CHAPTER THREE

      “IT’LL TAKE ME a couple of hours to pick up the stuff for the lion cage at the co-op and drive back out here,” Tala said an hour later as she was about to get into her truck. “And I need to stop by my in-laws’. Maybe I can see my kids after school. Is that all right? I can hardly wait to tell everybody about Baby.”

      “You can’t mention Baby to anyone, Tala.” Pete’s voice was gruff.

      “But—”

      “The minute you tell even one person, the story’ll be all over town. Next thing you know, we’ll have the sheriff and the Wildlife people banging on the front gate with a search warrant.”

      “I’ll swear them to secrecy,” she said, but her voice had dropped. She sighed as he simply stood and looked at her. After a moment, she said, “Of course you’re right. But what am I going to tell everybody about why I spent the night here?”

      “Tell them your car got stuck. Tell them you had a flat tire. But whatever you do, and I can’t emphasize this enough, do not tell them about Baby. Promise?”

      She nodded. “Promise.”

      “Besides, if we’re actually going to do this crazy thing, build a lion cage, I need to come with you to make sure you get everything on the list. You got no business picking all that stuff up.”

      “Oh, they’ll load it for me. And they won’t question what I need it for. When Ad…when my husband was alive, we were always doing things to fix up the farm. They’ll just assume I’ve gotten up enough gumption to start another project. If you come along, it’ll be all over town in thirty minutes.”

      “Why?”

      Tala grinned at him. “Because you people are considered deeply weird, Dr. Jacobi. Elephants in the middle of Hollendale County? Haven’t you ever lived in a small town?”

      “Yes, but it was a small college town. You call my father Mace. How come you keep calling me Dr. Jacobi?”

      Tala wanted to say because he made her uncomfortable, but she didn’t. She merely ducked her head, whispered, “Okay—Pete,” and climbed into her truck.

      “Hey, wait a minute.” He laid a large hand on the open windowsill. “You taking the job or not?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “The Food Farm isn’t likely to go out of business or fire you in the near future. That’s a mark in their favor.” He heaved a sigh. “But we’re not going anywhere either. I guess we could use somebody like you around here.”

      She stared at him, then without a word put her truck in gear and drove off.

      Talk about grudging! she thought. Mace must have told him what to say. And he was right. The Food Farm wasn’t a piece of cake, but at least it was steady and secure. And indoors. She had to admit, she really couldn’t handle working at the sanctuary and at the Food Farm. She’d have to choose one or the other. And this paid more.

      If she could work from seven in the morning until three in the afternoon, she could actually pick the kids up from school, attend their practices, be a real mother for a change.

      And maybe she could explain to them in a way they’d understand that she still owed Adam a debt.

      PETE THRUST HIS HANDS into his pockets hard enough to burst the seams and stared after her truck. He heard a stamp and turned to find Sweetiepie staring at him from about twenty feet away. The other two elephants had apparently departed for the woods at the back of their fifty-acre pasture. They were already invisible in the underbrush and might not surface again until it was time for their evening hay.

      “So, what are you waiting for?” he asked.

      Sweetiepie swished her trunk, lifted it and opened her mouth.

      “Man, are you spoiled.” He sauntered over, reached up and began to scratch her tongue. She sighed in ecstasy. “How come I can do this all day and you don’t pat me on the head?”

      She ignored him, merely closed her eyes and shifted her feet.

      “What’s she got that I haven’t? Other than enough hair to stuff a mattress and a pair of legs that belong in a Vegas chorus line?” He stopped scratching for a moment. Sweetiepie nudged him gently. “Okay, okay. It’s cold out here, you know, and your tongue is not exactly velvet. As if you cared.”

      Sweetiepie closed her mouth and swung away. “Thank you very much, Pete,” he called after her. She ignored him.

      He never ceased to enjoy watching them move. From the back, Sweetiepie looked as though she were wearing baggy gray underwear. Without any evidence of speed, she covered an enormous amount of ground. He’d be willing to bet Tala would laugh that great laugh of hers the first time she saw them take off for the boonies. The thought gave him a glow that surprised him.

      At that moment Baby roared. So now he had a wounded big cat to look after as well as a woman that couldn’t even look after her own children, but had the strength and guts to drag wild animals into her truck in the middle of the night. What kind of woman was she?

      A woman with big dark eyes who stirred his blood.

      He found Baby sitting up in her cage with her bad leg held off the ground. As he watched, she roared again, then began to pant in obvious discomfort. He expected her to be in some pain, even with the drugs, but she could have developed an infection in the wound. That would be extremely bad news.

      He’d become a vet partly to gain his father’s approval, but mostly because he hated watching animals suffer. He knelt beside the lion’s pen, and pressed his hand against the steel mesh, ready to pull it away if she snapped at him.

      Thank God her shoulder felt cool. She reached around and licked the wound with a tongue that he knew was rough enough to rip the skin off his hand. “It’s okay, Baby,” he whispered. “I’ll make it better.”

      He found a syringe, filled it, jammed it into the muscle of her rump and thrust the plunger home before she realized what was happening. When she did, she tore the syringe from his grasp and shook it free on