“Let’s get started.” Maya took the crate from Wes and set it quietly down on the boardwalk. From the inside she pulled out a couple of old bedsheets and handed a pink, flowered one to Wes. “The easiest way to catch an eagle is to come up behind it, wrap this around the wings and around its tummy. Hold its talons in one hand while you wrap the sheet around them. That way it will be all bundled up and it can’t hurt you, or itself.”
“Won’t it try to stab me with its beak while I’m wrapping it up?” Wes couldn’t really picture how this would work.
“You just have to be careful and do your best,” Maya said. “Emily or I will try to be the one to catch it.”
Emily grinned at him. “If it comes your way, you’ll just have to wing it.”
“Very funny.” Wes handed Emily her binoculars and took the sheet from Maya. He followed the women off the boardwalk and into the soft earth near the shore of the pond. He tried to walk directly in their footsteps to leave as little impact on the land as possible. It was so pristine here he felt guilty marring the landscape.
Maya went into the pond, moving slowly and carefully at a diagonal to try to get on the eagle’s left side. Emily turned around and motioned for Wes to go to her right. She was heading along the shore of the pond, straight for the bird. When they were still several yards away, the eagle flapped its wings uneasily. Even though it had its back to them, it must have sensed their presence. They all froze and waited. Wes watched Maya, and when she tilted her head toward the eagle, they started forward again.
Wes had to cross the stream that seeped beneath the grass from pond to pond. He sank in past his boots, gasping as the icy water filled them. There was mud, too, sucking at every footstep. Every step got heavier the more water his boots and jeans took on. Trying not to make sloshing sounds required all his concentration. Glancing over, he saw that Emily was soaked, too. She didn’t seem to mind. She flashed him a thumbs-up and a big smile.
They were only a few feet from the eagle now. Its white head was wet and disheveled but still looked impressive, with the huge yellow hooked beak protruding from it. Maybe the males were smaller, but this guy sure seemed big to Wes.
Emily raised her blanket and crept forward by inches. She managed to get right behind the eagle and it still didn’t move. She leaned forward, brought the blanket down and the eagle skittered away with a high-pitched screech.
“Get it,” Emily gasped as she lost her balance and sprawled into the mud.
The eagle was heading toward Wes, scrambling and flapping its good wing as it floundered in the marshy grass.
Wes held his pink sheet open and walked as slowly and stealthily as he could toward the bird. It stopped struggling, perhaps stuck in the mud. He could see that the side of its white head was streaked with dirt and possibly some blood. Its bright eyes were wide and wild.
Wes tried to calm his heartbeat and let go of his own adrenaline, just like he did with a frightened horse. “Easy,” he murmured. “You’re okay.”
The eagle folded its bad wing as best it could. Hunched over, the battered bird tilted its head and looked up at Wes with one eerie yellow eye. It was gathering energy, getting ready for its next escape attempt. Wes didn’t give either of them a chance to think. He pounced, sheet outstretched, and enveloped the eagle in a gentle bear hug. His hat went flying off as he twisted his body so as not to land on the bird. Instead he landed with a splash on his back in the shallow muddy water, the eagle struggling frantically on his belly.
Wes managed to hold the enormous bird by the wings, but the eagle’s talons were bicycling in the air. Stuck on his back, Wes couldn’t see exactly where its razor claws were, and no way was he going to feel around for them. “Need a little help, here,” he called.
He could hear Emily and Maya sloshing toward him. “Hold on, Wes.” Emily appeared in his line of vision, covered head to toe in mud from her belly flop into the marsh grass. Wes couldn’t help grinning. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.” He gasped as the eagle’s beak grazed his arm. “Ouch.”
“You’re looking a little bedraggled yourself, Wes Marlow.” Emily flopped down on her knees next to him, slid her hand along his stomach and managed to get a grip on the eagle’s talons. Maya arrived, not nearly as muddy, but soaked to the waist from her walk in the pond. She used her sheet, and the one that Wes had over the eagle’s wings, to wrap the panicked bird securely and tuck it under her arm. “Come on, big guy. Let’s get you healed up.” She started back to the boardwalk, as calm as if she carried eagles around every day.
