Only By Your Touch (6 page)

Jeremy cast Ben a distrustful look, but dutifully stepped around the table to speak to his puppy. “It’s okay, Rowdy,” he said, stroking the dog’s curly ears. “You’re just real sick, is all. We know it was a accident.”

Ben capped the syringe and stuck it into a hazardous waste receptacle under the sink. “There, you see? He just needed to hear it from you. He looks more relaxed already.”

The boy looked more relaxed, too, and the wheezing had stopped. “How come you aren’t mad?”

“It isn’t that big a deal.”

“But he went pooh on your table.”

“It’s not the first time. I always disinfect everything after treating a patient. The table will be perfectly clean before I eat on it again.”

“I’m glad I don’t have to eat supper here.”

Ben laughed, and that felt good. “Disinfectant kills the germs.” He helped Jeremy with the final wiping up, using towels and spray disinfectant. Then he sealed the plastic bag and went to open the sunroom doors. When he returned to the kitchen, he said, “This is where I performed surgery on Methuselah.”

“It is?”

Ben nodded. “My most recent patient is in intensive care under the table.”

Jeremy leaned down to look. “Wow!” he said when he saw the raccoon. “I didn’t know he was there.”

Ben was glad for the distraction. While he sterilized his tools and put them away, Jeremy carried on a monologue with the injured raccoon. Diablo, roused from his nap by Jeremy’s singsong voice, pushed up to nuzzle the child for petting. Jeremy obliged, burying his nose in the wolf’s thick fur. Watching the pair, Ben wondered if Jeremy wasn’t a kindred spirit. Few people had Ben’s extraordinary rapport with animals, but this child clearly loved them.

After disposing of the plastic bag, Ben decided the boy could stand some fluid intake, too.

“You up for some lemonade?”

Jeremy straightened and nodded eagerly. Ben fetched the pitcher from the refrigerator and poured them each a tall glass. Then he joined Jeremy at the table. The child was barely tall enough to sit on a chair and drink from his glass. Ben thought about making him a booster seat with books, then decided against it. He still remembered being six and thinking he was grown up. It stung a boy’s pride to be reminded he was still just a sprout.

Beckoned by the sound of the refrigerator being opened, Methuselah limped into the kitchen and nudged Ben’s leg. Ben rifled through the meat drawer. After finding two chunks of beef, he fed the wolf and cat their customary morning snack. The animals happily settled down to eat, Methuselah lying by the potted fig to make a mess on the floor.

Jeremy touched the puppy’s fur. “Do you think he’s gonna die?”

“He’s very sick,” Ben said carefully. “Sometimes, all we do isn’t enough, and things we love just slip away. Let’s hope that isn’t how it goes this time.”

Rejoining Jeremy at the table, Ben took a long
drink of lemonade, whistling as he came up for breath. Jeremy grinned and mimicked him, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. With Rowdy stretched between them and the coon scrabbling at their feet, a peaceful feeling settled over the kitchen.

B
en had gotten up to put the glasses in the sink when Diablo growled. The wolf didn’t raise false alarms. Before Ben could react, a crashing sound came from the front of the house. As he approached the foyer, Jeremy’s mom appeared. Behind her, the entry door still swung on its hinges.

Ben’s first reaction was anger. How dare she burst into his house without knocking? He was about to say as much when Diablo circled from behind him, gave a low snarl, and sprang for the woman’s throat.

“Diablo,
ka
!” Reacting instinctively and with a speed that surprised even him, Ben snaked out a hand, caught the wolf’s collar, and stopped the attack mid-leap. The wolf yelped and tried to twist free. “
Ka,
Diablo!
Toquet
. Sit!”

Growling, the wolf did as he was told, but Ben kept a hold on his collar.

Chest heaving, face pale, Chloe Evans cried, “Where’s my son?”

Ben noticed she was trembling, whether for herself or her child, he wasn’t sure. What impressed him was the way she stood her ground. She hadn’t backed off an inch when the dog lunged.

“Where is my son?” she cried again, her voice rising to a shrill pitch.

Ben had faced more fearsome opponents, but never an angrier one. “He’s in the kitchen.”

She wore snug blue jeans and a camp shirt of ivory silk that hugged the small but perfectly shaped breasts he remembered so well from yesterday. In the sunlight that poured through a skylight, the wind-tossed curls that framed her oval face and fell over her slender shoulders gleamed like molten copper.

Methuselah chose that moment to lift his head. “Oh, dear God,” she whispered. “Oh, dear
God
.”

Ben had completely forgotten the cougar. He held up a hand. “He’s harmless. Really.” He saw that she was staring at the blood on the cougar’s chin, recalled the horrendous stories circulating about him in town, and quickly added, “He just had his morning snack. Beef—from the market.”

“It’s not a dog,” she said shakily. “I thought it was a big yellow dog.”

“No. His name’s Methuselah. He isn’t dangerous. I know he looks—”

“Mom?” Jeremy stepped from the kitchen. “How come you’re here?”

