Cupid’s Confederates

Helplessly, she blinked back tears. Zach, being Zach, picked up on her feelings before she had to say a word. “Leave it, babe,” he whispered roughly. “Think of the ones with life.”

She took a breath, and pulled her arm free from the hollow. A moment later, she had shimmied back down to the truck bed, cradling the sack of squirming bodies to her breast. Zach jumped down from the back of the pickup, and then reached back to help her.

“Now, I know you’re not going to take them back to the house,” Elizabeth said frantically.

Zach supervised the loading of one bike, one boy, two women and three raccoons into the truck, but his eyes rested thoughtfully on his mother-in-law.

***

They didn’t want food, the little raccoons. They were too exhausted and weak from crying for their mother, and the warm, diluted liquid Bett offered them from an eyedropper tasted nothing like their natural mother’s nursing milk.

“So we’ll have to force it,” Zach said patiently. He was on the kitchen floor next to her, both with their backs resting against the kitchen counter. A bowl of warm milk was on the floor between them. The three babies were swaddled in warm towels, so that only those big ringed eyes and tiny mouths peeked out.

Billy had just left, most reluctantly, after a fairly lengthy phone conversation with his mother. Mrs. Oaks had warmly agreed that Billy could raise the raccoons-but only if he promptly came home to dinner, and only when the Monroes had approved their “release.” Zach hadn’t done that instantly, to Billy’s disappointment. Very gently, he’d explained to the boy that he knew Billy would take good care of them, but not to get up his hopes quite yet. The chances of the wild babies surviving the night simply were not high. If they were sure the creatures would live, they would be happy to give them up to Billy’s care. Bett heard Zach’s gentle but firm warning-and knew it was only half for the boy. He was looking at her.

Biting her lip, Bett pried open the first reluctant mouth and forced an eyedropper of milk down its throat. The vise closed again; she had to force it a second time. Suddenly, those big eyes blinked open, unseeing in the way of the very young, and one paw with ridiculously huge claws made its way to the top of the towel.

“One more little bit?” Bett coaxed. She started humming again. The little one took one more eyedropper full, then Bett laid the towel-wrapped bundle on the warmth of her lap and picked up the second raccoon.

“Bett,” Zach said quietly, “don’t count on it too much.”

But she was counting on it. “If we can keep them alive and eating through the night, they’ll be stronger in the morning.”

After that they exchanged warm towels for more warm towels and fed them again. And did all of that again. With the baby that seemed weakest, Bett stripped away its towel and held it close to her body, cradling it to her own warmth.

At midnight, they were still in the kitchen. “You know, your mother,” Zach mentioned absently, “was really furious with you.”

“I know.”

“To begin with, she’s not a farm woman. Those were honest fears of rabies dancing in her head. A lot of that anger was concern for you.”

Bett leaned her head back against the counter. “Zach, I know that.”

“I haven’t seen one tear out of her since she’s been here. She is happier, Bett. It’s all your doing.” Their eyes met. “And she doesn’t understand the simplest thing about you, does she?” he asked quietly. “Your feeling for animals, two bits. How could she not know of your feeling for animals?”

Bett didn’t know what to say. Her hair brushed her cheek as she bent her head, stroking the soft creatures in her arms. “I care a lot about her, you know. All she’s ever wanted is a daughter to share the things that are important to her. And because I have different values, she seems to feel that I’m rejecting hers. So she…tries to push her own on me. I really do understand.” Bett shook her head absently. “That’s just it, you see. I do understand. The failure’s mine that the closeness isn’t there. It always has been.”

Zach’s jaw hardened. He was seeing the faint violet shadows beneath his wife’s eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. Failure? Bett was a failure at nothing, beyond occasionally trying to be too many things to too many people. He hesitated, his instinct to quickly reassure her frustrated by a new awareness that Bett must have harbored those feelings for a long time. Quick words weren’t appropriate. He wanted to think, and Bett was so tired she could barely sit up. “You go up to bed,” he ordered. “I’ll stay up with them. Both of us certainly don’t need to-”

Her eyes kindled and she stared him down. Zach sighed. “I can just see how tomorrow is going to shape up, after feeding these monsters every two hours all night.”

He was going to make a wonderful father, Bett thought lazily. He stood up and added the third raccoon to the bundle cradled to her chest. Ten minutes later, he returned from upstairs with two sleeping bags and their pillows. By then it was time to reheat the milk and wield the eyedroppers again.

An hour later, Bett was snuggled in the sleeping bag, waiting for Zach to finish rinsing the bowl and lie down next to her. “Mom’s going to have a stroke when she comes down in the morning,” she murmured drowsily.

“And that’s the last time you worry about your mother alone,” Zach muttered back.

She didn’t hear him, her hand slowly stroking one soft, furry head. The three babies were snuggled next to her. “They’re going to make it, you know,” she told him.

Zach bent to kiss her once, a kiss for his lady who had certainly lived in the country long enough to understand nature’s way of life and death. And who never would. Those babies didn’t have a chance in hell of survival…but they hadn’t come across his wife before.

Chapter 8

“Bett?”

Through a sleepy fog, Bett opened her eyes, reaching automatically for Zach when she saw his face so close to hers.

“No, sweetheart. Up,” he whispered.

“Pardon?”

Zach, for some strange reason, was dressed. Jeans, a dark sweatshirt, sneakers. The room was still shrouded in the charcoal fuzziness of predawn; she could barely make out his shaggy brown hair and crooked smile. The same fuzziness muddled her brain as Zach, speaking in whispers, urged her into a robe and slippers, then down the stairs.

At the front door, she was sufficiently awake to at least open her mouth. She was not generally in the habit of walking out the front door in yellow scuffs and her long yellow cotton robe. Zach kissed her just then. Zach kissed her very, very thoroughly.

By the time she surfaced, he was herding her toward the pickup. “The babies-” she protested vaguely.

“Billy took the babies yesterday morning. Don’t you remember?”

Sort of. There’d been two nights and a day before the raccoons had changed from reluctant feeders to guzzlers. She couldn’t let Billy take them until she’d been sure they would survive.

Last night, though, she’d fallen asleep like a zombie; she only vaguely remembered Zach carrying her upstairs. Now, she regarded her husband with a definitely sensual smile. “You seem to be kidnapping me.”

“You bet your bare toes I am.” He tucked her in the curve of his shoulder for the drive, aware that he’d woken her from sleep she still needed, but not caring as much as he should.

Something had clicked in his head during the past few days. Elizabeth, so insensitive to Bett’s feeling for animals, to something so integral to her daughter’s nature. Elizabeth, criticizing Bett so very subtly on half a dozen fronts, always well-intentioned. Elizabeth, forever and with all good intentions, interrupting every moment of closeness between them.

Zach had never intended to complain about the inconveniences Elizabeth’s stay was causing for