Her Rugged Rancher (29 page)

“Shocking.”

She elbowed him. “I told you before, it's not his fault he's big. But you're right, he is a bit intimidating. Luckily the office staff knows he's nothing but a big teddy bear.”

Mollie led the way into the simple wooden building, pointing out a small, tasteful plaque with the Sandpiper Inn logo near the door. “They had to put on a new roof a few months ago, and the Sandpiper donated most of the materials. Nic actually came out and helped with the installation, as well. Some of the animal enclosures are sponsored by other local businesses.”

There weren't many people in the office at this hour, or really any hour. It was a bare-bones kind of operation. But Tara, an intern from the University of Florida, and Dylan, the director, were already hard at work, bent over a spreadsheet that, she was willing to guess showed too little money coming in and too much going out. It was always that way, but somehow Dylan managed to make it work. He had an MBA from Harvard and a magic touch when it came to soliciting donations. His charm and good looks didn't hurt, of course. Once upon a time, she'd had a crush on him, but he'd never seen her as anything but a friend. Now, looking at the bleach-blond hair spilling over his blue eyes, she didn't feel anything. No, it was the dark, brooding artist beside her that had her heart racing and her girly parts keeping time.

Baby, however, still had a thing for the guy, and was currently trying to squirm his considerable girth in between Dylan and his cheap metal desk. The scrape of aluminum on terrazzo flooring made it clear Baby wasn't taking no for an answer.

“Baby, stop that! Have a little dignity, for heaven's sake.”

Ignoring her, the big pooch flopped down in the space he'd created, rolling over to beg a belly rub. Unfazed, Dylan, who'd known Baby almost as long as Mollie had, just leaned down and scratched the dog while continuing to pore over the numbers in front of him. “Hi, Dylan, sorry to interrupt.” She gave a pointed look at Baby. “But I wanted to see if there was anything you need me to do while I'm here.”

He looked up from his desk, as if finally noticing her. “Hey, I didn't think you were on the schedule today.”

“I'm not. But I'm giving Noah here a tour, and figured I might as lend a hand if you needed it.”

“That's right. You did say you might bring someone by. Sorry, it's been a bit crazy here. Not that that's any different than usual.” He stood, extending a tanned hand to Noah. “Nice to meet you.”

Mollie watched the two men shake hands and nearly sighed. They were both beautiful specimens of the male gender, one blond, one dark, both simmering with testosterone and some undeniable quality that made men so interesting. But only one of them made her toes tingle when he looked at her. Which, given the circumstances, was one too many. Still, she couldn't help but hope that he'd see some of what she saw in this place, that he'd get why she came here week after week. Too often, she was the odd one out, the misfit, but here the animals accepted her for who she was. No one else in her life did that.

Except for Noah.

Damn, she was in serious trouble.

* * *

Noah shook the proffered hand, then looked around the room. The floors were bare, and the office furniture the staff used was thrift-store chic at best, but there were some hand-carved chairs for visitors and an amazing array of framed wildlife photos lining the walls, each with a name plaque beneath it. “Mollie says you do some good work here.”

The taller man shook his head. “Not me—I just try to keep the roof from caving in, sometimes literally. Our volunteers do all the real work. Like Mollie, she's our official, but unpaid, photographer. The framed prints and postcards she lets us sell raise quite a bit of money, and she took all the photos on the website, too.”

So she was the one behind the gorgeous pictures hanging on the walls. Still listening, he moved in to get a closer look, a germ of an idea forming in his head.

“She also developed an operational conditioning program that's she's teaching to all the other volunteers. We're incredibly lucky to have someone of her skill here.”

Mollie blushed. “I do some clicker training with the animals and taught the other staff how. It's not rocket science.”

“What's clicker training?”

