Читать книгу Paws And Proposals - Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 25

Christmas Day

STARING at a hole in the ground was as good a way as any to spend Christmas. Not the merriest of holiday spirits, but December the twenty-fifth hadn’t been Ingrid’s favourite time for several years. Although she did rather enjoy the double-time-and-a-half Christmas bonus. Plus overnight allowance.

She stretched her spine, resettled in the sling-back chair and let her eyes scan the four CCTV feeds showing the exhibit, the still-vacant den interior, and a close-up on the entrances of two dens: the one the zookeepers had had specially built for wild dog Mjawi—and then disguised an access hatch in—and the one the first-time mother had dug for herself, right next door.

No man-made elements. No sneaky human access.

Smart dog.

There was still nothing on her observation report except the alpha pair coming and going for the past twelve hours. With long nap times in between.

Not a sign of the elusive pups.

‘Mon dieu …’

She wouldn’t have heard it normally—half whispered as it had been—but the bare concrete walls of the converted night-den did too good a job of amplifying the accented oath.

And the growl of disbelief that followed it.

She turned and glared at the tall shape silhouetted against the early-morning glow. ‘Good to see you, too, Gabe.’

He didn’t move from the doorway. But his head did drop just slightly. ‘Sorry, I was expecting …’

Someone else? Anyone else? I’ll bet. ‘Cara wanted to be with her kids over the holidays. We swapped shifts.’

‘Just today?’

Was he seriously not going to enter the room if she was in it? Wasn’t that taking things a bit too far? ‘All of them. Right through to New Year.’

He let his breath out slowly. ‘Okay.’

But an okay from Gabriel Marque usually meant he was anything but. Which pretty much matched her feelings exactly.

‘How about you?’ she asked.

‘Day shift. Through to New Year.’

Oh … joy. A whole week working parallel roster.

She pushed to her feet. ‘Well, if you’re here that means the night shift is officially over. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘What about handover?’ he said, stepping in from the daylight into the low light of the monitoring room.

She didn’t need full light to see him clearly. Hazel eyes, long straight nose, tanned skin. The tiny mole to the left of his amazing top lip. Perpetually mussed brown hair. The tattoo that reached up from his shoulder blade to rest its inky fingers on the pulse point just below his jaw. Her brain was perfectly accustomed to conjuring the tiniest details of his appearance with or without his presence. Usually at the most inconvenient times.

‘Everything’s on the observation report. Nothing, to be specific.’

‘Still no sign?’

Amazing how civil things were between them in work mode. ‘Nope. She’s still in the B-den. No sign of the pups.’

‘And no change to the den?’

‘Not so far—though it’s not the best-looking entrance I’ve ever seen.’

Gabe shook his head and Ingrid flushed. As if she’d seen more than one wild dog den—ever. He’d been working this round for sixteen months, and he’d worked with dogs in Zimbabwe three years before that. There was no one in the zoo who knew more about the captive husbandry of African wild dogs. Although that might have been different if she’d been successful in transferring from vet nurse to zookeeper a year ago.

If Gabe hadn’t snaffled the vacancy of wild dog keeper out from under her.

If he and his hot accent and good looks hadn’t swanned in and won more people over in three months than she’d been able to in six years. He’d taken one look at their zoo and the professional opportunities available and done everything he could to turn his short-term exchange into something more permanent.

Including undermining her.

She shot to her feet. ‘Well, I’m going to get cleaned up before the staff Christmas lunch in the mess room.’

‘That’s not for four hours.’

Um … Nothing clever came to her. Her mind was the usual blank grey it was whenever Gabe was around.

‘Ingrid …’

Did he have to say it like that—more like a purr than a word? She took a deep breath and looked up at him.

‘Are you going to be able to do this? For a week?’

See him every day? Up close and personal and in the dark? Listen to that accent? The man who betrayed her?

Sure.

She smiled her most vacuous smile. ‘I’m used to the night shift, Gabe. Who do you think does the nocturnal watches up at the hospital when we’re hand-rearing something?’