“Jeremy!” Chloe circled Ben and Diablo to grab her son up into her arms. “You scared me half to death. What were you thinking, coming up here all alone?” She cupped a fine-boned hand over the back of his head and hugged him fiercely. “Thank God you’re all right!”

Still clutching her child, she turned to face Ben again. He knew she wanted to race from the house, but he and Diablo blocked her way. Ben almost stepped aside. Then he thought better of it. In her present frame of mind, she would drive straight to
town and tell anyone who would listen about Methuselah.

“The cougar isn’t dangerous,” he said. “I know it’s unusual, having a cougar as a pet.”

“Unusual?”

“Okay, really strange. If you’ll just let me explain, maybe—”

“Explanations aren’t necessary. What you do in the privacy of your home is your business. I just don’t want my child here.”

Ben wasn’t going to be put off that easily. “As a rule, cougars are dangerous. What most people don’t know, however, is that they’re easily tamed. Methuselah’s circumstances have made him more adaptable than most.”

Jeremy squirmed to get down. Chloe tightened her hold on him.

“The cougar got his paw caught in an illegal trap,” Ben said, determined to continue.

Her eyes grew strangely blank as he talked, making him wonder if she was even hearing him.

“If you’ll only look more closely, you’ll see that he’s almost blind,” Ben added. “All totaled, he has only three teeth left in his head, and they’re all decayed. He may knock you over with halitosis, but otherwise he’s harmless.”

Jeremy finally managed to wriggle free of her arms. When his feet touched the ground, he grabbed her hand and began tugging her toward the kitchen. Ben didn’t want her in there. She’d see all the animals, and then his goose really would be cooked.

“Jeremy,” he tried.

But it was no use. The child was talking a mile a minute. “Mr. Longtree is giving Rowdy a drink of water in his vein, Mom. You gotta come see!”

Ben had been born with a measure of fatalism,
inherited, he felt sure, from his Shoshone grandfather. The invasion of his home spelled disaster, but it was done. All he could do was pray Chloe Evans didn’t turn him in.

The last thing Chloe wanted was to go deeper into the house. That wolf had tried to rip her throat out, and no telling what the cougar was capable of. She just wanted to get her son to the car, lock the doors, and drive like a madwoman off this ridge.

Unfortunately, Jeremy was bent on taking her to see his puppy, and Chloe couldn’t think how to gracefully refuse.

At a glance, the kitchen looked normal with its custom cabinetry and high-end appliances. The counters were clean, and the dark green porcelain of the sink shone in the sunlight that poured through the sunroom windows. Chloe saw no pots or residue spills on the range top to indicate illegal drugs had been produced there.

Then she saw the cages—big ones, small ones—taking up every available space. Atop the green granite breakfast bar, a cylindrical pen of wire mesh housed an owl with a bandaged leg. At each end of the U-shaped counter, other cages were stacked three and four deep with all manner of wild creatures confined in them.

“I hope you’ll excuse the menagerie,” Longtree said from behind her. “I no longer hang my shingle anywhere, but I’m still a vet. When I come across wounded critters in the woods, I can’t bring myself to turn a blind eye. At present, the kitchen is the only place I have to treat them.”

Chloe took a hasty inventory. In addition to the owl, she saw an opossum, a rabbit, two raccoons, a one-legged quail, a silver gray squirrel, a red fox, and what looked alarmingly like an ordinary rat.

Longtree moved past her to the table. He spent a moment fiddling with the IV taped to the puppy’s leg. “I know it probably seems strange.” His black brows drew together in a frown. “No
probably
to it, it
is
strange. But I’m a vet, and these animals needed my help.”

Just that, nothing more? Given the fact that he was breaking the law nine ways to perdition, she thought he should offer more of an explanation. He knew she could turn him in and send him to jail. In Oregon, it was illegal to cage wild animals without a permit, and the state didn’t mess around when it came to prosecuting offenders.

Just last week at work, a man had been hauled in for poaching. He’d not only lost his rifle and vehicle, but he’d also forfeited his hunting privileges for two years, been fined five thousand dollars, and would serve up to twenty-four months in jail. The arresting deputy had been sporting a black eye and a bloody lip, which he’d received while trying to cuff the offender. Criminals didn’t happily surrender to arrest when they faced such stiff punishments.

Chloe hadn’t lived here when Bobby Lee Schuck brought the game wardens to Cinnamon Ridge, but she’d heard stories. Half a dozen animals had been confiscated, and Longtree had received a hefty fine along with a warning that he would be arrested if he were caught breaking the law again.

He didn’t strike her as being dim-witted, so why wasn’t he concerned about her seeing all this? An awful thought occurred to her. Maybe he had no fear of her turning him in because he didn’t intend to give her the chance.

Chloe tightened her grip on her son’s hand. Behind her, a wolf and cougar blocked her escape. Yesterday,
Lucy Gant’s allegations that this man had done murder and disposed of his victims’ bodies had seemed outlandish. Now Chloe wasn’t laughing. Normal people didn’t let an adult cougar lounge around like an ordinary house cat.