“It's a form of operant conditioning,” Dylan explained. “It uses positive reinforcement to get the animal to offer the behavior you're looking for without stressing them out. Lots of trainers do it, with domestic and zoo animals, but some are better than others. Mollie's one of the best. Speaking of which...” He grabbed a sticky note off his desk. “Since you're here, could you swing by Simba's enclosure? He's refusing to go into the holding area, and Krissy can't get in there to clean. I was going to try to make it down there myself in a bit...”

“But you've got your hands full. No problem, I'm on it.” She swiped a lanyard off a peg in the wall and waved goodbye to Tara. Dylan was already back at work and didn't seem to notice them leaving. Noah would be offended, but he wasn't exactly a people-pleaser himself when he was working. He understood intensity first hand. As did Mollie, who was already halfway out of the room, intent on helping Simba, whoever that was.

Following her to the back door of the office, he was amused to see that Baby had positioned himself directly under Dylan's desk and was now operating as a living footrest. The big beast was so docile he was practically inert.

The rest of the building seemed to be a combination of an animal hospital and wildlife cafeteria. Chrome cages, several holding injured wildlife, lined the walls. He spotted a pelican with a bandaged wing, a turtle with a cracked shell held together with what looked like modeling clay, and a very small squirrel. Other cages had towels draped across their fronts, perhaps to shade the more nocturnal species from the bright fluorescent lighting. The back wall, where Mollie had headed, held a long chrome counter top and a large sink. Under the counter were several small refrigerators as well as storage cabinets he assumed held dry goods or other equipment. A teenage boy with red hair and freckles was busy chopping up vegetables, while another boy, shorter and rounder, weighed out the food and placed it in metal dishes.

“Hey, Andy, Tom, how's it going?” Mollie greeted the boys, then dug into one of the refrigerators, pulling out a baggie of what looked like chopped meat.

“Hi, Mollie,” the stockier boy replied, a big grin on his face. His friend just nodded, his face blushing nearly as red as his hair. He wondered if Mollie knew they had the hots for her and realized immediately she'd never show it if she did. She wouldn't want to embarrass them like that. “I heard Simba's giving Krissy a hard time again. You going to help her?”

Mollie held up the baggie. “I'm going to try. If not, we'll just leave that cage for tomorrow. No one goes in there, okay?” She waited until both boys had nodded their understanding before leading him out the back door onto a mulch covered path.

“So, what's a Simba?” Images from
The Lion King
flashed in his head as they passed by wooden and steel habitats housing an assortment of wildlife.

“Simba is a very beautiful, very traumatized Florida panther. He was being held as a pet illegally until Fish and Wildlife got a tip from a neighbor.” Her stride quickened in visible agitation. “The man who owned him had starved him and used a Taser on him. He was terrified of people when he came here, and sometimes he still gets panicked.” She stopped at a large, fenced-in area, anger and pain radiating off of her. “I don't understand how anyone can be that cruel.”

He kept his silence; as far as he was concerned, jail was too good for someone that abused animals. But saying that wasn't going to help, so he just squeezed her hand in sympathy.

Beyond the fence a shadow moved, and he caught his breath. There, only a few yards away, a big tawny cat paced from one end of his territory to the other, eyes darting as if looking for danger. That such a large, powerful predator could be so anxious was just wrong; he could see why Mollie was so angry. It was disgusting the way some people treated animals.

Mollie wasn't showing her anger now, though. She'd turned it off somehow, exuding a calm confidence as she climbed over the low railing along the path and worked her way right up to the fence.

Oh hell, she wasn't going in there with the panther—was she? He'd learned to trust her judgment over the past few days, but every protective instinct in his body was screaming for him to stop her. But if he said something, she'd know he doubted her, and that would make him as bad as all the other people who had tried to control her life. He couldn't—he wouldn't—do that. Fisting his hands in his pockets to keep from grabbing her back to safety, he waited and prayed he'd made the right choice.

Copyright © 2016 by Katie Meyer

ISBN-13: 9781488002434

Her Rugged Rancher

Copyright © 2016 by Stella Bagwell

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