Wild Action. Dawn Stewardson
“He wants his chicken.”
As Nick looked down at the pail, then back at her, Carly prayed he wouldn’t simply turn and walk away. But she could hardly blame him if he did. Wild Action might mean everything to her, but it meant little to him. And even though she was certain Attila wouldn’t harm him, he obviously wasn’t.
“Nick,” she said at last, “I know how much I’m asking of you, but if you’ll try working with him I’ll be right there every minute. And…Look, I hate to put even more pressure on you, but Jay called while you were changing into Gus’s clothes. The cast and crew will be arriving before lunchtime tomorrow. And the way things stand, your working with Attila is the only hope we’ve got.”
NICK HAD WASHED HIS hands half a dozen times, but he could still smell the raw chicken on them. He could also still feel Attila’s smooth warm tongue licking them.
But hell, while he’d been feeding the bear he hadn’t been sure how much longer he’d have hands, so maybe he should count his blessings.
Of course, tomorrow he’d be right back in the lion’s den—or the bear’s field, as the case might be— even though he was probably insane to be going along with Carly’s plan. He looked across the kitchen to where she was stirring the spaghetti sauce, wondering exactly how she’d convinced him to do something he seriously didn’t want to do.
Then he recalled how her smile had lit up her entire face when he’d agreed to try working with the bear. It was, he’d discovered, a very dangerous smile, because it made him feel strangely warm inside. Which, in turn, made him tend to forget all about her negative qualities.
Obviously he was going to have to be even more careful around her than he’d realized.
“That salad almost ready?” she asked, glancing over.
“Uh-huh.”
“Almost ready?” Crackers repeated from his perch in the solarium.
“Yeah, almost ready,” Nick told him, thinking the house was very full of animals. He’d probably hardly notice the three cats if they were the extent of the menagerie, but he’d be a while getting used to those huge Marx brothers flopped all over the floor. And to a big blue bird that talked. Especially when Carly’d said it could amputate a man’s hand.
Every time he looked at Crackers, he found himself wondering if he should find a pair of heavy work gloves to wear while he was here. Between that beak and Attila’s teeth…
“There’s something I’ve been forgetting to ask you,” Carly said.
He looked over at her again.
“You don’t have any orange clothes, do you?”
“No, why?”
“Oh, I just wanted to check. Fruit and vegetables are okay, but for some reason anything else orange makes Crackers a little nutsy.”
When she didn’t elaborate, Nick decided he didn’t want to know what a macaw did when it got nutsy. So, instead of asking, he began mentally running through the list of Attila’s commands and hand signals once more—feeling as if he were cramming for finals. In the past couple of hours, he’d learned enough about bears to fill an encyclopedia on them.
The entire time he’d trooped along with Carly, helping her tend to the outdoor animals, she’d told him about bears’ behavior in general and Attila’s behavior in particular.
Then, while they fed the dogs and cats, she’d drilled him on the commands Attila responded to. Or maybe was supposed to respond to would be a better way of putting it. He was still far from convinced the bear was going to obey him. And if he inadvertently did something that made Attila angry…
Forcing that thought from his mind, he glanced at his watch—and then at the phone on the counter beside him.
Before he’d left Edmonton, he’d told his ex-partner that he’d be home in a few days. But now that he wouldn’t be back for weeks, now that he was going to need Ben’s help getting his things moved out of his house, he wanted to let him know as soon as possible.
He looked over at Carly once again, thinking how Ben always yelled into a phone, then thinking about the extension he’d noticed when he’d glanced into her bedroom.
But he’d feel funny asking if he could go use it. And since he never seemed to be in the kitchen when she wasn’t, he might just as well phone Ben right here and now. No matter how loudly he talked, Carly was hardly going to hear him from the other side of the room.
“Carly? Would you mind if I made a long-distance call?”
She smiled. “You don’t have to ask. It’s half your phone.”
He reached for it, dialed and got Ben’s wife, Ida.
“Nick!” she greeted him. “You’re back already?”
“No, I’m calling from down East.”
“Oh, well, it’s good to hear your voice. But you could have knocked me over with a feather when Ben told me you’d quit. I mean him putting in for early retirement is one thing, but you just walking away at your age…”
“Yeah, I guess it surprised a lot of people.” He glanced uneasily at Carly, but she didn’t seem curious about what had surprised people.
“That must have been some terrific inheritance you got”
“Well, I’ll tell you all the details once I’m home. But right now I’m using someone else’s phone, so is Ben around?”
“No, he had to go down to Lethbridge for a bit. Something came up there about a case he worked on years ago. Want me to give him a message?”
“Yeah. Please. I’m going to be stuck here for a lot longer than I figured. And I don’t know if he mentioned I’ve got to move at the end of the month, but—”
“He sure did. That sort of thing should be against the law, you know. Those landlords get away with murder.”
“Maybe. At any rate, I need a huge favor. If he could get some of the guys to help move my stuff out and put it into temporary storage…”
There was a silence at the other end, which probably meant Ida was wondering why he didn’t spend some of his terrific inheritance on hiring a moving company. But all she finally said, was, “Sure. I know he’d be glad to help out.”
“Great. My next-door neighbor has a spare key. I’ll call and tell her what’s happening.”
“Okay. And give me the number where you’re staying in case Ben needs to ask you about anything.”
“Sure.”
After he’d given it to her she said, “Now don’t, you go blowing your entire fortune on those fast eastern women, eh?”
“No, I won’t. And thanks, Ida.”
As he hung up, Carly said, “I couldn’t help overhearing.”
“That’s okay. It was my partner’s wife I was talking to.”
Ex-partner’s, an internal voice of truth corrected him. But the phrase had slipped out easily. He hadn’t really started thinking of Ben in those terms yet
“But you have to move?” Carly said.
“Uh-huh.”
“And you said temporary storage. So you don’t have a place to move to?”
“No. I was looking for another house, but I hadn’t found one yet.”
“And despite all that you stayed here?”
He merely shrugged, then changed the subject by saying he had to call his next-door neighbor to let her know what was