boy, talk about pheromones! The hair on her arms stood straight up. She stepped back to get out of his zone, which, at this point, felt as though it might extend all the way to Memphis. “Um,” she said. “Heating pad?”
He dropped her hand. “Be right back. In the meantime, find a clean towel to replace this one, then soak the dirty one in the sink with some bleach if you have it.”
“I have it, but I don’t know where it is.” She waved a hand at the boxes on the kitchen floor. “I’ll wash it by hand. The washer and dryer are hooked up, but I’m not about to do a load to wash one poopy towel.”
After the front door closed behind him, she sank into the closest dining room chair. Some introduction to her new home. Her new lifestyle. Quite a comedown from assistant marketing manager for one of the largest public relations firms in Tennessee. From a town house in Mud Island on the Mississippi River to a hovel in the middle of nowhere, complete with skunks. From having her picture taken at the symphony ball to scrubbing skunk poop.
She’d never really cared how often she and Trip made the society pages of The Commercial Appeal for attending some party or concert or art exhibit in Memphis or Nashville. Trip cared, though. He wanted them to be the Golden Couple, and their upcoming marriage to be the event of the season. She wondered how long it would take him to replace her with another princess bride. And how long before he’d betray his new fiancée the way he’d betrayed Emma.
This time Seth Logan didn’t bother to ring the bell or knock, but opened the door and came in. Again he shed his dripping poncho and slipped his feet out of his muckers before he stepped from the tiled area to the wooden floor. Somebody had taught him manners. Or maybe that was standard procedure in the country when it rained.
“Here you go,” he said and handed her a plush-covered heating pad. “You’ll have to wrap it in a towel and keep it on the lowest setting...” He glanced at the boxes. “You find the other towels yet?”
“I just sat down for a second.” Suddenly she felt as though she couldn’t get up again.
“Always take care of your animals first.” He peered at the boxes. “Here we go. This box says ‘towels.’” He set the heating pad on the kitchen counter and opened one of the boxes.
She clambered to her feet when she caught sight of the brocade edging on the coral towels. “Not those! Those are for company.”
“Then find me some for skunks.”
She wanted to yell that he should find them himself. Wrong. He was probably as tired as she was, but at least he was here. That counted for a lot.
She had to tear open only two other boxes to find the everyday towels. She arranged one under the babies, which were now fast asleep.
He wrapped the heating pad in another towel, plugged it in and set it up under the makeshift nest. “We don’t want them to overheat.”
“I should keep them at mother temperature, right?”
He actually smiled. “You got it. Happen to know what skunk-mother temperature is? I don’t, so just keep it on the lowest setting. The next time you feed them, kick it up a notch if they’re shaking. Otherwise, I think we’re good to go.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Look, have you had anything to eat?”
Glory, she must look really terrible. “I vaguely remember a cheeseburger sometime around the year 2003. I’m not hungry, which is a miracle. But I could murder a cup of tea.”
“Any idea where the teapot might be?”
“First thing I found.” She pulled herself upright by an effort of will, took the snazzy imported electric pot out of the cabinet, filled it and plugged it in. “That’ll take five minutes to heat and another five to steep. Gives us ten minutes to find the mugs.”
Ten minutes later, she handed him his mug of tea, which, thank goodness, he said he drank with lemon, no sugar and no milk. She had lemon, but the only milk was for the babies, not their caregivers. The sugar was hidden somewhere.
“You said you were tired, too. I’m grateful you came, but you don’t have to stay,” she said, hoping he would. Between exhaustion and skunks, she was starting to feel panicky-lonely. She’d never been lonely, damn it, but then she’d lived in a city house with lights and neighbors and traffic. She could drive to her family’s place in Memphis for dinner with her father, her stepmother, Andrea, and both her brother and sister in twenty minutes. When she was there, she knew where she belonged and who she was.
Now, not so much. Sitting here in this living room she might as well be on the far side of Alpha Centauri.
“Nice sofa,” he said as he drank his tea and relaxed into its depths.
Well, yeah. It had cost a month’s salary; it should be comfortable.
“This doesn’t solve the problem,” he said and set his empty mug on the coffee table. “You cannot keep the skunks.”
“Now, wait...”
“Can’t foster bats either, because of possible rabies. If you’d discovered a cache of raccoons, I could hook you up with one of the local animal rehabilitators.”
“There is such a thing?”
“Absolutely. There are people who specialize in raptors or abandoned fawns. Sometimes a momma possum will get hit by a car and killed, but the babies in her pouch survive and have to be tended. There’s a lady outside Collierville who takes in orphan foxes...”
She felt the tears threaten to spill over. “You say there’s no rabies in our skunks, yet you’d just let them die?”
“Can’t take the chance.”
“Nonsense!” She slammed her mug down on the table so hard the edge of the cup cracked.
“You saw we wore gloves when you fed them?” he said. “And you’d better continue to do that. At the moment they have no teeth, but their little milk teeth will be sharp.”
“Fine. So vaccinate them against rabies. Heck, vaccinate me, too. Problem solved.” She sat down again.
“That’s not the way the rules read.”
That did it. “Then arrest me.” She got to her feet again and held out her wrists. “I’ll have a public relations campaign set up for ‘Save the Skunks’ before the cell door shuts on me. You and your rules will feel as if you’ve run into a buzz saw. Every animal rights organization in the Western Hemisphere will be knocking on your door and marching with signs. This is what I do—did—for a living. Coordinating the message to spread across all possible outlets. One picture of my babies snuggled up on Facebook, one podcast, and even the governor won’t call your name blessed.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Watch me.”
“Sit down before you fall down. I have no intention of arresting you, nor do I intend to starve, freeze or euthanize your trio of illegal aliens.”
“So I can keep them?”
“No, dammit! I’ve got to figure out how to handle
