Black Hills

  “Were we able to release it?”

  “It’s still gimpy. Matt doesn’t think it’ll make it out there in the world. She’s an old girl. We’re calling her Xena, because she looks like a warrior.”

  “I’ll take a look at her. I haven’t done the tour yet.”

  “I put your shots from the trip on here.” Lucius tapped his computer monitor. He wore ancient high-tops rather than the boots most of the staff favored, and jeans that bagged over his flat ass. “Dr. Lillian’s Excellent Adventure. We’ve been getting beaucoup hits.”

  As he spoke, Lil glanced around the familiar space. The exposed log walls, the posters of wildlife, the cheap, plastic visitors’ chairs, the stacks of colorful brochures. The second desk—Mary’s—stood like a trim, organized island in the chaos Lucius generated.

  “Any of the hits come with . . .” She lifted her hand, rubbed her thumb and fingers together.

  “We’ve been going pretty steady there. We added a new webcam, like you wanted, and Mary’s been working on an updated brochure. She had a dentist deal this morning, but she’s going to try to make it in this afternoon.”

  “Let’s see if we can get together for a meeting this afternoon. Full staff, including interns, and any of the volunteers who can attend.”

  She walked back and peeked into Medical. “Where’s Bill?”

  Matt turned. “I cleared him. Tansy’s taking him back. Good to see you, Lil.”

  They didn’t hug—it wasn’t Matt’s style—but shook hands, and warmly. He was about her father’s age, with thinning hair streaked with gray, and wire-rimmed glasses over brown eyes.

  He was no idealist, as she suspected Eric was, but he was a damn fine vet, and one willing to work for pitiful pay.

  “I’d better get back. I’ll try to cut Farley loose some tomorrow, so he can give you a couple hours.” Joe tapped a finger on Lil’s nose. “You need anything, you call.”

  “I will. I’ll pick up the stuff on your list later, drop it off.”

  He went out the back.

  “Meeting later,” she told Matt, and leaned on a counter that held trays and bins of medical supplies. The air smelled, familiarly, of antiseptic and animal. “I’d like you to brief me, and the rest, on the health and medical needs of the animals. Lunchtime would be best. Then I can do a supply run.”

  “Can do.”

  “Tell me about our newest resident. Xena?”

  Matt smiled, and the amusement lightened his often serious face. “Lucius named her that. It seems to have stuck. She’s an old girl. A good eight years old.”

  “Top of the scale for the wild,” Lil commented.

  “Tough girl. Scars to prove it. She took a pretty hard hit. The driver did more than most people do. She called us, and stayed in the car until we got there, even followed us back here. Xena was too injured to move. We immobilized and transported, got her in here, into surgery.” He shook his head, removing his glasses to polish the lenses on his lab coat. “It was touch and go, given her age.”

  Lil thought of Sam. “But she’s recovering.”

  “Like I said, tough girl. At her age, and given the leg’s never going to be a hundred percent, I wouldn’t recommend releasing her. I don’t think she’d last a month.”

  “Well, she can consider this her retirement home.”

  “Listen, Lil, you know at least one of us has been staying at night while you were in the field. I was on a couple nights ago. Just as well, as I’d had to extract a tooth that morning from the queen mum.”

  Lil thought of their ancient lion. “Poor grandma. She’s not going to have a tooth left at this rate. How’d she do?”

  “She’s the Energizer Bunny of lions. But the thing is, there was something out there.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Something or someone was out there, around the habitats. I checked the webcam, and didn’t see anything. But hell, it’s pretty damn dark at two in the morning, even with the security lights. But something had the animals stirred up. A lot of screaming and roaring and howling.”

  “Not the usual nocturnal business?”

  “No. I went out, but I couldn’t find anything.”

  “Any tracks?”

  “I don’t have your eye, but we looked the next morning. No animal tracks, no new ones. We thought—we think—there were human ones. Not ours. No way to be sure, but there were tracks around some of the cages, and we’d had some snow after the last feeding of the day, so I don’t know how else there’d have been fresh tracks.”

  “None of the animals were hurt? Any locks tampered with?” she added when he shook his head.

  “We couldn’t find anything, nothing touched, taken. I know how it sounds, Lil, but when I went out, it felt like someone was there. Watching me. I just want you to keep an eye out, make sure you lock your doors.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Matt. Let’s all be careful.”

