“What’s your goal? Why do you do what you do?”
“That’s simple. To learn everything I possibly can about the elusive predators and to make sure their numbers don’t dwindle while I’m still on this earth.”
Reidar raised his eyebrows. “All by yourself?”
She laughed. “Of course not. But I want to be part of the solution. Starting with genetic samples to make sure they’re not inbreeding, which leads to birth defects, high mortality rates and eventually the end of a species.” She leaned forward, warming to her subject. “There are only estimates on the numbers because they’re so hard to find, but there are between two thousand and twenty-five hundred in Washington State, and though the population seems stable in western Washington, the numbers are declining in the eastern parts. I want to know why.”
“But every week on the news there’s a sighting near a town, or a cougar eats someone’s beloved toy poodle, so there can’t be too few.” Kelan sat back and crossed his arms again.
“Yeah, the towns keep expanding. People build in the country, in the forests, in cougar territory.
What do you expect?”
“You want everyone in high rises in downtown Seattle?”
She laughed and shook her head. “No. I’m not a tree hugger, but I do love the country. Spent my childhood on a huge farm surrounded by forest on Whidbey Island. Human population grows; it’s a fact. But we also need to make sure that the creatures in our world don’t suffer unduly because we want to share their space. By studying and helping the cougars, we can learn things that will help other breeds of big cats that are in greater danger all over the world.”
Kelan sighed and looked across the table at his brother. Reidar nodded.
She looked back and forth between them. “I swear you two can talk to each other without saying a word.”
They both turned to her.
“How’s that?” Reidar asked.
“You stare at each other, and I know you’re communicating somehow.”
Reidar chuckled, but it sounded a bit forced, his smile not reaching his gorgeous eyes. “It’s a twin thing.”
“So I’ve heard,” she muttered and lifted her drink again. She’d almost polished it off.
“Something I’ll never know, I guess.”
“Want another drink?” Kelan asked.
She nodded as the waiter arrived with their dinner. The scent of her prime rib made her mouth water. “Thanks, guys,” she said when the server departed.
“For?” Kelan glanced up at her, butter knife in one hand.
“Dinner. Conversation. Even arguing with you is more relaxing than…” a night alone in a hotel room. She smiled. “It’s nice, and I like you two a lot.”
They glanced at each other then back at her. “We like you too, Beth,” Kelan said in the gentlest voice she’d heard him use. “More than we should.”
Chapter Nine
“There’s still daylight left,” Reidar said as they stepped outside ahead of Kelan, who was taking care of the bill. “You up for a stroll?”
“Sure. That’d be nice.”
“I know just the place. Have you been to the park?”
Beth shook her head.
They waited for Kelan to catch up before Reidar led them down a different side street and into a wooded park that stretched along the river’s edge.
Neither brother spoke, nor did she as she took in the tranquil sight of plant life alongside the rippling waters. No words were necessary. Though Kelan stayed close, he let Reidar guide the way, and it was the gentle Reidar who took her by the hand during their stroll.
She enjoyed the sweet comradery they shared as they listened to birds chirp. A squirrel did a one-eighty on the path, scampered up a nearby tree trunk and vocally chewed them out for disrupting its plans.
The critter’s anger made her grin.
They stopped at a point where the water foamed white amid a rocky outcrop, the sounds of bubbling rapids filling the silence. Kelan moved closer to the shoreline, picked up some pebbles and skipped one after another out across the smoother surface upriver from the rapids.
“I can see why you love it here,” she said, drawing Reidar’s attention.
He winked, bent down to pluck a tiny white wild flower and slipped it over her ear. “And I knew you had the kind of heart to understand.” Lifting her hand to his lips, he looked out across the river. “I was impressed by what you said about man sharing this world with animals. You have conviction, a passion for what you believe in, and that’s admirable.”
She studied his profile, so similar to his brother’s and yet different. They each had a fire inside that she could sense, but where Kelan’s was more explosive, Reidar’s simmered with undying strength and a tenderness that called to her.
“But?”
His lips twitched with amusement before he replied. “But…are there limits to what you’d be willing to do to achieve your dreams?”
She tensed. “Of course. I’m not unethical.”
“I didn’t say you were. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
He shrugged, avoiding her gaze, apparently unwilling or unable to say more.
She couldn’t fault him for having doubts. The scene she’d made in their store hadn’t exactly presented her in the best of light. “I don’t think your sister likes me,” she said, speculating on where his concerns came from. What did she have to do to convince them she wasn’t a threat to their precious pet?
“Heidi doesn’t really know you.”
“Axel? And the others?”
Reidar looked at her then, his gaze holding hers for a long moment. “They’re just concerned about Falke’s safety.”
“And you?”
“We all are.”
“That’s what I thought. I swear to you, I mean no harm to Falke. I want to help animals like him.
I can’t do that by sacrificing my integrity and harming the very thing I’m trying to protect.”
He released a breath and caressed her cheek with his fingertips. “I believe you.”
After a suspended pause, she asked, “What about you?”
He held her gaze, stared.
“What do you believe in, Reidar?”
He glanced at the horizon, toward the setting sun, his thumb caressing the back of her hand. After a second, he answered, “Like you, I think there are some things in life worth protecting.”
“Ah. So you’re the tree hugger?” she teased, making him smile, and something fluttered inside her tummy at the sight.
“Not exactly. That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” She grew serious, stepped around to face him and took his other hand in hers too.
“What’re your convictions? What things are worth protecting to you?”
His eyes warmed with such passion as he released her hands to rub his palms up her arms.
“Family.”
Smiling, she let him turn her, leaned back against him and wrapped herself in his arms.
“Hey! Care to stroll out here?” Kelan shouted from where he stood shin-deep in the river. He’d rolled up his pant legs and removed his socks and shoes.
She chuckled. “Are you crazy? Isn’t it cold?”
He grinned. “Yep. Refreshing.”
“Is he always like this?” she asked Reidar.
“Like what?”
“So adventurous.”
“Yes. Kelan is a free spirit.”
“Come on in,” Kelan urged. “It feels great.”
When she hesitated, Reidar murmured, “Scared?”
“No.”
“Where’s that adventurous spirit of yours?”