Cat Scratch Fever (4 page)

‘If I had any doubts, which I didn’t after tasting the food, the way you dealt with her convinced me,’ Felicia said. ‘I could kiss you!’

Debbie grinned and leant forwards again. ‘Go ahead.’ She puckered up exaggeratedly and batted her lashes at the other woman.

She was joking, but for half a second Felicia considered it. Debbie wasn’t her type, but anyone who could handle Mrs Turner deserved any reward she wanted.

Then Debbie leant back and giggled, then stood and held out her hand, seemingly all in once bouncy motion.

Felicia took her hand and said, ‘I look forward to working with you,’ and offered to walk Debbie out. She had a press release on Noelle’s cubs for Mel and José to review in advance so she wouldn’t have to bother them in the flurry after the birth – just add number and names and voila! While she could have emailed it and saved a few minutes, where was the fun in that? This way she could shoehorn a little flirtation into her mind-suckingly hectic day.

They were just heading past the visitors’ centre when Gabe wheeled around the corner and almost ran into them.

Debbie’s entire bearing changed as she got a good look at him. If she’d been joking about a kiss from Felicia, she wasn’t now. The caterer was staring at Gabe like a starving woman might look at a chocolate buffet. That, Felicia could forgive as a sign of good taste, but Gabe didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off Debbie, either.

If she didn’t do something fast, he’d start drooling and embarrass them all (well, except for Debbie, who’d probably love it). While Felicia had been ready to kiss the caterer herself for defusing the zebra tartare situation, handing over Gabe was another matter.

There were probably good, reasonable, professional solutions to the impasse. Instead, the first thing that came to mind was ashamedly high school. Felicia dropped the press release. And then turned away to bend down to pick it up. Carefully. Strategically. Straight-legged.

Her skirt wasn’t
quite
short enough for Gabe to be able to tell what sort of underwear she was wearing, but it was short enough that she was sure he couldn’t resist looking.

Upside down, she checked. He was looking, all right.

She could feel his blue eyes burning into her, as if he could see through her skirt and the even more dubious protection of her violet thong; as if he could see how blood was rushing to her clit just from being near him.

Damn, those yoga classes were really paying off.

Could he tell how much she’d like him to grab her hips and slide into her while she was upended like this? Sure, it could be an awkward position, but he looked strong enough to keep her balanced as he thrust into her. She could imagine the heat as their bodies joined.

Gabe moved his foot and caught the press release just before it blew away.

‘Thanks,’ she muttered. Great. Now he probably thought she was both a pushy flirt
and
a klutz. She grabbed the paper and straightened up, nonchalantly flipping her hair to distract from the fact that she might possibly be blushing.

But she’d accomplished her mission. While Debbie was still giving Gabe the sort of heated looks that men would kill for, Gabe was turning the power of his dimples at Felicia. OK, at
both
of them (and she grudgingly admitted he’d have to be gay or more likely dead to not enjoy Debbie’s décolletage) but mostly at Felicia.

His expression looked familiar, but she couldn’t say why until she realised it was what her own face must look like, the studied blankness of someone trying to hide inappropriate thoughts.

Must. Distract. Myself.

After taking a deep breath, she introduced Gabe to Debbie.

And was pleased to note that, while Gabe was charming in a professional way towards the caterer, he was nothing more.

They chatted for a few minutes, and then Debbie glanced down at her watch. ‘Gotta dash – I’ve got a very nervous bride-to-be waiting in Pacoima.’ She leant towards Felicia and stage-whispered, ‘Potty?’

Felicia pointed her in the right direction and she headed off. Leaving Felicia and Gabe alone together.

‘Looks pretty busy today,’ Gabe said casually.

Or was it casual? This was one of the busier weekdays they’d had recently. Did he know that? Would he want to hear her excitement that things were picking up, or would it be bad to acknowledge their poor attendance during the recent rainy season? Best, she figured, to be non-committal.

‘We have a few big groups. Some school tours this morning, as you can probably tell from all the kids. It’s about noon, so there should be two busloads of Japanese tourists, a senior citizens’ group from Pasadena and the local YMCA day-care centre arriving any time now.’

‘Day-care centre?’ He flailed in mock-terror. ‘Not in my job description. Anyway, I’m supposed to be meeting with Katherine and your bookkeeper for lunch and I think I’m already late.’

Felicia said goodbye and headed in search of Mel, still walking in a cloud of hormones.

She was nearly at the puma enclosure, where Mel probably was at this time of day, when a fire alarm went off. She froze, trying to place the source.

The visitors’ centre.

