“What?”
“I could mark my territory.”
She smothered a laugh. “You want to pee on the pole?”
“Why not?”
“Because territorial instincts are triggered by competing members of the same species. Your urine won’t scare off a lion.”
“Aren’t lions afraid of humans?”
“Some are, but Zuma’s not threatened by the sight of you or even the guns. Peeing on the pole will only get it wet.”
“Well, damn.”
“Do you have to go?”
“I can hold it.”
Helena was thirsty, hungry and tired. The sun shone directly overhead, indicating it was near lunchtime. She felt light-headed and claustrophobic, in addition to acrophobic. She didn’t have to pee, though. Small favors.
“I know,” he said. “I’ll rig a lasso with my belt and pull up the tranquilizer gun.”
“Your belt isn’t long enough.”
“I’ll attach it to a sock.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “It’s not stiff enough, either.”
He smiled at the unintentional double entendre, rubbing a hand over his jaw. The lump on his brow didn’t detract from his good looks. It just gave him a manlier edge, like the scraped knuckles.
“You won’t be able to pick up the gun without wire or a hook,” she said. “Something prehensile, like a tail.”
“Where are the flying monkeys when we need them?”
She grimaced at the mention.
The Wizard of Oz
had terrified her as a child. Iceland wasn’t known for its gentle fairy tales, but she’d always been puzzled by the American affection for such a disturbing movie.
“Not a fan of flying monkeys, I take it,” he said.
“No.”
He took his cell phone out of his pocket. “Do you want to text someone?”
They were still pretty high off the ground, and her palms were sweaty.
“I’ll do it for you,” he offered.
“My mother’s number should be there.”
He scrolled with his thumb. “Kat Fjord?”
“Yes.”
“What message?”
“Just tell her that I’m still at work, and I’m okay.”
After sending the text, he glanced up at her. “Anyone else?”
Helena thought of Gwen, her best friend since childhood. She owned a tattoo parlor downtown, but it didn’t open until noon. Helena hoped Gwen had been in a safe place during the earthquake. “You could try Gwen.”
“Gwen?”
“She’s a friend of mine.”
“I remember her. Dark hair, tattoos.”
It didn’t surprise her that Josh had noticed Gwen. She was pretty and unusual. Sometimes she stopped by the zoo to do animal sketches or have lunch with Helena.
“What’s her number?”
She started to recite it but drew a blank. “I don’t have it memorized. All of my contacts are stored in my phone.”
He accepted this answer, but he still seemed curious.
“What?”
“Nothing. I was just wondering why you thought of calling her before…”
Her boyfriend. Helena’s stomach clenched with unease. Mitch was smart enough to contact her mother for news, but she felt guilty about not trying to reach out to him. Instead, she’d fantasized about touching Josh.
He put the phone away. “It’s none of my business.”
She agreed. The next few minutes passed in tense silence. Josh wasn’t good at stillness. He shifted his weight back and forth, stretched his neck muscles, readjusted his grip. Either he had to pee really badly, or he was drumming up the nerve to say something.
She focused on the nearby tree branches, glancing down at Zuma every so often. The aviary must have collapsed, because there were exotic birds flitting around. Maybe one would land near Zuma and inspire a chase.
“For the record,” Josh said, “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend when I asked you out.”
She closed her eyes, wishing he’d leave the subject alone.
“I’m not a poacher.”
“Why are you bringing this up?”
“Because you’ve given me the cold shoulder ever since.”
She’d given him the cold shoulder before, too. But he was so used to adoring women, he hadn’t recognized it.
“I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable,” he said. “I didn’t mean to.”
Helena steeled herself against those words. She didn’t want to feel a connection to him. It was harder to resist a man who cried for his sister and apologized in earnest. “I’m not giving you the cold shoulder. This is just my personality.”
“If you say so.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I’d rather know what I did to offend you.”
She clenched her fists around the metal rung, making a revving motion. He was using his sneaky conversational skills on her, and they were working. She couldn’t deny him a simple answer. “I thought you asked me out as a joke.”
