Jason shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
Cameron hung back while Jason strode toward the inspector. He dodged a pair of laughing girls as they ran to the capuchins, and came to a stop beside the green-clad man.
“Hello.” Jason schooled any hint of anxiety from his tone and stuck out a hand. “I’m Jason Andover, the interim director here at Cougar Bay.”
The man looked startled for a moment, then a smile broke out on his face as he shook Jason’s hand with a firm grip. “Cliff Reiker. Nice to meet you. I see I’ve been identified, though I can’t imagine how. I’ve never been here before today.”
Jason replied in the same easy tone. “One of my keepers spotted you and remembered you from a previous job.”
The man’s gaze strayed behind Jason’s left shoulder, where Cameron no doubt stood watching. “Ah. I had no idea I had such a recognizable face.” His eyes shifted back to Jason. “I take it I’ve caused a stir.”
“Well, naturally we’re curious why an AZA inspector would show up unannounced.” Jason shoved his hand in his pocket. “I hope nothing’s wrong.”
“No, not at all,” the man hurried to say. “I’m in Florida on vacation with my family. The wife and I have spent all week doing the theme-park thing, and we’re heading back home tomorrow. But I couldn’t resist checking out the zoo while I was here.”
A sheepish smile curled his lips. The tension evaporated from Jason’s shoulders. The man loved zoos, like everyone else in the industry. Jason didn’t travel often, but wherever he went, he made time to visit any zoo in the area, especially if he’d never been there before. This guy was just doing the same.
“Well, Cougar Bay isn’t the biggest zoo around, but we’re pretty proud of our collection.”
“You should be.” Cliff’s head moved as he looked toward the row of animal exhibits lining the path around them. “Your animals all look in fine shape. I’m a primate man myself, and that orang is a beauty.”
Jason’s chest swelled. “She is, isn’t she? Cocoa’s one of the local favorites.”
A pair of kids raced toward them shouting, “Daddy, there you are!” The girl threw her arms around Cliff’s waist, while the boy bounced on the toes of his sneakers with enthusiasm. “They have a lion, Dad! You should see him. And some cougars and a bobcat.”
An attractive woman approached, and Cliff placed an arm around her waist as he introduced her to Jason. “My wife, Marge.”
Jason shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Jason is the interim zoo director.” Cliff’s expression grew solemn. “I read about the previous director’s death in the paper the other day. Sad news.”
Jason nodded. “She’ll be missed.”
“Honey, the kids want to go see the meerkats,” Marge said. “Are you coming with us, or are you going to hang out here all day?” She gave him a playful shove and told Jason, “Put him in front of a cage full of monkeys and you have to pry him away with a crowbar.”
Jason laughed. “Actually, we have a half-dozen squirrel monkeys in the Small Animal building, right next to the meerkats. I was just heading over there myself.”
“Terrific,” Cliff said. “We’ll join you.”
Jason led them in the direction he’d just come. While the kids ran ahead, he and Cliff compared zoo experiences as they walked. They discovered some common friends, not at all unusual in the zoo community.
A moment before they turned a corner on the sidewalk that took them into view of the Small Animal building, Jason knew something was wrong. High-pitched shrieks filled the air, not the typical noise of playful children. These sounded more like squeals of alarm. Oh, no. Has something happened to Kelli? He sprinted ahead, Cliff a half step behind him. They dodged through a crowd of children and parents exiting the building at a run.
They dashed through the doorway as the last of the occupants ran out, and Jason skidded to a halt just inside. Kelli stood a few feet away, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle, hugging herself. She turned, her round eyes full moons of distress.
“I forgot to close the door. I didn’t mean for him to get out.”
That’s when Jason noticed movement at the other end of the building. A skunk ran along the floor, its black and white body swaying with a distinctive waddle, bushy tail thrust straight up in the air. It reached the far wall, turned and ran halfway down the hall in their direction. When it caught sight of them, it turned again to race away. The poor animal was clearly terrified.
