Harlequin Superromance May 2018 Box Set

by Amber Leigh Williams

  “How early?”

  “Say—six thirty?”

  And then work her regular hours at the computer. Did these people ever slow down? It was worse than the last days before a new marketing campaign went up when she and the rest of Nathan’s team worked most of the night.

  “Then can I leave a little early if it slows down?”

  Barbara nodded, closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

  This might work as a stopgap Joe job, but she needed her career back, her house back, her family and friends back, and working for Barbara wasn’t the way to get them.

  She noted that the squirrels were gone from the big cage, replaced by baby raccoons that seemed to be growing as she watched them. They spent more time climbing the wire than they did on the ground.

  “My next major construction is a flight cage for raptors. I don’t know what I’d do if I got a screech owl that needed to exercise a broken wing. They have to be able to dive onto their prey. I get bags of frozen mice to teach them. It’s not as good as actual live mice, but although they’re bred as raptor food, I can’t let them loose to be killed. I know that’s stupid. My friends who are trained as raptor rehabilitators laugh at me when I drag frozen mice along the perches to convince an owl to eat them, even if they aren’t alive.”

  “How do you train as a raptor rehabilitator?” Emma asked.

  “You have to train to be a licensed rehabilitator first,” Barbara said. “Pretty strict rules and training. And then you get much more training. Among other things, you have to raise your own bird and train him. You work with a licensed raptor rehabilitator until he says you’re ready. The fish and wildlife people—Seth’s people—run classes in Williamston. A good deal of it is common sense, but there’s also bookwork on various anatomical differences among animals. For example, in the vet business, if I shoot a syringe full of penicillin into a horse’s artery, he’ll likely die before I can get the needle out. Vein is fine. Artery—a no-no. You can’t give aspirin to a cat. Nor, by extension, a bobcat or a panther. Then, if people would only leave fawns they find curled up in the brush alone, nine times out of ten the mother will return to pick up her baby, usually when she’s through foraging. And raccoons like to dip their food in water before they eat it. Oh, and beavers poop in water, not on land. You like this stuff, don’t you?”

  “I have to admit I do like it. I could never get all of it straight.”

  “That’s why we all work together. There’s always another rehabilitator to give you advice or come and help you. Why don’t you take a class? The wildlife people run introductory courses all the time. Then you can see if you really do enjoy this stuff.”

  “But I couldn’t do it back in Memphis. The raccoons are quite a plague in the city. If I rescued any, my neighbors would go ballistic.”

  “So, you’re still planning on going back to Memphis.”

  Emma felt her face flush. “There are no decent jobs in the country, Barbara. I have a career. Or I did have. I liked it. I made a really good living. I have a mortgage to pay. I’ve pretty much showed I haven’t got a clue how to fit in out here. I mean—everybody thought my ironed linen napkins were way over the top.”

  “But we appreciated them.”

  Emma patted Barbara’s hand. “Of course you did.”

  * * *

  THE FIRST THING Emma did when she got home from the clinic was to clean up after the skunks. She brought Seth’s playpen into the yard and sprayed it with the outside faucet, then scrubbed it with disinfectant. After that, she scrubbed the pantry the same way. Still no lingering odor of skunk. So no release into the wild yet.

  She knew she had to keep going with her chores until she finished. If she sat down, she’d fall asleep where she sat and not wake up until morning. At which point she’d be covered with mosquito bites to match her fading chigger bites.

  She spread the remaining night crawlers, along with carrot pennies, apple slices and hot dog rounds, in the skunks’ kennel. They pounced as though they hadn’t been fed for days. Then she cleaned their little kiddie pool. Did they eat minnows? If so, Barbara was bound to know where to get some. If they ate them in the wild, they needed to learn to chase them and catch them before they departed for the woods.

  Finally, she scrubbed all the combined odors she’d encountered off her body and out of her hair. She put on Bermuda shorts and a long-sleeved work shirt, combed her hair but left it wet, cropped bits and all. Then she fetched a glass of white wine, sprayed herself with mosquito repellant and sank into the front porch swing.

