Table of Contents
“He’s not exactly Winnie the Pooh,”
Nick whispered nervously.
“He’s going to love you,” Carly whispered back. “Hi, Attila,” she called to the bear. “I’ve brought someone to meet you.”
Attila grunted, then fixed Nick with a glare that didn’t look even remotely loving. Not that he really wanted the bear’s love. He’d be happy if it just didn’t eat him!
Carly rubbed the big bear’s nose, then said, “Attila, that’s Nick. I want you to go and say hello to him. Two feet.”
Standing up, he looked like an enormous sumo wrestler in a fur coat.
“Good boy,” Carly said. “Now go say hello.”
Attila gave a little snort and started toward Nick, who swallowed hard. “Hello, Attila.”
The bear eyed him for another second, then took a final step forward, wrapped its arms around him and began squeezing him to death.
Dear Reader,
In Tinseltown, Wild Action would be pitched as a romantic screwball comedy: Dirty Harry meets Gentle Ben.
Of course, hero Nick Montgomery meets a whole lot more critters than just Attila the bear when he inherits half of an animal talent agency. And in the beginning he doesn’t have a clue how to deal with any of them.
He also doesn’t have a clue how to deal with his newfound partner, Carly Dumont But that’s what makes the romance fun.
As an animal lover, I found this book a delight to write. It’s not often that my research involves something like visiting an animal ranch and being licked by a bear, but the research for this one did. (And yes, bears’ tongues really are warm and smooth. For some reason, I was expecting them to be rough, like a cat’s.)
At any rate, I hope you enjoy reading about Carly, Nick and the antics of the animals in the Wild Action agency.
Warmest regards,
Dawn Stewardson
Wild Action
Dawn Stewardson
To John, always.
With special thanks to Janet Howsam and
Norman Phillips of the Northwood Buffalo and Exotic Animal Farm in Seagrave, Ontario, for giving me a special tour and patiently answering my “bear” questions. I hope all my Ontario readers come to visit you.
Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way
“GOOD CAT,” Nick said, reaching the top of his ladder and swinging onto a main branch of the towering maple. “Good cat”
From above, Blackie peered down with a little cat smirk. Nick took that to mean the beast was contemplating one of its higher-and-higher routines, and the prospect made him swear under his breath.
He wasn’t a superstitious man, so it didn’t really bother him that Blackie made a point of crossing his path on a regular basis. But this trick with the tree was damned annoying—especially since he knew the cat would eventually come down on its own. At least, that’s what the several cat owners he’d asked had told him.
Unfortunately, his next-door neighbor didn’t believe it. Even more unfortunately, Hilda was eighty-three years old and Blackie was the most important thing in her life.
Nick swung up onto a higher branch; Blackie twitched his whiskers and glanced skyward.
“Okay, here’s the deal, cat. You stay right where you are, and I’ll let you out of this with all your nine lives intact.”
Blackie edged farther out on his branch to consider the offer. Nick climbed another foot or two, then tried a quick grab.
The