Lord, I’ve got to tell her about Aimee. And Tiffany.
But not right now. She’d just opened her life to him, invited him to see a past she’d never shared with anyone else. If he was going to have any chance to win her heart—and he knew with a fierce certainty that he desperately wanted to do just that—he needed to help her overcome the terrible trauma she’d experienced.
Moving slowly, afraid she’d run away if he didn’t tread gingerly, he reached for her hand. Encouraged when she didn’t resist, he enfolded it in his.
“It’s an obstacle, I’ll grant you that. But I think it’s one we can overcome.”
“You don’t understand.” She shook her head and started to pull away, but he gripped her hand tighter.
“I do understand, Kelli. I really do. But my mom always says there is no mountain too big for God to move. How about if we both agree to let Him handle this one?”
A tiny flame of hope flickered in her eyes. “I am from Colorado, you know. I’ve climbed lots of mountains.”
“Well, there you go.” He leaned forward, encouraged when she didn’t back away from him. “And this time you won’t be climbing alone.”
Their kiss, soft as a whisper, strengthened Jason’s resolve. He’d never been one to pray as often as he should, but that was about to change. Their situation was serious. He was a zookeeper, just like her father and the mother who had hurt her so deeply. Her reluctance to fall in love with him was entirely understandable. But zoology was the only thing he knew. He’d never held a job outside of a zoo, had never wanted to. The mountain between them really did seem insurmountable.
But this was one woman he didn’t intend to let slip away. Somehow, they would figure out a way to be together.
Lord, You’re about to start hearing from me on a regular basis.
Chapter Eighteen
The world was a brand-new place in the morning. Her sleep had been sweetened with dreams of Jason, and she’d awoken with a full heart and fresh determination. Why should she continue to crouch in the shadows of the past, when the future could be bathed with sunlight?
A future with Jason? Could she actually move away from Denver, leave her job there? As she let herself through the zoo’s back gate, she turned a smile upward, toward the bright Florida sun. Maybe, if Nana came with her. After all, Florida needed accountants, too. With Lillian’s trust money, she could set up her accounting firm here as well as there.
With a light step, she bounced along the path to the Small Animal building to let Raul know she’d be in the commissary this morning, finishing up her piñatas. She even smiled at his gruff grunt of dismissal.
When she arrived at the commissary, Erica was already at work shoving food through the openings she’d left in the top of each of her creations.
The girl looked up as she entered. “Hey. Jason grabbed me on the way in and asked me to show you how to stuff them.”
Kelli stopped short. “Oh.” If she’d known he wasn’t going to be here, she would have stopped by the office on her way, just to say good morning.
“He said something about an early phone conference with somebody from the AZA.” Erica grimaced. “Probably about the inspection next week.”
Kelli stepped up to the table, picked up an object that looked roughly like a giant pineapple and started inserting the pile of chopped produce Erica had already prepared. “Have you been through an inspection before?”
“Yeah, it’s not a big deal. They’ll probably spend some time looking through the written procedures, then they’ll come around and check out the animals, talk to the keepers.” She shrugged as she fed two raisins at a time through the small opening of an orange orb. Then she gave Kelli a kind smile. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine.”
Kelli hid a grimace. So everyone did know that she was the cause of the special inspection.
Filling the piñatas took several hours. When they were finished, Kelli washed her hands, which smelled of the raw meat for the carnivores, while Erica put out a call over the radio. In a few minutes, keepers started arriving to pick up piñatas for their charges.
Kelli’s pulse quickened when Jason stepped through the door behind Michael and Cameron. A slow smile stole across his face when he caught sight of her, which sent an answering shaft of warmth through her.
“Good morning.” His greeting, uttered in a voice low enough to be a purr, blotted out everything else in the room. Kelli’s heart hammered in her chest as she managed a breathless “Good morning” in return.
The exclamations of the others intruded on their private moment. Reluctantly, Kelli turned her attention to them.
