctor’s apron, and it struck her as strange that he hadn’t discarded it before tugging on his coat.
A moment later, the door the man had just exited opened again, and another figure, clad in a similar apron, appeared in the doorway. “Bentley!” he shouted. “Where the devil are you going? Get back here!”
Bentley broke his stride only long enough to holler back over his shoulder, “I’m through, Doc! Y’all get yerself somebody else!”
“Dammit, man, get back here now, or you’re fired!”
“No way in hell, Doc!” the man called back. “Didn’t sign up to risk life and limb! I quit!” And with that, he broke into a run and rushed down the hill toward the carriageway.
Mollie’s jaw dropped at the sight of Dr. Nicholas Avinger, his fists clenched in anger, poised in the doorway. He bounced slightly on his feet, and she thought any moment he would tear down the hill in pursuit of the fleeing Mr. Bentley. Instead, he snarled something she was relieved not to hear clearly, turned abruptly, and strode back into the building, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Stunned, Mollie scarcely realized she was holding her breath. Hector’s pup! Dr. Avinger seemed possessed of his own personal tornado of blood and thunder. Did the man ever have a calm day? Blowing out a long huff of air, Mollie stood staring at the building a few moments longer.
Thank goodness Mrs. Wheeler isn’t here to see this, she thought, a little wildly. Before her good sense could override the sudden impulse that gripped her, she stepped out from behind the corner of the enclosures and walked quickly toward the building. From only a few yards away, she could read the small, painted wooden sign beside the door:
Grant Park Zoo
Laboratory
Animal Health Center
Authorized Staff Only
Next to the ordinary entrance were huge barn doors, fronted by a low loading platform with a wide ramp. Painted on a large wooden board nailed to one of the doors was a single word: DELIVERIES.
Before Mollie gave a thought as to what she was doing, she turned the doorknob, pushed open the door, and walked into the building.
CHAPTER 6
Closing the door quietly behind her, Mollie found herself in a huge, well-ordered storeroom. A few of the crates she’d seen at the railroad depot were neatly stacked along one wall. Others were open, their contents – medical instruments and microscopes – spread out on a worktable. Ledger books were arranged on a shelf above the table, and a number of loose papers were stacked haphazardly beside the instruments, the pages held down by another account book lying atop them. An oil lamp stood unlit on the table.
Just inside the huge delivery doors were a couple of large animal crates, each built onto its own low, rolling wagon. Had the crates not been so plainly and serviceably constructed, Mollie thought they might have been handily used in a circus parade.
She could hear a clatter of activity beyond the room, so cautiously, she made her way through the storeroom to a short hallway. As she got closer to a room at the end of the hall, the scraping, thumping noises grew louder. The door to the room was ajar, and as she peeked inside, her eyes widened in astonishment.
A large table stood in the center of a spotlessly clean laboratory room well-lit by gas lamps on wall sconces and free-standing on a long counter. On the table rested a wooden pallet, and on the pallet reclined a cat nearly as large, and every bit as beautiful, as the magnificent African lionesses Mollie had marveled at just a short time earlier.
The cat was easily five feet long and heavily muscled, though Mollie thought it looked rather thin. Its fur was silver-tipped and tawny over its back, head, and legs, creamy white around its eyes and muzzle and along its chest and belly. Its tail, as thick and muscular as a man’s arm, ended in a dark tip. The great cat lay with its eyes closed and jaws agape – and at the moment, it appeared to be eating Nick Avinger’s right hand.
“That…” Mollie stammered, “…that’s a silver lion!”
Startled, Nick looked up. He pulled his hand from the cat’s mouth and tossed a pair of forceps onto a tray on the counter. He gestured at another tray on a shelf near the door.
“Fetch me that set of tooth keys, will you? Over there, on the shelf.”
Mollie followed his sight line and quickly spotted the box of dental keys. Setting her contract envelope down carefully out of the way on the shelf, she retrieved the box and carried it to the counter where the doctor could readily reach the tools inside.
