by Dale Mayer
“Was he as passionate about this job as your father?”
She nodded. “He was indeed. I am too. I love to be around the animals. But the family situation isn’t the best, and I’d rather not leave my sister here to run this. I’m here as much as I can be though.” She ended that on a laugh. “Other than that, I’m always traveling around, trying to drum up money.”
“That can’t be easy.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. I’m also the one who updates the website.”
“Not the webmaster?” North asked, his tone hard.
She shook her head. “No, the webmaster is there if I need help. But you got to pay them by the hour, so I do as much as I can by myself.”
“And let me guess? Your sister blames you because of the website issues?”
She winced. “How did you know?”
Liam didn’t say anything as his gaze searched the surrounding area. “Are there any other houses on the property?”
“I have a small cabin in the back,” Lilianna said. “My sister has the family home with her husband.”
They studied her carefully.
She shrugged. “It’s not like I can turn around and build a second house on the sanctuary.”
“Would you want to?”
“If I were to do that, I’d bring my father back out here,” she said softly.
“Where is your father now?”
“In town.” She refused to elaborate. There was only so much personal stuff she wanted to deal with in the first thirty minutes of meeting these men.
“What does the husband do?”
“Carlos? He’s some kind of an investment advisor,” she said airily, waving her hand toward the house. “I’m not exactly sure.”
“How long have they been married?”
“About eighteen months.” She stared at the house. “But they’ve been together for a couple years.”
“Interesting.”
She spun and looked at Liam with a sharp gaze, but neither man said anything else. “I did promise Levi that I had a place to put you up, but it’s not fancy.”
The men stared at her blandly.
“Originally I thought you could stay in the big house, but Brianna said no.”
“I hope you have a little more than a hay loft,” Liam said with a grin. “It’s not that I’m against sleeping with the animals. But …”
“It depends whether you’re okay to stay with me or not,” she said abruptly. She studied the two of them. “Levi said I could trust you, which is the only reason I make that offer …” Her voice trailed off as she realized for the first time that a problem could arise from something completely different than feeling unsafe.
These men looked like protectors, like guardians. They were cut from the same cloth as Logan. They were men, as in real men, in all senses of the word. What she hadn’t expected was to feel her heart tug every time she looked at Liam. The last thing she wanted was to have her heart in danger. That wasn’t what they were here for; it wasn’t what she wanted them for.
But she wasn’t sure she would have a choice about this.
Chapter 2
She watched as Liam’s eyebrows rose.
“Is the cabin big enough?” he asked cautiously.
“There’s a loft with two beds in it.”
“Then it’s big enough,” North said carelessly.
“We’re easy to please. As long as you have food,” Liam said, his gaze twinkling.
It had been a long time since she’d seen that level of humor and the mischievous teasing-little-boy look in his eyes. It was hard not to respond to Liam. She gave him a big wink and said, “There’s food. But you might have to cook it yourself.”
Both men’s faces fell.
She laughed. “I can cook, but it’s pretty simple fare. If you’re expecting fancy, that won’t happen.”
The men shook their heads. “We’re fine with plain fare,” Liam assured her. “If you’ll take us to the cabin first, so we can unpack, then we’ll head out for a walk around to get the lay of the land.”
“I have to come with you,” she said. “It’s the only way I could get Brianna to agree.”
“You think we’ll steal an elephant?” North asked in astonishment.
“No. I think Brianna just wants to make sure we’re not held responsible for any of the sabotage that’s occurred.”
“Yet she just said nothing was going on here. You definitely need to tell us what’s been happening here. So let’s get to the cabin. Maybe you’ve got coffee?” Liam asked hopefully. “We’ll need to take some notes. Levi had very little information for us.”
Lilianna nodded. “I know. I didn’t give him a whole lot. Gunner knows more of the story.”
“How long have you known Gunner?” North asked as they returned to the truck.
“Years,” she said with a smile. “Logan and I were friends way back when too.”
“Did you date?”
Surprised at the personal level of the question, she turned to study Liam’s face. But only an honest curiosity was there. She shook her head. “No. He was my brother’s friend first. I was the kid sister who hung around,” she said with a laugh. “Logan was fun to be around. He’s always been supersupportive of our sanctuary.”
“It’s not like most people get to see an elephant every day,” Liam said. “I’ll have to contact Logan to get his take on things.”
“I think Gunner deliberately didn’t tell you very much so you would get your own impressions,” she said, frowning.
“Of course,” Liam said. “But Logan’s one of us. And to have insider knowledge like he has would give us a leg up.”
She shrugged. “Whatever.” She pointed at their truck. “Bring the truck up and around the back.” She pointed to the driveway that curved ahead of them. “I’ll open the gate for you.”
