Chapter 8 #2
“Right at eye level too.” Maren dries her hands on a paper towel, then moves to the supply cabinets. She yanks open the top drawer, metal instruments clinking as she rummages through them. “Either you’ve got yourself an admirer, or someone’s got really weird taste in places to jerk off.”
“Maren, if I have a stalker masturbating outside my bedroom window, that’s not a good thing. It’s a very bad thing. I’ll have to start sleeping with Grandpa’s shotgun next to me at night.”
Ricky seems to interpret my distraction as permission to explore. He grabs a loose thread on my scrub top and tugs. I intercept his fingers and redirect them to his own grooming.
“Eh, you always have to ruin my fun.” Then, a frown creases her forehead, her eyes reflecting a hint of worry. “It’s kinda creepy though, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you should call Sheriff Mills.”
“And say what? I found what I think is ejaculate on my bedroom window? She’ll think I’m working too hard and need to get dicked down properly.”
“Well…” Maren draws out the word with a meaningful look as she crouches, pulling open a lower cabinet door to check inventory. “She wouldn’t be wrong.”
“Don’t start.” I point at her while keeping one hand on my furry groper.
“You could always just tell her you’ve been getting this feeling lately, like someone’s watching the house. Why don’t you start there?”
“Because it’s crazy. I’ve lived up here alone for how long, and now someone starts watching me? What the hell for?”
Ricky’s attention shifts to my stethoscope, dangling from my neck. He grasps it with both hands and gives it an experimental tug, trying to pull me toward him. When I resist, he abandons the stethoscope and makes another lightning-fast grab for my breast. I catch his hand just in time.
“You don’t think it’s Caleb, do you?” Maren stands, closing the cabinet with her hip.
“God, I hope not. The restraining order’s supposed to keep him at least five hundred yards away.”
“When has a piece of paper ever stopped a determined asshole? It’s been over a year, but you know how those psycho types can be. They lie dormant like herpes, then something triggers them, and bam—outbreak.”
I shake my head, trying to dismiss the chilling thought that my ex is lurking in the woods.
“I don’t think it’s him. Caleb isn’t the stalker type. He was sweet until one day he wasn’t.”
Ricky abandons his quest for my anatomy and instead nuzzles against my neck. For a moment, he’s almost sweet. Then, he uses the proximity to grab a fistful of my hair, trying to use it as an anchor to climb higher on my body.
“Seriously though, babe, all kidding aside.” Maren picks up her tablet and swipes the screen.
“If you really feel like you’re being watched, we need to call the sheriff.
Especially after your window wanker. Because that’s some next-level creepy shit if someone is climbing up and watching you through the glass. ”
I untangle Ricky’s fingers from my hair.
“Did you figure out what he could have cut his foot on inside his cage?”
We call it a cage, but it’s a combo indoor/outdoor enclosure that houses both Ricky and our other resident raccoon, Zorro.
It’s large enough for them to move around, climb, and play, mimicking a natural outdoor habitat, including live plants, ramps, platforms, hammocks for sleep, and a separate section for their litter boxes.
Zorro tends to stay inside the enclosure, while Ricky jumps at any chance to get out.
After all, there’s no boob access in there, unless we’re inside cleaning it.
“I couldn’t find anything. And Zorro is fine. But there was some blood on the floor outside. Very mysterious.”
“What did you get up to last night, Rick?”
He ignores me, deciding my earring looks interesting. He reaches up and gives it a little flick with his finger, his head tilted in curiosity. I redirect his hand before he can yank it out of my ear, then look back at his back paw.
“I don’t think he needs a bandage on this. It’s only a small cut.”
Maren sets her tablet down and crouches again to check the supplies in the opposite cabinets. “We’ll never be able to release him back into the wild, will we?”
I pull Ricky’s hand away because it’s creeping down my chest again and give his fingers a gentle but firm tap like I would an errant child.
He’s been with us for almost six months, since he was only a few weeks old.
He was injured after he and his mom were both hit by a car.
She died, but by some miracle, he only got clipped.
Animal services got him to me in time, but it was touch-and-go for a few days, and I had to amputate two of his back toes.
His will to live was impressive, which is matched only by his determination to grope every woman he encounters. Maren blames me because in those first few weeks nursing him back to health, I’d lay his little body on my chest to soothe him with my heartbeat.
