Summer Rose (4 page)

“Please tell me that’s the last load,” Hunter said, climbing the flight of stairs for the umpteenth time and coming face to face with a new pile of boxes. “Where did all this come from?” He flopped down on the end of the couch and leaned back, exhaling a gust of air. “Woman, you’re a slave driver.”

“Are we taking a break, Mr. Softie?” She grinned. “You need to spend less time over an examination table and more exercising.” Despite her good-natured scolding, she flopped down next to him, grateful for the respite, but not about to admit it.

Only after she sat down did Rose realize that the loveseat forced her into closer proximity to Hunter than was good for her peace of mind. A rock-hard thigh pressed intimately against her leg and had her rethinking her earlier advice to Hunter about needing more exercise. Obviously, not a problem for him, but the feel of his leg along hers definitely presented a problem for her. She shifted as close to the arm of the loveseat as space would allow.

He checked his watch. “It’s almost seven o’clock. We’ve been at this for two hours. I don’t know about you, but I missed supper and I’m starved. Let’s go down to my place and get something to eat.”

The playfulness she’d felt moments before vanished. His
little
house? Alone? Working with him was one thing. Just sitting around tempting her raging hormones to do something stupid was an entirely different matter.

“I’m . . . I’m not really hungry. You go ahead if you want.”

Truth be known, she was starving. As soon as he left, she planned to haul out the milk, fruit, crackers and peanut butter she’d picked up at the store on her way to work that morning and chow down.

He stood and then looked down at her. “I know you didn’t eat any lunch. So I’m not buying that you’re not hungry.” He grabbed her hand and hauled her to her feet.

His unexpected move caused her to lose her balance and careen into his chest. To keep from falling, she latched onto his shoulders, just as his hands encircled her waist to steady her. Her T-shirt had slid up, and his warm palms lay against her bare midriff.

They stared into each other’s eyes. The warmth of him seeped through her sweat pants as if they weren’t even there. As if they stood there skin to skin. She could feel every inch of his long, muscular body pressing against her. It didn’t take a college professor to conclude that their nearness had a very pronounced effect on him, too.

Rose kept telling herself to pull away, that this could give birth to nothing but problems, that things could happen that she’d regret, but her body paid no heed. Instead, she found herself enjoying the security his nearness provoked and wanting to snuggle deeper into the haven of his embrace.

Hunter stared at the woman in his arms. Her hair had come loose from the clip she’d used to confine it, and a few strands stuck to the sweat on her reddened cheeks. He brushed it away with the tip of his finger. Her lips opened just slightly, giving him just a glimpse of the straight row of white teeth behind them. When her pink tongue came out and swept across her mouth, he thought it would be his undoing. He felt himself lean toward her, wanting to touch her lips with his more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

“Doc? Doc Mackenzie?”

The strident call came from the foot of the stairs. They sprang apart as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on them.

“Hey, Doc. You up there?”

Hunter moved to the railing surrounding the top of the stairs, trying not to watch as Rose dragged her T-shirt back into place. He glanced back at her to make sure she’d finished before he answered.

“Yes, I’m up here.” He leaned over the railing and peered down into the half-lit entry. “Who is it?”

“Jim Delaney. Want me to come up there?”

Hunter glanced to where Rose frantically sorted through a pile of old magazines with a concentration that was far too focused to be authentic.

“No, I’ll come down.” Hunter rounded the end of the railing and descended the stairs.

At the bottom, Jim stood to the side, his flashlight beam lighting the last few stairs. Just beyond the building, Hunter could see the front bumper of Jim’s pickup truck, the extinguished headlight lamps peering at him like two alien’s eyes.

“What’s up, Jim?”

“You best take a look at this,” the older man said, leading the way to the bed of the truck. He glanced at Hunter and shook his head. “You ain’t gonna like this, Doc.” He lowered the tailgate.

A large, gray, furry animal lay sprawled on a blanket. Spatters of blood stained the animal’s coat in several places on its hindquarters.

Hunter boosted himself into the truck. “Bring that flashlight up here.”

Jim followed him into the truck’s bed and then aimed the flashlight at the animal’s head. It was a gray wolf.

“What happened?” Hunter’s tone reflected the angry disgust he always felt when a helpless animal became a senseless target for fear.

Jim shrugged. “I found her on the side of the river road. She had two pups with her. Both dead as a doornail.” Jim shifted the beam so Hunter could see more clearly. “Near as I could tell, both pups were shot, and I’m figuring she was, too.”

Using the beam from the flashlight Hunter inspected her ears. “I was wondering if she was part of the gray wolf recovery program going on just north of here, but she’s not tagged. The pups probably wandered off from the pack, and she went looking for them and found more than she bargained for.” Hunter rolled the unconscious wolf on her other side and inspected the wound. “She’s been shot in the thigh.”

Hunter leaned closer to examine the wound. He ran his hands over and under her leg. “It doesn’t look like the bullet damaged the bone, but there’s no exit wound. The bleeding’s stopped, but we need to get the bullet out to prevent infection.” He jumped out of the truck, and then pulled the blanket toward him, slowly sliding the wolf’s heavy body to where they could get a grip on the blanket. “Help me carry her into the office.”