“Great job,” Sherry congratulated her.
Cameron held up the bananas for inspection. “You should have seen my first piñatas. They were shaped like lopsided balloons. This is terrific.”
Kelli turned a triumphant smile on Jason. “At least someone around here appreciates art.”
Jason rolled his eyes with a good-natured grin. “Since you’re so good at it, we’ll give you the job of official piñata maker, if you’re interested.”
Hands held up as if to ward off the terrible suggestion, Kelli made a show of backing away from him while everyone laughed.
“Come with me, Kelli,” Cameron told her. “Cocoa is going to love this.”
She glanced at Jason, and he nodded. “That’s the best part of making piñatas—watching the animals’ reactions.”
They all got rolling carts out of a storage room and loaded Kelli’s creations. Outside the commissary, the group split up. Kelli hid her smile when Jason joined her and Cameron on their way to the orangutan exhibit.
Cocoa was inside, lying on the floor in the far corner, her back to the glass. No shows for her admiring audience on this lazy morning. Kelli and Jason followed Cameron to a nearby workroom to retrieve an extension ladder, then helped him carry it through a series of access doors into the ape’s moated yard. A crowd gathered in the viewing area as Cameron carefully positioned the ladder and then fixed the bright yellow object in a high branch.
There was no window looking from the orangutan’s indoor enclosure to the outdoor exhibit, so Cocoa couldn’t see where they hid the treasure. She stirred as they exited the yard, apparently alerted by the slamming of the gates. Kelli watched the animal heft herself to her feet and wander lazily to the closed access panel, then seat herself in front of it, prepared to wait patiently for it to open.
When the inside door had been closed and bolted, Cameron pulled a thick rope that slid open the panel.
“Come on. Let’s go outside and watch.” Jason put a hand on her back and guided her out of the small access room.
They joined the group in the viewing area and took up positions behind several children so they could see over their heads.
“She don’t see it,” one boy complained. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called down into the enclosure, “Hey monkey, look up!”
The other kids joined in the effort, and the air filled with high-pitched shouts urging Cocoa toward the piñata. Cocoa did not acknowledge them at all, but made her leisurely way across the grass and climbed up to her platform. Kelli watched, marveling at the way the orang managed to look regal, as though the screaming crowd wasn’t worth her notice. She was fully aware of the people, but apparently wasn’t in the mood for antics today.
Until she caught sight of the piñata. Her reddish-brown form straightened, her gigantic head tilted upward. In a flash, she was off the platform, climbing high up the tree where the piñata was suspended. The children let out a collective ooh when she started to hand-walk across the branch that bent precariously under her weight. Apparently, Cocoa decided the branch wouldn’t hold her and backed up.
The little boy who’d first shouted turned a concerned look up at Jason, who stood behind him. “She can’t reach it.”
Kelli had been just about to voice the same concern, but Jason’s expression displayed complete confidence. “She’ll get it. Just
watch.”
Cocoa backed up toward the trunk and dropped down to the sturdier branch below. She edged outward, and when the branch started to bend, she twisted around so she stood on it, her agile toes holding as tight as fingers. She reached up and grabbed the higher branch, inched outward a little farther, then bent the top branch downward with one long-fingered hand while she stretched for the piñata with the other. The children cheered when she grasped the yellow object.
“What is that thing, anyway?” asked a girl as the orang made her way back to her platform, her prize clutched in her hand.
“It’s just a big yellow blob,” answered her friend with a superior nod.
Laughter hovered in the look Jason turned toward Kelli, and she couldn’t help chuckling herself. Apparently she and Cameron were the only ones who recognized her objet d’art.
“It’s part of our enrichment program,” said Cameron, who had just joined them. Then he launched into an explanation of the zoo’s program. His audience listened as they watched Cocoa settle back on her platform and plunge her fingers into the opening.
