of years ago. You can’t abandon her.”
Maybe he’d been wrong about her being a wimp, Pete thought. Plenty of fight in her now.
“I can’t risk the sanctuary either.” He gestured toward the girls, who were watching the interchange avidly, as though they understood every word.
“She needs sanctuary, too. Just because she’s not an elephant…”
“I am not licensed as a big-cat sanctuary.”
“Somebody must be.”
He took a deep breath. “Dammit, I can’t take on new problems. I have my hands full with three elephants. Do you have any idea how much it costs to feed even one cat that big?”
“How much?” Tala asked.
“What?”
“How much does it cost to feed a big cat?”
Pete glanced over at his father, who had leaned his rear end against the end of the examining table, crossed his ankles, and was regarding them as though they were playing mixed doubles at Wimbledon. “Dad?”
“Nebraska Zoo Food charges ten bucks per ten-pound feed. Normally she should have one a day, but skinny as she is, and with her wound, I’d say two a day plus extra vitamins would be more like it.”
“That’s a dollar a pound, two thousand dollars a ton. Plus shipping and handling?” She looked at Mace.
Mace shook his head. “No tax either. Animal food is not taxable.”
“I know that. We used to raise pigs.” She turned back to Pete. “You haven’t told me how much the surgery and drugs and things are going to cost.”
Pete had already decided not to charge for his services. But he needed to convince her that keeping the lioness was not an option. “At least a thousand dollars,” he said, and stared Mace down as though daring the other man to contradict him. “Even if we were to keep her until she’s well, we’d have to construct a decent enclosure for her. And she’s got to be kept clean, medicated. It’s a hell of a job.”
“We…I…have an account at the co-op in town. They have heavy-duty construction fencing and steel posts.”
“Somebody’d still have to build it. And that would mean letting them know we’ve got a lion on our hands. Besides, that doesn’t solve the problem of what to do with her in the long run.”
“Don’t you know any sanctuaries for big cats?” Tala asked, desperation in her voice.
Pete’s annoyance evaporated. “Yeah. There’s a network of sanctuaries across the country. We’re all familiar with each other, whether we have elephants or big cats, or apes—whatever needs rescuing.”
“Then please keep her till you can find her a decent home!”
“You realize you’re asking me to break the law and costing me a bunch of money I need for the girls.”
“I can’t do anything about the law except to say that if anything happens I promise to take all the blame and get my mother-in-law to go to bat for you as well. She’s on the county council. As to the money—I’ve got a little saved up, and we can charge the stuff at the co-op, and maybe we can make some arrangement for me to work off the rest. I can pour cement and dig postholes.” She looked around the room. “You could use some help. I’m a hard worker, and I’m quick with figures.”
“If I need any help, which I don’t,” Pete said, “and can’t afford if I did, I’d want a man capable of shoveling elephant dung, not—”
“A skinny half-pint woman?” Tala asked. “Look, I’ve been digging and shoveling all my life. I can drive a tractor and use a front-loader with the best of them. I may be skinny, but I’m tough.” She shoved her sleeve up and made a fist at him.
He had to admit her arms were sinewy.
“I was born and raised on a dirt farm,” she continued. “Work doesn’t scare me. Besides that, I can type eighty words a minute, I can keep books, I can scrub floors, and I know how to use a computer.”
“Whoa!” Pete said.
“Honey,” Mace said gently from behind her back, “where were you coming from last night when you found Baby over there?”
“From work. I work the four-to-midnight shift as the assistant manager of the Food Farm.”
“Uh-huh. So you’re already commuting to town for an eight-hour day—or night. And Bryson’s Hollow is farmland, so you’re probably working a farm, at least part of the year. If you’re Irene Newsome’s daughter-in-law, I know you’re also a mother, without a husband to take up the slack. You plan to sleep sometime in the next century?”
Tala’s face flushed dark brick red. “We let the whole farm go fallow, so I’m not working the land. It never was much good for crops anyway—too hilly. Even Mr. and Mrs. Bryson gave up and moved to Florida a few years ago, although I don’t think they can bring themselves to sell the land their family settled in the 1700s. I can work a second job easy. I don’t need much sleep so long as I can spend the weekend with my kids—that’s not negotiable.”
“During the week?”
“They’re staying in town with their grandmother and great-grandmother.”
“Your kids aren’t with you?” Pete asked. He heard the disapproval in his voice. From the way her head snapped around and her chin went up, he knew she’d heard it, too.
“My boy is eight, makes honor roll, and already plays Pop Warner football in the fall and baseball in the spring. And my daughter is thirteen and into cheerleading and gymnastics. I can’t get them to all their practices and games and still work every night.” She shrugged. “Besides, Rachel hates the country, especially since…” She took a deep breath. “Her daddy died.”
“Still…”
“That’s the way it works out best for us, Dr. Jacobi.”
“I’m sure it is the best possible solution for the moment,” Mace said, darting an annoyed glance at his son. “But nobody can work all the time. A young woman should not be driving home by herself in a sleet storm after one o’clock in the morning. How much do they pay you at that Farm place?”
“Eight dollars an hour,” Tala whispered.
Pete closed his eyes. Not much. He wondered why she wasn’t getting some sort of pension from her husband’s death. At least she should have social security for the kids, food stamps, maybe ADC. She ought to be able to keep her children at home. But not if she had to leave them alone from before four in the afternoon until two in the morning.
“Fine. Then you come to work for us, and we’ll match your salary plus ten percent,” Mace said.
Pete gaped at him. “Mace, the money we’ve got is for the next elephant. We can’t afford—”
“Oh, yes, we can. I can, that is. Actually, m’dear, you’re cheap at the price. We expect you to get out enough fund-raising letters on that computer to more than pay your way.”
“Wait a minute, Dad. We can barely afford health insurance for ourselves, much less for an entire family.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” Tala smiled at him. “We still have Adam’s insurance. The kids are covered until they’re eighteen, and I’m covered until I go on Medicare.”
Mace walked over and took both her hands. “You would make an old man very happy indeed if you’d take our job and quit working until all hours of the morning. I promise you the hours here will give you much more time for after-school activities with your children.”
Inwardly, Pete groaned. He did not need or want anyone underfoot, certainly not this woman who gave him urges he’d been quashing. He didn’t have time