  The grill sat in the front yard under the water oak. She really didn’t care when, if ever, it made its way back to the rear porch.

  She gave a longing look at the bag swing, which swayed gently in the evening breeze. She couldn’t count on Seth to rescue her again, so no bag swing.

  Seth’s SUV wasn’t in his driveway. Working late? Or a hot date?

  Now, that presented an interesting situation. Did he already have a steady girlfriend? Nobody—probably not even Barbara—would feel the necessity to clue her in if he did. So far as anyone knew, they were simply neighbors. No one would consider that she would want to have that information. She and Seth were simply acquaintances.

  Did Seth think that’s all they were? Did she? Okay, so they’d spent some time together, but they’d barely even kissed. As good at kissing as he was, he’d obviously had plenty of practice.

  Barbara said his wife had left him. Why? According to Barbara, the ex didn’t like the country and was currently married to a city dentist.

  Was that the whole story? Seth was an attractive man. Possibly one of the most attractive around here. What to say his wife hadn’t left him because she got tired of his playing around. He didn’t seem like the type, but then Trip hadn’t seemed like the type either.

  Until he was.

  What was Emma to Seth? A couple of peculiar dates, but no pressure to take it to the next level. Emma’s stepmother had said that in her day, men all wanted you to go to bed with them. But she said, “They didn’t actually expect you to do it.”

  Emma had found that in too many instances, most of the men she’d gone out with did expect you to go to bed with them. It infuriated her. Like every single woman she knew, she’d had to fight her way out of situations that verged on rape. The wine was vintage, the food was French, so sex was the expected end of the evening.

  She and Seth had enjoyed brunch—Lucullan, but still during the day. Would he have pushed for a little post-prandial delight if not for Bobby Joe’s rescue?

  But he hadn’t pushed after he’d hauled her off the bag swing. That would’ve been the obvious opportunity.

  Or maybe he wasn’t pushy because he wasn’t that interested? Talk about a downer.

  Because, dammit, she was interested. When she dreamed at night, there was no other face in her dreams—erotic or otherwise.

  Before long, if he didn’t do something, she might have to. And she never in her life had before. She’d always been pursued. She didn’t have a clue how to pursue.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BY TUESDAY AFTERNOON, Emma felt comfortable running reception for Barbara. The cases had been pretty routine—a couple of spay and neuters, some gashes that needed stitches, the usual horses needing shots. Unlike many vets, Barbara tried to avoid taking outside calls as much as possible; she simply didn’t have time to travel. So even the large animals generally came to the clinic. She did have one call out to a cow that was having difficulty calving, but the call was close by, and the calf came relatively easily after she’d managed to straighten its twisted foot.

  Still, Emma was glad to leave after her shift finished. She’d never realized how difficult being tied to a desk at someone else’s beck and call could be. She decided to send the secretaries at Nathan’s office a big box of Dinstuhl’s chocolates to thank them for putting up
with her.

  For the second night, Seth’s SUV wasn’t in his driveway. Where was he? He certainly had no reason to report to her, but he seemed to be avoiding her. Drawing away from her? So it would seem. She wasn’t going to sit behind drawn curtains waiting for him to come home—alone or otherwise. He was sleeping somewhere, in someone’s bed, just not his own. Or hers. Avoiding her, so she wouldn’t ask questions about his father? Afraid that if he came home, she’d go bang on his door and demand an explanation? She would never do such a thing. She had no right to burrow into his life.

  Maybe it was time for her to return to Memphis. Not like she was going great guns here.

  That evening when she called home, her father answered. She made the story of the Saturday party and Sunday rescue sound very funny and not nearly as critical as not finding Bobby Joe would have been. “Is Trip still calling you?” she asked.

  “Not as often. I’m sending him straight to voice mail. He’s beginning to get the idea. Is he calling you?”