At that point they split up. The men headed to the truck, and she walked back around the property to the gate.
The storefront and offices had been the original homestead house. But once they started the sanctuary, they needed a tourist center. And that was what the existing house became. Her father had built a new one to make the transition. She and her sister had grown up there. Along with Keith. Now that he was gone, things had changed. Not the least of which was her father. He’d had trouble dealing with Keith’s death.
Lilianna opened the gate, pulling it wide as they drove up and around the office. She waited until they passed, then closed the gate, making sure it clicked into place. She walked toward the truck.
As she approached, the door opened on the passenger side, and North got out. “Do you want a lift?”
She leaned through the driver’s window, pointed to the tracks heading over the rise. “We’re going up there. I’ll sit in the bed.” She walked to the back of the truck, hopped up into the bed and sat on one of the fender wells.
Liam drove forward at a reasonably slow pace. Up over the rise she could see her place. The window between the cab and the bed was open to allow for fresh air. She leaned forward. “That’s the cabin over there.”
Liam nodded obediently and turned the truck in that direction. He pulled up in front of her small place. She jumped out of the bed and waited for the men to join her. Moon Dog and Boomer came over to greet her. She introduced them to the men.
The men looked around, and Liam said, “The dogs and the elephants don’t have a problem?”
“We do have a fence on the other side of that rise. I’ll let the elephants in on this side every once in a while, but otherwise we keep them over there.”
Liam nodded. “I imagine having them come up to the kitchen window and stick a trunk in, looking for a treat, might be a bit unnerving.”
She grinned. “The elephants were free to do that for the longest time. Before we got all the fences built, the elephants became family to us,” she said. “And honestly they’re not a bad family to have.”
She led the way inside as both dogs checked out
the two new arrivals. She stopped on the top step and watched as the men, instead of following her, bent to say hi to the dogs. She smiled. You could always tell what kind of men they were by the treatment of the animals around them. Her dogs were supposed to be guard dogs, but they had a tendency to love everyone regardless. Too bad they weren’t a great judge of character as she could think of a couple lousy boyfriends they shouldn’t have liked so well.
Inside she said, “As you can see, it’s small, but it’s all I need.”
The two men stood in the middle of the living room and looked around. Given their size, they pretty well dwarfed the area.
She walked to the little kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. “My bedroom is at the back. You guys can take the loft.”
The two men took the small staircase at the far corner, each carrying a bag.
She called up, “You might as well open the window and let some fresh air in.”
She smiled to herself. The weather was all over the place right now. It was cold enough at times in the winter to light the fire. But, right now, it was spring, and she was more concerned about how fertile the land was and whether they’d end up with a dry burn area this year or if she’d have decent grass. Grass fires were still an ever-present danger. The elephants had a lot of range to roam, and that was good.
She was just pouring the coffee when the men came back down the stairs. It was obvious they’d been talking. She’d heard their voices but nothing specific. She pushed two cups across the small counter and said, “Coffee is ready.”
“Thanks,” Liam said.
“Do you live here alone?” North asked.
She shot him a look. “Are you asking if I have a boyfriend? Because that’s a whole different story.”
“No,” he said easily. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
“I live alone.”
The men both nodded.
She picked up her mug of coffee and walked to the couch. “You realize there’s nothing terribly dangerous about this job, right? I’m not being threatened. There have been no attacks on humans. Nothing like that.” She wasn’t sure what they’d been told.
Both men again nodded.
She sighed. “Feels really weird to have you here.”
“We can stay in town if you want,” Liam said. “We certainly don’t want to make you feel uneasy.”
She shook her head. “At least if you’re here, you can see if anything happens on the premises.”
“Things like what?”
“Tiny, minor things. Except that …” Her voice rose with each word. “Sorry, I don’t mean to snap.”
The men just nodded.
She groaned. She really needed to tell them. “Before you find out through staff and whatever rumors might be circulating, Carlos and I were engaged. Then he transferred his affections to my sister,” she said in a dry tone.
The men looked at her, their expressions schooled.
“Right? I know. We look the same so maybe that’s not to be unexpected,” she said, her words rushing into the empty space around her. “Whatever. I just wanted you to know.”
“I’m sorry,” Liam said.
His next words startled her.
“It’s hard enough to deal with rejection, but, when the rejection is for a carbon copy of yourself, that must add further confusion to the whole thing.”
“We’re the same on the outside,” she said. “But we’re very different on the inside.” She stared at her coffee cup. “Okay. Let’s go through whatever it is you need to know.”
“We need a list of all the staff members who work here and have worked here for the last ten years,” North said.
“We also need contact information for all of them,” Liam said. “We need access to your website from the back end, so we can take a look at the programming.”
“Are you programmers?” she asked in hopeful delight.