He stepped in front of Kelli. “Where’s Pete?” He didn’t mean to snap, but she winced at his tone.
“He—he left after he examined the rabbit. I—” She gulped. “I did the skunk’s lunch and figured I’d go ahead and feed it.”
Jason’s hands balled into fists, but he managed to keep his tone even. “You never, ever, unlock an animal’s enclosure with the outside door open.”
Her head drooped forward until her chin touched her chest. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
Cliff, whose expression was no longer friendly, stepped forward to insert himself into the conversation. “Don’t you have clearly outlined shift procedures, Andover?”
Andover. A minute ago it was Jason.
“Of course we do. She just started this morning, so she hasn’t been fully trained yet.”
His eyebrows arched. “You left these animals in the care of someone who wasn’t fully trained?”
Now it was Jason’s turn to wince. He’d left Kelli with Pete, a fully trained veterinarian, and with instructions to do diets when Pete left. Given her aversion to animals, he never dreamed she’d try to enter an enclosure alone.
But he shouldn’t have left his keys with her. My mistake. And it’s a big one.
If he listed a bunch of excuses, like the fact that they were short-handed, he’d only make things worse. Instead he clamped his mouth shut and strode toward the open door beside the skunk enclosure. Inside, he retrieved the small pet crate they used as Felix’s shift. The poor animal was so frightened he ran inside as soon as Jason set it on the floor and opened the door.
When Felix was safely back in his enclosure and huddled in the security of his den, Jason rejoined Kelli and Cliff. They had not moved from just inside the building’s entrance. Kelli still hugged herself tightly, her cheeks stained with a miserable red flush. Cliff stood with his arms folded across his chest.
“I’m sorry,” Kelli repeated as he approached. “I should have just—”
Jason cut her off with a raised hand. “It’s my fault. My responsibility.”
He almost added, “No harm done,” but when he risked a glance into Cliff’s stern face, the words died on his lips. He had the sinking feeling harm had, indeed, been done. They had not heard the last of this incident.
Chapter Eight
“What made you decide to go ahead and feed Felix without me?”
Even though his voice no longer held that angry tone, Kelli couldn’t look into Jason’s face. She focused instead on chopping an apple into small pieces for the squirrel monkeys.
“His banana slices were starting to brown, and I thought it’d be better if his food was fresh when he got it.” She swallowed and scooped apple into the bowl on the scale. “He went into his crate so easily for you, I figured he’d do the same for me.”
No need to mention that she’d been trying to prove a point to Jason. Caring for animals wasn’t brain surgery; she could do it easily, if she wanted to. It was a matter of choice that had kept her away from animals for almost twenty years. Not lack of ability, and certainly not fear.
Well, maybe a little fear, but that was entirely understandable, given her childhood experience with the lion. Even her therapist said so. And that was none of Jason’s business.
“Shifting isn’t a trick the animals do, like sitting or rolling over. True, it’s part of the training we do with every animal at the zoo, but they do it because they trust the person asking them to shift. That’s part of the special
relationship a keeper has with an animal in his or her care.”
“So you’re saying the reason that skunk escaped is because he didn’t trust me?” Sheer willpower kept her from rolling her eyes.
“Yes. That, and the fact that you left the external door open.”
She ducked her head and sliced off a chunk of orange. He had stressed the importance of closing the door first thing this morning. A dumb mistake on her part, no doubt about it, but she’d already apologized once. She wasn’t about to keep doing it. Instead, she hacked the orange into small pieces with vicious jabs and grumbled, “I never thought I’d be trying to earn the trust of a skunk.”
He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “You probably won’t, not with that attitude.”
She turned to look at him straight on. “What is that supposed to mean?”
His eyebrows rose as he stared at the knife in her hands. Heat suffused her face as she realized she was holding it like a weapon, the business end pointed toward Jason’s stomach. Hurriedly, she turned back to the counter.
