by Nora Roberts
how to glad-hand when I have to, and I’m good at it.”
“No doubt.” He set the bowls on the table, joined her on the bench. “But—”
“We had to deal with people who worried about one of the exotic cats getting loose, and diseases. We allayed that by letting people come in, watch the process when we were laying it out, building it. And we gave them a chance to ask questions. We work with the schools and with 4-H, with other youth groups, and offer educational programs, on-site and on the Internet. We offer incentives. It works.”
“Not arguing. But?”
She sighed. “There are always some, and you have extremes on both sides. People who think an animal is either domesticated or prey. And people who think of animals in the wild as gods. Untouchable. That it’s wrong to interfere with what they see as the natural order.”
“Star Trek’s prime directive.”
He got a smile out of her for the first time that evening. “Yeah, in a way. Some who see a zoo as a prison rather than a habitat. And some are. I’ve seen terrible conditions. Animals living in filth, with disease, and horribly mistreated. But most are run well, with very strong protocols. We’re a refuge, and a refuge must be just that. A safe place. And that means the people who run it are responsible for the health and well-being of the animals in it—and are responsible for their safety and the safety of the community.”
“You get threats?”
“We report, and keep a file, on the more extreme letters and e-mails. We screen the website. And yeah, we’ve had a few incidents here over the years with people who came to start trouble.”
“Which you documented?”
“Yes.”
“You can get me a copy of the file then.”
“What is this, Coop, a busman’s holiday?”
He turned his head until their eyes met. “I caged that cougar, too.”
She nodded, poked at a dumpling. “You were right about the gun. It looks like it was a thirty-two. And I didn’t think that much of it at the time, but Matt—our vet—he said he thought somebody was on the property one night while I was in Peru, when he bunked here. Someone always stays on-site through the night, so while I was gone, they switched off. The animals got riled up, middle of the night. He came out to check, but he didn’t see anything.”
“When was this?”
“A couple nights before I got back. It could’ve been an animal, and probably was. The fencing is primarily to keep our animals contained, but it also keeps other animals out. They can be a source of contamination, so we’re careful.”
“Okay, but they’d be around other animals in the wild so—”
“They’re not in the wild,” she said shortly. “We re-create, but they’re enclosed. We’ve changed their environment. Other animals—birds, rodents, insects—all potentially carry parasites or disease. It’s why all the food is so carefully processed before feeding, why we clean and disinfect the enclosures, why we do regular physical exams, take samples routinely. Vaccinate, treat, add nutrients to their diet. They’re not in the wild,” she repeated. “And that makes us responsible for them, in every way.”
“All right.” He’d thought he’d understood what she was doing here, but saw now he only understood the more obvious pieces. “Did you find anything off the night the vet thought someone—or something—was out there?”
“No. None of the animals, the equipment, the cages were messed with. I looked around, but it had snowed since, and my people had been all over, so there was no real chance of finding tracks or a trail—human or animal.”
“Do you have a list of all your staff, the volunteers?”
“Sure. But it’s not one of ours.”
“Lil, you were gone for six months. Do you know, personally, every volunteer who comes in here to toss raw meat at the cats?”
“We don’t toss—” She broke off, shook her head. “We screen. We use locals as much as we can, and have a volunteer program. Levels,” she explained. “Most of the volunteers do grunt work. Help with the food, the cleaning, shelve supplies. Unless they’ve had some experience, reached the top level, other than the petting zoo, volunteers don’t handle the animals. The exception would be the veterinary assistants, who donate their time and help with exams and surgeries.”
“I’ve seen the kids around here handling them.”
“Interns, not volunteers. We take interns from universities, students who are going into the field. We help train, help teach. They’re here for some hands-on experience.”
“You keep drugs.”
Weary, she rubbed the back of her neck. “Yes. The drugs are in Medical, locked in the drug cabinet. Matt, Mary, Tansy, and I have keys. Even the vet assistants don’t have access to them. Though you’d have to be jonesing pretty hard to want anything in there, we inventory weekly.”
It was enough for now, he thought. She’d had enough for now. “It’s good chicken,” he said, and took another bite.
“It really is.”
“Want another beer?”
“No.”
He rose, poured them both tall glasses of water.
“Were you a good cop?” she asked him.
“I did okay.”
“Why’d you quit? And don’t tell me to mind my own business when you’re trashing around in the middle of mine.”
