by Nora Roberts
“Not when I’m around. And since when have you had to eat instant anything in this house?”
“Since your mother and I compromised a couple months ago and I agreed to eat oatmeal twice a week.” He gave her a mournful look. “It’s healthy.”
“Ah, and this was oatmeal day.”
He grinned and gave her long ponytail a tug. “Not when you’re around.”
“Okay, full cholesterol plate for you, then I’ll help you with the stock before I ride over to the refuge. I made enough for Farley, assuming he’d be here. Does oatmeal put him off ?”
“Nothing puts Farley off, but he’ll be grateful to get the bacon and eggs. I’ll ride over with you this morning.”
“Great. Depending on how things go, I’m going to try to drive over and see Sam and Lucy. If you need anything from town I can head in, take care of it.”
“I’ll put a list together.”
Lil forked out bacon to drain as her mother came in. “Just in time.”
Jenna eyed the bacon, eyed her husband.
“She made it.” Joe pointed at Lil. “I can’t hurt her feelings.”
“Oatmeal tomorrow.” Jenna gave Joe a finger-drill in the belly.
Lil heard the stomp of boots out on the back porch, and thought: Farley.
She’d been in college when her parents had taken him on—taken him in was more accurate, she thought. He’d been sixteen, and on his own since his mother took off and left him, owing two months’ back rent in Abilene. His father, neither he nor his mother had known. He’d only known the series of men his mother had slept with.
With some vague idea of going to Canada, young Farley Pucket ducked out on the rent, hit the road, and stuck out his thumb. By the time Josiah Chance pulled over and picked him up on a road outside of Rapid City, the boy had thirty-eight cents in his pocket and was wearing only a Houston Rockets windbreaker against the wicked March winds.
They’d given him a meal, some chores to work it off, and a place to sleep for the night. They’d listened, they’d discussed, they’d checked his story as best they could. In the end, they’d given him a job, and a room in the old bunkhouse until he could make his way.
Nearly ten years later, he was still there.
Gangly, straw-colored hair poking out from under his hat, his pale blue eyes still sleepy, Farley came in with a blast of winter cold.
“Whoo! Cold enough to freeze the balls off—” He broke off when he saw Jenna, and his cheeks pinked from cold flushed deeper. “Didn’t see you there.” He sniffed. “Bacon? It’s oatmeal day.”
“Special dispensation,” Joe told him.
Farley spotted Lil and broke out in a mile-wide grin. “Hey, Lil. Didn’t figure you’d be up yet, all jet-lagged and stuff.”
“’Morning, Farley. Coffee’s hot.”
“It sure smells good. Gonna be clear today, Joe. That storm front tracked east.”
So as it often did, morning talk turned to weather, stock, chores. Lil settled down with her breakfast, and thought in some ways it was as if she’d never been away.
Within the hour, she was mounted beside her father and riding the trail to the refuge.
“Tansy tells me Farley’s been putting in a lot of volunteer hours at the refuge.”
“We all try to lend a hand, especially when you’re away.”
“Dad, he’s got a crush on her,” Lil said, speaking of her college roommate and the zoologist on staff.
“On Tansy? No.” He laughed it off. Then sobered. “Really?”
“I got the vibe when he started volunteering regularly last year. I didn’t think much of it. She’s my age.”
“Old lady.”
“Well, she’s got some years on him. I can see it from his end. She’s beautiful and smart and funny. What I didn’t expect was to get the vibe—which I did reading between the lines of her e-mails—that she may have one on him.”
“Tansy’s interested in Farley? Our Farley?”
“Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the vibe. Our Farley,” she repeated, taking a deep breath of the snow-tinged air. “You know, in my world-weary phase of twenty, I thought the two of you were insane to take him in. I figured he’d rob you blind—at the least—steal your truck and that would be that.”
“He wouldn’t steal a nickel. It’s not in him. You could see it, right from the start.”
“You could. Mom could. And you were right. I think I’m right about my college pal, the dedicated zoologist, having eyes for our own goofy, sweet-natured Farley.”