Her first thought was relief that there were no animals to rescue in the visitors’ centre in case this was a real fire and not a prank. Just four busloads of visitors checking in and the school group getting a conservation programme in one of the classrooms. Small children, old people and, just to add to the chaos, people who might not speak English. Easier than dealing with panicked animals – or maybe not. At least the animals wouldn’t tell their friends, or the local TV station, if they felt things had been handled badly.

The press release could wait. This situation called for all hands on deck.

She arrived to find panic, milling about, shrieking children, sprinklers going off at random and a lot of very annoyed Japanese tourists demanding a refund – one English word they all seemed to know.

The one thing she didn’t find was any sign of an actual fire. Which was a relief until she heard fire alarms going off from other areas.

By the time the Addison Fire Department had come out, reset the alarms and pronounced the incident a prank probably committed by one of the visiting children, most of the afternoon had gone, along with most of the visitors. Those from the area had passes to come back another day; the tourists had mostly demanded refunds. And got them, even though it had hurt to see the precious dollars, just arrived, flying out again.

‘So much for the good day,’ Felicia muttered to no one in particular, collapsing on to one of the visitors’ centre’s tiger-shaped benches.

‘Would it help if I offered dinner to make up for the lunch you probably missed?’ Gabe stood in front of her, looking cool, unruffled and absolutely edible.

Dinner. Felicia considered the proposition. A proper dinner that was served to her, with courses and napkins and maybe a glass of wine. It would be a radical change from her evenings of hasty frozen dinners, fast food and pasta-from-a-jar.

But dinner with Gabe not only meant that she wouldn’t get any work done at home tonight, but also meant a few hours of frustration and temptation.

She pulled herself up from the tiger bench, smoothing her slate-blue skirt across her thighs, and flashed him a smile. ‘I’d love to. Let me shut down my computer and tell Katherine I’m leaving.’

‘Great. I’ll meet you out front.’

She tossed her Palm Pilot, two file folders stuffed with paperwork, and a sheaf of correspondence into the russet leather bag that served as her purse, and powered down her office. She grabbed the linen blazer that matched her skirt from the coat rack and shut the door firmly behind her, then turned and leant into the office directly across the short hallway.

Her boss’s normally neat, curly red hair was mussed, evidence that Katherine had been running her hand through it. Repeatedly. That wasn’t a good sign; Katherine did that when she was particularly stressed. Felicia noticed the half-eaten Carl’s Jr. bacon-Swiss chicken sandwich in a crumpled wrapper on Katherine’s desk. Another bad sign: Felicia had brought her that sandwich at lunchtime, hours ago.

‘Go home,’ she said.

Katherine looked up, fingers poised over the calculator, eyes refocusing on the development co-ordinator standing in front of her.

‘Go home,’ Felicia repeated. ‘You look wiped. Take a hot bath with one of those Lush bath bombs I gave you for Christmas, have a glass of wine and go to bed early. If you don’t relax, you’re going to have a melt-down.’

To her surprise, a smile played at the corners of Katherine’s lips. ‘Actually, I do have some serious stress relief planned for tonight.’ She glanced at the clock on her wall, the one they sold in the gift shop with a different big cat in place of each number, and a monkey hanging upside down in the middle, its arms acting as clock hands. ‘In fact, I can promise that I’ll be out of here in half an hour, because otherwise I’ll be late.’ Her smile grew. ‘I’m glad you’re getting out of here at a decent hour for once, too.’

‘I’m still kind of on the clock: I’m going out to dinner with Gabe,’ Felicia said. ‘See if I can’t butter him up a little, away from here. Maybe I can get a hint of what might be in his report; whether he thinks there’s a serious problem.’ She lowered her voice and leant in conspiratorially. ‘And, if that doesn’t work, I can always drive far out into the desert and ditch his body where nobody’ll find it.’

Katherine laughed, a sound that gladdened Felicia. She hadn’t heard her boss laugh in a while.

‘You’re awful,’ Katherine said. ‘Have a great dinner. Don’t do anything above and beyond the call of duty.’

Felicia only
wished
that jumping the bones of the extremely hot Zoological Association representative could be for the good of the Sanctuary, as part of her job description. But somehow, she had a gut feeling that, no matter how much Mr Gabriel ‘Call-Me-Gabe’ Sullivan might enjoy the experience, it wouldn’t affect one iota of his final report. He was, she suspected, too honourable for that.

And she was probably too honourable to screw him just to change his mind, anyway.

Pity on both counts.

She said goodbye to Katherine and headed out.

Gabe stood on the wide path that led from the visitor’s centre entrance to the parking lot, looking down at the bricks that paved the walkway. Many of them were etched with the name of a beloved family pet. They were one of the Sanctuary’s most popular fundraising efforts, in part because the requested donation was reasonable.

