After a few deep breaths, she went to the kitchen. There was an empty cereal box on the counter. Darn, that had been her breakfast for next week. At least she had coffee. She could live without a lot of stuff, but never her coffee.
Her cell phone began to ring. She hurried to the other room and unearthed it at the bottom of her purse.
“Hello?”
“Me again.”
“Hi DeeDee.”
“Did your friend leave?”
“Yes, why?”
“Just curious.”
“No, I wasn’t lying, and no, we didn’t have sex.”
“I didn’t really think you had,” DeeDee said, sounding disappointed. “But a girl can hope.”
Callie laughed. “You know, the world does not revolve around having sex.”
“It does if you do it right.” She paused. “Come out with me tonight. It’s Saturday. We’ll go to a club and see what we can drum up.”
Callie almost said yes, but then she remembered she was broke until next Friday. “I can’t this weekend. How about next?”
“I can spot you the money.”
Callie cringed. Her friend made a lot more money, plus her parents were loaded and doted on their only child, but Callie refused to borrow from DeeDee. She made her own way in this world. Always had. She wouldn’t change now.
“Can I take a rain check? There are some things I need to get done around the house.”
DeeDee’s deep sigh came across the line. “If you insist.”
“I’m afraid I have to.”
Callie closed her phone a few minutes later, after DeeDee told her about the guy she’d met at a club last Saturday. DeeDee led an eventful life. Her motto was live while you’re young. She also thought Callie was old before her time. Maybe she was. Sometimes Callie felt older than her twenty-six years.
The next morning Callie stretched her arms above her head and yawned as she came awake, then stilled. Cautiously, she glanced around the room.
No one there.
She’d half expected to see Rogar sitting on the end of her bed, legs crossed, and stark naked. She was almost disappointed that he wasn’t. DeeDee was right, her life was definitely lacking male companionship.
The weekend dragged at a snail’s pace. She cleaned everything there was to clean, and still found herself going to the window and looking out.
Was Rogar okay? Had he found another female more willing to let him crawl into her bed? One who was more willing to believe his far-fetched stories?
She was glad when Monday morning came so she’d at least have her job to occupy her mind. The petting zoo wasn’t so bad. She enjoyed working with the baby animals. The kids that came to try to torture the animals were another matter.
If she was honest, most of the children weren’t that bad. It was just that there was always at least one monster in the bunch who thought pulling the goat’s tail was great fun.
Callie was tempted to visit Sheba first. Her place of Zen, gather her Chi, but she knew that would make her late so she headed in the opposite direction.
“Hi, Callie,” Gail said as Callie joined her coworker.
“Morning.”
Gail critically eyed her. “Rough weekend?”
She walked into the small enclosure that would hold the baby animals when they brought them out. “Do I look that bad?”
“Not that bad. You could never look bad. Just tired.”
“I read a book I couldn’t put down.”
Gail nodded, knowing Callie was addicted to books. “Yeah, I get pretty caught up in them, too. Give me a sexy hunk over a boring rerun any day.” She laughed.
The phone rang in the small building next to the enclosure.
“I’ll get it,” Gail said.
Callie began to bring the animals to the enclosure. They had quite a few. A miniature horse, a lamb, a potbelly pig they called Morris, a duck, the goat, a very fat cat that wasn’t really a baby, to name a few. They were sweet, but they weren’t the big cats that she longed to take care of.
She looked up when Gail returned. “Everything okay?”
“You’re being pulled.”
Callie groaned. When someone didn’t show up for work, she was the one who got pulled to do their job, and why not, she had done everything at the zoo, from driving one of the tour buses, to mucking stalls—oh, God, she hoped it wasn’t that. She loathed cleaning the stalls, especially the elephants’.
She knew the only reason they had stuck supervisor on her name tag was so she would stay. The quarter an hour raise had helped, she admitted to herself, but it wasn’t like she would get rich from it or anything.
“You’re supposed to go to the main office.”
Callie’s smile was weak at best.
“The secretary said it had to do something with a private tour. Hey, don’t feel too bad, we have three classes of first and second graders scheduled to go through this morning.”
Callie was thoughtful for a moment, then she nodded. “You’re right. Nothing could be as bad as that.” She grinned, then made her way to the main office.
Still, she wasn’t particularly fond of private tours. If someone could afford the cost of a guide, and an open minibus or Jeep, that usually meant their kids were spoiled rotten. The last time she had chauffeured one, she’d ended up with a giant sucker stuck on the back of her uniform, and cotton candy in her hair. The generous tip had only mildly soothed her ruffled feathers.
She went inside the air-conditioned private office.
“Go on in, Mr. Campbell is expecting you.” His secretary waved her inside.
She took a deep breath. She always hated going inside his office. It wasn’t that she disliked him. Okay, maybe she did. He was superficial and pretentious, nothing like his father. If it made him look good, then he was happy, no matter whose toes he stepped on along the way.
She opened the door and walked in. Mr. Campbell was seated at his desk. The office was done in dark, rich wood—only the best, of course, but it was rather like walking into a cave. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she saw the man who sat across from Mr. Campbell. From the back, he looked familiar. Dark hair brushed his shoulders, he wore a deep green shirt and dark slacks.
“Callie, come in, come in. I want you to meet Rogar Valkyir, you’ll be giving him a private tour of the grounds. Mr. Valkyir, this is Callie Jordon.”
Rogar stood, then slowly turned.
She tried to swallow, but couldn’t. She choked instead. Rogar quickly poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on Mr. Campbell’s desk, then handed it to her. She gulped half of it down as she pulled her thoughts together.
“Are you okay, Ms. Jordon?” Rogar’s words were soft and silky, like a caress.
“Fine, thank you very much. I swallowed wrong.”
“Miss Jordon.” Rogar bowed slightly.
“Mr. Valkyir.” She said between gritted teeth. She didn’t know what the hell his game was, but she was damned well tired of playing!
“Callie is probably the one person who knows everything about the animals we have at the zoo,” Mr. Campbell continued as though the temperature in the room hadn’t suddenly dropped ten degrees. “He especially wants to see the big cats. I’d like for you to give him anything he wants.” He didn’t smile, he beamed.
“I’m anxious to see the park,” Rogar said. “Are you ready?”