Wes lay on his back, feeling the icy, swampy water fill the seat of his pants and soak the back of his shirt. The cool, misty breeze prickled over the front of his body. Emily sat in the water next to him, trying to wipe the mud off her face with her equally muddy sleeve. “How are you doing down there?”
He looked up at her pretty, mud-smeared face, framed by the cloudy sky. “Cold. Wet. But hey, I caught the eagle.” His heart was racing, and he felt exhilarated to have succeeded. To have had his arms around such an amazing bird.
She smiled. “Well done, apprentice. Do you need some help getting up?”
“Yeah.” He grinned up at her. This was all so ridiculous. “I’m pretty sure I’m sinking, actually.”
She started laughing—a quiet, helpless, half-hysterical laugh. “I might be sinking, too.” Then tears were running down her face, she was laughing so hard. “I’m really sorry, Wes. I didn’t think it would be this messy.”
Answering laughter bubbled up from his chest, rich and rippling, and he couldn’t stop it, either. He lay there in the swamp, eyes on the sky, laughing until he couldn’t speak. Eventually he managed to gasp out, “I can safely say that I have never experienced a veterinary practice quite like yours.”
That got her laughing even harder. She gestured to the swamp around them. “I don’t understand. You find this odd? It’s just an average day in Shelter Creek.” Then her laughter died down. “Do you think there are snakes in here?”
Wes scrambled to a sitting position, arms flailing. Then he staggered to his feet. He was looking over his shoulder, trying to make sure there were no waterlogged reptiles clinging to his back, when he realized that Emily was still sitting in the swampy grass, laughing even harder than before. “You were messing with me?”
She grinned, totally unrepentant. “I got you unstuck, didn’t I?”
His heart slowed down from its wild gallop. “I can’t believe you did that to me.”
She heaved herself up out of the water and mud, clutching her sodden blanket. “There are a lot more snakes in Texas than there are here. Another reason to love Shelter Creek.” She started back the way they’d come, taking big strides to use his previous footsteps. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Are you coming, cowboy?”
He retrieved his hat, the straw covered in mud just like the rest of him. His clothing was soaked and his water-filled boots weighed him down, but his heart felt light. No amount of pond water or professionalism could quench the spark he felt between them. No matter that she’d scared the daylights out of him with that snake comment. He’d follow her onto swampy ground again. He’d follow her anywhere. Maybe he was a fool, but he was falling head over heels for Emily all over again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WHEN EMILY PULLED her truck into the parking lot of the wildlife center, Wes was already there. After a cold wet ride from Long Valley back to the clinic, they’d gone their separate ways so they could each go home to shower and change.
Wes was leaning against his truck, looking at something on his phone. With one denim-clad leg crossed over the other at the ankle, a clean, brown cowboy hat tilted down, his arms crossed over a different plaid flannel shirt than the one he’d worn earlier, he looked like a picture-perfect cowboy. But he was real and he was waiting for her. Something in Emily’s stomach quivered. Butterflies. She wished they’d leave, mig
rate, go to sleep, anything other than flutter in her stomach. They’d been there ever since she and Wes had laughed until they cried in Long Valley.
She hadn’t been able to think of anything since. His willingness to jump in, literally, to wildlife rescue had captured more than that eagle. It had captured her heart. Then, when he’d announced that he was sinking into the marshy ground, he’d got her giggling. And that was it. She was done for. There was no way she wasn’t going to fall for Wes Marlow one more time.
The dilemma was twofold. She didn’t want to get hurt. She already knew how easily he could break her heart. And she also wanted him to work with her. He was good. He was fun. He clearly loved his work, and he loved animals. He knew when to step forward, like he had with Two Socks. He knew when to step back, as he did earlier today when Fancy didn’t want him around. And he wanted to work right here in Shelter Creek.
