she must have sounded like a fishwife. “I have rules—”
“They’re just kids.”
“They work for me. I expect them to do their job.”
He stared down at her, his brown eyes gleaming with amusement. Obviously she’d really impressed him, she thought, her temper starting to get the best of her.
“What I don’t understand,” Cort said, “is what that reporter wanted. All the way up here from L.A. to get pictures of a few kittens.” He shook his head. “Slow news day.”
If he didn’t know about the cats, he sure didn’t know about the kittens. Part of her wanted to slap him upside the head until his ears rang. The other part of her wanted him to find out the truth for himself.
“I like the way you handled the reporter, though,” he said, looking around the compound. “He won’t be back. Still, you have some major security problems. I’ll have a look around and see what I can do.”
“Good, because we’re going to be on the six o’clock news tonight.”
He took a step toward the building. “So? What’s the worst that will happen? There’ll be a cat show here this weekend? At least you’ve got the parking for it.” He jerked his head at the space behind her truck.
His condescending attitude was the final straw. Her hold on her temper snapped. “You think you’re so hot, Mr. Spy? I’m just some crazy cat lady, right? A friend of Jeff’s, so you’re going to humor me? Fine.” She pointed to the main building. “Go right through there. Pet any kitty you like.”
Cort stared at her. She was so ticked off, he could practically see steam coming out of her ears. She sure was hung up on this cat thing. He’d better give her a chance to cool off.
Awkwardly moving forward, he went through the open door of the building. Once in the dark hallway, he could smell something musty. He inhaled sharply. An animal scent. Not unpleasant. Not Kitty Litter either. He heard odd snuffling noises and a low cough. He walked out the other side of the building onto smooth dirt. The sounds increased. There were a few grunts followed by a muffled roar. A muffled roar? He started to get the feeling things weren’t as they seemed. His crutches sank slightly into the ground. He adjusted his weight and turned to his left.
And came face-to-face with a tiger!
The black-and-gold-striped cat stared at him. Cort took a step back. He forgot about the crutches, tried to spin away, and promptly tripped and sat down hard on the ground. The tiger sniffed the air and grunted.
A pair of boots appeared next to him. He looked up past her jeans-clad legs, past her trim waist and worn blue work shirt, to the smile curving the corners of Faith’s mouth. It was, he thought with disgust, a very self-satisfied smile.
“Cats?” he said, shifting so the pain in his leg didn’t get worse.
She nodded. “Big cats.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He held out his hand.
She braced herself and hauled him to his feet. He balanced on one leg while she collected his crutches. When he’d tucked the supports under his arms, he looked around the compound.
Seven large habitats, bigger than he’d seen at any zoo, stretched out from the right of the main building. To the left, a narrow road led into the forest. Past the road, more enclosures formed a curved line. In the center of the open area were a group of telephone poles, a huge wading pool and a stack of bowling balls. The dirt had been freshly raked. All the enclosures were clean. Most had grass and trees, a few had swimming pools. In the far corner, a small cat—smaller than a tiger, he thought, but bigger than a collie—stuck its head under a man-made waterfall and drank.
“You want to explain this?” he said.
Faith tucked her hands into her back pockets. “I told you. I keep cats.”
“Uh-huh. You left out one detail.”
“No. You assumed.” Her eyes sparkled. She rocked forward onto the balls on her feet, then back on her heels.
“I could have been lunch.” He used one crutch to point at the tiger’s cage.
“Hardly.” She pulled her left hand free of her pocket and glanced at her watch. “It’s after four. You could have been a snack.”
“Nobody gets the better of you, do they?”
She shook her head. “Not without trying hard.” She looked at his leg. “How does it feel? You want to relax first and have the tour tomorrow?”
He glanced around again. He’d never been this close to a tiger before. Most of the animals had come to the front of their enclosures to watch him. Gold eyes stared. He stared back. So this is what it feels like to look into the face of a predator. The tiger he’d seen first made a coughing noise.
“He’s saying hello,” Faith told him.
“More likely he’s figuring out how many mouthfuls I’d make.” His leg hurt, but not badly. Rest could wait. “Give me the nickel tour,” he said. “Enough for me to get a feel for the place. I’ll see the rest of it tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Faith pointed to the enclosure in front of them. It was forty feet by sixty. The tiger had stretched out on the grass in front of his pool and rested his massive head on his paws. The afternoon sun caught the colors in his coat, turning the gold a deep orange and making the black stripes seem brown.
“This is Tigger.” She shrugged. “I had nothing to do with the name. It came along with him. He’s a Bengal tiger. Partially tamed.”
“Partially?” Cort raised his eyebrows. “So he’ll eat you but feel guilty?”
She laughed. The sound of her amusement, so carefree and open, made him want to hear it again. It had been too long since he’d been around people who laughed. For him, everything was life and death. It was the price he paid for fighting the good fight. Funny, he’d never thought about that particular sacrifice before.
“Most of our cats are partially tamed, which means you can go into their cages, but someone needs to be watching. A few are wild, and they have to be locked in their dens when we come in to clean.” She pointed at the compound. “In the back, there. That rock structure.”
“What? No carpeting?”
“Hardly. We try to keep the habitats as natural as possible. The water in the swimming pools and ponds is filtered. There’s a sprinkler system. Inside the den, the walls are about eight inches thick, to keep the temperature even. We’ve also got low-light video cameras in there so we can monitor the animals if they seem sick or are giving birth.”
He gave a low whistle. “This is some setup.” He looked around at the other habitats. “Are they all like this?”
“Yes. The enclosures are different sizes, for different types of cats. Cats that swim out in the wild, like Tigger here, get pools. We don’t have habitats for all of them.” Her smile faded. “They cost