  There were strange people out there, she thought as she put her coat back on. From the No Animal Should Be in Prison—as some thought of a refuge—to Animals Are Meant to Be Hunted and Killed. And everything in between.

  They got calls, letters, e-mails from both ends of the spectrum. Some with threats. And they’d had the occasional trespasser. But so far, there’d been no trouble.

  She wanted to keep it that way.

  She’d go have a look around herself. Odds were, after a couple of days there would be nothing for her to find. But she had to look.

  She shot a wave to Lucius, opened the door.

  And nearly walked straight into Cooper.

  7

  It was a toss-up who was more surprised, and disconcerted. But it was Lil who jolted back, even if she recovered quickly. She plastered on a smile and put a friendly laugh in her voice.

  “Well, hi, Coop.”

  “Lil. I didn’t know you were back.”

  “Yesterday.” She couldn’t read his face, his eyes. Both, so familiar, simply didn’t speak to her. “Coming in?”

  “Ah, no. You got a package—your place got a package,” he corrected, and handed it to her. He wasn’t wearing gloves, she noted, and his heavy jacket was carelessly open to the cold.

  “I was sending something off for my grandmother, and since I was heading back to the farm, they asked if I’d mind dropping it off.”

  “Thanks.” She set it aside, then stepped out and closed the door rather than let the heat pump out. She fixed her hat on her head, the same flat-brimmed style she’d always favored. Standing on the porch, she pulled on one of her gloves. It gave her something to do as he watched her in silence. “How’s Sam? I just heard yesterday that he’d gotten hurt.”

  “Good, physically. It’s hard on him, not being able to do everything he wants, get around the way he did.”

  “I’m going by later.”

  “He’ll like that. They both will.” He slid his hands into his pockets, kept those cool blue eyes on her face. “How was South America?”

  “Busy, and fascinating.” She pulled on her other glove as they walked down the steps. “Mom said you’d sold your detective agency.”

  “I was done with it.”

  “You did a lot, left a lot, to help two people who needed you.” The finality in his voice, the flatness in it had her stopping. “It counts, Cooper.”

  He only shrugged. “I was ready for a change anyway. This is one.” He glanced around. “You’ve added more since I was here.”

  She sent him a puzzled look. “When were you here?”

  “I came by when I was out last year. You were . . . somewhere.” He stood at ease in the cold, while the brisk wind kicked through the already disordered waves of his dense brown hair. “Your friend gave me the tour.”

  “She didn’t mention it.”

  “He. French guy. I heard you were engaged.”

  Guilt balled in her belly. “Not exactly.”

  “Well. You look good, Lil.”

  She forced her lips to curve, forced the same casualness he projecte
d into her voice. “You too.”

  “I’d better get going. I’ll tell my grandparents you’re going to try to come by.”

  “I’ll see you later.” And with an easy smile, she turned to walk to the small-cat area. She circled around until she heard his truck start, until she heard it drive away. Then she stopped.

  There, she thought, not so bad. The first time would be the hardest, and it wasn’t so bad.

  A few aches, a few bumps. Nothing fatal.

  He did look good, she thought. Older, tougher. Sharper in the face, harder around the eyes. Sexier.

  She could live through that. They might be friends again. Not the way they’d been, even before they’d become lovers. But they might be friendly. His grandparents and her parents were good friends, close friends. She and Coop would never be able to avoid each other gracefully, so they’d just have to get along as best they could. Be friendly.

  She could do it if he could.

  Satisfied, she began to scout around the habitats for signs of trespass—animal or human.

  COOP LOOKED INTO the rearview mirror as he drove away, but she didn’t glance back. Just kept going.

  That’s the way it was. He wasn’t looking to change it.

  He’d caught her off-guard. They’d caught each other off-guard, he corrected, but her surprise had shown on her face, just for a beat or two, but clearly. Surprise, and a shadow of annoyance.

  Both gone in a blink.

  She’d gotten beautiful.

  She’d always been so, to him, but objectively he could look back now and see that she’d been poised for beauty at seventeen. Touched by beauty at the cusp of twenty. But she hadn’t crossed the finish line then, not like now.

  For a second there, those big, dark, sultry eyes had taken his breath away.

  For a second.

  Then she’d smiled, and maybe his heart had twisted, just for another second, over what had been. What was gone.

