“Hi, you must be Cord. I’m Abby. Keegan’s waiting for you over at the house on the other side of the compound. I’ll walk you over.”
“This is some place. It’s larger than it looks from the street.”
“It is. But that’s because it spreads out in the back and takes up half a block in acreage. We’re very proud of the work we do here but we’re quickly outgrowing this space. Keegan won’t talk about moving because—mainly because her grandparents made this place—what you see here today. She’s sentimental and who could blame her.”
Looking around, Cord caught the unmistakable bark of a sea lion. “Is he happy or angry?”
Abby laughed. “Neither. That’s Elmer. He just likes to announce his presence with authority.”
It was Cord’s turn to laugh. “This place is amazing.”
“A lot of these animals would die without getting rescued. You like animals?”
“I do. But I’ve never been around anything so massive.”
“But you work on a farm,” Abby pointed out.
“It’s completely different than this.”
Abby wasn’t so sure about that. In her book, animals en masse of any kind needed TLC whether they were cows or sea lions. “Keegan wants to give you the grand tour later, so you’ll get to see the big picture. It’s a remarkable place. I’m so lucky to be a part of it all.”
Cord followed her across the compound listening as the perky Abby chatted on and on, listing the animals they had in residence.
She finally stopped in front of a house with a long porch, an old-fashioned swing creaking in the breeze. “Here we go. I’ll probably see you later when Keegan shows you around. I’m working the weekend shift. Meanwhile, enjoy your date. By the way, the blue tulips, awesome touch.” She gave him a thumbs-up sign as she back-pedaled.
“Is everything part of the public domain in this town?”
“Pretty much. You’ll get used to it,” Abby muttered over her shoulder. Just as Cord got to the porch steps, the door flew open.
Guinness shot past Keegan so he’d be the first one to get Cord’s attention. A smaller man might have been bowled over, but not Cord. He bent down, let his big hands scrub the dog’s head and ears. And when he looked up at Keegan standing in the doorway all the tension and stress he’d bottled up fell away.
She was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a cropped green top, her hair still slightly damp and braided down her back. She looked like the bright spot in his otherwise harried day.
“Hi, I thought I heard voices out here.”
“We took the shortcut, I think.” He walked up the steps, planted a chaste kiss on her lips, tilted his head downward and stared at her eyes. “Hi.”
“Hi. Come on in.”
He followed her into a tidy, but lived-in rectangular room with cheery, pastel-blue paint on the walls. The blue blended well with the brown leather sofa and comfy recliner. There were soft feminine touches around the room, pillows frilled with lace and scalloped edges. One entire wall showcased a variety of shells from starfish to sand dollars behind glass and wood. The shells shared the space along the line with a generous selection of books.
“Make yourself at home. Are you hungry? I fixed lasagna.” She tilted her head and added, “Trust me you’ll never miss the meat.”
“I love lasagna. Don’t know as I’ve ever had it without chunks of meat though. And since I’m starving, it sounds great. Need some help?”
“Sure. You could keep me company while I finish the salad.”
He followed her into a narrow, sunny kitchen with a breakfast area that faced out onto a well-tended backyard full of yellow and white daisies and herb beds. “You weren’t kidding about your grandmother’s love for flowers. They’re everywhere.”
“She always said daisies were just too cheerful to be around and be sad. How’d it go?” She asked as she went to the fridge and got out the makings for a spinach and strawberry salad.
“I listened to everyone’s story before spilling my guts to five other alcoholics. Three of whom I would never have guessed had an issue with booze or any type of dark past. And that’s all I can say. What goes on at the church stays at the church.”
She couldn’t help it, she giggled. “You have a way of putting things, Cord. Glad it’s over?”
“Yeah. Afterward, Pete told me that if I hurt you, he would…” His brow furrowed and he considered how best to phrase the threat as delicately as he could. He decided paraphrase would have to do. “Let’s just say, he would make me suffer.”
“That’s sounds like Pete. He’s like a godfather or maybe an honorary grandfather.” She eyed him, suddenly frowned. “Did he scare you off?”
“Honestly? No. Right now, I don’t think a Mack truck full of enemy soldiers could do that.”
She reached up and touched the side of his face. “Why Cord, that might possibly be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
She got plates down from the cabinet to set the table.
When she turned around, he took them out of her hands, set them down on the counter. With one arm he drew her into him while his mouth zeroed in on hers. He drew out the kiss, as much for himself as her. Once he got a moan out of her he whispered, “I’ve wanted to do that since I got up this morning. And if that’s the sweetest thing any guy’s ever said to you, you’ve lived a very sheltered life.”
“Dating-wise, that’s probably true. I realized last night I’ve been socially-challenged lately.”
“A beautiful woman like you, that’s—kind of hard to believe.” He nibbled down her jaw to her ear. “You’re my reward for such a stressful day. Turns out—”
She grinned. “It wasn’t as bad as you thought.”
“I just kept thinking about you.”
“You did?”
“Yep, the entire time I realized standing in front of those five people how stupid I’ve been acting since I got to Pelican Pointe. I didn’t like what I saw. The whole thing was a lesson in humility.”
