by Betina Krahn
“I have all but one bedroom painted, and I’ve done some planting in the backyard, but I still have a ton to do.”
Nick watched her move around the kitchen and load pasta into a pot of water as he opened the wine. This was an interesting change from her practice and the shelter, where she was an authority and mostly business. Seeing her here, watching her go about simple hearth-and-home tasks, brought up feelings in him. Distinctly pleasurable feelings.
“So, both of your parents were in the military?” he asked as she handed him the opener.
“My father still is, as far as I know.” She slipped the garlic bread into the oven and started tearing lettuce into a large glass bowl. “My mother died in an IED explosion in Mosul in ’08.”
That news hit him like a punch in the gut. As his shock faded, he searched her for visible signs of pain or bitterness, but found only the same gentle determination that never failed to fascinate him. She was a puzzle, Kate Everly. She had faced some damned tough breaks in life and, from all indications, had come through with her soul intact.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, meaning it.
“Thank you.” Her smile was small and determined as she continued to focus on making the salad. “I hadn’t seen her for three years before we got the news. She’d send the occasional card or present. She was more a cautionary tale than a person to me, by then. I was never tempted to follow her example and make the military a career.”
“What about your father? Do you ever hear from him?”
“Once or twice when I was in high school. He sent a check when I graduated.” She paused to recall, then said, “I think it paid for one of the fruit trays at the open house Gran had for me.”
He detected a subtle tightness in her movements.
“Then how about this brother of yours? Ever hear from him?”
“Once a month, like clockwork. We weren’t together much, once our parents split up. But we’ve become fairly close in the last few years.” Her smile warmed. “He’s a ranger.”
“Special forces?” He paused in the middle of pouring the wine.
“No, not military. He’s a Smokey-the-Bear kind of ranger. He’s at Grand Teton National Park, overseeing human-bear encounters—trying to keep tourists alive.” She chuckled. “He’s a real animal guy, an expert at tracking and all kinds of woodcraft. He could keep you alive in the mountains with only a paring knife and a safety pin.”
“Remind me to get lost only in the Grand Tetons,” he said, echoing her chuckle. And he made himself say, “Who else is in your life? Any other...attachments?”
“If you’re asking about men—I was engaged for a while.” She washed tomatoes and sliced them into the greens. “It didn’t work out.”
“Mind if I ask what happened?”
She paused and then reached for a cucumber. “He was career military, on the fast track to his first star.”
“Okay. Not what I would have expected, given your feelings for the military,” he said, edging closer, searching her mask of concentration and watching her graceful hands.
“The military is kind of a love-hate thing for me. There are aspects of it I can’t help admiring—it’s part of my childhood, my history, my heart. And yet, there are things that I despise about it—one of those things being what it does to marriages and families.”
“I get that,” he said, surprised by the connection between his own family breakup and hers. “Probably more than you know.”
She looked up at him, and he could see recognition in her eyes. She was sensing the connection between their stories, too.
“So what happened with your four-star wannabe?” he continued.
“It turned out that we had very different ideas about things.”
“Like what?”
She cut the cucumber slowly and deliberately, parsing her words with equal precision. “Like whether a reunion with an old pilot ex-girlfriend just back from deployment should include a hot-and-heavy workout between the sheets. He didn’t see the harm in it. I did.”
He gave a low whistle. “How long ago was that?”
“Eighteen months—wait, closer to two years now.”
“What a dumb shit—pardon the language.” How could anyone with half a brain cheat on a woman as gorgeous and smart and giving—as remarkable as Kate Everly? “I hope he gets his stars, then,” he said with a razor-like edge, before his voice dropped to a mutter she could still hear, “right up his butt.”
She stole a surprised look at him and laughed.
“My sentiments exactly. But in truth, it worked out for the best. Jess and I had always talked about opening a practice together, and when the marriage thing fell apart, I was free to do just that.”
“It looks like a going concern.” He picked up his glass and took a sip. “I’m not much of a wine guy, but this isn’t bad.”
She tasted the wine he handed her and then gave it back to him.
“Very nice.” She dressed and tossed the salad as she talked. “The practice is doing okay—better than expected, in fact. People down here love their animals and don’t mind paying a few vet bills.”
“Your partner, Jess—does he have a family?”
“Not yet.” Her eyes twinkled. “Jess isn’t quite domesticated.”
He followed, carrying the wine, as she took the salad to the dining-room table. When she returned to the kitchen to check the bread, he watched her bend to look in the oven and felt his stomach drop. Such a gorgeous—Ben’s voice from the living room saved him an inopportune response.
“Can I look at these books, Dr. Kate?”
“Which books?” she called out as she tested the pasta.
“The ones on the bottom shelf.”
Nick went to see what his son was asking about and found him holding a book that seemed to be about animal obstetrics. He frowned and was just about to nix the access when she called from the kitchen.
“Sure, if you’re interested. Those are books from my vet school days.” She came to the arch leading to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “Some of the pictures are kind of icky, but you can look if you want to—after dinner. The spaghetti is just about ready, so you need to wash your hands and then pick out what you’d like to drink with dinner.” She pointed toward a hallway. “The powder room is right there.”