Jim jumped down beside Hunter, turned off his flashlight, tucked it in his jacket pocket, and then grabbed the opposite ends of the blanket. He and Hunter moved in unison and heaved the animal out of the truck. As they moved toward the office, Hunter turned his head back toward the garage.

“Rose, we have an injured animal down here. I need your help.”

Upstairs, Rose had been sorting magazines trying to quell the aftermath of their close encounter, when Hunter’s raised voice reached her. Hearing the urgency in his tone, she dropped the magazines she’d been transferring to the trash pile and ran down the stairs. In the illumination from the security lights, she could see the two men struggling with a large object while making their way toward the office. Quickly, she hurried after them.

Beating them to the office, she opened the door and waited while they passed through with their burden. As they did, she saw the animal and the large bleeding wound in its upper thigh. Her stomach lurched.

This was no time for her queasy stomach to act up. She swallowed down the bile rising in her throat and hurried after them to the back of the building. Having familiarized herself with the location of everything in the operating room earlier in the day, she began to immediately assemble the instruments Hunter would need to operate on the animal.

Pausing for a moment, she looked over her shoulder. “What is it?” They’d transferred the animal to the operating table, but the men blocked her view.

Hunter moved aside so she could see and then gently patted the wolf’s neck. “Her Latin name is
Canis Lupus
, gray wolf. They usually travel in packs. She must have gotten separated from hers.”

Now able to see the entire animal, Rose ran her hand over the blood-damp coat. The coarse fur surprised her. It had looked so soft. “Poor thing.”

Jim edged toward the door. “If you’ve got everything under control, Doc, I’m gonna get home to the missus. She expected me for dinner an hour ago, and she’ll be fit to be tied by the time I get there.”

“Thanks, Jim. Would you give Fish and Wildlife a call? They’ll want to know where you found her so they can pick up the pups.” Hunter smiled. “And tell Sarah not to be too rough on you. You saved one of an endangered species tonight.”

“I’ll call F&W, and I’ll tell Sarah what you said, but I don’t think it’s gonna make a hill of difference. She’s gonna be mad as a hornet no matter what excuse I give her.” Jim laughed, and then looked at Rose. “Evenin’, ma’am.”

“Good night.” Rose watched him go.

Hunter waved to Jim, and then moved toward the sink at the side of the room. “Let me get out of this dirty shirt, and we’ll get started.”

“So this is how you get animals for the sanctuary.”

He didn’t answer, so she turned toward him. When she saw Hunter stripped to the waist, a wave of heat rushed over her. She seemed to lack the will power to drag her eyes away from the glistening drops of moisture dotting his tanned skin, and the way the muscles in his arms and back rippled as he dried himself. Willing her frozen body to react, she quickly averted her gaze, but the picture of a half-clothed Hunter stayed indelibly imprinted on her mind.

Hunter slipped into a white lab coat and came to stand beside her. “I don’t always get animals this way, but it’s how I started the sanctuary. One day, someone brought me a raccoon to fix up, then the next thing I knew, I was overrun with wild animals needing medical care. I built the sanctuary, and they’ve been bringing them to me ever since.”

“What happens to them after they’re healthy?” She handed him a syringe filled with an anesthetic that would ensure the wolf slept through the procedure.

“I prefer that they get returned to where Mother Nature intended them to grow old and die of natural causes, but that’s not always possible.” He gave the wolf the injection and then passed the empty syringe back to her. “Sometimes, because they’re too old or, as in Boomer’s case, too young to defend and feed themselves, they’re placed where I’m assured they’ll be well cared for.”

His tone of voice, the almost reverence with which he spoke of the sanctuary and the animals he treated, told Rose exactly what it meant to him—his life.

He slipped a soft muzzle over the wolf’s jaw and secured it with a Velcro closing at the back of her head.

The muzzle disturbed Rose. “Is that really necessary?”

“I’m afraid so.” He tested the Velcro by pulling on the side to make sure it remained secure. “She can exert fifteen hundred pounds of pressure per square inch with her jaw. If she came out of the anesthetic before we expect her to, she could remove one of our arms with one bite. You want to take that chance?”

Rose shook her head and looked at the muzzle doubtfully. “Will that hold her?”

“Yes, it’s been tested. I wouldn’t use it otherwise. Besides, the power in her jaw is when she closes it, not when she’s opening it.”

She sure had a lot to learn about animals, and oddly, she found herself looking forward to it. As she shaved the area around the wound, Rose made a mental note to borrow some of Hunter’s books and read up on wolves and lions.

While propping the wolf’s leg up so Hunter had easy access to the wound, Rose noted the enlarged mammary glands. “Does she have babies?”

“She had a couple. Jim said they were dead. Whoever shot her had better aim when it came to the pups. They probably thought she was dead, too.” He stared down at the wound in the wolf’s thigh. “Someday people will realize that these animals are not dangerous.”

Sadness overcame Rose. She’d never considered something happening to Beth’s babies, either before or after birth. To think that this mother had lost her babies was almost more than Rose could bear. Tears threatened to blur her vision. She blinked them away. What would Hunter think about her crying over an injured wolf who’d lost her puppies?

“Let’s get started,” Hunter said.