A feeling of satisfaction settled deep inside Kelli as she watched. She’d worked hard yesterday, but seeing the animal work to obtain the prize and her determination to uncover the goodies inside made the effort worthwhile. She became aware that Jason was staring at her, a teasing twinkle in his eyes.
“Apparently Cocoa is an art lover, too.”
Kelli couldn’t help saying, “I knew she would be.”
He tilted his head back and laughed. When his laughter died away, his expression became sober. He looped a hand through her arm and pulled her away from the crowd. “How about watching another animal enjoy your work?”
A leaden lump dropped into Kelli’s stomach. No question at all which animal he meant. She opened her mouth to refuse, but then stopped. This might be her first steps up the mountain they’d talked about last night. If she wanted to have a relationship with Jason, she had to at least get to the point where she could walk past the lion’s exhibit without lapsing into hysterics. Hadn’t she stayed up late into the night, praying for strength to overcome her fear?
Jason watched the struggle that must be apparent on her face, his gaze piercing. His hand slipped down her arm to squeeze her fingers. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay.”
Her mouth dry as terry cloth, she managed to squeak an answer. “I don’t want to. But I will.”
Her reward was a blinding smile that dispelled the chill creeping over her. At least part of it.
“Good girl.”
He didn’t release her hand as they walked down the path Kelli had managed to avoid until now. Normally, she would have enjoyed strolling down the sidewalk, hand in hand with him, but every step took them closer to the object of more nightmares than she could count. Dread settled in her stomach. A bobcat, sitting in the sun inside its enclosure, turned its head to watch them pass, black-rimmed pointed ears at attention.
A small crowd stood in a cluster in front of the lion’s exhibit. Jason didn’t join them, but led her instead to stand some distance away, within view of the exhibit’s interior but not right up against the protective fence that served as the first barrier. Kelli gave his hand a grateful squeeze, but couldn’t manage to squeak a word through her dry mouth. The lion was nowhere in sight, but Michael was inside the enclosure, setting the zebra-shaped piñata in place. Tension knotted Kelli’s insides as she watched him duck beneath the branches of a thick, smooth-sided artificial tree that looked like a grotesquely oversized version of Leo’s climbing pole at home. The keeper sidestepped around a huge boulder and set the zebra up so its sad face peeked around the rock. A panel in the back wall rattled, and Kelli’s heart thudded at the ominous sound. The lion wanted back in his cage.
“Samson is almost four years old.” Jason’s soft, even tone attempted to soothe her racing pulse as he recited facts about the feline as though he were just another zoo animal and not a ferocious killer. “Cougar Bay got him a year and a half ago, after the previous lion died of old age. He’s fully mature and extremely healthy. He’s been approved for breeding.”
Kelli nodded, her eyes fixed on Michael as he worked. That explained Lillian’s bequest to the zoo. “You’re hoping to build that new Lion Habitat and get a female.”
“That’s right. Plus—”
Kelli tore her eyes away from the exhibit. “Plus what?”
Jason looked down at the ground between his feet, obviously uncomfortable. “Lil loved this lion. She wanted to see him out of that confined space and into someplace where he can move about freely.”
Kelli’s lips tightened and she bit back a sarcastic response. Yes, her mother loved this lion. All lions. She looked back at the enclosure. Although she had no expertise in such things, even she could see that this exhibit was pretty small for a large animal. Even with the sturdy-looking tree to climb, there wasn’t much exercise room.
Inside the exhibit, Michael had finished placing the piñata and made his way to the door in the side wall. Only when he’d gone through it and closed the door behind him, taking him out of the danger zone, did Kelli’s muscles relax.
But in the next moment, she tensed again. The back panel slid open with a loud rattle. Through the opening came the stuff of her nightmares. She sucked in a breath and fought to reject the images of horror her memory supplied. Only when Jason covered her hand with his and squeezed did she realize she’d grasped his arm in a death grip. She couldn’t manage an apology, but did loosen her grip enough so that her nails wouldn’t draw blood.