They followed the track at an easy trot, the horses kicking up snow, their breath steaming out like smoke.
As they approached the gate that separated the farm from the refuge, Lil let out a laugh. Her coworkers had hung a huge banner across the gate.
WELCOME HOME, LIL!
She saw the tracks as well—from snowmobiles and horses, animals and men. Through January and February, the refuge saw little in the way of tourists and visitors. But the staff was always busy.
She dismounted to open the gate. When they could afford it, she thought, they’d replace the old thing with electric. But for now, she waded through the snow to work the latch. It squealed as she dragged it clear so her father could lead her horse through.
“Nobody’s been bothering you, have they?” she asked as she remounted. “I mean the public.”
“Oh, we get somebody comes by every now and then, who can’t find the public entrance. We just send them around.”
“I hear we had good turnout, and good feedback, from the school field trips in the fall.”
“Kids love the place, Lil. It’s a good thing you’ve done here.”
“We’ve done.”
She scented animal before she saw them, that touch of wild in the air. Inside the first stretch of habitat a Canadian lynx sat on a boulder. Tansy had brought him in from Canada, where he’d been captured and wounded. In the wild, his maimed leg was a death sentence. Here, he had sanctuary. They called him Rocco, and he flicked his tufted ears as they passed.
The refuge gave homes to bobcat and cougar, to an old, circus tiger they called Boris, to a lioness who had once, inexplicably, been kept as a pet. There were bear and wolf, fox and leopard.
A smaller area held a petting zoo, what she thought of as hands-on education for kids. Rabbits, lambs, a pygmy goat, a donkey.
And the humans, bundled in cold-weather gear, who worked to feed them, shelter them, treat them.
Tansy spotted her first, and gave a whoop before racing over from the big-cat area. A pink flush from cold and pleasure bloomed on the cheeks of her pretty, caramel-colored face.
“You’re back.” She gave Lil’s knee a squeeze. “Get on down here and give me a hug! Hey, Joe, I bet you’re happy to have your girl back.”
“And then some.”
Lil slid off the horse and embraced her friend, who swayed side-to-side making a happy mmmm sound. “It’s so good, so good, so good to see you!”
“Likewise.” Lil pressed her cheek to the soft spring of Tansy’s dark hair.
“We heard you’d caught Dave and managed to get back a day early, so we’ve been scrambling.” Tansy leaned back and grinned. “To hide the evidence of all the drunken parties and fat-assing we’ve had going on since you left.”
“Aha. I knew it. And that’s why you’re the only member of the senior staff out and about?”
“Naturally. Everyone else is nursing hangovers.” She laughed and gave Lil another squeeze. “Okay, truth. Matt is in Medical. Bill tried to eat a towel.”
Bill, a young bobcat, was renowned for his eclectic appetite.
Lil glanced back at the pair of cabins, one housing her quarters, the other offices and Medical. “Did he get much?”
“No, but Matt wants to check him out. Lucius is chained to his computer, and Mary’s at the dentist. Or going to. Hey, Eric, come take the horses, will you? Eric’s one of our winter-term interns. We’ll make the introductions later. Let’s—” She brok
e off at the harsh, bright call of a cougar. “Somebody smells Mama,” Tansy said. “Go ahead. We’ll meet you in Medical when you’re done.”
Lil wound her way, following the trail formed by feet trampling through the snow.
He was waiting for her, pacing, watching, calling. At her approach, the cat rubbed its body against the fencing, then stood, bracing his fore-paws against it. And purred.
Six months since he’d seen her—scented her, Lil thought. But he hadn’t forgotten her. “Hello, Baby.”
She reached through to stroke the tawny fur, and he bumped his head affectionately to hers.
“I missed you, too.”
He was four now, full-grown, lithe and magnificent. He hadn’t been fully weaned when she’d found him, and his two littermates, orphaned and half starved. She’d hand-fed them, tended them, guarded them. And when they’d been old enough, strong enough, had reintroduced them to the wild.