“I only meant that animals have a kind of sixth sense. They can tell when someone doesn’t like them, and they tend to avoid those people.”
Good. Fine by her if the animals all avoided her. That would make the next six months easier. She could chop their food and clean their cages and let someone else worry about feeding the wretched things.
She remembered a question she’d wanted to ask. “Who was that guy, the mean-looking one who came back with you?”
Jason closed his eyes and groaned. “That was an AZA inspector. Just about the worst person in the world to witness a lapse in security. Our accreditation review is coming up in a couple of months, and he is sure to report this incident.”
“I take it that’s a bad thing.”
“Oh, yeah. See, Cougar Bay doesn’t actually own these animals. All zoo animals are owned by the AZA, and they pretty much determine everything about them. Which ones are bred, where they’re housed. They make sure everything is done in the best interest of the species.”
Kelli’s jaw dropped open. “You mean they could just decide they want to move Baya and Gasira somewhere else?”
“If they did, they’d have good reasons, probably related to their environment or safety.” He shook his head miserably. “I didn’t make a good impression on Cliff Reiker today, that’s for sure.”
Kelli felt awful. She may not like the silly animals, but she wouldn’t knowingly do anything to harm them or cause them to be sent away. “But you didn’t do anything wrong. You weren’t even here. Surely he knows that.”
Jason heaved a loud sigh. “No, it was my mistake, one of several I’ve made this morning.” He straightened and gave her a grim smile. “But we’re going to set that right, beginning now. When we finish up here, I’m taking you back to the office and sitting you down in front of those training videos. And after that, I’ve got five binders’ worth of procedures you can read through.”
She groaned. The only thing she could imagine worse than cleaning out animal cages was reading about it.
Kelli leaned back from her mother’s desk and rubbed her eyes. She still had several client accounts to close out before the end of the month, but the figures on her laptop were starting to blur, which meant it was time to stop for the night. She glanced at her watch. Correction. One a.m. no longer counted as night. She’d better get some sleep.
The entire afternoon had been spent watching videos of keepers working with animals, demonstrating the proper way to approach, shift, feed, train, examine and interact in every way with most of the species at Cougar Bay. Not professional-quality videos, but not bad either. The instructors on the recordings wore Cougar Bay uniforms, and Kelli vaguely recognized several of them. Even Jason had put in an appearance, looking a few years younger than now, his hair a touch longer but still alarmingly handsome in a rugged, outdoorsy way. She’d had a hard time focusing on his instructions. He looked directly into the camera as he spoke, and more than once Kelli had found herself returning his infectious smile, her thoughts straying to the moments they’d spent crammed into the dark closets of the Small Animal building together.
But then she saw someone she didn’t expect, and thoughts of Jason had fled. The first time Lillian stepped in front of the camera, she’d felt as though someone punched her in the stomach.
Jason could have warned me about that.
But after a few minutes, Kelli had almost forgotten she was watching her mom. Lillian was every inch the professional zoo director. She took the same clinical, no-nonsense approach to instructing new employees on zoo procedure that she’d displayed during her infrequent phone calls with her daughter. The only difference Kelli could detect was a softening in her voice when she addressed the animals directly.
When she got to the section on care for the big cats, Kelli had hit the fast-forward button.
A movement at the office door drew Kelli’s attention. Leo had become brave enough to risk an appearance. The cat sat in the hallway and watched her with an unblinking stare. Kelli returned his gaze for a moment, then placed her palms on the desk and slowly started to rise. At the first sign of movement, Leo dashed away toward his closet.
“You don’t trust me, do you, cat? Well, you’re in good company. The skunk doesn’t like me either.”
What would Dr. Reynolds have made of that? Would he have said the animals’ distrust was because Kelli was sending off signals that she was untrustworthy? The same way he claimed she broadcast signals to men that she wasn’t lovable?
