Katie's Rescue

“You didn’t care for it much, did you?” Luke asked when the family changed their position, vying for a better viewing spot.

“What?”

“Being on television with the animals.”

She gave a half grimace. “Why do you say that?”

“In the clips I watched, you were always quiet, elegant and willing to do whatever the animals needed, but you never seemed comfortable.”

“No, the lights were always hot, and the animals, except for Candy, were always disgruntled and off their routine. I was always afraid something would go wrong because the people around us weren’t animal people. Once, a secretary moved to pet Aquila’s mom. She’d have lost a finger if my father hadn’t stopped her. We had signs warning people not to approach the animals without talking to my father first, but it’s as if people thought the signs didn’t apply to them.”

The family with the stroller finished taking pictures and moved on. Katie, back to being tense, still watched Aquila. After a moment, she said, “I don’t think panthers were meant to be performers. My father should have figured that out with his mother. She was beautiful, which is why he kept her, but she wouldn’t be trained. The only thing she did to earn money was let people look at her and give birth to two cubs that made it out of infancy. That’s when my father finally made some money on her. He sold the photographs to every magazine and news show that promised a check.”

“I’ve never seen them, but I hear you were in quite a few of those photographs,” Luke said.

“Like anything in my father’s menagerie, I didn’t get a choice. He said ‘Smile’ and I smiled.”

“We don’t focus on tricks here,” Luke said. “We focus instead on natural behaviors. If an animal wouldn’t have the behavior in the wild, we don’t develop the behavior here. The only exceptions are the animals, like yours, that come to us with learned behaviors. And as long as it doesn’t endanger the animal or people, we appreciate their skill. If a bear juggling lunch boxes will increase revenue so we can have enough food, medical care and personnel, we encourage them to perform.”

She nodded but didn’t comment.

“By the way, when you let your guard down in those films, like when you were dancing with Aquila, you had the audience eating out of your hands. You were quite good in front of the cameras, and some of those long-ago smiles actually seemed real. I think you protest too much. Maybe working with animals and showcasing what they can do is in your blood. If not, you could have fooled me.”

She pushed away from the wall, arms tight to her sides. Looking him right in the eye, she said, “Maybe you’re easy to fool.”

She stood, muttering something about exploitation and fools.

He formulated a comeback, only by the time he said the words aloud, she was too far away to hear them: “I may be a fool, but unlike in those clips, you haven’t smiled once since I’ve met you.”

CHAPTER FIVE

SHE SHOULD HAVE resisted Luke more. Taking time off work, coming here, thinking she could make a difference, it was all a farce.

And, for some reason, Luke Rittenhouse refused to see it or believe it.

The man was nuts.

No, she was nuts for even attempting it.

But she couldn’t shake the memory of how thin Aquila was and how unstable he was on his feet. After walking away from Luke and Aquila, she’d left Bridget’s AZ Animal Adventure, just got in her car and drove. She didn’t have a destination. Her only goal was to clear her head.

She had half a mind to just head home to Texas. Her suitcases were still in the back.

But giving up was not in Katie’s nature. If it was, she’d never have been awarded custody of her little sister. Most eighteen-year-olds wouldn’t want the job of taking on a twelve-year-old.

But instead of Texas, Katie headed into town.

She explored the area for a good hour before feeling comfortable with it. The town of Scorpion Ridge was one main thoroughfare of businesses and then a square neighborhood of houses that either nestled or climbed up the Santa Catalina Mountains. Close to Interstate 10 was an RV park that spread for miles. There were a few ranches, some working, some guest. Katie hadn’t noticed any of it this morning. She’d been too focused on her destination and too tired to care.

Although a small town, it didn’t have the Saturday-night-roll-up-the-sidewalks mentality. Arizona clearly hadn’t heard that October was supposed to be cold. Instead, the early evening felt like the end of a perfect summer day, complete with a breeze.

Katie was tempted to get out of the car and walk, just for the fun of it, but she’d already walked once today—all the way from Ruth’s house to Bridget’s.

She suddenly realized she hadn’t eaten since she’d left Ruth’s and it was already six in the afternoon. A tiny strip mall was to her right. She could buy a sub sandwich and some chips, if she wanted. It looked as if she could get a haircut, too, for only nine dollars. But not a bike. The bike store’s orange neon sign blinked from Open to Closed.

Katie couldn’t remember the last time she’d ridden a bike.

Checking her watch, she figured that at Bridget’s, the staff would have pushed the last of the straggling visitors out the door a couple of hours ago and would now be putting the animals to bed. The park closed at four, which Katie thought ridiculously early. It was Saturday. They should have some evening events, something to draw more people in, make more money. And tomorrow the park didn’t open until noon. Even though Sunday was still the weekend!