Саманта Сильвер - Busy As A Beaver

As I walked up the street, however, something seemed a little bit off. Was that a tree that had fallen over? I stopped, my mouth gaping open at what I saw. That shining sports car that had been sitting on the road in front of the house I was going to had been completely destroyed. The large tree in the front yard had mysteriously fallen directly on top of it.

And going by the teeth marks in the trunk, I knew exactly what had done it.

It looked like the beavers weren’t going to take the destruction of their property sitting down.

Great. If the guy came out and saw his car looking like that, and with beaver marks all over the tree that had taken it down, things were not going to end well for that little colony. I looked around carefully to make sure no one was peeking through the windows watching me, then pointed at the base of the tree.

“ Fulgur percutiensroa ,” I muttered. A bolt of lightning sprung from the tip of my finger and landed right at the base of the tree, where the beavers had broken it. Now, instead of it being obvious that the beavers had destroyed the car, it looked like an errant strike of lightning had hit the base of the tree instead.

Sure, it wasn’t super likely, and lightning didn’t exactly work that way, but no one would be able to argue that was what had happened. Not unless they believed in magic, that was.

Making my way up to the front door, I paused for a split second, and then knocked. I was met with a scowl from that same man a few minutes later.

“What do you want?”

“I just wanted to let you know that I had the man who works with the Wildlife Service re-route the creek further down, so it should be back to normal for you all the same.”

“Good.” The man scowled.

“Are you going to leave the beavers alone now?”

“So long as they don’t mess with my property,” the man muttered.

“Good. And if you do have any issues with them, come to me first,” I said. “I take the safety of the wildlife in this town very seriously, and believe me, if I find out that anything has happened to these beavers, I will make sure you’re punished.”

The man’s scowl grew. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll leave the dumb things alone, as long as that thing you did to keep the water level down worked.”

Good. That was the promise I wanted.

“Thank you,” I replied. “Now, when I came up here, I couldn’t help but notice…is that your car parked out front?”

“The Mustang? Yeah, that’s mine,” the man said. “Been working on her for ages.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say, but mother nature wasn’t a fan,” I said to him, motioning towards the car.

“What the—” the man cried out as he noticed the damage, rushing out past me in his bare feet. “Oh God, what happened?”

“It looks like a lightning strike,” I said with a shrug.

“Freaking mother nature,” the guy said, pacing around his car. He reached out to stroke the destroyed paneled siding.

“It was insured, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, but insurance doesn’t cover how much I loved this car,” he replied.

“Sorry,” I said awkwardly, heading off. I couldn’t help but think that he definitely deserved what he got, though. He tried to mess with the beavers’ home, so they messed with him. At least it sounded like the beavers could live in peace now.

Chapter 21

A few days later, Charles Green woke up, and he was officially arrested for the assault on Gloria and the murder of Michael Carlton. Bee and Buster were both incredibly upset that he couldn’t be charged with the assault on Buster and made sure I knew that they considered the human justice system to be incredibly biased and unfair, and that if they ever got their hands on Charles Green, he would know real cat justice.

As the cold days got even colder, the Christmas season fast approaching, I quickly found myself swamped with work. Not only did I have my regular patients to take care of, but on top of that I also ran an informal wildlife center out of my backyard, and in the winter I always had more injured animals who required longer care with me before being able to be re-released into the wild.

Luckily, however, a week before Christmas Jason promised me a nice weekend away, and after a long Friday spent taking care of a group of animals, I made my way home and got ready for the special trip.

To my surprise, Jason drove us straight from Willow Bay to the airport, and my mouth dropped open when I saw my boarding pass: Portland to Honolulu, direct flight. We were going to Hawaii.

“I haven’t packed a bathing suit,” I complained. “What with that whole ‘it’s December’ thing.”

“Don’t worry, I got Charlotte to pack a bunch of warm clothes for you one night when you were out,” Jason said with a grin. “That way you won’t look like a 30-year-old male picked out your clothes for the weekend.”

“I appreciate that,” I laughed. “Not that you dress badly , but I did catch you wearing socks with sandals that one time.”

“Hey, I was hungover that day,” Jason replied with a grin. “Now come on, let’s find some warm sun.”

Five hours later we landed in Honolulu, and I took in a deep breath as I stepped off the plane and was met with a burst of hot air. It felt like I hadn’t been warm in months, and I grinned at Jason as we made our way through the semi-open air space of Honolulu airport. Even though it was nearly nine o’clock at night – it was just about midnight back home – the temperatures had to be in the eighties.

Jason grabbed us an Uber, which took us to our hotel, right along the beach in Waikiki. I’d seen this view so many times while watching episodes of Hawaii Five-0 , but I had never imagined I’d actually be here. Certainly not on such short notice, anyway.

While it was too dark to actually see the ocean, the rhythmic pounding of the waves against the shore reached my ears from the open balcony door as Jason and I fell asleep that first night, ready for the most amazing weekend away ever. Little did I know just how amazing it was going to be.

Jason and I woke up pretty early the next morning, thanks to the time zone shift, and found ourselves seated at an Oceanside table at Duke’s restaurant, featuring the best breakfast buffet I’d ever had in my life.

Between the freshly-squeezed orange juice, made-to-order omelette bar and the coconut bread pudding, I was completely and totally stuffed by the time we left.

“Let’s go walk along the beach,” I suggested. “Unless you had something else amazing planned.”

“No, I know how you eat at buffets,” Jason laughed.

“Like a bear preparing to hibernate for the winter?”

“Exactly. I figured you’d probably want to walk it off after.”

“You know me so well.”

I took off my shoes as the two of us walked along the beach hand-in-hand, the warm sand sinking beneath my toes.

“Hey, watch it!” I heard a tiny voice say, and managed to avoid stepping on a little crab who was busy scurrying out of the way.

“Whoops, sorry,” I said to him with a smile as Jason and I continued. “Have you ever been to Hawaii?

“No,” Jason answered. “When we went somewhere warm in the winter, it was always nearby. The Bahamas, Bermuda, that sort of thing.”

“Me neither,” I said. “To be honest, I’d never actually left the Pacific Northwest, except for a trip to New York I took one summer when I was in college.”

“This place is pretty amazing.”

“I agree,” I smiled. It was nice to be able to finally relax. There were no murders to solve. There hadn’t been any more issues between the beavers and the guy living by the creek. Charlotte was getting ready to move, and I was completely comfortable with it.