Jason’s angry face when he’d first seen the skunk running down the hallway loomed in her mind’s eye.
With a savage gesture, Kelli shut down the computer. She was too tired to think about Jason. Or Dr. Reynolds and their final, irritating therapy session last year. Giving in to a wide yawn as she left the office, she checked the lock on the front door, then crossed to the back and stood looking through the window. The sloping yard was bathed in white light. Not a thing moved. On impulse, she stepped outside. The light from the living room illuminated part of the covered porch. She stepped out into the patchy grass. An impossibly huge full moon hung in a starry sky.
“I’m not unlovable, am I, Lord?” Her whisper, directed toward the heavens, seemed to float upward and disappear in the cool night air. “You love me.”
That was one certainty Kelli had learned to cling to, that God loved her. And Nana loved her, too. Who else mattered?
An image of green-brown eyes in a warmly tanned face rose unbidden before her. Jason didn’t even think she could earn the trust of a skunk. Did that mean she couldn’t earn his trust either? A longing stirred deep inside, almost undetectable. She pushed it away. Trust was a two-way street, one she was determined to steer clear of when it came to Jason Andover.
But an unsettling thought plagued her tired mind. Dr. Reynolds had said much the same thing as Jason in that last session. His words had sent Kelli storming out of his office, vowing never to return. The fact was, Kelli wasn’t capable of forming permanent attachments. She repelled men like the wrong end of a magnet.
There must be something wrong with me. My own mother sent me away. Why should I expect any guy to want me around?
Which was dumb, she knew in her rational mind. But her heart had never been rational.
An eerie sound from the direction of the zoo rose into the air, a long, suspended howl that swelled in pitch and sent shivers coursing down her spine. A few seconds later, another howl chimed in, and a third, until a chorus of uncanny cries filled the night. With a shudder, Kelli retreated to the house and locked the door behind her.
Jason stood at the corner of the kangaroo yard, staring up at the faint glow visible above the privacy fence. The light, he knew, came from Lil’s house. He’d seen it many times before as he made his late-night rounds of the zoo grounds. Seemed Kelli was a workaholic, just like her mom. Just like him.
A lone wolf howl floated on the misty darkness, the so
und joined by others to create a community song that modulated in tone and harmonics. Jason smiled. Bob was doing his thing, leading his pack in the activity that many believed strengthened the social bond between packmates.
The glow above the fence winked out. Jason pushed the button on his watch to illuminate the face. He had to get up in five hours; time to head home. With a sigh, Jason turned toward the zoo entrance. He flipped on his flashlight and aimed the beam back and forth as he assured himself that everything was as it should be. Glowing eyes of different sizes blinked back at him as he walked.
Only everything was not as it should be, hadn’t been since he laid eyes on Kelli Jackson at the memorial service yesterday morning. Conflict raged inside him. That she carried deep wounds was obvious to anyone who spent more than a few minutes with her. She walked through the zoo grounds with tense muscles, as though surrounded by deadly enemies, her fight-or-flight instincts on high alert. Animals picked that up instinctively, so it was no surprise Felix had tried to escape from her.
His biggest mistake of the day hadn’t been merely in plunging her into animal care without first showing her the training videos. It had been in wanting so badly to show her how charming the animals were. He’d made the mistake of thinking if she interacted with the most harmless of the zoo’s collection right up front, he could win her over.
Lesson learned. Kelli’s trust was going to be even harder to win than the exotic animals he’d dealt with his entire career.
Lil, turns out your daughter is just as hard-headed as you. Whatever those fears are you want her to face, they’re pretty ingrained. It’s not going to be easy.
He stopped on the path as a thought struck him. If he succeeded in helping Kelli overcome her fears, he would accomplish the task he promised Lil he’d undertake. If he failed to do that, he would still succeed in gaining a huge boost for the zoo’s expansion project. Kind of funny that he’d win either way.
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