  Everything easy, everything casual between them. That’s the way it should be. He didn’t want anything from her, and had nothing to give back. It was good to know that, since he was back for good.

  Oddly enough, he’d been considering coming back for several months. He’d even looked into what steps he’d need to take to sell his private investigator’s business, close his office, sell his apartment. He hadn’t moved on it, had simply continued his work, his life—because not moving was easier.

  Then his grandmother had called.

  With all the research done and filed in Maybe Someday, it had been a simple matter to make the move. And maybe, if he’d made the damn move earlier, his grandfather wouldn’t have been alone, and in pain after his fall.

  And that kind of thinking was useless, he knew it.

  Things just happened because they did. He knew that, too.

  The point was he was back now. He liked the work—he always had—and God knew he could use a little serenity. Long days, plenty of physical labor, the horses, the routine. And the only real home he’d ever known.

  The Maybe Someday might have come before but for Lil. The obstacle, the regret, the uncertainty of Lil. But that was done now, and they could both get back to their lives.

  She’d created something so solid and real, so Lil, with her refuge. He hadn’t known how to tell her that, how to tell her that it was a source of pride for him, too. He didn’t know how to tell her he remembered when she’d told him she would build this place, he remembered the look on her face, the light on it, the sound of her voice.

  He remembered everything.

  Years ago, he thought. A lifetime ago. She’d studied and worked and planned, and made it happen. She’d done exactly what she’d set out to do.

  He’d known she would. She wouldn’t have settled for less.

  He’d made something. It had taken a lot of time, a lot of mistakes, but he’d made something of himself, and for himself. And he could walk away from that because the point had been to make it.

  Now the point was here. He turned onto the farm road. Right here, he thought, right now.

  When he went inside, Lucy was in the kitchen, baking.

  “Smells good.”

  “Thought I’d do a couple of pies.” She offered a smile, strained around the edges. “Everybody get off all right?”

  “Group of four. Gull’s got them.” The blacksmith’s son hadn’t followed in his father’s footsteps, but served as trail guide and man-of-work for Wilks’s Stables. “Weather’s clear, and he’s keeping them to a couple of easy rides.” Since it was there, he poured himself some coffee. “I’m going to go out and check on the new foals and their mas.”

  She nodded, looked in on her pies, though they both knew she could time them by instinct to the minute. “Maybe, if you don’t mind, you could ask Sam to go out with you. He’s having a mood today.”

  “Sure. He upstairs?”

  “Last I checked.” She flicked her fingers at the hair she now wore short as a boy’s and had let go a stunning and shining silver. “Checking’s one of the things, I expect, put him in the mood.”

  Rather than speak, he just put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

  She would’ve checked, Coop thought, several times. Just as he had no doubt she’d been out to the barn to check on the foals. She’d have seen to the chickens and the pigs, getting all the chores done she could manage before Sam could try to do them.

  And she’d have fixed his breakfast, just as she’d fixed Coop’s. Seen to the house, the laundry.

  She was wearing herself out, even with him there.

  He went upstairs.

  For the first couple of months after his grandfather had been released from the hospital, he’d stayed in the parlor they’d outfitted as a bedroom. He’d needed a wheelchair and help with the most personal functions.

  And he’d hated it.

  The minute he’d been able to manage the stairs, however long it took, however hard it had been, he’d insisted on moving back to the room he shared with his wife.

  The door was open. Inside Coop saw his grandfather sitting in a chair, scowling at the television and rubbing his leg.

  There were lines in his face that hadn’t been there two years before, grooves dug by pain and frustration more than age. And maybe, Coop thought, some fear along with it.

  “Hey, Grandpa.”

  Sam turned the scowl toward Coop. “Not a damn thing worth looking at on the television. If she sent you up here to check on me, to see if I need something to drink, something to eat, something to read, somebody to burp me like a baby, I don’t.”

  “Actually, I’m heading out to check on the horses and thought you could give me a hand. But if you’d rather watch TV . . .”

  “Don’t think that kind of psychology holds water with me. I wasn’t born yesterday. Just get me my damn boots.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He got the boots, one of the pairs set neatly on the closet floor. He didn’t offer to help, something his practical and insightful grandmother couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing. But Coop judged that came from fear, too.

  Instead he talked about the business, the current trail ride, then his stop at the refuge.

  “Lil said she’d stop by and see you today.”

  “Be pleased to see her, long as it’s not a sick call.” Sam