But he’d kept coming back.
She’d named him Ramses, for power and dignity, but he was Baby.
And her one true love.
“Have you been good? Of course, you have. You’re the best. Keeping everybody in line? I knew I could count on you.”
As she spoke and stroked, Baby purred, hummed in his throat, and looked at her with golden eyes full of love.
She heard movement behind her, glanced back. The one Tansy had called Eric stood staring. “They said he was like that with you, but . . . I didn’t believe it.”
“You’re new?”
“Um, yeah. I’m interning. Eric. I’m Eric Silverstone, Dr. Chance.”
“Lil. What are you looking to do?”
“Wildlife management.”
“Learning anything here?”
“A lot.”
“Let me give you another quick lesson. This adult male cougar, Felis concolor, is approximately eight feet long from nose to tail and weighs about one-fifty. He can outjump a lion, a tiger, a leopard, both vertically and horizontally. Despite that, he’s not considered a ‘big cat.’ ”
“He lacks the specialized larynx and hyoid apparatus. He can’t roar.”
“Correct. He’ll purr like your aunt Edith’s tabby. But he’s not tame. You can’t tame the wild, can you, Baby?” He chirped at her as if in agreement. “He loves me. He imprinted on me as a kitten—about four months of age—and he’s been in the refuge, among people, since. Learned behavior, not tame. We’re not prey. But if you made some move he sensed as attack, he’d respond. They’re beautiful, and they’re fascinating, but they’re not pets. Not even this one.”
Still, to please herself and Baby, she pressed her lips in one of the small openings of the fence, and he butted his mouth to hers. “See you later.”
She turned and walked with Eric toward the cabin. “Tansy said you found him and two other orphans.”
“Their mother got into it with a lone wolf—at least that’s how it looked to me. She killed it, must have or it would have taken the litter. But she didn’t survive. I found the corpses, and the litter. They were the first cougar kittens we had here.”
And she had a scar near her right elbow from the other male in that litter. “We fed them, sheltered them for about six weeks, until they were old enough to hunt on their own. Limited human contact as much as possible. We tagged them and released them and we’ve been tracking them ever since. But Baby? He wanted to stay.”
She glanced back to where he’d joined his companions in his habitat. “His littermates reacclimated, but he kept coming back here.” To me, she thought. “They’re solitary and secretive and cover a vast range, but he chose to come back. That’s the thing. You can study and learn the patterns, the biology, the taxonomy, the behavior. But you’ll never know everything.”
She looked back as Baby leaped on one of his boulders and let out a long, triumphant scream.
Inside, she shed her outer gear. She could hear her father talking to Matt through the open door of Medical. In the offices, a man with Coke-bottle glasses and an infectious grin hammered away at a keyboard.
Lucius Gamble looked up, said, “Yeah!” and tossed his hands in the air. “Back from the trenches.” He jumped up to give her a hug, and she smelled the red licorice he was addicted to on his breath.
“How’s it going, Lucius?”
“Good. Just updating the Web page. We’ve got some new pictures. We had an injured wolf brought in a couple weeks ago. Clipped by a car. Matt saved it. We’ve gotten a lot of hits on the pictures there, and the column Tansy wrote for it.”
“Were we able to release it?”
“It’s still gimpy. Matt doesn’t think it’ll make it out there in the world. She’s an old girl. We’re calling her Xena, because she looks like a warrior.”
“I’ll take a look at her. I haven’t done the tour yet.”
“I put your shots from the trip on here.” Lucius tapped his computer monitor. He wore ancient high-tops rather than the boots most of the staff favored, and jeans that bagged over his flat ass. “Dr. Lillian’s Excellent Adventure. We’ve been getting beaucoup hits.”
As he spoke, Lil glanced around the familiar space. The exposed log walls, the posters of wildlife, the cheap, plastic visitors’ chairs, the stacks of colorful brochures. The second desk—Mary’s—stood like a trim, organized island in the chaos Lucius generated.