“Thanks,” Nick grunted. “Now put on that apron over there.” He jerked his head toward a clean apron hanging on a hook by the door. After a moment of indecision – he was, after all, once again ordering her around, and ordering her around a fang-bared lion, at that – Mollie sighed, carefully removed her coat and hat and draped them over other hooks, then took the apron, dropped it over her head, and tied it at the waist.
As she changed, Nick picked up a bottle of anesthetic and dribbled some of the liquid onto a cloth. Holding the cloth out to Mollie, he said, “Here. I need you to hold this over her muzzle for a minute so she doesn’t wake up while I’m working. But keep it away from your face so you don’t breathe it in yourself. Last thing I need is two unconscious patients right now.”
Other than drawing in one long, steadying breath, she did as he asked with an apparent calm that both surprised and impressed him, though he said nothing more. Nick selected a dental key, and nodding to Mollie to remove the cloth, he bent close to the cat’s head and began to work the tool around the animal’s abscessed incisor. He had to contort himself a bit to wrestle the tool into the animal’s mouth and over the tooth, and with Mollie standing by in case more anesthetic was needed, they were suddenly in very close quarters.
Inadvertently bumping her arm, Nick muttered, “Dammit. Sorry.” As Mollie moved a bit to the side, he gave the key another twist, then glanced up at her. “You’ve done this kind of thing before,” he said, and there was a hint of, if not admiration, then at least approval in his voice.
“Yes, in a way. I nursed my mother for nearly two years, which was almost a year and a half longer than the doctor said she would live, though I never actually had cause to wrestle a tooth out of her mouth.” She gave a small, humorless chuckle. “However, I do believe this lion is actually a more compliant patient than Mama ever was.”
Nick paused, studied her a moment. A corner of his mouth quirked before he looked away, shifted position, and readjusted the dental key. “Well, I’m afraid my previous assistant would not have agreed with you, Miss Winters.”
“Ah,” Mollie said, moving again to give Nick room to get a better grip on the instrument. “That would be the stalwart Mr. Bentley, I presume?”
“It would indeed.” Nick straightened, wiped his brow, flexed his cramped fingers. Just then the cat twitched, began to stir. “She’s coming around again. Give her another few drops.”
Mollie complied, and holding his breath to avoid the fumes, Nick bent to the lion’s jaws. Gripping the dental key with aching fingers, he gave it a hard wrench. The troublesome incisor separated from the cat’s jaw in a spray of blood-flecked saliva. Exhaling heavily, Nick said with relief, “Got it!”
He tossed the instrument with the huge, curved, rotted fang still clamped in it onto the counter, then selected another bottle and some gauze. Reaching once more into the cat’s mouth, he began to clean the exposed tooth socket.
“She’s a beautiful animal. A silver lion, isn’t she?” Mollie said, stepping back again, keeping th
e anesthetic-soaked cloth away from the doctor’s face.
“A puma, yes,” Nick answered as he swabbed the wound. “Some folks call them panthers or cougars, but some say silver lion, too. This one’s not old, but she’d begun having some trouble eating. I noticed she was getting thinner, but it took some doing to get her anesthetized enough to examine her without offering myself up as a snack. Thank God for chloral hydrate.”
“Is the rotten tooth all that’s wrong with her?”
Nick nodded. “Yes, ma’am, far as I can tell. Horses, cows, and dogs aren’t much of a mystery, but big cats, monkeys, and camels are another matter altogether. Now when I say I practice medicine, I reckon I do mean practice.”
“You’re a veterinary surgeon,” Mollie said, realizing the instant the words were out of her mouth that she’d rather stated the obvious.
“Yes, Miss Winters, that I am, though there’s many would call me a horse doctor or a farrier.” He paused, corked one bottle and selected another, then set once more to swabbing the puma’s jaw. “On the whole, though, I reckon it’s better than bein’ called the monkey doctor.”
“Well, this beauty is very lucky to be in your care,” Mollie said, gazing wistfully at the lion. “May I touch her?”