How could she keep things professional when she was feeling so much?
Though right now, it didn’t matter what she was feeling. Trisha had been treating the eagle for shock while she and Wes went home to change. Now Emily had to figure out where it was hurt and how to fix it.
She parked her truck, and Wes looked up from his phone and smiled. Her butterflies swirled and sailed. She gave him a wave through the truck window and allowed herself a moment to breathe. Her feelings about him were simply that. Feelings. A crush. They didn’t mean she should act on them. Nothing had changed since she woke up this morning. She simply needed to practice being immune to Wes Marlow’s smile. To get used to laughing with him just like she’d laugh with Maya or Trisha or Vivian.
Though her girlfriends didn’t cause her heart to skip a beat when they walked her way.
Emily pushed open the door of her truck and got out on shaky legs. “Hey. Feeling better?”
He smiled, looking almost shy. Had he felt that same connection on the valley floor? “A shower has never felt that good.” He ran his fingers over his clean-shaven jaw and gave her a quick wink. “I think all that mud did something nice for my skin, though. How about you?”
“Who needs a spa when you can roll around in a marsh?”
He laughed. “That’s what I always say.”
Her smile was so big it was hurting her cheek muscles and it was hard to look away from the humor in his gaze. “We better get inside and figure out what to do with that eagle.”
“I hope you have a plan. I haven’t worked with an eagle before. I was just looking up what I could about it on my phone.”
“We’ve had injured eagles here before and successfully released them back to the wild, so I think we can help this guy out.” Emily motioned toward the center. “Come on. I’m excited to show you around. This center is a really important part of our community.”
They started for the big glass doors. “Who built it?”
“A friend of mine named Eva first thought of it, back when Maya came home to Shelter Creek. Eva is a friend of Maya’s grandmother and they’re in a book club called The Book Biddies. The book club members were helping Maya spread the word about how to live peacefully with mountain lions. They got so excited about helping wildlife that they started fundraising for this center.”
Wes paused and looked up at the impressive concrete-and-timber building. “A book club got this built?” He looked at her, brows raised. “That’s one impressive book club.”
Emily laughed. “They’re unstoppable. Actually, they’ve invited some of the younger generation to be part of it, too. Maya, Trisha, Vivian and I are all Book Biddies, now.”
Wes grinned at her. “I’d never mistake you for an old biddy. But you always did like to read.”
“I still do. But mostly I just like the book club meetings. It’s a fun group. They’re more like family now.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a great group of friends,” Wes said.
“I’m sure you’ll get to know them better, the longer you’re here in Shelter Creek.” She paused by the door to the center, suddenly shy about what she wanted to say to him. “If you still want to stay.”
“I want to stay.” He glanced at her. “If you don’t mind too much. After this morning, when we got so upset with each other, I wondered if I should just go. I never meant to crowd you. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to come back here.”
“No!” The word came out much louder than Emily had planned. “I mean, I think you should stay. I think we should keep working together. Would you want to give this trial period another month? At the end of that we can make it a more formal partnership if it works out.”
His wide smile gave his answer before he did. “Are you sure?”
Emily nodded. “Anyone who wrestles a bald eagle like that is meant to have this job.”
“Well, I hope no other eagle wrestlers show up, because I’m not sharing my paycheck with them.”
She laughed. “Good to know.”
He held out a hand. “Shall we shake on it?”
“Sure.” But when his big hand closed over hers, so warm and sure, she knew this was the wrong way to seal their agreement. She wanted to keep holding on. Instead she pulled away, trying to ignore the way his gaze searched hers intently, as if he, too, had found some deeper meaning in their clasped hands. “Well, it’s official now. You’ll be my apprentice for the next month.”
He laughed outright. “Maybe we could come up with a new title.”
“I don’t know,” she teased. “I think Bobby might be onto something.”
“I’ll be Apprentice if I can call you Fair Emily.”
