“Sean. Good. You made it.”
Logan’s voice brought Nora out of her dazed surprise. She’d completely misunderstood the scale of the place. Harrison had always been so dismissive that she’d assumed Two Wings must be some kind of dilettante’s hobby.
But this was no hobby. This was a mission.
Logan nodded at Nora. “Thanks for bringing him. See you at eleven?”
She felt Sean tense up beside her. She smiled at Logan, hoping he’d understand. “I’m sorry to be the hovering mother, but could you show me a little of what Sean will be doing while he’s here?”
Logan didn’t exactly look delighted, though he was too nice a man to refuse, no matter how busy he was.
“No problem,” he said. “But remember it’s not glamorous.” He held out his hands, which were stained and gritty. “We’ve been spreading mulch. To tell you the truth, I’m going to be darn glad to let Sean take over.”
“Mulch?” Sean scowled. “I thought I’d be working with the birds.”
“Sean,” Nora admonished. “You’ll do whatever Mr. Cathcart—”
“No,” Logan said bluntly. “You won’t be working with the birds yet. You won’t be doing anything alone. We don’t take regular volunteers under the age of eighteen, so you’re kind of a special case. Todd or Matt will work with you. They’re good. You’ll learn a lot from them.”
“I think I can clean out a bunch of cages.” Sean frowned. “I’m not an idiot.”
“No, but you’re a beginner. Beginners make mistakes, and either they get hurt, or the birds do.”
Sean’s mouth was still set hard, but after a couple of seconds of trying to stare Logan down, he blinked first. He lowered his gaze, toeing the sand with his sneaker.
“Yeah,” he said under his breath. “Fine.”
Nora’s cheeks burned, but Logan didn’t seem overly concerned about his new volunteer’s attitude. Maybe he’d expected nothing better. That was probably why he’d been so reluctant to let Sean participate. He undoubtedly knew he’d have to assign someone to follow the boy around like a nanny, to be sure he didn’t do something dumb.
Or just plain run away.
Logan might have said he didn’t want a donation from her, but she suddenly saw that it would take a mighty big check to compensate for the hassle Sean was likely going to be.
Scattered among the large bird enclosures were several small, neat, officelike buildings. Logan began leading them toward the one marked Clinic. Off to the side of that building, a couple of teenagers were scattering handfuls of dark chips that smelled like pine-bark mulch.
“Hey, Mark. Todd.” Logan waved toward the teens. “Come meet Sean—”
But at that moment a young girl’s head poked out of the clinic door. “Logan, the vet’s on the phone. He’s in a hurry, but he says Fritz is ready, and he needs to talk to you about Punk.”
Logan nodded. “Thanks, Dolly. I’ll take it.” He looked at Nora. She thought it might be time to depart. She was about to open her mouth and say so when he suddenly cocked his head. “Want to see one of our permanent residents?”
She looked at Sean, but he deliberately turned his head, just to show how unimpressed he was.
She smiled at Logan apologetically. “If it’s not too much trouble, that would be very cool.”
The clinic was small, more like a condo kitchenette than a vet’s office. When all four of them bundled inside, and Logan made quick introductions, there wasn’t much room to spare.
She usually avoided being this close, physically, to Logan. She never sat next to him at meetings, or gave him the same casual hug she might have given any other acquaintance she met on the street.
It was partly because of Harrison’s suspicions. But it was also a self-protective choice. As absurd as it sounded for a thirty-two-year-old housewife, Logan Cathcart gave her butterflies.
She wasn’t really sure why. Though he was amazing to look at, with his dark hair, his intense blue eyes and his six feet of lean muscle, she was completely immune to a hundred men equally well-endowed.
But Logan’s masculinity obviously transmitted on her frequency, and she wasn’t sure she ever completely concealed the jitters. The best bet had seemed to be maintaining a cordial distance.
Today, though, in such cramped quarters, she didn’t have much choice. And, with her emotions so caught up in Sean’s problems, anything as frivolous as butterflies seemed unlikely. She just tried to stay out of anyone’s way.
“Kind of messy, isn’t it?” Sean let his scornful gaze drift over the cupboards and bookshelves that lined the walls, overflowing with medical tomes and binders from various federal and state agencies.
“Sean,” she said, her voice stiff with warning.
Logan chuckled as he took the phone from Dolly. “Yeah, it’s a mess, all right. Maybe that would be a good job for you tomorrow.”
In the corner, hand puppets that looked like birds had been tossed into a basket. Sean went over to inspect them, but tossed each one back indifferently, as if they didn’t pass the test. Dolly ignored him, fiddling with instruments that looked like tiny forceps.
Logan’s phone call was brief, a few monosyllabic words that seemed to indicate satisfaction. Apparently the vet’s news was good, though Nora wondered how often that was the case. Surely not all the birds brought here found happy endings.
She looked at Sean, his tense, bony shoulders and his unruly red hair that stood up in a tuft at the part. For a minute she saw him as another of Logan’s wounded birds, and wondered whether he would be one of the lucky ones.
“Sorry about that.” Logan joined them at the counter. “The vets we use are all volunteers, so I had to catch him while he was free. Dolly, I’ll weigh Gulliver today. If you could make sure the status sheets in the pens are ready, that would be great.”
The young woman, whose hair was brown with purple tips, and whose nose was decorated with a serious piece of hardware, smiled amiably.
“Sure thing, boss,” she said, waving at Nora and Sean before skipping out the door and down the path toward the larger enclosures.
Logan moved to the farthest countertop, where cages stood in rows next to large scales and microscopes and first aid supplies.
“Gulliver is one of the birds we’re going to use for education,” Logan said as he opened a large gray cage and peeked in. “Hey, buddy,” he said to whatever occupant waited inside. “Time to see how fat you’re getting, living the life of leisure.”
He put his hand in slowly, and when he pulled it out, he held the most adorable piece of brown-and-white fluff Nora had ever seen. She smiled instinctively, and when she glanced at Sean, she saw that his scowl had deepened, which she knew meant he was working hard to suppress his curiosity.
“Oh, how darling,” she said. “Sean, look! It’s a baby owl!”
Sean moved dramatically away, sighing to communicate his boredom. But he remained angled, so that he could still glimpse the little bird out of the corners of his eyes.
Of course he was fascinated. How could he not be?
The owl was so cute Nora had to laugh. About six inches long, it fit neatly in the palm of Logan’s large hand.
And then the hand itself was almost too much of a distraction. It was definitely not a rancher’s hand, with its graceful, long lines. She was surprised to see the elegant fingers tipped in calluses.
Sean made an impatient sound as he toyed with the instruments on the counter.
“I