Nick looked at her, surprised at her fearlessness. It was still hard to tell the color of her eyes behind those tinted lenses, but he could just make out the dreamy look in them. It moved him in a way he didn’t quite understand and was fairly certain he didn’t much like. Finally, he shrugged, grunted.
“Hnnh. I suppose so, if you must.” His tone was abrupt and Mollie hesitated, frowning. A little ashamed of his curtness, Nick added gruffly, “It’s safe enough. She’ll sleep a while longer now.”
Mollie laid her palm on the great cat’s head, over the dark line that ran between the large, rounded, black-tipped ears and down the ridge of the animal’s spine. She stroked her hand down the cat’s neck and over its muscular shoulder. The fur was dense, coarse, and surprisingly soft. An expression of wonder lit Mollie’s face, and Nick felt his body clench into an even tighter knot.
This time, he recognized the feeling. He wanted her. Badly. He could all but feel every tender stroke of the woman’s hand over the cat’s coat. And that feeling, he knew, was a big red warning sign on his own personal rocky road to hell.
For the sake of tenderness and companionship, he’d allowed himself to trust the alluring Josephine. It hadn’t taken long to find out she expected him to fawn over her and indulge her self-centered whims at all times. When he’d grown impatient with her demands, she’d called him stubborn, ill-tempered, and unfit for human society as she’d flounced off, weeping huge crocodile tears into her lace hankie.
So he was ill-tempered. So what? He suited himself and could see no need to put himself through any more irritating female drama like the Josephine affair.
But Judas Priest, Mollie Winters had, in what seemed to him the blink of an eye, climbed under his skin and laid siege.
The sound he made as he turned away from her, thumping the bottle down on the counter, was nearly a snarl. “Enough, Miss Winters! She’s not a damned lap cat, and I need to get her back in her cage.”
Mollie started, pulled her hand from the cat’s fur. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered, her cheeks flaming. “I didn’t mean to hinder your work.”
Nick sighed, scrubbed a hand over his face. “No, it’s…. Well, never mind. I shouldn’t have barked at you. It was uncalled for.” He dropped his hand. “Long day, I reckon.”
Abruptly, he pushed away from the counter. “I’ll get her crate.” He picked up the anesthetic-soaked cloth and handed it to Mollie. “Hang on to this, just in case she starts to stir. I’ll just be a minute, but that’s about how long it’d take her to eat you if she wakes up.”
Eyes wide, Mollie nodded mutely and took the cloth. As Nick stalked from the room, he could hear her murmur tenderly, “Y’all just stay asleep, now, Miss Kitty Cat, you hear? Oh, but you do have such a lovely coat, don’t you? Reminds me of cream and summer fruit. Why, that’s the very thing. You know, from now on, I do believe I shall call y’all ‘Miss Peaches’.”
CHAPTER 7
Nicholas Avinger was a tall, rangy man, but his leanness was deceptive, hiding a muscular, sinewy strength. With what seemed to Mollie amazing ease, he pulled the crate wagon into the treatment room and lowered one entire side of the wire cage. Wrapping Miss Peaches in a blanket – he frowned when she announced the cat’s name, but admirably, he kept his opinion of it to himself – he lifted the big animal into the crate and laid her gently on the wooden floor of it. He then secured the side and hauled the crate down the hall, through the barn doors, down the ramp of the loading dock, and along the walkway to the zoo enclosures.
Mollie followed behind, carrying a bucket of water and trying not to slosh it over her one pair of good walking shoes, although she supposed they were now spattered with far worse than water.
The afternoon was waning as they made their way down the low hill to the animal enclosures. Mollie was startled to see how much time had passed; the park gas lamps would soon be lit, and a deepening chill was in the air. Most of the park visitors had left, and the zoo area was all but deserted. Only one or two passersby stopped to watch the little mini-circus, one-lion procession, then hurried on their separate ways.