“If you don’t practice as a vet anymore, what do you do for a living?”

“This and that.”

His reply did little to allay her concerns. This home had cost him a pretty penny. He had to be making money. The question was, doing what?

“I’m a dispatcher at the sheriff’s department.”

Chloe silently congratulated herself on slipping that into the conversation. Their chances of getting out of there would be much better if he realized she was on friendly terms with individuals who would search for her if she disappeared.

He flicked the IV tube with his finger and readjusted the clip. His lips thinned, deepening the slashes that bracketed each corner of his mouth. “Jeremy mentioned that you’d just moved here. How do you like the new job?”

His burning blue gaze started at her toes and traveled slowly upward. Chloe had sworn off men, and her sensual radar was definitely rusty, but she still recognized an appreciative once-over when she got one. She locked her knees to stop them from quaking.

Oh, God
. He was a very large man. If he was bent on keeping them here, she was in big trouble. His arms and shoulders rippled with strength every time he moved, and she’d seen how fast he was with his hands when he collared the wolf. She had pitted her strength against Roger’s more than once and always come out the loser. She still remembered how it felt to see stars and manage to stay on her feet by sheer
force of will. Even worse, she knew that even willpower wouldn’t keep her standing if a man like Longtree put his weight behind a blow.

His examination of her person ended at her face. Arching one eyebrow, he met her gaze with an insolent challenge. In that moment—which seemed inexorably long—Chloe had the eerie feeling he knew what she was thinking. Even worse, the twitch of his lips told her he found her fear of him amusing.

Today the Stetson was absent, giving her a better view of his face. Black eyebrows without a hint of an arch capped eyes as blue as the ocean on a summer day. His features had the hard, sharp edges of chipped granite polished to a high sheen. He wore his shoulder-length hair loose with a multicolored braided cord serving as a headband to keep the glossy strands out of his eyes.

For the life of her, Chloe couldn’t remember what he’d asked her. Standing there, she felt numb yet excruciatingly nervous, trying to recall his last words. Her job, she finally remembered.

“So far, I love the work.” She really, really wished her voice wouldn’t squeak. “I’ve never worked in a place where everyone’s so friendly.” She swallowed to clear her throat. “Frank Bower—one of the deputies—has a daughter, Tracy, who’s turned out to be the nicest sitter Jeremy’s ever had.”

“Frank’s a good man.”

“Oh, you know him, then?” That was good. Very good.

“We went to school together.”

“Mr. Bower took me for a ride in his Bronco,” Jeremy chimed in. “I got to make the lights flash and talk on the radio!”

Longtree winked at the child. “It pays to have connections.”

“Yep.”

Chloe glanced pointedly at her watch. “We should be going. I told Tracy to call her dad if I wasn’t back in thirty minutes. I’d hate for Frank to drive all the way out here to find us.”

As Longtree studied her with cool detachment, his cheek muscle started to tic. In that moment, Chloe knew how hapless settlers must have felt when they came face-to-face with a Shoshone warrior.

“Are you threatening me, Mrs. Evans?”

Chloe’s stomach dropped. She
had
been threatening him, but she hadn’t meant for him to realize it. “Good grief, no! What on earth makes you think so?”

“Now, there’s a question.”

Chloe tried to laugh. The result was a thin, quavering cackle that sounded half-hysterical. “We just need to get going. I was just trying to explain.”

“What about Rowdy, Mommy?” Jeremy tugged his hand free from hers, ran to the table, and went up on his tiptoes to pet his puppy. “Will we come back later to see him?”

If she got her son out of here, she would never step foot on this property again.

Longtree turned to rest his narrow hips against the counter behind him. After crossing his ankles and folding his arms, he studied her for what seemed forever, staring first at her face and then taking another measure of her person with an insolent slowness that made her skin burn.

His eyes gave away nothing of his thoughts. “I have no intention of keeping you here. If you want to take Rowdy with you, that’s fine, too. However, before you make that choice, understand the consequences. The pup is burning up with fever and dangerously—” He glanced at Jeremy, fell silent, then changed course. “He’s dehydrated, and I felt mild cardiac fibrillation
when I took his pulse. Neil Fenderbottom’s a good vet, but he’s got a heavy patient load. If you take Rowdy to the clinic, chances are they’ll put him in a cage and get to him as quickly as they can.” He lifted a black eyebrow. “Time is of the essence. If you’d like to chance it, that’s your choice.”

The word
choice
rattled around in her head. Her stomach, knotted with nerves, did a funny little bump and roll. He didn’t mean to keep them here then?

Searching his eyes, Chloe saw that he didn’t. She also realized that he was coldly furious because she’d thought he might.

“I see.”

“I would hope. My business is healing, not harming irrational women and helpless little boys.”

Chloe couldn’t think of a single thing to say.