Saturday.
She turned the radio up and settled back, trying to let the music distract her. When that didn’t work, she thought about the first class she’d interpreted that morning. It had been a lit class with only a handful of students. Katie liked the class, the teacher and the student. She hated leaving him at the beginning of the semester, but since the law required that two translators be available per class, not that much would change for him. He would still have his other regular translator.
Katie turned off the music and instead switched over to an audio book. It worked, just barely, at limiting the unease she felt and also kept her awake. Abilene and then El Paso slipped by, and Katie focused on the evening shadows of the nearly deserted roads.
Her book ended as she drove through a tiny New Mexico town. She stopped for snacks and a bathroom break as she crossed the border into Arizona. The last of the evening dusk turned to inky blackness. Black as a panther...ready to strike....
She selected another audio book, as none of her music CDs could counter her memories of the past. A past she’d only wanted to forget.
At midnight, she figured there was still time to turn the car around. After all, she didn’t owe her dad anything. She’d gotten rid of his animals; he’d gotten rid of his children.
He’d claimed at the time it wasn’t safe to have two little girls around so many wild animals. He’d stressed the word wild as if it meant something.
She’d take a wild animal over Aunt Betsy any day.
But it wasn’t the memory of her father that kept her driving to Arizona, it was the memory of a black cat that she’d loved. Aquila.
Scorpion Ridge came into view just as the rooster crowed. Arizona looked nothing like Texas. There were no rolling green hills. Just brown dirt, the occasional somewhat dwarfed tree and lots of cacti.
Eyes gritty from lack of sleep, Katie checked the map and decided to go ahead and see if she could find Bridget’s AZ Animal Adventure. It wouldn’t be open yet, but maybe that was for the best. She could explore the park when only the keepers were there.
Katie took a breath as she turned onto the street that led back to a destiny she’d never chosen for herself.
* * *
LUKE HAD BEEN up since four, crunching numbers and trying to figure out if he had the money to pay Katie Vincent for her time.
So far, it looked like not.
Though really, he’d known that before he’d reached for the calculator.
Plus, what would he be paying her for? How much extra was she willing to do? He needed Ruth’s advice.
At six, he left his apartment and drove to work. It was only a five-minute drive, but today it seemed to take longer as he contemplated Katie’s arrival.
The new animals he’d acquired from her had been a leap of faith and just one of the many changes Luke had brought to Bridget’s.
During his first year at the animal park, before they’d even added Bridget’s name to the adventure, his goal had been to make the struggling animal park self-supporting. Back then it had been just him, Ruth, Fred the veterinarian and a handful of volunteers. They’d needed to expand.
He wasn’t a natural with all of the animals, so he’d hired Meredith and devoted his time to the animals he knew best.
He’d started with the fifteen burros. He’d redesigned their enclosures, written their history and not only put them on display but added brief rides for kids.
Later, he added mules so the bigger folk could ride, too. And with a little advertising, the burro and mule rides brought a trickle of paying people to Scorpion Ridge.
The trickle turned to a steady flow on the weekends. It was enough to establish hope, but not enough to make ends meet or fulfill his plans to expand.
So he brought his best friend, Adam, in. Adam’s price was perfect: a place to live. At night, he answered the phone and acted as a security guard. During the week, he painted. Thanks to Adam, the zoo had artwork scattered throughout: snakes on the snake house, camels drinking from water bottles on the main concession and, best of all, a playground area that was alive with depicted animals.
On the weekends, Adam also sold caricatures of the visitors. Sometimes Luke thought Adam made more money than the burros did.
The kid-friendly atmosphere brought in more crowds, giving Luke some capital to expand—which he’d spent on Bob’s animals. The first risk Luke feared wouldn’t pay off.
Luke drove his truck into the parking lot of Bridget’s and got out to unlock a side gate.
“Hey, boss.”
Adam called Luke “boss” just to annoy him. Luke doubted Adam could get along with a real boss.
“Hey.” Luke didn’t have time to talk. Adam loved art and thought everyone else should, too. Stopping to talk to Adam usually meant a paintbrush in Luke’s hand. So he just drove through the gate, closed it and parked near the camel area.
* * *
IN THE PREDAWN HOUR, the birds were especially noisy, but the burros and mules clamored in, too. It also seemed the only time Terrance chose to roar was when no one was around, like now.
Luke first headed for his office to drop his briefcase off. Then he went looking for Jasper and Ruth. He found them in the turtle pen, of all places, working on one of the shelters that had somehow fallen overnight. They were a great team when they weren’t competing.
“Where’s Meredith?”
“She was here a moment ago,” Ruth said. “I think she went to check on Aquila.”
Before Luke had a chance to respond, static sounded on his radio. Luke reached for it. It was Meredith.
“There’s a disturbance at the panther pit. I think somebody’s over there.” Before Luke could ask her what was wrong, or who, exactly, might be there, Jasper stopped what he was doing, cocked his head and listened a moment before saying, “That’s what Aquila sounds like when he’s upset.”
“I don’t hear anything,” Ruth protested.
It didn’t matter that Luke didn’t hear anything, either. He was certain Jasper did, and that was enough to inspire an Olympic-style sprint toward the panther enclosure.
About the time Luke reached his destination and skidded to a stop, he realized Jasper was beside him. Who knew the old man could move that fast?
He was probably thinking what Luke was thinking.
Katie Vincent had arrived.
More than anything, Luke hoped he was wrong, because if the tall blonde standing frozen in front of Aquila’s enclosure was Katie, Bridget’s was in trouble.
“Katie,” Jasper said sharply. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
Aquila paced, venting his displeasure with a twitching tail. Even as Luke slowly moved toward