  “Not in several days.”

  “Now, however, Nathan Savage is calling. He wants to know when you’re coming home. I think he may want to offer you your job back.”

  “Well, hooray for him,” she said drily.

  “Are you still interested?”

  “Of course I am, Dad. But not under the same rules. I’m happy with the salary for now, but I want more autonomy, more trust, less meeting planning and more design responsibilities. I’m actually enjoying living up here at Aunt Martha’s. I think after I come home, I’ll rehab it with Andrea’s help, and we can use it as a weekend getaway.”

  “As if your siblings want to spend weekends away from their friends. You remember what you were like at that age.”

  “Then maybe just for you and Andrea and me,” Emma said.

  “And miss golf? Good try, Emma, but you’re going to have to come home to us, and that’s all there is to it.”

  By the time she went to bed, Seth’s SUV still wasn’t in his driveway.

  Nor was it there when she climbed out of bed to feed the skunks. Wherever he was, it was serious. If he wasn’t with another woman, what about the disasters that could be keeping him away? Drugs or poaching or road accidents or hunts for criminals or more lost children. She had no right to expect him to call her to check in, but she wished he would.

  She had just put the clean dishes away when she heard a car in her gravel driveway. Her heart turned over. Seth! At last! She was going to kiss him and then she was going to kill him—or maybe vice versa. She ran to the front door and yanked it open.

  Standing on the stoop with his hand raised to knock was Nathan. “You won’t take my calls, so I drove up.” He gave her a hug.

  “Well, if you ain’t the sexiest Ma Kettle in the wilderness.” He kissed both cheeks. “Give me to drink, dear lady, before I die of thirst.”

  “Beer, wine, lemonade or iced tea—unsweetened.”

  “Lemonade homemade?”

  “But of course.”

  He nodded. “Then I want that. Who’s the cage for? Installed your own Tarzan, have you?”

  That was entirely too close to the truth, so she only smiled and ushered him in. “This is fondly known as The Hovel,” she said.

  “Actually, it would benefit from your stepmother’s fine decorating hand, but it does have good bones. Andrea could turn it from a sow’s ear to a Gucci handbag. I was afraid it was a log cabin. You do have indoor plumbing, don’t you?”

  She nodded and raised her eyebrows. “Heating and air-conditioning, too. At least I think they work. Hasn’t been hot or cold enough to test out yet.”

  He wandered around the living room while she fixed the tumblers of lemonade and brought him one.

  “Since you don’t have to worry about Andrea’s allergies, I expected you’d have adopted at least a cat or dog or two,” he said, “But I didn’t get attacked when I got out of the car, so no dog as yet, am I right? You haven’t deteriorated into the local cat lady yet?”

  “No cats. No dogs. Skunks.”

  He spat his mouthful of lemonade straight across the room. “Say what?” He whirled around looking at his feet. “Guard skunks? Am I about to get hosed?”

  “It’s called ‘being skunked.’ They’re orphan babies, Nathan. They don’t make scent yet. Want to see?”

  “I’m more the labradoodle type, but if you’re sure these trousers are safe from attack…”

  They walked outside and around the corner of the house to the kennel. Having finished their breakfast, the babies were all curled up sound asleep in their quilted dog bed beside the tree limb.

  “Ooooh!” He dropped to one knee. “A-dorable!”

  “Hush. You’ll wake them up,” Emma whispered.

  He leaned against the fence, made cooing noises, then let her drag him back into the living room. As she shut the door behind them, he clasped his hands. “I should’ve known you’d make beluga caviar out of dead fish eggs. Emma, I can think of two ad campaigns right this minute that would top the charts using those little sweeties. How soon can you bring them to Memphis so we can shoot lots of footage of them?” He glanced at the door. “You weren’t kidding about their not ‘skunking’ yet?”