“No, but we’re techie enough. We promise we won’t mess up your system. Also Levi does have access to some really good computer people. If we can’t find anything, or we see something we can’t deal with, we won’t hesitate to bring on their team.”
Lilianna nodded, feeling something settle inside. “That’s very reassuring. I hate to say that something’s going on, but obviously it is… It’s extremely unnerving…”
“We also need a list of people who have publicly voiced their disapproval about the sanctuary, and those who have potentially tried to besmirch the family name, your father’s work, the sanctuary itself, you and/or your sister.”
She winced. “Do you have any idea how hard it’ll be to pull that list together?”
“We do. But how else do you expect us to look at who and what might have done this if we don’t have a direction to head in?”
Her shoulders sagged, and she curled up into her chair. The two men sat on the only couch in the living room. For just herself, the place was more than big enough. But these two men with such overly large presences made her feel diminutive and her cabin positively tiny. “I’ll do what I can.” She frowned. “What about contract workers, like accountants?”
They nodded. “Everyone,” Liam emphasized. “Somebody is doing this. We need to find out who and why.”
“We also need the dates of important events for the last ten years,” North added.
At that, she stared at Liam first, then back at North, her jaw dropping. “What do you mean by important events?”
The two men exchanged hard glances and then both shot laser looks back at her. “Something triggered this,” Liam said gently. “But that doesn’t mean it was triggered recently. Sometimes people take weeks and months to work up to doing something they feel they have a right to do. So we want to know back ten years. When the first elephant and the next elephant arrived, where it came from, what kind of outcry there was at her arrival, the official cause of your brother’s death, the problems with your father, when Carlos came into your life, when he switched to being in your sister’s life, when they got married, etc.”
She sat back and stared. “Will you leave any rock in my life unturned?” she snapped.
The men looked at her. Liam said, “Honestly? No.”
*
Lilianna really had no idea just how much her wish for privacy wouldn’t matter soon. The men did their best, but an investigation like this, where it was likely to be more about personal issues than business concerns, would be incredibly intrusive. Liam didn’t know what was going on behind this, but there were a lot of players, and they had to figure it out fast.
That Gunner had sent her to Levi was also huge. It meant that Gunner, who already knew what Levi’s talent base was and what kind of information they could ferret out, trusted their team. And also that he realized this was a big issue. He was pouring a lot of money into keeping these animals safe, so who would want to stop that? Someone who thought the money should go to a better place? Or who wanted it for themselves?
“How long has your family had the land?”
Lilianna looked at North in surprise. “It’s been in the family for several generations.”
“And how long have you had elephants here?”
“About fifteen years now,” she said with a smile. “We brought the second one in to keep the first one company. And it just carried on from there.”
“Do you have more coming in?”
She nodded. “We’re trying to get two more.”
“Any sign of that causing a problem?”
She shook her head. “No, but it takes time and a lot of paperwork, not to mention organization. Often the elephants have injuries, usually foot injuries, and can’t stand still for too many hours at a time. They have to have special spots to be unloaded. You can’t keep them locked up in a trailer for seven days,” she joked. “The logistics can be quite challenging.”
The men nodded. Liam looked around at the small cabin. “Who lived here before you?”
She raised her eyebrows. “It used to be staff housing.”
She nodded. “Several cabins are on the other side. At one point, a lot of cattle were run on this property. Those cabins are not in the best of shape,” she admitted.
“Money only goes so far, doesn’t it?”
She laughed and nodded. “There’s never enough.”
“Have you always wanted to be here?”
She shook her head. “No. But you have to realize my mother left when I was eleven. Dad got his first elephant about that time too. He built the main house not too long afterward. It was all a big adjustment. And Brianna was … being Brianna even back then. I couldn’t wait to leave for college and got my degree as a biologist. I was doing research. Yet I helped my dad and brother from the start, as much as a preteen girl could do with a four-ton elephant. In college, I helped my father and brother on the side, setting up the website and doing the advertising. I don’t think either of them had any idea just how expensive it would be otherwise.” She chuckled. “My father’s stubborn, and so am I. Then I received several grants for more work on the elephants, so I got more involved with the sanctuary. But my focus really changed after Keith’s death to looking after the sanctuary on a full-time basis.”
“Has your father lived here all his life?”
“Yes.” She stared at the newer house down the road. “He built the big house after my mother left, so about fifteen years ago roughly.”
“No dispute over where you should live versus where they should live?”
She shrugged.
Liam caught a glimpse of pain on her face. He couldn’t help but wonder what kind of a relationship the twin sisters had left after the switch of a fiancé, who was now a husband. “Does Carlos live here on the place?”
She shook her head. “No, he likes to think he does. But he’s rarely here, and he’s more in the way than anything.”