“I needed a change.” He considered a moment, then decided to tell her. “There was a woman in my squad. Dory. A good cop, a good friend. A friend,” he repeated. “There was never anything between us but that. She was married, for one thing, and for another, there just wasn’t anything like that. But when the marriage went south, her husband decided there was.”
He paused, and when she said nothing, drank, then continued. “We were working a case, and one night after shift we grabbed a meal together to talk it through. I guess he was watching, waiting for his moment. I never felt it coming,” he said quietly. “Never got that hum, and she never let on how bad it was, not even to me.”
“What happened?”
“He came around the corner, firing. She went down so fast, fell against me. Maybe saved my life because of the way she fell back against me. He caught me in the side, barely caught me. In and out.”
“Shot? You were shot?”
“In and out, not much more than a graze.” He didn’t dismiss it. No, he never dismissed it. A few inches the other way, a whole different story. “She was taking me down with her. People were screaming, scattering, diving for cover. The glass shattered. A bullet hit the window of the restaurant.
“I remember what it sounded like, when the bullets were going into her, into the glass. I got to my weapon. I got to it as we were going down, as she was taking me down with her. She was already dead, and he kept putting bullets into her. I put five into him.”
His eyes met Lil’s now, and they were ice blue in color, in expression. She thought: This is the change. More than anything else, this is what marked him.
“I remember every one of them. Two mid-body as I was falling, three more—right hip, leg, abdomen—after I hit the sidewalk. It all took less than thirty seconds. Some asshole recorded it on his cell phone.”
It had seemed so much longer, eons longer. And the jumpy video hadn’t captured the way Dory’s body had jerked against his, or the feel of her blood flooding over his hands.
“He emptied his clip. Two bullets went through the glass, one went into me. The rest, he put into her.”
Coop paused, drank some water. “So I needed a change.”
Her chest was full to aching as she put her hand over his. She could see it, so clearly. Hear it—the shots, the screams, the breaking glass. “Your grandparents don’t know. They never said anything about this, so they don’t know.”
“No. I wasn’t hurt that bad. Treat and release. A few stitches. They didn’t know Dory, so why tell them? It was a good shoot. I didn’t get any trouble over it, not with Dory dead on the sidewalk, all the witnesses, and that asshole’s phone recording.
But I couldn’t be a cop anymore, couldn’t work out of the squad, couldn’t do it. Besides”—he shrugged now—“there’s more money in private.”
She’d said that, hadn’t she? Casually, carelessly when she’d seen him again. How she wished she could take it back. “Did you have someone? When it happened, did you have someone there for you?”
“I didn’t want anyone for a while.”
Because she understood, she nodded, said nothing. Then he turned his hand over, laced his fingers with hers. “And when I did, I thought about calling you.”
Her hand flexed, a little jerk of surprise. “You could have.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe, Coop. I’d have listened. I’d’ve come to New York to listen if you’d needed or wanted it.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s why I didn’t call you.”
“How does that make sense?” she wondered.
“There are a lot of contradictions and twists when it comes to you and me, Lil.” He brushed his thumb, lightly, over the inside of her wrist. “I thought about staying here tonight, talking you into bed.”
“You couldn’t.”
“We both know I could.” He tightened his grip on her hand until she looked at him. “Sooner or later, I will. But tonight, the timing’s off. Timing counts.”
All her softer feelings hardened. “I’m not here for your convenience, Cooper.”
“There’s nothing convenient about you, Lil.” His free hand snaked up, gripped the back of her neck. And his mouth, hot, desperate, familiar, captured hers.
For the moment he held her, panic, excitement, need fought a short and vicious little war inside her.
“There’s nothing convenient about that,” he muttered when he released her.
He rose, took their empty bowls to the sink.
“Lock up after me,” he ordered, and left her.
PART TWO
HEAD
The head is always the dupe of the heart.
—LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
11
March bit like a tiger, stalking from the north to spring in a killing leap over the hills and valleys. Snow and ice plunged out of the sky, cracking tree limbs with their weight, downing power lines, and turning roads into treachery.
At the refuge, Lil and any of the staff or volunteers who could make it trudged, plowed, and shoveled while the relentless wind blew mountainous drifts into frigid ranges.
The animals retired to their dens, wandering out when the mood struck them to watch the humans shiver and swear. Bundled to the eyeballs, Lil crossed paths with Tansy.
“How’s our girl?” Lil asked, thinking of the lioness.
“Weathering this better than I am. I want a hot, tropical beach. I want the smell of sea and sunscreen. I want a mai tai.”