“Will you go back?”
“Sure. I’ll go because it’s part of my agreement with the court. And, there’s a small fear inside, I might slide. I don’t want to slide, Keegan.”
“Then you won’t.”
“It feels good to hold you like this,” he admitted as he skimmed kisses along her ear.
“It feels good to have your arms around me.”
“We did agree to go slow, didn’t we?”
“We did.”
“I was afraid of that.” He grinned before placing a chaste kiss on her lips. “Okay, then you’d better point me to the silverware and I’ll set the table because I only have so much control here, Keegan.”
“Would you like a Coke? Water? I went to Murphy’s to pick up some of that non-alcoholic beer for you, but Murphy told me it probably wasn’t a good idea. Apparently it has like a point-zero-five percent of alcohol still in it, and it might trigger something.”
He reached over and tilted up her chin. “Thanks. A Coke will be fine. Until I get a better handle on this whole thing, I’ll steer clear of any kind of alcohol, and that includes beer. I mostly drank the hard stuff anyway, so beer isn’t something I’ve craved…yet. But you go ahead and have a glass of wine, whatever you drink.”
“In front of you, while you’re just beginning to deal with this, that would be rude. No. Coke is fine with me, too. You don’t drink beer? You might be the first man I’ve ever met who didn’t love his pint.”
“Well, I mean, I’ve indulged in my fair share of six-packs but it was never my drink of choice. Now give me a whiskey—I’m set.”
“You learn something new every day. By the way,” she pointed to the cheery tulips on the kitchen table. “Those were a very thoughtful gesture and a perfect touch to my day yesterday after coming home from having my truck engine blow up. Finding these on the steps…let’s just say, they got my attention. What made you think to send them?”
He put his hands out, made a juggling
motion. “Women flowers, they just go together.”
She picked up the purple flowers and brought them outside to use as the centerpiece on the picnic table, which she’d already set with bright yellow Fiestaware and navy-blue napkins. The table looked like something her grandmother would’ve recognized as her “Martha Stewart” side. Most of the time Keegan would make do with a paper plate but with Cord coming to dinner, she wanted to do something special.
Over vegetable lasagna and salad, they delved into each other’s past. She discovered Cord at one time had his heart set on becoming a major-league ballplayer. Not unlike many of her male friends had when they were younger, Cord had played little league. But he had moved up the ranks where he’d pitched on his high school baseball team, something that had provided him his only interest in school.
“Let’s face it, I wasn’t college material. Playing sports is all I had, all I loved to do at the time.”
“Where were you living then?”
“By high school I lived in a group home with several other kids, mostly other teens who were just as ready to get on with life as I was.”
“No structure?”
“I had structure there but not much else.”
Ah, no love or no one to care about the little boy, thought Keegan. “What happened to the baseball career?”
He snorted. “It wasn’t much of a career. I made varsity as a sophomore, almost unheard of at the huge public school where I went. Coach used me too much though that first year in the starting rotation. I suffered a bad rotator cuff injury that refused to heal. My arm was done…for pitching anyway. I was pretty good too, could throw a ninety-five-mph fast ball with a decent slider and curve ball at sixteen. But then, it was high school so who knows? I was pretty immature at the time. Like some of my other early decisions in life, when the coach sidelined me, it pissed me off. If I didn’t have baseball—what was the point in hanging around school anymore? So, I took off.”
He shook his head, picked up his Coke. “I left the home, quit school, found a job in construction, doing mostly grunt work.”
“At sixteen you were on your own? Oh, Cord.” She rested her hand on his. “You were so young.”
“Hey, I grew up fast, especially after I joined the army. The military made a man out of me.”
“But you didn’t want to make it a career?”
“Hell no. See, it’s good you had your grandparents and knew what you wanted to do with your life at an early age. By the way, Abby mentioned I get a grand tour. How about it?”
“Now’s good. I’ll do the dishes later.” She grabbed his hand and added, “I need to check on Jack anyway.” When Guinness got to his feet, she added, “Time to go on rounds.”
All the way to the main building she went on about Minnie and Dodger and every other animal in residence. It didn’t take long before Cord realized, once again, Scott had been correct. Her love of wildlife surfaced in every facet of the place. He had only to look around to see that, only had to listen to the way she talked about each one.
Once inside the hospital, she led him down a hallway to an exam room. She introduced her “patients,” first Dodger and explained how he’d been injured. When she noticed the fascinated look cross Cord’s face, she couldn’t help it, she beamed.
“A shark did that?”
“I’m pretty sure. See the bite marks.”
“He’s lucky he escaped. Ah, I get it. Dodger dodged a bullet, or in this case a big-ass shark.”
“Exactly.”
They moved on to check on Jack in his pen, which Guinness had to sniff. The otter had somehow found his second wind and played with a rubber ball while he lay on a bed of towels. Any other dog might have been tempted to take Jack’s ball, but not Guinness. He had been trained to share his toys with the injured.
“Would you look at Jack tossing that ball around?”
Captivated, Cord inched closer. “He looks like a little weasel.”