Nick watched her smile at his son and caught the way Ben smiled back as he headed for the powder room. There was already something there—a real understanding. She seemed to know just what the boy liked and how to respond to his adult way of looking at the world. He followed and found Ben washing his hands, with soap, and shook his head.
“So, I take it you like spaghetti,” she said later, watching Ben shovel the last of a monumental pile of spaghetti into his mouth. Nick lowered his fork and watched Ben swallow before answering. Not talking with his mouth full... Nick couldn’t take credit for that.
“I love spaghetti. Gran makes it once a week for us. But she doesn’t eat the spaghetti part. She eats the sauce over some stringy, whirly things she makes out of zucchini.” He screwed up his face. “She made me taste it once. Yuck. Can I have seconds?”
Nick had to chuckle. “You know, we really do feed the kid. I can’t believe how he’s chowing down.”
“So I guess my spaghetti passes muster.” Kate laughed as Ben held his plate and she piled on a second batch of pasta and meat sauce. They both watched as he poured on the Parmesan cheese. She made a point of looking around the corner of the table at his lower half.
“Where are you putting all of that? Salad, spaghetti, bread...are you going to have room for dessert?”
Ben’s eyes flew wide. “I always have room for dessert.”
“That I can vouch for,” Nick said, twirling up another bite of pasta. “And this is really good spaghetti. F
amily recipe?”
“Not really. Gran wasn’t much of a cook, so I had to become one or starve. I just experiment until I find a way that I like a certain food. So, my repertoire of recipes isn’t exactly vast.” She chuckled. “I’m only partly domesticated.”
“Well, after saving lives and tending to sick animals all day long, I can understand not being in love with cooking. I kind of feel the same. Though I do enjoy grilling a good steak now and then. And ribs. There’s nothing more satisfying than producing a stack of great ribs.” He sighed. “Except maybe eating them.”
“Okay, the next meal is on you and your grill,” Kate said with wry assessment. “That is, if you’re up for it.”
He chewed thoughtfully, prolonging the suspense for a moment.
“I can’t let a challenge to my grilling skills go unmet.” He watched uncertainty enter her expression and felt a twinge of guilt for not saying what he meant. She deserved things straight up, and he needed her to know he was meeting her halfway. “And I don’t think Ben and I could find anybody half as pretty or as interesting as you to ask to dinner.”
Her cheeks filled with color.
“Good save, Stanton. You were close to forfeiting dessert.”
Cleanup didn’t take long with Ben ferrying dishes into the kitchen, Nick rinsing and Kate loading the dishwasher. Before long, they were in the living room, Kate parked in front of the bookcases on the sofa across from Ben and Nick, who occupied the beanbag chairs at the foot of the bookcases. Ben had collected a pile of books from the lower shelves and was going through them with eager eyes.
Nick made faces of horror and disgust meant for Kate alone. He was only half-kidding. Graphic anatomical diagrams in living color weren’t exactly his idea of great Friday night entertainment. Kate seemed to enjoy his silent commentary; she stifled grins and her shoulders shook with silent laughter.
“This is all very enriching, I’m sure,” he said after the third or fourth photo essay on flesh damage caused by fly-borne parasites, “but don’t you have a television? Maybe some Disney Junior or Nickelodeon?”
“Daaaad.” Ben looked up, appalled by the suggestion. “This is science stuff. It’s important.” He looked back at a picture of a cow that was being eaten alive by larvae of the botfly. “And it’s cool.”
Nick threw up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender, and then looked at Kate. “You’re turning him into a ghoul. Since he met you he’s all about blood and guts and now larvae—” He halted at the way her expression was sliding toward full horror. “Okay, not a ghoul exactly. But he’s become strangely bloodthirsty for an eight-year-old, don’t you think?”
With every word he spoke, her eyes widened more. She stared at him with anxiety that slowly turned to horror—before she launched herself bodily at him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“HEEEEYYY—I ONLY MEANT—” He brought his arms up in time to take her weight and found her falling against him. Suddenly his face was pressed against her breasts and his arms were full of waist and bottom. He heard things falling from the shelves and felt her jerk and spasm against him, wrestling with something.
He lifted her up enough to turn his head and glimpsed fat coils of shiny mottled-yellow skin—
“Arggghhh!” The reaction came straight from his gut; he tossed her aside and scrambled out of the way. Not especially gallant, abandoning her to whatever the hell that thing was.
* * *
THIS WAS HER nightmare come true. Kate had groaned internally as she watched the young python slither along the top of the bookcase. It would have to make an appearance when Nick was opening up, giving her compliments and getting personal. The damned thing reached the corner of the bookcase in a heartbeat and began to slither downward...and along a shelf...then stretched out into space right above Nick’s head where he sat on the beanbag chair. She didn’t know whether to warn him or—The damned thing was dropping fast and she had to get it before it landed on his neck. Frantic to keep man and beast separate, she jumped off the couch and lunged for the snake.