When Mollie and Nick reached the puma enclosures, she noticed Miss Peaches’ mate pacing anxiously in an adjoining cage, rather than the one Dr. Avinger was opening to house the still-anesthetized cat. Mollie could see that the gate separating the two animals could be opened, but was now firmly locked. As in all the cages, there was a large, wooden hut, its floor covered in bedding straw, in the rear of Miss Peaches’ enclosure to serve both as a den for the animal and shelter from heat and cold.
When the male puma yowled and scratched at the gate, his enormous claws hooking into the steel caging, Mollie swallowed hard.
“Will he hurt her if he gets through?” Her voice was tense with worry.
Nick shook his head. “No, at least not intentionally. They are mates, and very strongly bonded. Still, he outweighs her by fifty pounds, and she won’t be able to defend herself properly for another couple of hours, so I don’t want to take any chances.”
The male yowled again, its huge jaws gaping. Abruptly, it stopped clawing at the gate and began bumping against it, rubbing and grumbling. Mollie thought its fierce yellow eyes were full of worry and distress.
“He’s missed her,” she said, as Nick again scooped Miss Peaches into his arms and carried her into the cage, laying her gently on the straw-covered floor of the wooden den. He left the warm blanket draped over her.
“Yeah, he did. And he doesn’t like me handling her. Hand me that water bucket, will you?”
Mollie gave him the bucket and he set it inside the cage, but away from the den. “This way she’ll have to be well awake and come out of the den to get her water,” Nick explained. “I don’t want her to choke trying to drink when she’s still half under.”
Mollie nodded, then tipped her head toward the male cougar. “When can you let him back in with her?” she asked as they exited Miss Peaches’ enclosure.
Securing the cage door, then closing the rolling crate, he said, “Tomorrow morning, if she’s come around all right and has started eating again. I’ll stay here tonight, check on her from time to time. But I’ll walk you back to your lodgings first. You are at Mrs. Wheeler’s, I presume?”
“Yes, I am, thank you. I’d best get back before she panics and calls out the constable. Or worse, the rather blustery Professor Bruner. I promised I’d … Oh! I nearly forgot!”
Her hand flew to her mouth, and Nick cocked his head. “Forgot what, Miss Winters?”
“I … I had a great favor to ask of you, Doctor. You see, I have received an offer to publish my book, and I hoped you might consent to read over the contract for me. I’m afraid I have no experience with this sort of thing and would appreciate your
advice.”
Nick’s brow arched in surprise. “Your book? Y’all wrote a book?”
Mollie nodded, unable to completely suppress a surge of pride. “I did, actually.”
“Well, Miss Winters,” he said, shaking his head, a touch of admiration in his voice. “What do you know. It seems y’all are just full of surprises.”
• • • • •
They sat on well-worn wooden chairs at the scarred worktable in the storage room. The oil lantern lit the space as Nick pored over the publishing contract and Mollie watched intently, unconsciously worrying her lower lip with her teeth.
When he set the papers down, she blurted out, “What do you think, Doctor? It all seems correct to me, but….”
He nodded. “It looks good to me, too, Miss Winters. But I think, just to be sure, we’d best have my brother-in-law George look it over. Nobody has a head for business to rival his. I swear, that fella could turn a mud pie and a three-legged goat into a pile of money.” He shook his head. “Latest I hear, he plans to buy an enormous painting of the Battle of Atlanta a team of German artists are working on so’s he can show it off right here in the park. Sounds crazy to me, but I reckon in George’s hands, that barn full of paint and canvas will turn into pure gold.”
“I think it sounds marvelous,” Mollie sighed. “People will come from all over to see it. Just imagine that!”
Nick cleared his throat, and his next admission sounded as though he’d had to pry it from between clenched jaws. But pry it he did. “I, uh, well, I think it’s bully that y’all wrote a book, Miss Winters. Don’t know anybody else who’s done that. I mean, except for soldiers and such who kept war journals. But I don’t know anybody who made up a whole story and wrote it all down. And now you’re going to get paid for it, to boot.”
Mollie met his eyes, studying his expression to see if he was teasing her. His deep blue eyes were solemn though, with no hint of mockery. Suddenly, he reddened, then looked down at the papers in his hand and began to hem and haw a bit.
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