Carolyn McSparren - Safe At Home

“I couldn’t—I’ve—you’ve…”

“I won’t attack you.”

“Better take him up on it,” Mace said, and kneaded her shoulder gently. “I’ll fix you one of my special caffeine bombs in the morning. That’ll keep you awake until Christmas.”

She glanced at the lioness. “Do you think maybe she might wake up before I have to leave?”

“Maybe.”

That decided her. She nodded.

“You go on,” Mace said. “I’ll back your truck out and leave it outside by the front door with the keys in it. Don’t want claw marks on it if she gets out.”

“Right,” Pete said.

“Oh, and Pete, if you do somehow manage to sleep in, I’ll feed the girls in the morning and check on our patient. I’ll wake you if I need you,” Mace said.

Pete hunkered down a moment beside the cat, whose great pink tongue lolled between long, white teeth. “She’ll probably wake us up early. If she starts mouthing off inside these metal walls, it’s gonna sound like the hallelujah chorus.”

Mace yawned and opened the door of Tala’s truck. “Whatever happens to her now, my dear, take it from me, you did a fine job.”

Pete shepherded her through the door in the far wall that led down a short hall to his quarters.

“What a sweet man,” she said when the door closed behind them.

“Tell that to the vet students he’s terrorized over the years.”

“Vet students?”

“Yeah. He taught veterinary medicine for twenty-five years. Lived and breathed it. Now he’s retired, he’s terrorizing me.” Pete opened a closet door and pulled out blankets, bedding and a pillow. “Now, we have to get you out of those wet clothes.”

“I just want a flat place to lie down before I fall down,” she said, looking around. The small living room obviously also served both as office and kitchen.

The gray tweed couch was plenty long enough, but from the looks of it, was nearly as old as the doctor himself. At this point, however, lumpy mattresses were the least of her concerns.

“You can have one of my old sweatshirts.” Pete looked her up and down. “Probably come down to your knees. And I keep fresh toothbrushes in the guest bathroom.”

For unexpected female overnight guests, no doubt. The ones who did not sleep on the couch. Although if he was as gracious to them as he’d been to her, she doubted he’d have many takers. “You’re very kind.”

He seemed to withdraw instantly from her small compliment. He tossed the bedding onto the sofa, disappeared into his bedroom, and a moment later tossed a gray sweatshirt on top of the pile. “Here. The guest bathroom’s down the hall. You passed it on the way in. Fresh towels under the sink.”

“Thank you.”

“G’night,” he said and shut his bedroom door. Not quite a slam, but close.

She made up her bed, stripped off her wet clothes in the bathroom and slipped on the sweatshirt. It had shrunk so short it barely covered her crotch, but was so big through the chest and so long in the arms that she probably resembled one of his “girls.” She waved a gray arm at the mirror like a trunk and considered trumpeting, but thought better of it. She didn’t think he’d be amused.

She tried to wring some of the water out of her long braid, pulled off the rubber band that held it and loosened her hair with her fingers. Come morning it would look as though rats had taken up residence, but at least it would be dry.

She realized she had left her purse with her comb inside her truck. It could darned well stay there. She’d retrieve it tomorrow morning.

She crawled onto the couch, snuggled down and listened to the rain drum on the windows.

She’d get up early and drive to the Newsome mansion in time to have breakfast with Vertie, Irene and the kids. She could hardly wait to tell them her wild story. Surely even thirteen-year-old Rachel couldn’t act blasé about a real live lion. Eight-year-old Cody would probably beg to skip school and drive right back to the sanctuary to see for himself. Her children thought she was pretty boring. If this didn’t make her at least a little interesting, nothing would.

She heard something more like a cough than a roar from that big room. Tala was up and through the door before she gave a thought to what might be waiting for her on the other side.

The lioness eased herself up on her good right paw and raised her head as she let out another half roar.

Tala dropped to her knees beside the kennel and laid a tentative hand flat against the wire mesh, ready to snatch it away. Instead, the cat butted her forehead against the mesh, for all the world like a house cat. “Hello, baby,” Tala crooned as she worked her fingers through the mesh to scratch behind the lioness’s ears. The animal rewarded her with a low thrumming sound.

“Are you nuts?” Pete Jacobi said from behind her.

“Look, she’s awake,” Tala said softly.

The lioness sat up and bared her teeth at Pete.

“Get out of there!” He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet, then practically dragged her back through the door. Suddenly he seemed to realize he was holding a barefoot woman wearing nothing but a pair of lace underpants and his old sweatshirt. He dropped his hands and backed off, although she could have sworn that the look he gave her legs was appreciative.

A moment later he was his old grim self. “Woman, don’t you go through that door again under any circumstances. You hear me? The next time she could be sitting on top of the file cabinet waiting to bite your head off.”

“But—”

“Listen,” he said as though she were about three years old. “That is a lion in there. An L-I-O-N. It is not some big old pussycat. It is a carnivorous wild animal, and it’s hurt. It doesn’t know why it’s hurt or who hurt it, and it will not differentiate between the good guys and the bad. You, lady, are not its rescuer, you are breakfast. Are we clear on that?”

“But—”

“Are we clear?”

She nodded.

“Now go to bed and let me get a couple of hours’ sleep. And if she roars again, stick your head under the pillow and ignore her.”

But Tala found herself straining to hear another of those chuffing sounds.

After about five minutes of quiet, she began to drift off. The last face to swim into her consciousness was not Adam’s, but Pete Jacobi’s, his fierce amber eyes glowing out of a craggy face that seemed to morph into the face of a male lion with a heavy mane in place of his unruly hair. The face opened its mouth, but instead of that momentary smile she’d seen when he looked at the elephants, she saw only very long and very sharp teeth. The better to eat you with, my dear, she thought as sleep finally claimed her.

PETE JACOBI WAS HALFWAY through his morning shower before he remembered the woman asleep on the sofa. He must be in a bad way if he’d forgotten even for an instant the sight of those great legs sticking out from under his baggy old shirt. Very sexy. Much sexier than if she’d been naked.

Well, maybe not. Might be interesting to compare. He grinned at his reflection and arched an eyebrow at himself. Yeah.

Once she stopped looking like a drowned possum she’d turned into a good-looking woman. But too thin. Still, she either had gumption—or no brains at all.

He dressed as quietly at he could and opened the bedroom door. He half expected her to be up and gone. He hoped she wasn’t. It would be nice if she stayed long enough for a cup of coffee and for him to check out his perceptions about her from last night. He wanted to see whether those big dark eyes were as stunning as he remembered.

From his door he saw one very shapely leg and bare foot sticking out from under a pile of quilts on the couch, and a cloud of long, heavy black hair spread over the other end of the quilt and falling almost to the floor. Somewhere between the two, the owner of hair and leg slept on.