Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Lucy
When I walked in, Brian had the blue tub on the front desk, and he was peering into it with the expression of a man who had been tasked with something beyond his pay grade, his skill set, and his emotional bandwidth.
“Oh, thank God,” he said when he saw me. “They keep looking at me!”
I leaned over the tub. Twelve baby tortoises, each about the size of a walnut, were arranged in a loose cluster on a towel.
One of them was attempting to scale the side of the tub with a determination that was frankly inspiring for something with legs that short.
Another had given up on escape and was sitting on a third tortoise, asserting dominance.
“They’re sulcatas,” I said. “African spurred. Someone probably bought them as pets, found out they grow to a hundred pounds, and panicked.”
“A hundred pounds?”
“Give or take.”
Brian looked at the walnut-sized creatures with new horror. “These?”
“In about fifteen years, yes.”
“That one tried to bite me.” He pointed at the smallest one. “It doesn’t have any teeth, but the intent was there.”
Warrick was standing by the door. He’d followed me inside and was now leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded, watching me handle Brian and twelve baby tortoises with an expression that I could only describe as highly amused.
“Brian, you remember Warrick.”
Brian looked up. Looked at Warrick. Looked at me. Looked at Warrick again.
“He’s the PI,” he said.
“Yes.”
“The one who’s been fixing everything.”
“Yes.”
He turned back to Warrick. “Dani says you fixed the faucet in one go. That faucet has been broken since I started here. I tried to fix it once and flooded the cat room.” He paused. “Margaret didn’t speak to me for three days.”
I lifted the climbing tortoise off the side of the tub and set it back on the towel. It immediately turned around and started climbing again.
“We need heat lamps, the ones from the reptile cabinet in the back. And some leafy greens from the fridge, not the iceberg, the dark stuff. Dandelion greens, if we have them.”
“We have dandelion greens?”
“Margaret grows them in the window box for the iguana.”
“We have an iguana?”
“Brian. Back room. Heat lamps. Go.”
He went.
Warrick hadn’t moved. I could feel him watching me, his attention warm, steady, and impossible to ignore.
“You’re good at this,” he said.
“I’m good at animals. People are harder.
” I adjusted the towel in the tub, creating a little ramp for the climber because he clearly wasn’t going to stop.
“Animals make sense. They’re scared, or they’re hungry, or they’re hurt, and if you can figure out which one, you can help.
People are scared and hungry and hurt, but they lie about all three. ”
He was quiet for a moment. “Not all of them.”
I looked up. He was watching me like I was the only thing in the room worth paying attention to. It was the same look he’d given me in his kitchen this morning, right before I’d asked him to kiss me, and my body remembered every single detail of what had happened next.
I went back to the tortoises before my face gave me away.
Brian came back with the heat lamps and a fistful of greens that included what appeared to be someone’s lunch salad.
“Brian. Is that Dani’s salad?”
“She’s not here.”
“She’s going to notice.”
“We can buy her another one.”
“You said that about Margaret’s yogurt, and by my count, you owe her twenty-six of them now.”
I set up the heat lamps and got the tortoises sorted with the right temperature and plenty of food available.
The climber was still climbing because, apparently, that was his personality.
I’d need to call Dr. Patel tomorrow to get them checked over, but they looked healthy.
Someone had been taking care of them right up until they hadn’t.
The front door chimed.
A FedEx guy came in carrying a cool box, the kind the shelter got delivered when Margaret ordered the specialist meds that couldn’t wait for the regular supplier. He was about my age, tall, and had the easy confidence of someone who spent his days lifting things and knew it showed.
“Delivery for Millbrook Animal Rescue?” He set the box on the desk and held out the scanner. “Need a signature.”
“I can sign.” I checked the label: Steff’s backup insulin, and a round of vaccines Margaret must have fast-tracked before the weekend. “Thanks.”
He leaned against the desk, glancing around at the adoption board, the photos of recent placements, Sugar-Free Steff’s empty throne on the counter.
“Nice place,” he said. “I deliver to a lot of offices. This is way better than most of them.” He nodded at the tub of tortoises. “Are those turtles?”
“Tortoises.”
“What’s the difference?”
“About sixty pounds and a hundred years, eventually.”
“No shit?”
“That and turtles go in the water. Tortoises live on the land.”
He grinned. “You know a lot about this stuff.”
“It’s kind of the job.”
“Yeah, but you make it interesting.” He leaned a fraction closer. “Listen, if you ever wanted to grab a drink sometime, you could tell me more about the whole turtle-tortoise situation. I feel like there’s a lot I’m missing.”
It was smooth, I’d give him that.
I didn’t get the chance to say anything before Warrick appeared behind him. “She’s busy.”
The FedEx guy’s eyes went from my face to Warrick’s, and whatever he saw there made his whole body recalibrate.
“Hey, man, I wasn’t—”
“Yeah, you were.” Warrick’s voice was low, even, and absolutely terrifying in its politeness. “She signed for the package. You can go.”
“Right,” the FedEx guy said. He picked up his scanner. “Have a good one.”
He left. Very quickly.
The door closed.
“She’s busy?”
“You are busy. You have twelve tortoises.”
“That is not why you said it.”
He didn’t deny it. His jaw was tight, and he looked like a man who was holding a very short leash on something that wanted very badly to follow the FedEx guy into the parking lot and explain a few things.
I should have been bothered by it. Everything I knew about possessive men told me I should have been bothered by it.
Andrew had been possessive. About my clothes, my time, my friends, my laugh.
He’d monitored who I talked to and how long and whether I’d smiled too wide, and he’d done it all with such reasonable concern that I’d let him do it for months before I’d understood what it really was.
But this was not that.
Andrew’s possession had been a leash. A system of quiet punishments for the crime of existing in a way he hadn’t approved. What I’d just seen on Warrick’s face was something different—something that said mine. But not something that had ever, not once, tried to make me smaller.
I definitely should not find that as hot as I do.
I did not share this thought.
“The tortoises need names,” I said. “I’m thinking alphabetical.”
“You want to name them?”
“They’re going to be here a while. They deserve identities.” I leaned over the tub. The climber was still at it. “That one’s Atlas. He’s earned it.”
Warrick looked at Atlas. Atlas looked at Warrick. Neither blinked.
“Fine,” Warrick said. “Which one’s B?”