Undercover Protector

He’d been at the Wilderness, Inc. office in Gideon when he’d received the tip about Tiger Mountain. With this new tip, he believed he was close to solving this case, and he was geographically close as well.

Gemma sat on the sofa and he did the same, across from her. She studied him over the rim of her cup of hot chocolate.

Gray shrugged. “Any more questions?”

“Nope. You have any for me?”

Yep. I have plenty of questions. But he had to be careful and ask the simple questions a volunteer, a wildlife enthusiast, would ask.

“I’m a hands-on kind of guy. I like to learn the ropes as I work. So any questions I have for you can be answered while I’m working. Oh, well, I guess there is one question. You going to let me volunteer or not?”

She gave him her soft and simple smile, the same one he’d seen on the road. It kindled a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time and he didn’t want to feel that again. He’d have to be careful around Gemma.

“You’re hired,” she said.

A woman appeared from the hallway and came over to them. Gemma introduced Cara as a Tiger Mountain employee. She handed a cane to Gemma. “Found it.”

Gemma’s faced colored. She’d said that her limp was part of her, but she didn’t appear that comfortable with it. “Maybe I can get my other one from the CJ, if it’s even salvageable.”

Gray glanced out the window, noting the rain had finally and completely stopped. How long that would last, he didn’t know. “Mind if I start work today? You can give me a tour of the place and show me what you need me for later, but right now maybe I can get your Jeep down the mountain.”

Her eyes went even brighter. “Are you serious?”

“Sure, if you have a truck with a winch around here. Or, if not, we can call a wrecker, but I’ll take care of it. You can get back to doing what’s important.” Gray found that, despite his true reason for being at Tiger Mountain, he honestly wanted to be useful to Gemma. But he reminded himself he wasn’t here for her. He was working undercover to expose illegal activities at Tiger Mountain.

Gemma gave him the go-ahead and introduced him to Tom, a full-time staffer who had a four-wheel drive with a winch, which came in handy at a big cat sanctuary. Gray rode with Tom so he could show him where the vehicle had ended up.

Tom slowed the truck when they came to the mud slick in the road. A chunk of mountain seemed to have slid across the way. Tom sighed. “Gemma is not going to like this. Not one bit. She’s already had a tough time here. I tell you, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

Gray wanted to ask Tom more about what troubles Gemma had, but they were here. “This is where her CJ went into the tree. If you look to your left and up a bit, you’ll see it just over the rise.”

“I can see the bumper from here and hopefully the rest is still attached.”

“Only one way to find out.” When Gray stepped onto the road, his thoughts reverted to saving Gemma, holding her against him and hiking over the rocks and road.

He remembered her mentioning the perfect storm, her brakes quitting during the drive while the power steering had gone out as well. She would have shifted to the lowest gear, no doubt, and possibly tried the parking brake, but going down a steep mountain road would have worked against her. Even if it hadn’t been raining and even without a mudslide, that could have been deadly. The Jeep CJ rested right where he’d left it, only it was steeped in thick, clotting mud. The vehicle was decades old and the brake hose was likely just as ancient and could have given out. But the steering, too, on the same day?

In such situations, he often referred to Occam’s Razor, a principle of philosophy—the simplest explanation was the right one—and in this case, the chance that both the brakes and the steering went out at the same time on their own was unlikely. In which case he wanted to get a closer look. Had the vehicle been sabotaged?

Tigers were worth more dead than alive, their parts bringing money in excess of a hundred grand, thanks to the demand for traditional Asian medicine. All it took was finding a buyer on the black market and someone needing money could easily make it in spades.

Gemma Rollins might be standing in the way of that. If Gray discovered her life was in danger, he would not only work undercover, but serve as her protector.

THREE (#u10314a42-35db-5031-bdb3-4598c854435d)

Gemma exited the shower, glad to finally be free of the grime and mud. But she wished she could shake the disquiet the crash had left her with. The sun had finally set and she’d hurried home—a cabin across from the main facilities—to clean up. Tom had texted that he and Gray had been able to get her CJ to Carl’s body shop.

With the Jeep taken care of for now, she had the freedom to focus her energies elsewhere—such as on her wish list, which was more like a needs list for the sanctuary. Two-way radios for everyone went on the top of the list. If Gray hadn’t showed up, radios would have come in handy. They didn’t require a cell signal and would provide essential communication with the habitats so spread out. She wrote that down.