“Any of the hits come with . . .” She lifted her hand, rubbed her thumb and fingers together.
“We’ve been going pretty steady there. We added a new webcam, like you wanted, and Mary’s been working on an updated brochure. She had a dentist deal this morning, but she’s going to try to make it in this afternoon.”
“Let’s see if we can get together for a meeting this afternoon. Full staff, including interns, and any of the volunteers who can attend.”
She walked back and peeked into Medical. “Where’s Bill?”
Matt turned. “I cleared him. Tansy’s taking him back. Good to see you, Lil.”
They didn’t hug—it wasn’t Matt’s style—but shook hands, and warmly. He was about her father’s age, with thinning hair streaked with gray, and wire-rimmed glasses over brown eyes.
He was no idealist, as she suspected Eric was, but he was a damn fine vet, and one willing to work for pitiful pay.
“I’d better get back. I’ll try to cut Farley loose some tomorrow, so he can give you a couple hours.” Joe tapped a finger on Lil’s nose. “You need anything, you call.”
“I will. I’ll pick up the stuff on your list later, drop it off.”
He went out the back.
“Meeting later,” she told Matt, and leaned on a counter that held trays and bins of medical supplies. The air smelled, familiarly, of antiseptic and animal. “I’d like you to brief me, and the rest, on the health and medical needs of the animals. Lunchtime would be best. Then I can do a supply run.”
“Can do.”
“Tell me about our newest resident. Xena?”
Matt smiled, and the amusement lightened his often serious face. “Lucius named her that. It seems to have stuck. She’s an old girl. A good eight years old.”
“Top of the scale for the wild,” Lil commented.
“Tough girl. Scars to prove it. She took a pretty hard hit. The driver did more than most people do. She called us, and stayed in the car until we got there, even followed us back here. Xena was too injured to move. We immobilized and transported, got her in here, into surgery.” He shook his head, removing his glasses to polish the lenses on his lab coat. “It was touch and go, given her age.”
Lil thought of Sam. “But she’s recovering.”
“Like I said, tough girl. At her age, and given the leg’s never going to be a hundred percent, I wouldn’t recommend releasing her. I don’t think she’d last a month.”
“Well, she can consider this her retirement home.”
“Listen, Lil, you know at least one of us has been staying at night while you were in the field. I was on a couple nights ago. Just as
well, as I’d had to extract a tooth that morning from the queen mum.”
Lil thought of their ancient lion. “Poor grandma. She’s not going to have a tooth left at this rate. How’d she do?”
“She’s the Energizer Bunny of lions. But the thing is, there was something out there.”
“Sorry?”
“Something or someone was out there, around the habitats. I checked the webcam, and didn’t see anything. But hell, it’s pretty damn dark at two in the morning, even with the security lights. But something had the animals stirred up. A lot of screaming and roaring and howling.”
“Not the usual nocturnal business?”
“No. I went out, but I couldn’t find anything.”
“Any tracks?”
“I don’t have your eye, but we looked the next morning. No animal tracks, no new ones. We thought—we think—there were human ones. Not ours. No way to be sure, but there were tracks around some of the cages, and we’d had some snow after the last feeding of the day, so I don’t know how else there’d have been fresh tracks.”
“None of the animals were hurt? Any locks tampered with?” she added when he shook his head.
“We couldn’t find anything, nothing touched, taken. I know how it sounds, Lil, but when I went out, it felt like someone was there. Watching me. I just want you to keep an eye out, make sure you lock your doors.”
“Okay. Thanks, Matt. Let’s all be careful.”
There were strange people out there, she thought as she put her coat back on. From the No Animal Should Be in Prison—as some thought of a refuge—to Animals Are Meant to Be Hunted and Killed. And everything in between.
They got calls, letters, e-mails from both ends of the spectrum. Some with threats. And they’d had the occasional trespasser. But so far, there’d been no trouble.
She wanted to keep it that way.
She’d go have a look around herself. Odds were, after a couple of days there would be nothing for her to find. But she had to look.