  “Hold on, Nathan, just hold on. The only place they’re going is back to the woods as soon as they’re weaned. Nobody’s supposed to know I even have them. It’s against the law in Tennessee. You must not tell anyone. I mean it. I know how you get when you have an idea. We could all wind up in jail.”

  “Surely not!”

  “Surely yes. That Tarzan you mentioned is a game warden and he lives right there across the street. I don’t dare let anyone find out about them. Promise.”

  He sighed. “Very well. But I can bring my crew up here and film them in their cage outside, can’t I? Nobody would have to know where I got the shots.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned them. My friend Barbara, a vet who lives down the road, rehabilitates orphan animals. At the moment, she has a goose with a lame foot, several orphan fawns, a couple of raccoon babies…”

  “Baby deer? Yes, yes, yes. Let’s go see them!”

  “Nathan, you’re such a baby yourself when you get an idea.”

  “Because I have such good ones. I still want the skunks, but I’ll settle for the fawns in the meantime.” He set his now-empty lemonade glass on the kitchen counter. “Grab your purse and let’s go.”

  “She may not be available. I should call first.”

  The phone at the clinic rang until it went to voice mail. Emma started to speak, when what sounded like a very frazzled Barbara picked up. “This is Barbara. This better be an emergency… Emma? You’re not supposed to be here today. God, I wish you were.”

  “One quick question. My former boss drove up here and wants to come see the fawns before you release them. Is that possible?”

  “Um… Okay, but remember you’re coming to load and release them tomorrow.”

  “We won’t even go into the clinic. I’ll take him straight to the barn.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Although I may sic Mabel on him. That goose would scare the emperor of a third-world country.”

  “Okay. Sorry, got to go.”

  “Well?” Nathan asked.

  “We don’t bother Barbara, we don’t try to touch any of them, and you don’t scream.”

  “All right, all right. Let’s take my car. Yours, as usual, is covered with mud.”

  “Around here, mud is a badge of honor. Come on. You buy me lunch afterward.”

  “Where? The ditch beside the road? Do we have to snare a rabbit?”

  “Nathan, do we—I mean you—have a client who sells trucks?” She climbed into the BMW and fastened her seat belt.

  “Two clients, as a matter of fact. What’s your point?”

  She directed him to Barbara’s clini
c. He pulled into the parking lot. As Emma climbed out, she waved a hand at Nathan. “Well, check these out, podna. This is what pickups look like in the real world and not in the ads we write for them.” The pickups ran the gamut from elderly farm trucks held together by rust to big special-edition diesels hauling stock trailers. With the exception of a single bright red pickup that still had a dealer’s drive-out tag in the back window, every one of the trucks was dusty or downright dirty. “If you wash your truck, you do it on Saturday morning while the kids are watching cartoons and before the golf matches are telecast in the afternoon. Or, if it’s winter, before you head for the woods to get your deer or your doves.”

  “By ‘get’ you mean?”

  Emma nodded. “Exactly. Come on. Now let’s go look at the fawns.” She started around the building, as Mabel the goose rounded it from the other direction in full attack mode—wings flapping, neck stretched forward like a cobra’s, lame foot dragging but not slowing her down.

  “My God, what’s that?” Nathan slid behind Emma.

  “A goose. Mabel, go away. She’s harmless. She protects the place from strangers. You, Nathan, count as strange.”

  “And you don’t? Ha!”

  Emma ducked into the stock barn and walked to the stall at the far end.

  “Okay, Nathan, fawns as requested.” She picked up half a dozen thin carrots from the basket hanging on the hasp of the door lock, broke them into short pieces and handed a couple to Nathan.

  “These aren’t babies,” he whispered. “They’re full-grown deer.”

  “That’s why Barbara is releasing them tomorrow.”

  “To where?”

  “The deep woods. She has a friend who keeps a big hunting preserve where he no longer allows hunting. They’ll be a ready-made herd.” She held out a carrot, avoided getting bitten in the ensuing rush for the goodies, then took Nathan’s offerings and handed those out, as well.