After ending his call with Ruth, he checked to see what his head keeper, Meredith, was up to. Then he opened his scheduler. He had two school tours booked; one had reserved the birthday area for their picnic lunch. A good sign this early in the school year. Scorpion Ridge’s nearest neighbor, a college town called Adobe Hills, was 45 minutes away, and Tucson was fifteen minutes past that. So for most, a visit to Bridget’s meant planning in advance.
But Luke needed to entice more visitors, desperately, and to get more visitors, he needed the cats to perform.
So far the cougar did a great job of mutilating giant cardboard boxes. And the bobcat walked across the rope from his shady area to a tree—when he wanted. To Terrance, the lion’s, credit, he snored and made great noises while he slept. The kids loved it.
But Aquila...so far, nothing.
And Aquila could dance if he wanted! Something that would surely draw kids from all over.
Instead, he glared and didn’t move. He was also doing his best to qualify as a spokescat for a weight loss center—a topic the local newspaper didn’t mind putting in print. Aquila had weighed just over a hundred pounds when he’d arrived at AZ Adventures. Now he was more like seventy. Ruth refused to go near the animal; it made her cry. Jasper had tried different kinds of foods, tried different kinds of games and when nothing worked, muttered under his breath. Meredith admitted she was running out of ideas. Katie was their last hope. And maybe Bridget’s, as well. If the private society that funded Bridget’s ever stopped footing most of the park’s bills, it’d go under.
In weeks.
The door to the office opened. Meredith peeked in, looking annoyed. “Katie Vincent just called. She won’t be here tomorrow. Apparently they couldn’t get anyone to replace her at work. She’ll drive out Saturday morning.”
“That will put her here either Saturday at midnight or early Sunday morning,” Luke figured. “Did she say if she was heading straight here or to a motel?”
“She didn’t really give me a chance to ask questions.” Meredith smirked. “She simply told me to give the message to His Highness and then she hung up.”
Luke grinned and relaxed for the first time that morning. His Highness, huh? He kind of liked it. “Find out what Katie does for a living.”
Meredith bowed, something she’d never done before, and Luke just knew he heard a faint Yes, Your Highness as she backed out the door.
Before Luke had a chance to return to his schedule, Meredith came back.
“She’s an interpreter for the deaf. She attends college classes with students. They couldn’t get a replacement for tomorrow’s classes. She said if Saturday didn’t work...” Meredith’s smirk returned, and Luke could imagine what Katie had said.
“So you reached her—”
“Briefly. I get the sense that she’s less than thrilled about the sudden career change.”
No doubt Meredith couldn’t fathom why anyone would choose any career that wasn’t with animals.
“It’s not a career change,” Luke grumbled. “I asked her for two weeks.”
If not for his concerns about Aquila’s health and Bridget’s finances, Luke would have been looking forward to meeting Katie Vincent. It was clear Jasper thought she hung the moon, yet the man had admitted she hadn’t had much contact with either him or her father in years.
Still, for Luke, it was hard to get past the fact that she hadn’t personally arranged or physically attended her father’s funeral, and then had hired outsiders to pack up the kingdom and sell everything. If she’d cared one iota about her dad or the animals, she’d have been on hand and made sure everything was taken care of.
Personally.
That’s how Luke would have done it.
When he’d said as much to Jasper, the older man just muttered about bad decisions and hurt feelings.
So what! They were a part of life. What family didn’t have their share of bad decisions and hurt feelings? You fought it out, worked it out and forged a bond that couldn’t be shaken.
He looked out the window of his office again. The animal adventure had grown a lot since he’d taken it over. His little sister wouldn’t recognize it. She’d still recognize some of the animals, though. This place had been Bridget’s favorite place in the whole world.
“Someday I’ll run this place,” she’d told Luke. “You can help.”
That had been years ago, before either of them knew what their futures held, when both of them still believed—or at least pretended to—in Santa. But two weeks after Bridget died, Luke had come to say his goodbyes to the animals that had made her happy. Instead, he’d taken one look at the buildings in need of paint, the closed food concessions and the animals with no one to admire them, and he’d said, “What can I do?”
Ruth had instantly made a phone call. Next thing he knew, he’d been filling out papers and looking for an apartment. His new title was director of an animal park.
He now made considerably less than he’d made as director of marketing for a Tucson company. But to everyone’s surprise, especially his own, he’d settled into his new job and was good at it.
The degree in marketing helped; his love of animals helped even more.
In just two months, they’d celebrate what would have been the real Bridget’s twentieth birthday. Luke’s dream was to expand enough so that Bridget’s AZ Animal Adventure made money, met his five goals and they could even take one day out of every month and donate the day’s take to a charity.
His sister’s charity.
The National Down Syndrome Society. But Bridget would never work alongside him, and that’s what hurt the most.
CHAPTER TWO
STANDING IN FRONT of Aquila’s enclosure on Friday morning, Luke hoped he’d done the right thing by practically forcing Katie Vincent to come.
Really, there’d been no choice if he intended to keep Aquila—and Bridget’s—alive.
Surely Katie wouldn’t lose her job, not for just two weeks.
But would two weeks be enough for Aquila?
The panther’s illness made no sense. Luke had called three zoo directors and one renowned wildlife vet. They all said the same thing. Panthers don’t bond with people, so there’s no way he could be pining.
Jasper, however, maintained that the zoo directors and renowned wildlife vet hadn’t met Aquila, hadn’t seen Aquila with either Katie or Bob Vincent.
Luke really hoped Jasper was right.
Because now, along with worrying about Aquila, he also had Katie to worry about. He hoped she’d managed to take time off with pay because she couldn’t expect a paycheck from him.
It was her contractual obligation to make sure the animals were healthy. He shouldn’t feel the need to pay her.
But he did.
“Katie’s a good girl” was all Jasper would say. And, according to Jasper, at one time the animals had been her life. Then she and her sister had just moved away. Luke got the idea there was more to the story. He knew there’d been an accident, and her sister had gotten hurt. He knew Bob Vincent had turned his daughters over to a relative. That’s all Jasper would share. Maybe now that Katie was really coming, Jasper would be more forthcoming.
Luke stopped in front of the camels’ pen. “How’s it going?”
Jasper nodded but didn’t