She had so many hopes and dreams for making Tiger Mountain great to build a legacy and fulfill the dreams her parents had for a big cat sanctuary. Dreams that had been dashed when they’d died in a plane crash, and ultimately, with her uncle’s death after that.

And this time, Gemma would not allow rumors of abuse to spoil their reputation. Her parents had not exploited the animals and endangered their sanctuary status by putting the cats on display or allowing pictures to be taken with the animals. Or people to pet the cubs because they had no cubs. They were not breeding the animals! Nor had they abused the animals by underfeeding them.

Still those rumors had destroyed their donor base and her parents were returning from a trip to meet with an investor who could revive their private foundation that supported Tiger Hills when their plane had crashed.

She’d never understood why someone had started the rumors.

Or who.

But after their death, her uncle had worked tirelessly to hold things together under great pressure. After the car accident in which he died, and with Gemma in the hospital undergoing multiple surgeries, there had been no one left to manage Tiger Hills or answer the untrue rumors of abuse that continued. The rumors meant donors fell away and without funding to keep the animals fed, the rumors would become true.

There had been no funding left to even pay for staff, and she didn’t want the possibility that a full-scale investigation would further humiliate her family so she didn’t stand in the way when the powers-that-be removed the animals and transferred them to other sanctuaries while she remained in the hospital.

Gemma spent several debilitated months going through two surgeries for her leg. She’d been devastated, broken both physically and emotionally over her losses. But once she was free to think about her future, she went to Oregon State University, got her conservation biology degree and masters in nonprofit management with the help of a financial grant and student loans, and planned for the day when she could start all over. Building something new and untainted as a way of restoring all that was lost to her family.

Her father had started Tiger Hill one tiger at a time when she was only five. Ten years later, he’d died in a plane crash. At twenty-eight, building a new sanctuary was the only way Gemma could think to get back the only life she’d ever known.

The process of creating a nonprofit foundation to support the new sanctuary, all the paperwork and certifications, building new enclosures and creating protocols, hiring staff and finding volunteers had taken several years. Once they’d met the licensing requirements, they starting acquiring the animals. Now with all their animals in place, they were ready for the USDA inspection—she was that close to realizing her dream.

She had seven people to help, including Gray. With fifteen tigers to care for, she wanted three more people to even out the workload. With a high turnover rate lately, was that even possible?

Clyde, her father and uncle’s longtime friend, seemed to think so. She’d understood him to be a silent partner in the old sanctuary, but he’d been out of the country involved with his conservation organization during the time of their deaths. She hadn’t seen him since she was very young, but he’d come to her rescue and invested a lot of money into her project of opening a new sanctuary. He was all she had left now—well, that and Tiger Mountain.

From her cabin across from the Tiger Mountain facilities, Gemma could hear one of the tigers roar. Their roars could be heard up to two miles away. She didn’t understand why Emil Atkins, the rancher whose property ran next to the sanctuary, found the tiger sounds disconcerting. Maybe it was more that his horses and cattle were disturbed, spurring him to lobby against the sanctuary, stirring up the other rural neighbors and ranchers.

Personally, Gemma found the sounds useful, since they let her know when something was upsetting one of the tigers. Maybe someone tampered with the cages, disturbing her tigers.

Or maybe it was more vandalism.

Irritation prickled the back of her neck.

Maybe it was Emil. Gemma needed to check. Grabbing a jacket, she paused to stare out the window into the pitch black of night. She couldn’t see a thing. The sense that someone watched her crawled over her. Reaching for the drapes to pull them shut, she paused when lightning flashed in the distance and thunder followed, rumbling through Gemma’s core.

Before she could close the drapes, someone knocked on the door, startling her.

She calmed her pounding heart and rushed to the door. A quick glance through the peephole into the darkness revealed nothing. Gemma flipped on the porch light.

Gray Wilson.

She frowned. What did he want?

Gemma opened the door. He’d cleaned himself up and wore jeans and a light black jacket over a blue polo shirt. His shaggy hair was neat and combed. She held back her smile. A gust of wind blew in and carried the scent of soap. He smelled nice too. “Gray, what brings you here?”

His expression grew somber. “Mind if I come in for a minute?”

“Actually, I was on my way out to check on the tigers. Heard one of them roaring.”

“Another storm’s approaching. Can’t it wait?”