“Why would I do that?”
“To make the other guys laugh.”
“They did laugh,” he admitted.
“I saw them.” Later that afternoon, she’d spotted him with a group of male keepers. She’d walked by them on her way to the staff building, and they’d started guffawing like hyenas as soon as they thought she was out of earshot.
“Louis told me you didn’t have a boyfriend. He set me up to get shot down, so yeah. They laughed their asses off.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him again, evaluating his sincerity. It sounded like something Louis would do. Those guys loved to play pranks on each other, the dirtier the better. She should have considered this explanation before.
“They weren’t laughing at you,” he said. “And I would never ask out a woman as a joke. That’s a dick move.”
She flushed at his implication. She
had
assumed the worst of him. “I don’t always know how to interpret people.”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t come easily to me. I’m better with animals.”
“I’ve gathered that.”
“I’m also not a native English speaker.”
“You’re not?”
“I’m from Iceland. We speak Icelandic there.”
“Huh.”
“I wasn’t fluent until the third or fourth grade. So I got teased for having a weird accent, among other things.”
“Like what?”
“My height and lack of…good humor.”
“Oh.” Exactly the same things he ribbed her about.
“They called me Morticia Addams.”
“Morticia Addams is sexy.”
Her stomach fluttered with warmth. Her classmates hadn’t meant it as a compliment, but Josh did. She believed that he found her attractive—and it felt good to be wanted. On the other hand, he was young and hot-blooded. Judging by the amount of flirting he did, he had a roving eye and an overactive libido.
“I tease you because I like you,” he said. “That’s why I asked you out, too.”
“You like a lot of women.”
“Is that why you said no?”
“You know why I said no.”
“What if you didn’t have a boyfriend?”
“I did, and I do, so let’s drop it.”
“Okay,” he said, agreeable. “Tell me about Iceland.”
“It’s cold, and isolated, and surrounded by water.”
He laughed at this terse description. “Why did you leave?”
“My dad sent for us when I was five.”
“He came here first?”
“He was born here. He got stationed in Keflavík near the end of the Cold War.”
“Navy?”
“Air force.”
“How long was he there?”
“Long enough to get my mother pregnant.”
“So you didn’t meet him until you were five?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you like him?”
“I don’t remember much about him,” she said, which wasn’t quite true. He’d been brash, and affectionate, and handsome. She hadn’t understood what he was saying half the time, but she’d liked him. “He died when I was eight.”
“Shit,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”
She was sorry, too.
“Have you been back to Iceland since then?”
“Once, when I was sixteen. We went for my grandmother’s funeral. By then I was so Americanized I could hardly speak Icelandic.”
“Were you sad?”
She didn’t know if he meant the loss of her grandmother or the loss of her language. “Yes,” she said, to both.
“Where’s your mom now?”
“She lives in Oregon.”
“Are you still close?”
“Very close. She visits every Christmas.”
“You don’t go there?”
“No.”
“Because you don’t like flying,” he ventured.
She made a noncommittal sound, reluctant to say more. He’d retrieved a shocking amount of personal information from her in a short time. He was a good listener, which probably put women at ease.
Josh seemed to get the message that she didn’t want to talk and stopped trying to engage her, but he managed to be just as intrusive when he was quiet. He removed his belt and one of his shoelaces. Needing both hands free to work, he bent his forearm around the guard before securing a loop to the end of the belt. Then he reached into his pocket for a set of keys. He uncoiled one of the key rings and twisted the thin metal into a hook.
Once the hook was attached to the belt, he put the loop around his wrist. The contraption still wasn’t long enough to reach the guns, so he added his tactical baton, using it like an extension of his arm.
“Give me the pepper spray,” Helena said.
Josh handed it to her. They both moved down on the ladder and got into position at the bottom of the guard. They were vulnerable to attack here, guard or no guard. Zuma couldn’t climb the pole, but she could jump at least ten or twelve feet high. With a well-placed swipe, she could do a lot of damage.
He lowered the hook while Helena watched Zuma. The big cat didn’t seem interested in what they were doing. She yawned, displaying sharp incisors.
