Texas Trouble

But at that moment a young girl’s head poked out of the clinic door. “Logan, the vet’s on the phone. He’s in a hurry, but he says Fritz is ready, and he needs to talk to you about Punk.”

Logan nodded. “Thanks, Dolly. I’ll take it.” He looked at Nora. She thought it might be time to depart. She was about to open her mouth and say so when he suddenly cocked his head. “Want to see one of our permanent residents?”

She looked at Sean, but he deliberately turned his head, just to show how unimpressed he was.

She smiled at Logan apologetically. “If it’s not too much trouble, that would be very cool.”

The clinic was small, more like a condo kitchenette than a vet’s office. When all four of them bundled inside, and Logan made quick introductions, there wasn’t much room to spare.

She usually avoided being this close, physically, to Logan. She never sat next to him at meetings, or gave him the same casual hug she might have given any other acquaintance she met on the street.

It was partly because of Harrison’s suspicions. But it was also a self-protective choice. As absurd as it sounded for a thirty-two-year-old housewife, Logan Cathcart gave her butterflies.

She wasn’t really sure why. Though he was amazing to look at, with his dark hair, his intense blue eyes and his six feet of lean muscle, she was completely immune to a hundred men equally well-endowed.

But Logan’s masculinity obviously transmitted on her frequency, and she wasn’t sure she ever completely concealed the jitters. The best bet had seemed to be maintaining a cordial distance.

Today, though, in such cramped quarters, she didn’t have much choice. And, with her emotions so caught up in Sean’s problems, anything as frivolous as butterflies seemed unlikely. She just tried to stay out of anyone’s way.

“Kind of messy, isn’t it?” Sean let his scornful gaze drift over the cupboards and bookshelves that lined the walls, overflowing with medical tomes and binders from various federal and state agencies.

“Sean,” she said, her voice stiff with warning.

Logan chuckled as he took the phone from Dolly. “Yeah, it’s a mess, all right. Maybe that would be a good job for you tomorrow.”

In the corner, hand puppets that looked like birds had been tossed into a basket. Sean went over to inspect them, but tossed each one back indifferently, as if they didn’t pass the test. Dolly ignored him, fiddling with instruments that looked like tiny forceps.

Logan’s phone call was brief, a few monosyllabic words that seemed to indicate satisfaction. Apparently the vet’s news was good, though Nora wondered how often that was the case. Surely not all the birds brought here found happy endings.

She looked at Sean, his tense, bony shoulders and his unruly red hair that stood up in a tuft at the part. For a minute she saw him as another of Logan’s wounded birds, and wondered whether he would be one of the lucky ones.

“Sorry about that.” Logan joined them at the counter. “The vets we use are all volunteers, so I had to catch him while he was free. Dolly, I’ll weigh Gulliver today. If you could make sure the status sheets in the pens are ready, that would be great.”

The young woman, whose hair was brown with purple tips, and whose nose was decorated with a serious piece of hardware, smiled amiably.

“Sure thing, boss,” she said, waving at Nora and Sean before skipping out the door and down the path toward the larger enclosures.

Logan moved to the farthest countertop, where cages stood in rows next to large scales and microscopes and first aid supplies.

“Gulliver is one of the birds we’re going to use for education,” Logan said as he opened a large gray cage and peeked in. “Hey, buddy,” he said to whatever occupant waited inside. “Time to see how fat you’re getting, living the life of leisure.”

He put his hand in slowly, and when he pulled it out, he held the most adorable piece of brown-and-white fluff Nora had ever seen. She smiled instinctively, and when she glanced at Sean, she saw that his scowl had deepened, which she knew meant he was working hard to suppress his curiosity.

“Oh, how darling,” she said. “Sean, look! It’s a baby owl!”

Sean moved dramatically away, sighing to communicate his boredom. But he remained angled, so that he could still glimpse the little bird out of the corners of his eyes.

Of course he was fascinated. How could he not be?

The owl was so cute Nora had to laugh. About six inches long, it fit neatly in the palm of Logan’s large hand.

And then the hand itself was almost too much of a distraction. It was definitely not a rancher’s hand, with its graceful, long lines. She was surprised to see the elegant fingers tipped in calluses.

Sean made an impatient sound as he toyed with the instruments on the counter.

“I thought,” he said, “that you weren’t supposed to let them see people much, so that they don’t imprint on humans.”

Nora gave her son a hard look, and she was glad to see that he flushed, obviously aware that his tone had been out of bounds. What made him think he could teach Logan his own business?

“Been reading up?” Logan nodded, as if he approved. “You’re right. For a baby, we’d have to wear the puppet, or even the whole outfit. But Gulliver here isn’t a baby. He’s a fully grown Eastern screech owl, and unfortunately somebody already let him imprint on humans before he got to us.”

“But he’s so small,” Nora said. “He’s fully grown?”

“I know.” Logan scratched the side of the bird’s head. The owl seemed quite content to lounge in his hand, blinking its large, shiny eyes at him sleepily. “They don’t get much bigger than this. And they don’t screech, either. Weird, huh?”

Sean was no longer pretending not to watch. His hands were fisted at chest level, as if he had to force himself not to reach out and touch the intricately patterned feathers.

Nora met Logan’s gaze over her son’s head. She wondered if he knew how embarrassed she was by Sean’s behavior.

Or how worried.

But she couldn’t read anything in Logan’s blue eyes except a polite patience.

“I should probably get going,” she said.

She should. She had a million things to do, and she was postponing the moment when Sean would have to adjust. Maybe, when the safety net that Mommy provided was gone, he’d settle down and behave.

If he didn’t, she knew it wouldn’t be long before Logan kicked his surly attitude out of here. Two Wings wasn’t occupational therapy for bratty boys. This was, as she’d observed earlier, a mission.

Logan Cathcart cared about this place and these birds. He wouldn’t waste much time on a nasty kid who didn’t understand that.

So she needed to let them get to work.

She moved toward the door.

“I’ll be back at eleven, Sean, all right?” She put her hand on the knob.

“I guess.” Sean stood stiffly.

She opened the door, looking over her shoulder. To her surprise, Logan was watching her, his hand gently holding the ball of fluff in place on the scale.

When she hesitated, his eyes softened, and he nodded briefly. The gesture was oddly comforting.

It’ll be okay, that nod seemed to say. I’ll take care of him.

She might be imagining it. God knew she’d imagined a lot of things about Logan Cathcart over the past eighteen months. Things that weren’t real, and never would be.

But, as she let the door shut behind her and made her way back to the parking lot, she realized she felt a whole lot better anyhow.