“Gage has a kitty just like that at home,” Brooke said knowingly. “Same color and everything.”
Gage was in Laurie’s group with the rambunctious twosome who kept the teacher perpetually preoccupied.
“Nuh-uh,” Timmy argued. “His cat’s way littler than that. I’ve seen her. She’s just a regular cat, not a jogwore,” he added, butchering the name for the elegantly lethal creatures.
“Well,” Darby interjected before a disagreement could morph into a fight, “what’s Gage’s cat’s name?”
“Harriet,” Brooke said. “He named her after his grandma.”
“That’s nice.” Darby smiled, thinking how sweet the little boy was for thinking of his grandmother. She wondered if she…if she and Aidan had children, if theirs would be so nice. She thought of the handsome man and her pulse skittered at the idea of how gorgeous his sons would be.
“I think Gage is gonna be in big trouble,” Penny said, joining the amusing conversation. “His momma’s gonna be mad as spit.”
“Penny,” Darby chastised gently, then frowned. “Why would you say that? Did he do something wrong that his teacher doesn’t know about?”
The little girl nodded vigorously. “Didn’t that man say we wasn’t supposed to climb on the fence?”
Darby whipped her head in the direction Penny pointed, just in time to see Gage scramble halfway down the inside of the fence, only to fall from there when his teacher screamed his name. Darby rocketed to her feet and toward the fence. The little boy hit the grassy embankment on the other side of the fence, landing like a cat on all fours, but then he rolled downward right into the jaguar’s meticulously arranged home away from home.
Children shouted all around her. The tour guide, looking wide-eyed and as if it might be his first day, too, started shaking his head and repeating the same mantra over and over: you’re not supposed to climb on the fence.
Darby flung herself at the fence and started upward, her heart hammering wildly. She had to get to that child. The cats…they would…God, she couldn’t even think it. Gage’s teacher, Laurie, had grabbed onto the fence as well.
A blur of movement whizzed past Darby. She stalled, blinked and looked again. Aidan was over the enclosure and slipping down the embankment before she even reached the top of the fence.
How had he plowed through all those children and scaled that fence so quickly?
Her fingers clenched around the cold steel as she watched him reach the boy.
Penny’s wailing dragged her attention in that direction for a moment. She climbed down and moved to her group, huddling them around her as the scene played out like a bad horror flick.
Aidan had the boy in his arms.
A gush of relief moved through Darby, through the crowd…their collective gasps and murmurings echoed behind her. Please, God, she prayed, let him get safely out of there with the child.
Suddenly, the larger of the two cats stood, made a sound that sent a chill down Darby’s spine. Her breath evaporated in her lungs.
Aidan stood stone-still. The child in his arms sobbed relentlessly against his chest. She could see Aidan’s lips moving, attempting to quietly console the boy.
The cat turned toward them, his fluid movement cautious, deliberate, as he moved between Aidan and the fence. Then the animal froze.
For three excruciating beats, no one moved or even breathed.
In the next ten seconds, two things happened. The cat drew back into a crouch and Aidan burst into action.
The cat lunged.
But Aidan was faster.
New voices behind Darby warned that the zookeeper and security had arrived, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the life-and-death events playing out before them all.
The little boy’s arms went around Aidan’s neck. He hit the far wall climbing without so much as a split-second’s hesitation between running and moving upward. Watching him scale that rock wall was incredible. He didn’t slow for an instant, never lost his footing once.
The crowd around Darby burst into applause.
She jumped, startled, then blinked to refocus. He was out…clear of the danger. Safe…with the little boy securely tucked against his chest.
The next few minutes passed in a frenzy of activity. EMTs arrived and took charge of the child, who appeared to be fine except for a few bruises and a skinned elbow. Aidan’s hands were skinned and slightly battered from grabbing onto the rough edges of the rocks. A command decision was made by the senior teacher from Darby’s preschool—they were out of there.
Aidan smiled at Darby as she, the other teachers and their children filed out of the Jaguar Jungle to head toward their buses. She knew without having to ask that he would follow as soon as the EMT finished cleaning the abrasions on his hands.
As the bus pulled away from the parking lot, Aidan was already climbing into his shiny black sports car as she had known he would.
She didn’t look away until the bus had lumbered out onto the street and driven away. Aidan had handled the crisis as if it were an everyday affair in his line of work. Perhaps it was. But he could have been killed. Mauled to death like so many others she heard about in the news.
That was the part that puzzled her—disappointed her. Made her sick to her stomach. How could she have this amazing gift that could locate serial killers and the remains of his victims and not be able to know in advance when a child was in danger…when the man she loved was in danger?
It just didn’t make sense.
Maybe her dreams were right. Maybe she was a failure and that’s why she’d been sent away from that place after all. The men in the white coats might not even want her. That could be why Aidan seemed so vague and noncommittal about the men who’d been after them in the swamp. It might have nothing to do with her.
Poachers protecting their livelihood or vigilantes after Lester seemed