His lips flattened in that way they always did when he was annoyed and he stared at her. ‘That’s not what I’m asking.’

Because he was on watch and not formally on duty he only had half his official zoo uniform on. A distinctly non-uniform black T-shirt was tucked into the work cargos that hung off his hips. It moulded to every curve of his defined torso and suddenly loomed hard and male in her vision.

She swallowed. ‘Then what are you asking?’

His hazel eyes narrowed.

‘Are you going to be able to get past the fact we slept together?’

Ingrid’s delicate chin kicked up the moment the words left his lips and Gabe struggled not to respond to her courage. He’d always been drawn to strong women, and that quiet resilience was one of the things he’d admired about her when he’d first come to work here. Right after her pale blue eyes and spun-gold hair.

Slept together.

Such an understatement for what that night had meant. And technically incorrect, too: there’d been no sleeping. A lot of touching. A lot of talking. A lot of heavy breathing. Neither of them had wasted a moment. Almost by agreement.

She crossed her slim arms hard across her chest, making herself into a human bullet. ‘You think I lie awake at night wondering what went wrong between us?’

Strength had its down side. But he was a Marque, and well-practised at not reacting to sarcasm. ‘I would be a fool to imagine that.’ He smiled.

And clearly his father was right; he was l’imbécile.

Besides, they both knew what had gone wrong between them. The moment he became more than just a tourist Ingrid had lost all interest. The story of his life. Gabriel Marque: for a good time but not a long time. Even here, so far from home, so far from the lessons and influence of his family, women instinctively got out before they discovered how little he had to offer.

He was a zookeeper in a family of surgeons, lawyers and politicians.

But growing up with four Romeos for brothers had taught him a thing or two about women. ‘So then it’s no big deal,’ he continued. ‘Sit. Stay a while.’

She shrugged, but the flare in her eyes told him she knew she’d walked into that one. He placed a second seat carefully next to hers just as she sank back down into it.

For a chair so comfortable she made it look as if it was lined with spikes.

‘I promised Cara,’ she said tightly.

‘I understand.’

‘I can’t go back on that. I won’t.’

‘I’m not asking you to. But we’re going to have to work together.’ Believe me, cherie, I’m not looking forward to this any more than you are. What man wanted a daily reminder of how out of his league he was?

Smart, passionate, intellectual types did not go for the runts of the litter. Not in the long-term.

On arrival he’d had his pick of the female zoo staff. Yet the only one who had snared his attention was the one paying him no attention at all. The serious one. The quiet one. The one who hid her sharp mind behind a very appropriate pair of reading glasses and her sweet body behind unisex surgical scrubs.

Not this morning. She’d thrown a pale blue cardigan over the white tank top that must have kept her cool in here over the hot Australian night, but its scoop neck showed off much more of her creamy throat and shoulders than she’d probably planned for anyone to see.

She would never have dressed so informally had she known it would be him walking in at-eight a.m.

‘It’s fine,’ she lied. ‘We’re working two totally separate parts of the day.’

Except that he hadn’t told her the whole truth yet. That he was sticking around much longer than she knew. He steepled his fingers against his lips.

‘I know that look.’ She glared. ‘What?’

‘This litter is part of my captive management thesis. I’m going to need as much direct observation as I can get.’

She stared at him, not understanding. And then a flicker of outrage formed right at the back of the pale blue pools and rushed forward. ‘You have to be kidding me! You’re going to take my shifts as well?’

As well? ‘Relax, Ingrid. I’m not taking anything. I’m putting in some voluntary hours to make sure I fulfil my research quota.’

‘But … if I leave I don’t get paid.’

‘So don’t leave.’

‘But you’re here!’

‘Although a moment longer in my presence is clearly intolérable to you—’ he shoved the discomfort of that way down deep ‘—we’ll be working. Just focus on that.’

She frowned. ‘I’ll be redundant.’