“In that case, we’ll find you a new title. How about Associate?”
He pulled open the door of the wildlife center and held it for her. “I’ll take it. I’m happy to associate with you anytime.”
Emily walked into the lobby with her butterflies zipping and zooming inside. She’d better get used to them. If Wes kept saying things like that, they might just be here to stay. What had she been telling herself all day? That she had to practice being immune to Wes? That she had to stay professional? They still had a few hours of work left today and she was already failing miserably.
* * *
WES WALKED INTO the wildlife center feeling ten pounds lighter than he had this morning. Just a few hours ago he was wondering if he should leave Shelter Creek, and now he’d been offered another month to work with Emily. He’d never had a life where dreams came true just because he got lucky. Maybe the one piece of true luck he’d had was getting sent to live with Emily and her parents in Shelter Creek. Since then he’d worked and saved and struggled for everything he’d ever had. To be handed this chance to keep working with Emily at the moment he was close to surrender felt like a miracle. It felt like a sign. That maybe he didn’t have to struggle quite so hard anymore. That maybe he was truly meant to come back to Shelter Creek.
The relief of it had him smiling as he took in the lobby of the Shelter Creek Wildlife Center. It was set up as an interactive museum, with displays about the local wildlife. A young woman sat at the desk, schoolbooks open in front of her. She looked up as they walked in, a bright smile lighting up her face when she saw Emily. “You’re here! Have you come to help the eagle?”
“Yes, we have,” Emily answered. “I didn’t know you were working today. What happened to school?”
“They had some big teacher meeting this afternoon. They let us go early. I figured if I had to study, I might as well do it here and answer the phones while I’m at it.”
“You’re the best. Wes, this is Carly. She’s Jace and Vivian’s niece. Carly, Wes went to high school with us. He’s a veterinarian and he’ll be working with me for the next month or so.”
“Jace mentioned you. A real Texas cowboy. Welcome back to Shelter Creek.”
Wes tipped his hat to her. “Great to meet you, Carly. It’s real nice of you to volunteer here.”
“I love
it,” Carly said. “I want to study biology like Vivian and Maya.”
“Sounds like a great plan.” Wes liked this kid. And what was it about this town that created such strong, smart women? Here was another one in the making, getting ready to run circles around the next generation of men around here.
“They’re all in the back with the eagle.” Carly pointed toward a door in the back of the lobby. “Good luck with it. It didn’t look happy when Maya brought it in.”
Emily led the way. The door opened onto a hallway that led to several different closed doors. Emily pointed them out. “Those are storage rooms, a small lab, long-term care for wildlife and there’s a meeting room, too.”
Everything was spotless and new. Large photos of wildlife were framed on the walls. “Did you take these, too?”
Emily nodded. “They’re some of the animals we’ve rehabilitated. Except that bunny. That’s Peanut. He lives here permanently.”
“Peanut.” Wes followed her through a door labeled Hospital, shaking his head at the cute name. In the center of the room, Maya, Vivian and Trisha stood around a metal table working together to treat the eagle. Maya had it securely in her arms and Vivian had its feet wrapped in a towel. Trisha was feeding it something brown from an enormous syringe. Whatever it was, the eagle was gulping it greedily. “What’s it drinking?”
“A mixture of electrolytes and protein,” Emily said. “It will help get his body back into balance.”
“Hi, you two,” Trisha said quietly. “Wes, once it feels better we’ll give it some real food. But right now we just need to stabilize him so we can look at his wounds.”
“Wes, will you help me prep the surgery?” Emily pointed to an exam room off to the side. There was a big metal table with surgical lights over it.
“This might be nicer than what you have at the clinic,” Wes said.
“Right? Lucky for this place, people in California love wildlife, and many of them have a fair amount of money. We’re the only wildlife center in the county and a lot of folks have been really supportive of our mission.” Emily reached into a cabinet and pulled out a couple of pale green surgery gowns. She handed one to him. “Let’s put these on.”
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