Every part of her was suddenly in contact with Nick as she lay against him with her outstretched hands full of young, muscular and probably hungry python. She had just gotten a good hold behind the head when Nick shoved her back and rolled out of the way. She lay on her side, wedged between the beanbag and the bookcases, her arms stretched over her head while a testy snake was doing its best to squeeze her arms to consumable mush. She could hear a worrisome litany of “Shit, shit, shit!” and “Ben, get away from there!”
As she rocked back and forth, building enough momentum to scramble upright, her primary feeling was annoyance that the thing should come out now to ruin what might have been a special moment. Damned cold-blooded reptile. She couldn’t bear to look at Nick as she staggered to her feet, holding the snake and working to keep it under control.
“There’s a heavy canvas bag in the back of my Jeep,” she said, breathing hard. “If you could get it for me...”
He burst out the door with such enthusiasm that she wondered if he meant to come back. But Ben was still there, staring at the snake with shining eyes, and she heard a car hatch open and close out in the driveway.
“Can I touch it?”
She nodded, and Ben rushed over to feel the coils and stroke the snake just as Nick stormed back inside.
“Ben, get away from that thing!” Nick snapped as he rushed the bag over to where Kate was working to manage the boy-snake encounter and maintain her advantage over the snake.
“It’s all right, Nick, I’ve got it. I just need to get it in the bag. Pythons aren’t venomous, though a bite could give you a nasty infection.” She winced at the glower on Nick’s face. Too much information. He seemed to have paled under his tan, and the way he held the canvas bag at arm’s length told her all she needed to know about his opinion of an evening that ended with bagging a seven-foot constrictor that nearly dropped on his head.
“This is actually a patient of mine. His owner went out of town for a couple of months. I planned to take him to the office, where we have a couple of large aquariums, and keep him doped up on food and sleeping until his owner comes home. They can sleep for weeks at a time, you know.” She tugged on the coils and slid her arm free to help guide the snake’s body into the bag. She saw Nick stiffen and his fists clench on the opening as the snake slid past them. “But he escaped my vehicle and then got lost in the garage. I couldn’t find him, but I figured he’d show himself when he got hungry.” She winced as she lowered the head into the bag and released it. Fortunately, the snake kept its mouth shut; it would be tough to convince Nick the snake wasn’t lethal if he got a look at its fangs.
Nick handed her the bag and stepped back, sticking out an arm to hold Ben back. He scanned the living room, high and low, for additional threats.
“Got any other dangerous predators hanging around?”
“Nope.” She tried for a plucky smile as she tied the bag. “Not that Maury here is a dangerous predator, except to recently thawed mice and rabbits. He’s a bit of a shock if you’re not expecting him, but he’s harmless to people, I promise.” She lifted the bag and swung it over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
Out in the garage she located the pierced metal box with a latch that she had intended to put him in a week ago, and secured Maury for the night. Now came the hard part: facing the fallout of this unexpected Wild Kingdom encounter. Squaring her shoulders and saying a desperate, short prayer, she strode back into the living room.
“Okay, who’s ready for dessert?”
“Me!” Ben called, jumping up from the chair and heading for the kitchen.
Nick was slower to follow.
The calm was surreal as they washed their hands at the kitchen sink, and Kate got out the pound cake, freshly sliced peaches and ice cream. Ben was full of questions about sn
akes and, though she feared every answer was driving a nail in the coffin of her budding relationship with Nick, she answered and tried to make snake lore sound as ordinary and nonthreatening as possible. Nick didn’t say much as he scooped the ice cream and then joined Kate and Ben in the dining room.
“Mmm,” Ben moaned, digging into the peaches and ice cream. “Dad’s gotta love this. Peach is his favorite. Nana has to make a peach pie nearly every week.”
Kate looked at Nick with silent apology, and it took one very long minute for him to respond.
“Okay, the snake thing—I was almost out the door on that one. You barreled into me like a halfback, and when I saw the size of that thing, well, I’m not a big fan of snakes.” He took a deep breath, and she could see he was trying hard to be fair. “But you got it in the bag, and I remembered you said something about peaches earlier. I figured as long as nobody got bit or suffocated or crushed, we might as well stay for dessert.”
She relaxed and thanked heaven for whatever help it provided.
Ben enjoyed the peaches and ice cream, and Nick seemed to, as well. But Kate felt some of the warmth had drained from the evening. After dessert, she chose a couple of animal books from her collection to loan to Ben, and Nick looked at her backyard and offered a couple of suggestions on landscaping.
It was nearly nine o’clock when Nick said it was getting late and Ben had soccer the next morning. He coached Ben through a “thank you for the spaghetti and peaches and ice cream,” and looked unsettled when Ben asked her if she would come to his game the next morning. She waffled noncommittally under Nick’s gaze, mentioning Saturday clinic hours and how hard it was to leave on such short notice. “Maybe another time.” He gave her a hug before Nick ushered him out to the SUV and installed him in the back seat.
Nick came back to the porch where Kate stood with crossed arms and an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Thank you for dinner,” he said, looking at his feet.
“You’re welcome,” she said quietly, and screwed up her courage to apologize. “Look, Nick, I’m sorry about the whole snake thing. My life is sometimes crazy, but that doesn’t mean I am. I just have animals around all the time. Some of them are a little odd and some are unpredictable, but it’s my job to care for them.”