She couldn’t have said anything more likely to resonate for him. Not that she knew that. No one did. ‘I’ve got plenty of my own work to be getting on with. Besides, if Mjawi moves the pups into A-den it’s going to be much faster to get them separated, chipped and vaccinated with two of us here.’

She turned and looked at the duffle bag that had slipped from his fingers when he’d spotted her sitting there. His very full duffle bag. Her outraged eyes came straight back to him.

‘Just how long are you going to be here?’

All week. He didn’t need to say it; his expression would say it for him.

Her eyes frosted over in response, then flicked to the tiny camp bed in the corner. ‘Where are you planning on sleeping?’

‘In my car—when I need to.’

Especially since she was on the night shift. The last thing he wanted was to give Ingrid Rose hours of time with nothing to do but watch him sleep and tally up the many ways he didn’t measure up.

She stared at him, her sharp mind turning her options over. ‘Fine.’

Was there a more dangerous word on the planet? His mother used ‘fine’ a lot. Only in French, of course.

He met her eyes. ‘Okay.’

Gabe took twenty minutes to do what he could normally accomplish in ten, but he wanted to give her some space. A bit of time to accept the awkward inevitability of their situation. It had had to come up sooner or later. She’d done an admirable job of avoiding him since the day she’d walked out of his life but, for all the zoo’s size it only had a small staff, and vet nurses and keepers interacted dozens of times a day on animal care issues.

He unpacked a few essentials, read her limited report through slowly—twice—and then finally turned back to her. ‘How’s her demeanour been overnight?’

On the job. Neutral territory. Bon.

‘Hyper-vigilant.’

‘Towards the pack?’

‘Not targeted specifically, just generally watchful. Like she knows I’m here.’

‘She can smell you. Your presence overnight is probably new enough to have her on edge.’

‘Will she relax?’

‘She’s pretty adaptable. You have to be when you’re alpha.’

They fell to silence until her soft Australian voice broke it. There was a vulnerable edge to her words, as if she was extending the courtesy despite herself. She cleared her throat.

‘So … Merry Christmas, anyway.’

Christmas. Right. He’d nearly forgotten—again. ‘And to you. I’m sorry you had to spend Christmas Eve alone.’

She shrugged but didn’t elaborate.

He tried again. ‘It was nice of you to swap with Cara.’

‘She has kids.’ Again with the shrugging.

‘You don’t have to have kids to do Christmas,’ he pointed out.

She tipped her head up to him and threw him a look that was way too intuitive. ‘I’m not the one working Christmas Day.’

No. Pot—meet kettle.

He tried again and wondered why he bothered. ‘Are you doing something with your family later? After the staff lunch?’

‘Which one?’

He slid into the seat right next to her and decided to take that sarcastic little snort literally. Opportunities to get to know her better came too rarely to pass up. ‘How many families do you have?’

Her lips tightened. ‘I’ll do something with them later on.’

Funny how she made herself look at him. Almost like a challenge. Most people would look away when they were lying.

So … More than one family, but no one to spend Christmas with.

Intéressant.

‘Gabe—’

She sat bolt upright as a dry black nose and a dark, scrappy snout slowly poked out of the entrance to B-den on the CCTV monitor. The keepers in the adjacent exhibit had started clanking and opening up for the day. B-den was barely more than a hole in the ground, dug into the compacted dirt mounded up high against the concrete night quarters, but every time the female or the male squeezed in or out of the opening the hole got marginally bigger.

And marginally less stable.

Their interest in encouraging Mjawi to move her litter back to A-den was because it was made of thick ply and wouldn’t collapse in an earth tremor, let alone under the constant traffic of a litter of young dogs. As well as the fact it had an access hatch built in to it to let them check up on the pups.

His breath stilled as a golden head with dark satellite dish ears pushed out into the open and Mjawi’s patched black, honey and white body followed, eager for breakfast. If she didn’t eat, the pups didn’t eat.

He and Ingrid both released their disappointment on a hiss as nothing but dust followed her out of the den.

