CHAPTER FOUR

      “I’M STEPHEN MACDONALD,” he said. “Emma and Seth’s new tenant. And why should I owe the government anything? It hit me.”

      “It’s a bird. And you’re a human being—the one with the big brain and the opposable thumbs. Heck of an introduction to the neighborhood.”

      Stephen watched Barbara clean and close the eagle’s cut with small, neat stitches. He’d never been fond of the sight of blood, but then usually it came from a scrape or a bloody nose on one of his daughters. This was different. This woman was obviously good at what she did. His own blood hadn’t bothered him after the accident that had nearly cost him a leg, but then, he’d been in shock and unconscious for the worst part—the part when the surgeons had worked to keep him alive and with both legs attached to his body.

      He realized that he didn’t even know what this vet looked like. At first, she’d been behind her flashlight, then he’d been paying so much attention to the eagle he hadn’t even glanced at her, and now she was wearing a surgical mask.

      She finished her stitching, and between them they moved the eagle—already stirring—into a cage. “I have to clean up the mess,” she said. She pulled off her mask and tossed it into the trash receptacle, then turned to look at him.

      He felt a jolt go through his solar plexus. She was probably five foot five and not model-thin. He guessed in her thirties. Chestnut-brown hair was pulled back in a scrunchie, but escaping in tendrils around her face.

      Those eyes. Extraordinary. The color of Barbados rum with flecks of what looked like 24-carat gold in them. They were wide eyes, as though she could take in the whole world without turning her head the way that eagle could. Wise, aware eyes, as though she’d seen it all and knew she could handle it. He had a feeling that she didn’t simply look, she saw. Not a beautiful face, exactly, but he didn’t think he’d forget those high cheekbones or that broad forehead. His first impression was that she was a person of value. Worth knowing. He also noted that she had great legs.

      “I don’t know about you, but I’m spitting cotton and hungry as a coyote,” she said. “You do with some sweet tea and a pimento cheese sandwich? It’s homemade.”

      “I could probably eat the coyote. I was headed to the overnight gas station to get some snacks when I hit our friend in there. I didn’t have sense enough to go to the grocery before I drove back up here from Memphis this afternoon. I’m not used to having to think about those things ahead of time. In town I’m five minutes away from a supermarket. Here, the closest place is eight miles away.”

      “You get used to planning ahead.” As she chatted, she straightened, cleaned, put instruments into the sterilizer, scrubbed down the table and tossed her trash. “I can go over all this again and scrub the floors tomorrow morning. Come on.”

      “Shouldn’t we stay with him tonight?” Stephen asked.

      Barbara shook her head. “We’ve done all we can do before morning. He needs to rest.” She turned out the lights, locked the clinic and flashed her light on Stephen’s mauled grill. “Sorry about your car. I think you can drive it, though. He doesn’t seem to have punctured the radiator or slashed any hoses. After I feed us, I’ll follow you home to be sure you get there.”

      “You don’t...”

      “All part of the service. Sorry, my apartment’s off the back of the barn.”

      He followed her out of the clinic, across the parking lot, through the barn and to a door at the end. With all but a couple of lights off, he couldn’t see much of the animals in the stalls, but he heard a couple of horses snoring. “I’ll be glad to stay with him and let you get some sleep. I can call you if—”

      “If what? You don’t know what you’re looking at. I promise you there is nothing more I can do tonight. It’s up to him. He’s alive, which is amazing. ’Course, he may never be able to be released back into the wild...”

      “After you fix his wing and he convalesces, of course you can release him.”

      “Not necessarily. Come in.” She turned on lights in her apartment. He followed her in.

      “Bathroom’s down that hall past the bedroom,” she said and pointed. “Look, I have no idea at this point whether I can fix his wing or not. It may not knit properly or at all. It may have to be amputated.”

      He was halfway down the hall, but he spun to look at her. “No! You can’t do that. He has to fly again. Be whole again.”

      “Don’t freak, Mr. MacDonald. Even if he can’t fly, he’ll live a comfortable life in one of the zoo’s animal training programs. He’ll be well fed and possibly even find another mate.”

      “Another mate?”

      “Bird his age will almost certainly have a mate. I assume he belongs up at Reelfoot Lake. No idea how he got down here. He and his family are probably nesting in the same nest they’ve used for fifty years or longer.”

      “You’re kidding, right?”

      “Not at all. Eagles keep their nests. There’s a nest on a river in the Grand Tetons that they think has been there a couple of hundred years.”

      “He’s hurt, broken, possibly disabled, not knowing where his mate is or whether his eaglets are surviving, unable to care for them and he may spend his life in a cage. Being stared at and pitied, unable to fly free. What kind of life is that for him? I should have let him die.” A wave of depression washed over him. He’d learned to fight it most of the time by refusing to feel anything at all, but this depression was for another creature, one whose situation was too close to his own. How did he guard against that?

      “You do know what anthropomorphism means, don’t you?” she asked.

      “Of course I do. It’s giving human characteristics to animals. The more research is done, however, the more we find there is precious little difference between us and them. He has to fly again. Find his way back.”

      “So he can land and say, ‘Honey, I’m home?’ All I can do is my best, Mr. MacDonald. Now, about that sandwich.”

      * * *

      OF ALL THE crazy ways to spend an evening, Barbara thought as she spread mayonnaise on slices of the French baguette she’d picked up at the bakery in Williamston. She was always as ravenous after a difficult surgery as if she’d bicycled twenty miles or run a marathon. Her body had long since used up whatever energy she’d gained from that second-rate diet meat loaf.

      She glanced up from the kitchen