Dawn Stewardson - Wild Action

“Ahh. And he doesn’t mind being in a cage now? All by himself?”

“Oh, he’s not lonely. Bears aren’t pack animals, so he’d be on his own in the wild. And he doesn’t live in a cage. Gus didn’t believe in caging wild animals, and neither do I.”

“You mean…” Nick cleared his throat uneasily. “You mean, he wanders around loose? Like the rabbits?”

“Well, no. He’d find some of the other animals just too tempting, so he’s got a fenced field—with a pond to swim in and a bunker Gus built him for hibernating. We call it his cave.”

Nick nodded, wishing it was January instead of July. He’d be a lot happier if Attila was hibernating, because he had a horrible feeling a fence wouldn’t stop a six-hundred-pound bear that really wanted out of its field. But maybe it was declawed and detoothed and whatever.

When he asked, the look of utter horror on Carly’s face told him there wasn’t a chance. And he’d lay odds it was his forty-nine percent of the beast that included the claws and teeth.

Apparently, Carly did mind reading on the side, because she said, “There’s nothing to worry about, Nick. Attila’s a real pet.”

He nodded, but it was tough to get his head around the idea of a pet that weighed as much as three large men put together. “So…you’re not nervous working with him?”

“No, not at all.”

Without a doubt, that was the best news he’d heard since he’d learned they had a bear. He had every intention of doing his share of the work, for the next few weeks, but he’d be drawing the line at Attila. And that meant it was a darn good thing she had no problem with him.

Carly drove a little farther up the parkway, breathing a sigh of relief when she spotted the exit sign for the highway. She’d missed it more than once in the past and always had a devil of a time making her way back.

“I guess you’ve noticed I don’t have much sense of direction,” she said, pulling onto the exit ramp. “But I’ll be okay from here.”

“Good.”

“That’s how I ended up with Gus,” she went on when Nick said nothing more. “It was because I got lost.”

“Oh?”

“Uh-huh. I grew up in Kingston, which is where my parents still live. But after I finished high school I had a chance for a summer job in Toronto, and I took a wrong turn on the way there.”

Nick eyed her for a minute, making her wish she’d kept quiet. Everybody had faults, though, and surely he couldn’t think that having a poor sense of direction ranked right up there with pulling wings off flies.

“Isn’t there a major highway that runs between Kingston and Toronto?” he asked at last.

“The one we’re on now,” she admitted. “But I guess I wasn’t paying attention and zigged when I should have zagged. At any rate, the car I’d borrowed quit on me, so I walked down the nearest side road until I reached a house—which turned out to be Gus’s. And when we got talking, he mentioned he’d been looking for someone to help with the animals.”

“Then you just moved in with him?”

Nick’s tone made her look at him. Surely he didn’t think…

Just in case he did, she said, “I assume you didn’t mean moved in the way it sounded. I was an eighteen-year-old kid and Gus was fifty-nine, so there was certainly nothing like that.”

“No. No, of course not.”

“Everyone who’d ever worked full-time for him lived in the house. It only made sense.”

“Right. All I was thinking was…most eighteen-year-olds wouldn’t have buried themselves out in the country. It couldn’t have done much for your social life.”

The remark made her smile. Her mother had been worried about that from day one.

“It was worth the trade-off,” she said honestly. “I love working with animals—it’s not really like working at all. So even though I’d only intended to stay through the summer, I ended up never leaving. And Gus gradually became like a favorite uncle to me. He was the sweetest man in the world. It’s too bad you didn’t get to know him.”

“I had no chance to. He cut off contact with the family before I was born.”

She didn’t reply for a moment, trying to decide if Gus would have minded her explaining things. Finally, she said, “He never intended that to be forever, you know.”

“No?”

“No, he assumed he’d eventually be able to cope with seeing her again.”

“Seeing who again?”

Carly glanced across the van once more, her heart sinking when she saw Nick’s puzzled expression. Surely she hadn’t put her foot in it, had she? “Your parents must have told you what happened,” she tried tentatively. “Why Gus left Edmonton.”

“Well…yeah.”

Nick sounded as puzzled as he looked, which meant she had said the wrong thing.

“Actually, my parents told me all kinds of stories about Gus, but I’m not quite sure which one you were referring to.”

“Oh. Well, if you’re not, then they didn’t tell you everything. So I should have kept quiet.”

“Why? I can handle whatever you were going to say. So who did Gus think he’d eventually be able to cope with seeing again?”

She stared ahead at the highway, not wanting to answer the question. But what else could she do?

Making something up wasn’t an option. She hated being lied to, so she never lied to anyone else unless she felt it was really necessary.

“I guess it doesn’t matter much at this point,” she finally said. “But Gus was in love with your mother.”

“What!”

“It’s true,” she told him gently. “They both were. Both Gus and your father. And when she chose your father, she broke Gus’s heart. That’s why he left town.

“But he assumed that after enough time had passed he’d stop caring. I guess he never did, though. Then he learned your parents had died. I I’m sorry about that.”

“Thanks,” Nick said, hoping she wouldn’t pursue the subject. His parents had been gone for five years, but he still didn’t like to talk about the crash.

They’d taken up their Cessna knowing a storm was closing in. And ever since, he’d wished he’d objected more strongly to the way they flew regardless of the weather. Not that they’d have listened, but still…

“Gus always kept in touch with a friend in Edmonton,” Carly continued. “Which is how he knew about their accident. And about your being a detective and all.”

Nick nodded, then sat staring out at the passing countryside, his thoughts returning to the story Gus had told Carly.

He’d certainly been a sly old fox, because the truth was what Nick’s parents had told him. There was no doubt about that. From the day his grandfather discovered that Gus had made off with their money, he’d never even allowed his elder son’s name to be spoken in his presence.

But Gus had obviously reinvented his past, making it tragically romantic—which certainly fit with everything Nick had ever heard about him.

Glancing across the van, he eyed Carly for a minute. In the bright sunlight, he could see there were pale freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. Between that and the way the air conditioner’s breeze was playing with strands of her hair, she seemed a lot younger than she had in Brown’s office. Younger and very innocent-looking—the kind of woman who aroused a man’s protective instincts without even trying.

Not that she’d aroused his. The only reason he was hanging around was to protect his own interests. Hers simply happened to coincide.

“What did you know about your uncle?” she asked.

He hesitated, then said, “I guess not as much as I thought” For half a second, he’d considered telling her the truth. But since she’d cared for Gus, it would only upset her—assuming she’d even believe it