“No, he’s too domesticated now. He’s unafraid of humans and might wander up to the wrong person and get shot.”
“Yeah, because that’s totally the reason and not because you’ve gone soft on another patient.”
She knows me too well. Or perhaps I’m just that predictable. I hate to let any of the animals go, even when I know it’s best for them. I do it, but it breaks my heart. Like Sassy, the squirrel who lost her tail to a weed whacker. I cried for an hour after I released her last week.
Ricky shifts, angling his body toward Maren, and starts chittering. He stretches toward her, his arms reaching as if he wants to transfer his affections to a new victim. Maren shakes her head. She recognizes the con artist beneath the cute exterior.
I set him down on the floor, and he scurries across the room toward Maren, like a furry missile with a very specific target.
“Oh, no, you don’t—” Maren’s hands come up too late. Ricky launches himself at her, grabs her right breast with both hands, and then dives under the desk in the corner. “You heathen.” There’s no real heat in her voice. Despite her protests, she’s as fond of him as I am.
I let out a muted snort. “At least he’s consistent.”
“Yeah, consistently inappropriate.” Maren brushes imaginary raccoon prints off her shirt as Ricky pokes his face out from under the desk, dark eyes bright and alert, chittering.
“Are you ready to behave, Rick? If we give you another chance?”
He responds by making a beeline for my ankles, climbing up my leg with surprising speed and agility. I just manage to catch him before he reaches his usual target.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Maren stands and grabs her tablet again. “Maybe we should get him a little raccoon girlfriend. Work out some of that pent-up energy.”
I shoot her a pointed look.
“What? It’s a legitimate therapeutic suggestion. Sometimes animals just need to get laid, too. And if you’ll remember the show we watched in your backyard last year, raccoons like gettin’ freaky.”
I look down at Ricky, who’s settled into my arms and is purring softly, his hands occupied with grooming his own fur again. My eyes trace over the silver in his mask, and I’m struck by how beautiful he is, how perfectly designed for his life in the wild.
But I think I might have ruined him with my propensity for getting attached to those in my care.
“Luna! Sheriff Mills is on line one,” Maren calls from the front office. “Tell her about feeling watched.”
I turn from my computer screen and pick up the phone extension. “Hi, Karen, what’s up?”
“Got a situation. Fish and Wildlife found illegal wolf traps on public land near your western border. Dangerous to your releases. Can you check if any tracking collars show animals in that area?”
My grip tightens on the phone. “Poachers?”
“Looks that way. There’s something else. The trap setup is similar to the one that killed Shadow’s mother.”
I close my eyes as memories flood back to the bloody scene, the mother wolf’s mutilated body, and tiny Shadow hiding nearby. The authorities never caught the poachers.
“I’ll send the tracking data.” Anger bleeds through my voice despite my efforts to hide it.
“Thanks. I’ll get Roger and his crew to scatter any animals if the trackers show them in the vicinity. How are things over there these days?”
“The usual. Too many animals needing help and not enough me to go around.”
“Well, hang in there.”
“Thanks, Karen.”
I hang up and brace my hands on my desk, drawing a breath. Something dark unfurls inside me. A protective rage that runs deeper than compassion. I’ve never told anyone, but I sometimes imagine taking justice for these animals into my own hands.
“Luna?” Ethan, the vet who volunteers here once a week, appears in the doorway, concern on his face. We were classmates at CSU. He and his brother own a practice in Estes Park, but he’s volunteered here since I opened the sanctuary. “Everything okay?”
I straighten, pushing the darkness down. “Fish and Wildlife found illegal traps. Similar to the one that killed Shadow’s mom.”
His expression darkens. “Want me to check the collar data?”
“Thanks, that would be great. Can you also send it to Sheriff Mills and Roger?”
“Sure thing.” He squeezes my shoulder before walking away.
He’s a nice guy, recently married. We went on a single date, the first week of vet school, but there was no spark.
Friendship suits us better. His help has been invaluable to me, giving me at least one day a week to myself.
Not that I take it often. I always seem to find my way over here, unable to stay away.
I try to shake off my anger, but my thoughts keep returning to the feeling of being watched. Is there a connection? Are poachers surveilling the sanctuary before setting their traps?
If someone is targeting animals under my protection, they’ll learn that Dr. Luna Foster is more than the compassionate healer everyone sees on the surface.