“Will you settle for hot coffee and a cookie?”
“Sold.” As they plodded their way toward Lil’s cabin, Tansy gave her friend a sidelong look. “You don’t smell like sea and sunscreen.”
“Neither would you if you’d been shoveling snow and shit.”
“And we’re the smart girls,” Tansy commented. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Even smart girls shovel shit. It should be a bumper sticker.” Lil stomped and scraped off snow, and felt her muscles quiver in response when the first shot of warmth inside the cabin hit her. “We got through the worst of it,” she said as she and Tansy stripped off gloves, hats, coats, scarves. “We’ll haul the dung over to the farm first chance. Nothing like shit for farming. And I’m going to insist this is the last ice storm of the season. Spring, with its flash flooding and acres of mud, can’t be far off.”
“Joy.”
Lil headed back to the kitchen to start coffee. “You’ve been Miss Cranky Scientist the last few days.”
“I’m tired of winter.” Scowling, Tansy dug a tube of ChapStick out of her pocket and smeared it on.
“I hear that. But I hear something else, too.” Lil opened a cupboard, pulled out her stash of Milano cookies, handed Tansy the bag. “And call me crazy, but I suspect the something else has a penis.”
Tansy gave her a droll look, and took a cookie. “I know a lot of some-things with penises.”
“Me too. They’re freaking everywhere.” Warm, and happy for a cookie break, Lil leaned back while the coffee brewed. “I have this theory. Want to hear it?”
“I’m eating your cookies, so I guess I’m obligated to.”
“Good. The penis is here to stay, so those of us without them must learn to appreciate, exploit, ignore, and/or utilize them, depending on our own needs and goals.”
Tansy poked out her bottom lip as she nodded. “It’s a good theory.”
“It is.” Lil got down mugs, poured the coffee for both of them. “As we’ve elected to work in what is still a male-dominated field, the ratio of us v. them may demand that we appreciate, exploit, ignore, and/or utilize more often than those of our species who have not elected to work in this field.”
“Are you correlating hard data or will you conduct an empirical study?”
“At this point, it’s still in the observation/speculation phase. However, I do have, on some authority, the identity of the penis which is, I believe, playing a part in making you Miss Cranky Scientist.”
“Oh, really?” Tansy got a spoon and dumped three doses of sugar in her coffee. “Who would the authority be?”
“My mom. She misses little. I’m informed that while I was away the spark quotient between you and a certain Farley Pucket increased.”
“Farley’s barely twenty-five.”
“That would make you a cougar,” Lil said and grinned.
“Oh, shut up. I’m not dating him, sleeping with him, encouraging him.”
“Because he’s twenty-five? Actually, I think he’s twenty-six. And that makes him—good God—four years younger than you are.” In wild reaction—and with some theatrics—Lil pressed the back of her hand to her lips. “Horrors! You’re a cradle robber!”
“It’s not funny.”
Sobering, Lil lifted her eyebrows. She didn’t mind the embarrassed flush on Tansy’s cheeks—what were friends for if not to embarrass friends?—but she did mind, very much, the unhappiness in those big, dark eyes.
“No, apparently it’s not. Tans, you’re seriously unwrapped because you’re a few years older? If the ages were reversed you wouldn’t blink.”
“But they’re not, and I don’t care if it’s not logical. I’m the older woman. The older black woman, for God’s sake, Lil. In South Dakota. It’s not going to happen.”
“So no problem if Farley was thirty-something and black?”
Tansy pointed a finger. “I told you I didn’t care if it was logical.”
Lil pointed a finger right back. “Good thing, because it just isn’t. Let’s put that aside for a minute.”
“It’s key.”
“I’m putting away the key for a minute. Do you have feelings for him? Because I admit I thought it was just a little lusty deal. Long winter, close quarters, healthy, consenting adults. I figured the two of you just had a maybe-we-should-fool-around thing going. Which I was going to rag you about mercilessly because, well, it’s Farley. He’s sort of my honorary lit—brother.”
“See, you were going to say little brother.” Tansy shook her fingers in the air. “Little brother!”
“Key is put away, Tansy. Obviously, this is more than a you’ve-got-a-nice-ass-on-you-cowboy-and-I’m-looking-for-a-little-tussle.”
“I checked out his ass, sure. It’s my inalienable right as a female. But never with the idea of a tussle. What a stupid word.”
“Oh, I see, you never thought about having—insert stupid