Josh’s hook hovered above the strap of the tranquilizer gun, not quite touching it. He descended another step and tried again. It was a risky move, but this whole strategy was dangerous. Helena’s pulse raced as the hook slid along the edge of the gun strap and almost caught.
Then a sandy-brown blur sailed across the space.
Zuma.
Helena let out a little squeak of panic and pressed the button on the spray canister, sending an arc of chemicals through the air. Some of the mist hit Zuma’s torso and tail as she lunged for the belt. She bit into the leather with so much force that the baton flew out of Josh’s hand. He nearly lost his balance. Helena moved her arm and took aim for a second shot, not realizing she was still holding down the button.
Josh got sprayed instead of Zuma.
Maybe the toxic cloud saved him from another attack, because Zuma fled the scene as quickly as she’d entered it. She retreated to the nearby bushes, where she paced back and forth in agitation. Josh started coughing and spitting. His eyes watered from irritation and his face turned beet red. He looked as if he wanted to peel his own skin off. Although he didn’t vomit, he gagged several times.
Helena felt terrible for him. Tucking the offending canister into her pocket, she rubbed his arm and made soothing sounds. It took him about five minutes to recover. He straightened, clearing his throat.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Why did you
do
that?”
“It was an accident! I missed the first time, and when I tried again, you were in the way.”
He spat on the ground again. “Remind me not to stand next to you when you’re holding an assault rifle. Christ.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, cringing.
“At least it wasn’t a direct hit.”
“It wasn’t?”
“My head was turned. I can’t imagine taking a full shot to the face.”
“Most men can’t.”
He squinted at her blearily.
“Never mind. It’s kind of a girl joke.”
“I get it,” he said. “I just can’t believe you said it.”
“I thought it would make you feel better.”
They moved back to their higher perches. His belt contraption lay coiled on the ground next to the weapons. Zuma continued to pace, saliva dripping from her jowls. The chemicals had irritated her, too.
“Do you think she’ll attack again?” he asked.
“I don’t know. She might be afraid.”
“Or she could be ready to rage.”
“Yes.”
He tried to radio Trent again, with no response. Zuma settled down in the shade and licked her paws. Helena had no idea how long the lion would guard the base of the pole. It could be minutes, hours, even days. She looked up at the sky. Dark smoke clouds marred the brilliant blue expanse. There were structure fires in the area, maybe entire neighborhoods engulfed.
“What now?” Josh asked, following her gaze.
“We wait.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
J
OSH WAS MISERABLE.
He’d learned about patience and lying in wait for the enemy during his stint in the navy. He’d endured countless hours on a narrow bunk in a tiny cabin on a huge ship. But he hadn’t enjoyed those aspects of military service, or many others. He preferred the constant motion and varied challenges of his zoo security job. Working outdoors in San Diego was a beautiful thing. He loved the weather, the diversity, the upbeat energy…the women. Seeing hot women in short shorts was a hell of a perk.
He also liked kids. Kids were cool.
What he didn’t like was inaction. They were in the middle of the worst disaster in the city’s history. There were wild animals running loose and fires breaking out all over the place. Chloe and Emma might be injured or desperate for help¸ and he couldn’t do a damned thing about any of it. He was stuck on this fucking pole, twenty feet off the ground. He was thirsty, hungry and sick with worry. His eyes were raw from the smoke and pepper spray. The lump on his brow ached, and his bladder was about to burst.
He looked up at Helena. She hadn’t spoken in over an hour. Which was a pity, since he hung on every word she said. He was fascinated by her background, her no-nonsense attitude, her unexpected sense of humor. She’d made a dirty joke with a straight face. He didn’t know whether to be intimidated or turned on.
That was part of the draw, though. She unsettled him and excited him at the same time. Something about her stern-taskmaster persona, combined with the enticing hint of softness underneath, struck him as erotic.
The afternoon stretched into infinity. Elephants trumpeted. Monkeys screeched. Smoke clouds drifted across the sky.