The lion that attacked her father had rushed, but this one didn’t. Samson paced through the doorway, his giant paws treading silently on the concrete floor. Instead of coming into the center of his enclosure, he paced the perimeter to the corner in a well-traveled path, turned, and then headed to the front. At the door Michael had gone through, he paused, then turned to head back in the direction he’d just come, his great head moving as he surveyed his domain.
Then he spied the piñata.
He froze, statue-like except for the twitching tip of his tail, his gaze fixed on the black-and-white striped object. Kelli watched, fascinated in spite of herself, as he lowered his great body and began to inch slowly forward in a crouch.
“He’s stalking it,” she whispered.
Jason nodded. “Just like he’d do in the wild.”
Actually, Kelli realized, he looked like Leo with a toy mouse she’d tossed into the corner just this morning. In fact, this gigantic cat bore a remarkable resemblance to her shy feline roommate. The way he held his tail rigid while he stalked, for instance, and the hunkered-down stoop of his shoulders.
When Samson reached the zebra, he didn’t pounce, as she expected him to. Instead, he slowly extended his neck until he stood nose-to-nose with it. The click of cameras was the only noise from the watching crowd as the lion inspected the piñata, sniffing its legs and torso with increasing interest.
“He smells the meat inside,” Kelli said.
She saw Jason’s nod of assent in her peripheral vision, because she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the lion. In fact, she realized with a start that she was eager to see how Samson intended to get at his treat. Her heart was no longer pounding with fear. Not that she intended to go any closer than this to the creature, certainly not into that cage to clean or anything else, but it was as satisfying to see Samson enjoy her piñata as it had been to watch Cocoa.
She turned her head to tell Jason when the radio clipped to his belt erupted with static. A second later, Angela’s voice came through.
“Does anyone know where Kelli Jackson is working today?”
Startled, Kelli watched as Jason unclipped the radio and held it up to his mouth. “She’s with me right now. Why?”
“We just got a call from the lady who lives across the street from Lil’s house. Her grandmother’s had an accident. There’s an ambulance on the way.”
Kelli’s heart slammed to a stop. Nana!
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If anything happens to Nana…
She couldn’t finish the thought. Icy panic surged through her veins as she sprinted toward the back gate.
Chapter Nineteen
The chairs in the hospital waiting room were hard, plastic and as orange as the piñata Kelli had made for the spider monkeys. Only dingier. Jason shifted his weight, trying to ease the pressure of sitting in one place for over an hour. He would have gotten up and paced, but Kelli clutched his hand like a lifeline, and he didn’t want to let go. He’d stay in place as long as she needed him.
“It’s been over an hour since she went into surgery.” Kelli’s voice quivered. “Shouldn’t the surgeon have come out by now? You don’t think something went wrong, do you?”
Jason squeezed her hand. “They said the break to the femur was a bad one. The doctor is just taking his time, being thorough.”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the clock mounted on the wall in front of her, lips moving though no sound came out. Praying, as she’d done since they arrived. Jason did the same, lifting a silent plea to God for Mrs. Jackson’s health. Although he would never suggest it to Kelli, he worried about the stamina of an eighty-one-year-old woman undergoing major surgery. What if she didn’t survive?
Kelli burst out in an agonized voice, “Why was she trying to scrape paint off those stupid shutters, anyway? What possessed her to do that?”
“You heard her in the emergency room. She was just reaching over from the front porch to knock off the biggest chips. She leaned too far and lost her balance.” Jason kept his tone even, a calming counterpoint to hers that bordered on panic. “It’s a good thing the lady across the street saw her fall, or she might have lain there for hours.”
A blue-garbed man bustled into the room. The surgeon still wore the surgery cap on his head and paper coverings on his shoes.
Kelli shot out of the chair and crossed the room fast as a cheetah. “How is she? Is she okay?”
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