“Happy?” Grady tosses his head back, releasing a laugh that shows off his straight white teeth. “I owe you an hourly wage, woman. My crew at the Bobcat doesn’t work half as fast as you.”
“Keep it. I think I owe you, remember? Bruce is sleeping like a kitten, by the way,” I say, slurping more coffee.
“Had time to check on your cat, huh?”
“That’s the first thing I did. Well, after I showered and made my bed.”
He chuckles again, a deep, resonate, weirdly pleasant sound.
“My girls could take lessons from you.” A frown forms as he stares at me. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-four.”
“And you’re a zoologist? Licensed and educated?” He nods at a chair across from him, motioning me with his big hand to take a seat.
I cross the room and do it.
“Yep. I have my master’s degree. I was going to keep going and snag my PhD, but my father suggested I should spend a few years in the field. Practical research working full time with animals before I commit myself to four more years of college.”
“You already did four years?”
“Six. My first four were for the bachelor’s, and the next two the master’s. I doubled up on courses that would count toward my PhD, so it’ll only be four more years instead of five to finish it.”
If I ever get the chance with an arrest record, I think glumly.
Grady lets out a loud whistle.
“That’s commitment. Major respect,” he tells me.
I shrug. To me, it was just life. I did what I had to.
He traces a thick, calloused finger around the top of his coffee mug, intermittently staring at me.
God. His gaze alone feels like an interrogation—or else I’m just primed to go to pieces around single men carved out of pure boulder.
“So, with that education, how the hell did you wind up in North Dakota?” he asks gently.
I hold in a sigh and set my coffee cup on the table, wondering where to start.
“I’ve called Weston, by the way. He’s checking on an alternator now,” Grady says.
Oof. Does he think he needs to guilt me into telling him?
“Thanks,” I say, then add, “I appreciate it. And I wasn’t trying to avoid telling you the dirty details. I was just trying to figure out where to start.”
“How about at the beginning?”
His grin is so cocky, I have to retaliate.
“Well, there are a lot of stories. Some start with 'Let there be light.' Others think there was a great Big Bang at the beginning of time and—”
“Very cute, smart-ass,” he blurts out, chuckling so much his chest rumbles. “I’ve heard those beginnings.”
“Have you?” I ask, secretly enjoying the good-natured way he flings my humor back at me. Some people don’t get it. Heck, sometimes I don’t get it either.
Also, he called me cute.
Sort of.
“Yes. And I deserved that one,” he tells me, shaking his head.
I touch my finger to the edge of my lips and hold it up in the air.
He bows his head, signaling his acceptance of the score.
Sassy Chick in Peril: 1.
Big Daddy Hotness: 0.
“Start with Bruce,” he says, his tone turning serious. “What made you steal him?”
“Love,” I answer instantly. “Seriously. It was love at first sight. He was my baby since the day I started at the refuge. I took extra time to treat him well, always making sure he got everything he needed. I don’t care what he is. I think he appreciates it, too.”
I have to press a hand to my heart, feeling a flood of adrenaline, love, and anguish for my poor lost tiger.
“When was that?” Grady prompts, taking another pull off his coffee.
“A few months ago. Jobs with big cats are hard to come by, so I was floored when one of my old professors forwarded me a job announcement for the rescue in Minot.” I don’t mention the fact that it arrived on the very day Dad told me he’d secured me a position with a prestigious wildlife group he’s affiliated with overseas.
That job wasn’t working with cats, though. The Minot job was. I followed my heart to flyover country and one big beast who still needs my help.
“I sent off my application that morning. Within an hour, I had a phone interview, and the rest was history.” I shrug. “They hired me practically on the spot.”
“Impressive. But?” He holds his coffee in the air, waiting for the catch.
“I’m getting there...”
I swallow hard.
There are so many things I wonder about now in hindsight...
Like I thought it was weird when I searched the rescue’s website and there wasn’t a job announcement on it. There wasn’t even a posting archived in a Google cache.
“Of course, they had to do some background checks, but in a week, I was packed and on my way to Minot. I met Bruce my second day there. That was also when I noticed that their actual cat facility was lacking, nothing like what I’d been told.”
“Yeah? How?” he urges, leaning in, those eyes like mocha swirl as the morning light hits them.
“Well, I started noticing other odd, quirky things. Pretty minor at first, almost forgettable to a normal person. Lights I was sure I’d turned off the night before glowing in the morning, markings around the cages...when I asked for maintenance logs, I was told the database crashed. We recorded everything electronically. They said their IT person was still working on recovering everything.”
I look away, taking a deep breath, before I fall back into Grady’s eyes.
“But when animals started appearing and disappearing—always in the middle of the night long after my shift ended—and little blue stickers started showing up, I pushed harder for answers.” I close a fist on the table and squeeze. “I knew something stank to high heaven.”
“Let me guess—they didn’t give you squat,” he growls, his brow cutting down like my anger is contagious.
“Everything got weirder. Creepier. I started seeing my name on things like work orders, purchase orders, transfers...documents I never authorized. I didn’t have the authority.” I sigh, shaking my head. “When I showed an order to the owners, they didn’t see the issue. They swore it was an honest mix-up, and since it was all feed and supplies, I should just let it go.”
“Bullshit,” he bites off. “Sorry. Go on.”
“That’s what I said. My name on those orders made me responsible. The one liable. My gut said panic time and told me if something went wrong, the owners would blame me. That was why my name started showing up in these stupid 'mix-ups.'”
I pause for another breath because whoa.
The look on Grady’s face takes my breath away. He’s bowed up, tense, a human thunderhead charged with righteous indignation for me.
“Anyway...” I continue slowly. “I knew I couldn’t sit back and do nothing. So I contacted a state conservation officer at the Game and Fish division after I stumbled across some animal permits that also had my name on them.”
“Game and Fish oversees exotic animals?” Grady leans back in his chair, clenching his mug tight.
“Not quite. It’s confusing because laws vary between states, even counties. In North Dakota, the actual license for a rescue facility comes from the North Dakota Department of Agriculture under non-traditional livestock. But lots of Class Three animals—your big cats, primates, bears, reptiles, and more—require permits to possess for every animal. Those come from Game and Fish. The state can get things mixed up between the two departments pretty easily.”