The late-afternoon sun broke through the shading palm trees that lined the walk, dappling him with golden light that highlighted his hair. He’d loosened his tie, revealing a tempting V of hair-sprinkled flesh, and his hands were casually tucked in his slacks pockets.

Oh yes,
quite
a pity.

Since they had two cars, they decided to drive to his hotel and then share a car to the restaurant. Felicia had an idea for an interesting place to go, off the beaten path.

At the Radisson, he simply threw his briefcase in the backseat of her car, rather than going up to his room.

‘Ah, the California cliché of the convertible,’ he said of her Volkswagen Cabriolet when she offered him a ball cap, which he declined.

She shrugged. ‘I suppose.’ She already had a scarf tied over her hair. ‘But the weather really is nice here most of the time, and it seems a pity to waste it being cooped up in a car.’ She put the car in gear and pulled away from the hotel. ‘I hope you’re not too hungry and don’t mind a bit of a drive. I was hoping to show you a different part of southern California – a less clichéd part.’

‘I’m at your tender mercies,’ he said. ‘All I ask is that you be gentle with me.’

Felicia stifled a moan. Oh, no, she wouldn’t be gentle with him at all. While she didn’t like it rough, necessarily, she liked it hard and fast and deep, and she wasn’t past a little scratching and biting and tossing around when the situation required it. If she had the opportunity to get her hands on Gabe, his shirt buttons would be history – and that was just for starters.

As her body responded to her own lascivious thoughts, it was all she could do to concentrate on merging into freeway traffic. She felt her nipples harden beneath the midnight-blue silk shell she wore – and she suspected that her reaction was obvious, because she hadn’t bothered to wear a bra today, and the soft silk caressed her curves.

A sideways glance at Gabe confirmed her suspicions, and she hoped his own physical reaction was as positive.

They headed out of the city as the sun began its descent behind the ocean. She was aware of Gabe next to her, his firm thigh inches from her hand when she shifted gears.

Must. Think. About. Something. Else.

Thankfully, he provided the distraction (in a different way, thank goodness), asking her how she’d got involved with the SCCS.

‘My liberal arts education didn’t leave me with tons of options that didn’t involve the words “Do you want fries with that?”’ she said, and he chuckled. ‘I got a job with the local chapter of an AIDS foundation and worked my way up to office manager and then development co-ordinator for the California chapter. But it was all so…impersonal. I know that sounds horrible, but it was. It was all about money, all about sucking up to donors and begging for money. I’m not saying that it wasn’t for a good cause – it was just…too big. I wanted someplace where I could see the good I was doing, the effects of my hard work.’

‘That’s an understandable desire,’ Gabe said.

Dammit. He said ‘desire’, sending her mind in directions she’d rather avoid.

The road narrowed, the landscape changing around them from barren hills to the steeper slopes of the mountain approach. Scrubby grass was replaced first by short deciduous trees and then by stately pines.

‘It feels great when you’ve organised a thousand-person cocktail fundraiser that brings in close to a million dollars,’ she continued. ‘But it’s nothing compared to how I’m going to feel when Noelle – she’s one of the Amur leopards – gives birth, which will be any day now. I’m going to see those cubs and know that I was partly responsible for their being in the world. That’s four more Amur leopards than there were before and, when the world population is less than three hundred, four is a significant number.’

‘I can hear the passion in your voice – you really care about the Sanctuary, don’t you?’

Dammit. He said ‘passion’. Was he trying to drive her insane?

Distracted, she mumbled, ‘You could say that,’ then forced herself to focus again. ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘When you were a kid, did you say, “I don’t want to be a fireman or an astronaut: I want to work for the Zoological Association”?’

He laughed again, the sound sending shivers of delight down her spine. His head tilted back, and he closed his eyes for a moment, obviously enjoying the cooling breeze that ruffled his hair.

Would he look like that during sex, his head thrown back, unable to keep his eyes open as pleasure overwhelmed him? Felicia felt a flutter between her legs at the thought of being responsible for that reaction in him.

‘I was less the kid with ambition and more the kid voted most likely to see the inside of a jail cell before the age of eighteen,’ he admitted. ‘I was graduating from ditching school and joyriding to vandalism and theft when a counsellor gave me the choice between juvie and working on a community farm. It raised chickens and dairy cows, and grew vegetables for the local homeless shelter and welfare project.

‘That and a beagle named Lancelot turned me around. I learnt about charity work and caring for animals, and it finally got knocked into my thick skull that there were more important things in the world than my own immediate gratification.’