Immediately after Mum went out another dog came and flopped down at the entrance to the den, guarding while she couldn’t. Ingrid scribbled the time and the event on the observation report.

‘How late are they emerging?’ she asked carefully, as though it was some kind of reflection on him as senior keeper if his animals were tardy in developing.

‘In captive terms, not that late. Plus whatever disturbed her out of A-den might have made her cautious enough to keep them in longer.’

‘I suppose we do know they’re in there at all?’

If he hadn’t been a student of those guarded eyes and their many expressions for so long he might have taken that seriously. He reached over and plucked a disk from the pile stacked next to a spare monitor and player and tossed it to her. ‘Watch this.’

Her laugh warmed him. A year was a long time to go without that feeling. ‘Are you kidding? What do you think I entertained myself with all night? The birth was amazing.’

He shrugged. ‘So they’re in there.’

‘Yeah, but how many? I couldn’t even begin to count them. Between the low light, Mjawi’s body blocking the view, and the solid colour of their birth coats they were just a writhing mass of black fluff.’

‘That’s why we’re here.’

Numbers, genders, vaccines and microchips. As soon as humanly possible. Sooner, preferably.

‘What’s your research about?’ she asked, when the silence weighed too heavy.

He stretched out a foot and jogged the edge of the mini-fridge set up under the monitoring gear. It opened with a jiggly clank, revealing the various vaccines every pup would need carefully housed in their ampoules. Ready to go as soon as they could get the pups separated from Mum for long enough. Every moment they went without immunisation was a moment longer that the virus could take hold.

‘Captive management of a diseased population. Looking at methodology to eradicate viral strongholds over generations.’

Her eyes grew keen. As though he’d been speaking his native language until now and had just begun to speak hers.

‘Is that why you came to our zoo? Because our collection had the virus present?’

Every muscle fibre tightened. It wasn’t an unreasonable question, but it was unbearable coming from her. Someone looking to judge. Because it only highlighted all his deficiencies and all the reasons he judged himself.

But he wasn’t going to start avoiding his responsibilities, either.

‘No. The virus wasn’t in the collection when I arrived.’

Ingrid’s sharp mind worked it through and he saw the moment she arrived at the truth. Her eyes flared just slightly. ‘Oh.’

‘Hopefully my work can contribute to the solution.’

Since he’d contributed so directly to the problem.

Indecision clouded her usually clear eyes. She wanted to say more. He steeled himself for the inevitable criticisms.

‘Well … Good luck with it—’

Vraiment? That was all she had to say? But it couldn’t be. It never was. There was always a subtext.

‘—let me know what I can do to help.’

And there it was … The patronising tone he’d grown up with. The unspoken implication that he wasn’t up to the task without a support team. Why? Because it was medical in nature? He had the senior vet—her boss—overseeing the study. And he’d worked with infected populations in Africa. He didn’t need seven years in medical school like his brothers in order to finalise a research project.

Instantly the faces of his family swam across his vision. He forced them away.

‘Just do your job.’ He frowned. ‘That will help.’

The spark of professional interest in her eyes dissolved immediately, replaced by caution. Guilt nibbled at the edges of his mind, but he knew from experience that offers like that, no matter how nicely delivered, were always code for something else.

Something less nice.

Ingrid folded her arms again and turned her face back to the monitor to stare at the dog still guarding the entry to B-den, his white-tipped tail flicking regularly at the first flies of the day. A heartbeat later she pushed up and out of the chair.

‘Technically my job doesn’t start until tonight. So … I’ll leave you to it.’

She scribbled her sign-off in the margin of the observation report, picked up her bag and crossed to the door. Offence saturated her posture but he didn’t let himself be swayed.

If she didn’t like to be snarled back across boundaries she should learn not to cross them.

Simple as that.

But it didn’t feel simple as her soft words reached him from the door and wiggled their way straight down between his third and fourth ribs.

‘Merry Christmas, Gabe.’

And then she was gone.

And he was alone.

And that was just a little bit too familiar.