“Same family.” When Jack started moving his little bandaged head back and forth, Keegan said, “That’s his way of saying hello.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Hey, little guy. What happened to his head?”
She went into the propeller theory, right along with the slashes along his belly. “Wow, these guys really get beat up in the ocean, don’t they? Is it okay to touch his head?”
“Sure. In fact I have to feed him.”
“He’s so furry and his hands look like little baby mittens,” Cord realized.
“Wait until you see them eat.” She explained how adult otters fished for things like clams and snails and used a rock to break them open to get what’s inside. “But tonight Jack will get a bottle of Pedialyte until he’s ready for something more solid.”
“Like what?”
“Like ground fish mixed up with his milk.”
“Isn’t Pedialyte what they feed human babies? Doesn’t he need to be in or at least around water?”
“We’ll get him there…eventually. He’s fine for now. And yeah, same thing they give infants.”
“So he’s going to be all right? He’ll get to go back where he came from?”
“He’s better. But not all of them will be released back into the wild. They’ll stay here until we find them a zoological solution where they can live safe without fear of being hunted, or injured.”
He watched as she put on latex gloves, got out a syringe, and filled it with medicine. “Your bio didn’t mention you were a vet?”
“That’s because I’m not.”
“Why not?”
Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
He watched her change the otter’s bandage. “Isn’t this exactly what a vet does?”
“In a way, I guess, but the go-to guy in town is still Bran, for now, anyway. Did you know he’s thinking of retiring at the end of the year? Which means I need to ramp up my efforts to find a full-time vet for the center.”
“Why don’t you do it?”
Her brow creased again. “Because I’d have to get into a vet school, get certified—and intern—that’s another three years at least.”
“But you own this place, why not intern here?”
“I—hmm. That’s an idea.” She had the undergrad biology degree, didn’t she? She had the experience working with mammals. Of course there was that little matter of not having been to veterinary school yet. “I’d have to study to take the VCAT,” she stated. “No, it’s a crazy idea.”
“It’s not. Let Bran find his own replacement. As for the center, you’re a natural to follow in your grandfather’s footsteps right here. Even I can see that. He wasn’t just the owner of this place, Keegan. The website mentioned he was a vet. I read his bio, the history of the center. You’ve been without a vet for almost fifteen months now. You’re only twenty-six. It makes sense for you to go that route. If it’s what you want…it isn’t too late.”
Was that what she wanted? Why hadn’t she considered that before now?
Watching the interest flicker in her eyes and hang there, he went on, “You already have the degrees, Keegan. You’ll figure the rest out.”
She pulled off the gloves and ran her fingers along the side of his face. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I’m so glad you didn’t die when you jumped into the water.”
He stared into her tranquil blue eyes. “Yeah? I’m pretty happy about that, too. Even more so now that I’ve met this beautiful, gorgeous, and talented female living in the same town I do.”
The staffers working at Sandhurst did their best to keep the mentally criminal on a schedule. The routine worked for everyone involved. Medication was doled out at nine p.m. every night. Lights out was rigidly enforced at ten-thirty when staff members began checking for locked doors.
Even though Robby Mack wasn’t in a “cell” per se, his windowless room measured a confining ten by ten feet. Every morning someone came to let him out to go to chow. And three mornings a week they trotted him t
o another building for his anger sessions.
He had gym privileges three times a week. A crafts class allowed him time to play at creating and painting cute little ceramic ashtrays. And when no one was paying attention, he squirreled away whatever sharp, clay shards he could get. Some of which, he’d already put to good use.
When he heard the guard outside his door locking him in for the night, he closed his eyes and pictured Cassie Anne. He recalled the last time they’d been together, the day they’d met at a roadside motel where they’d screwed like rabbits for an entire afternoon. It had been two short weeks before that damned wedding to Cord Bennett. Robby had tried like hell to persuade her to call the damn thing off. But Cassie had been adamant. She wanted to be a bride and nothing or no one could prevent her from becoming Mrs. Cord Bennett.
He laughed at the memory. He’d shown the bitch who had been in control of the situation. He remembered her promising they’d still be able to see each other after the honeymoon. Cord Bennett had been none the wiser, stupid bastard, thought Robby.
He sighed. If only Terri Lynn had a body like Cassie Anne Spearman. It couldn’t be helped, he decided. A person had to take advantage of whatever opportunity came his way in whatever form.
Tomorrow, Monday, was the day. Terri Lynn would make good on what she’d promised him. He was sure of it because good ol’ Terri thought he had been wrongly accused, therefore deep down, he was a good and decent man.
He’d already promised to show her just what kind of person he could be when he got out of this place.
Because if things went his way, by tomorrow night he’d be heading west and that much closer to Cord Bennett.
Chapter Ten
After they got back to the house, Cord decided they needed music. When he spied Keegan’s docking station on the kitchen counter, he went over and picked up her iPod, started thumbing through her playlist.
While she busied herself with cleanup detail, he discovered they shared the same tastes. She had many of the same songs he had. The minute he came across the band, Klimt 1918, he hit play.
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