Dammit. He said ‘gratification’. Thank goodness they were almost to Big Bear.

‘We’ve got a kid working for us who was in a similar situation,’ Felicia said in a desperate attempt to get her mind out of the gutter. ‘Lance Boudreaux. Maybe you should talk to him.’

‘Maybe I will,’ he said. His voice held little expression and, when she glanced at him, he was looking at the Swiss chalet-type hotel they’d just passed.

Katherine had been wary when Lance had showed up unannounced at the Sanctuary and offered his help. But Alan had championed him, having been the one to put the idea in Lance’s head, and the young man had spent his first weeks working under the security guard’s supervision, proving his reliability. Now he cleaned cages and handled minor repairs and grunt work without complaint.

They drove past log vacation cabins and hit the main drag, with cute shops that rented out skis and sold teddy bears, overpriced ski (and lounging) outfits, and locally made jerky and fudge.

As she pulled up in front of The Beethoven restaurant, a chalet-style building with a steeply pitched roof, her cell phone buzzed. She grabbed it out of her bag and groaned when she saw the number. How had Valerie, crazy donor extraordinaire, got her personal number?

She was tempted to ignore it, let Valerie leave a message, but her professional instincts – never, ever pass up the chance to talk to someone who might give you money – overrode the temptation. (Dammit. She mentally said ‘temptation’. Now
she
was doing it!)

‘Felicia, darling! So glad I caught you.’

‘Mrs Turner, how are you?’ Curving her hand over the microphone, Felicia whispered the situation to Gabe.

‘I had another idea: instead of making it just a silent auction, let’s make it a silent dinner! Nobody is allowed to talk. I mean, most of these people are just so boring anyway.’

Felicia clapped a hand over her mouth in time not to point out that Valerie Turner would be the first to break the silent rule.

‘I’ll go in and get us a table,’ Gabe offered quietly, and she nodded her thanks, admiring the way his butt flexed as he walked up the stairs to the wide wooden porch that spread across the front of the restaurant.

‘No, no, wait, that wouldn’t work,’ Valerie contradicted herself before Felicia could reply. ‘How else would we give speeches? Or ask for money? Well, that wasn’t the only thought I had. Let me cross that one off.’

Felicia heard paper rattle.

If she threw her cell phone in the woods, would any trees fall on it?

‘Ah, here we go!’ Valerie continued. ‘We’ll release butterflies with very, very tiny homing devices, and people can bet on how far they’ll fly.’

‘Well,’ said Felicia, ‘that’s certainly something to think about.’ She pretended to smash the phone repeatedly against one of the porch columns, then put it back to her ear. ‘Since I’m not at work right now, I don’t have any of my files handy – do you want to send me an email that I can read tomor –’

‘Whoops, I must dash, my dear,’ Valerie said. ‘Company’s coming. Give me a call tomorrow morning, won’t you?’

And with that, she was gone.

Felicia stared at the phone, shaking her head, then tossed it in her bag and went inside.

The Beethoven’s chalet theme continued inside. White walls set off the dark beams that met in the peaked centre of the ceiling. The lights were low; the tables illuminated by flickering candles that made prisms dance off the cut-crystal wineglasses. Beethoven’s music played low and unobtrusively from hidden speakers.

The smell of roasting meats, onions and spices made Felicia’s stomach rumble. Thankfully, the sound muted before she reached Gabe where he stood with the white-jacketed maïtre d’. The maïtre d’ led them to a small, intimate table in a quiet corner. ‘Will this do?’ he murmured to Gabe.

‘Perfect,’ Gabe said, and the man slipped away.

Felicia pursed her lips. So Gabe had requested they be seated away from the other diners, had he? What nefarious plans did he have?

The crisp white linen tablecloth was long, hiding their legs. Oh, the games they could play! She could easily slip off her shoe and slide her foot between his thighs, coaxing him to hardness with her toes. He could entice her to remove her panties and pass them to him – or would he dare her to hand them to him over the table, rather than hidden underneath?

She let out a long breath and thanked him as he held her chair out for her. If she had to flirt with him to help the Sanctuary, she would. But she’d have to be damn careful to stay professional and not screw things up.

But, oh, why did he have to be so luscious? She watched him over the top of her embossed leather menu. He had a late-day stubble, the dark-blond hairs just visible against his skin, and she wanted to feel the roughness against her flesh. On her cheeks. Between her thighs. She shifted in her seat as her lower lips swelled and her panties dampened.

Desperate to get her mind off sex, she asked him what meal he was considering. He was leaning towards the house speciality of pork crown roast rack, although, he admitted, the wild game looked tempting. The Beethoven was known for its elk, boar and other unusual game cuts.