Page 5 of Salvation
Anna followed any and every lead she could find, but none led to any hard facts. She might have hung her head and gone back to the East Coast after a week if it weren’t for two things. First, a family who kept a seasonal cabin on the edge of town asked her to housesit.
“Always better to have someone keeping an eye on the place, especially after all those fires,” they’d said.
Of course, that hadn’t helped the Boones or the Vosses or the Macks family on the south side of town, but Anna kept her mouth shut. She welcomed the chance to stay in town to find out what she could. She could also afford a little time-out from the real estate business, having just sold two homes.
Second, the bear. The longer she stayed, the more she wished for his recovery. Desperately. One uncertain week became two, and midway through the tenth day, he opened his eyes and looked at her. Right at her.
It was only for a second, but her heart just about leaped out of her chest.
His eyes were the purest, brightest blue she’d ever seen, like a mountain lake shining under the noontime sun. Deep, intelligent eyes that held something special. Something…human almost. They were grateful. Weary. Curious yet pained at the same time, as if the bear wasn’t only suffering from physical wounds. And they focused directly on her. Studying her. Wondering. Wishing, almost.
A moment later, his gaze grew unfocused, and he nodded off into an uneasy slumber. But Anna sat staring at him for a long time, full of shock and wonder. A single second of eye contact had never affected her that way, ever. Not the prettiest eyes of the sweetest deer foal, like the one she and Sarah had helped nurse back to health one summer. Not the bright, proud eyes of the old Clydesdale who used to nicker when she jogged by his Virginia farm. Not even her grandmother’s eyes that had remained bright and fiery to the last.
Her heart beat faster, harder. Her fingers tightened around an invisible handhold.
She spent the rest of the day wondering why her body and soul wanted to dive back into the moment to relive that unexpected burst of wonder.
She talked to the bear every day, but at some point, she realized he didn’t react to noise. When a door slammed, she’d jumped in surprise, but the bear didn’t flinch. Clapping didn’t draw his attention, nor did the barks or squawks of new arrivals to the rescue center.
Cynthia grew morose when Anna pointed it out. “Even if he survives, it’s going to be hard to rehabilitate him to the wild. A deaf bear?”
Anna didn’t want to ask what the alternative was. A proud animal like that belonged in the wild, not as a permanent captive of a wildlife center.
A day later, he looked at her again with those mesmerizing blue eyes, and she nearly cried at the message coded in them.
Help me. Please.Help me get out of this place.
It brought her right back to all the times as a little girl when she imagined living on a Doctor Doolittle farm where she could be friends with animals who were happy and free. She’d have a friendly lion, a playful tiger, a wolf who could tell her what every howl meant, and yes, a cuddly bear. A big one, like him.
But life didn’t work like that, and much as she wanted to, she couldn’t just set him free.
“You’re hurt,” she whispered through the bars of the cage.
Please,his eyes begged.I have to get out of here.
“You need a while longer to heal.”
Although he was barely fit to sit up, he grew agitated, pacing and turning in his too-small cage, testing the bars with paws the size of dinner plates then crumpling in a heap.
It broke her heart, but what could she do? Even if she dared do the unthinkable, how would she actually manage it? You didn’t just pop a cage gate open when no one else was around and wave an injured grizzly toward the door saying,That way, buddy. Good luck and Godspeed.
A padlock kept the bear’s cage firmly closed, and it was only taken off when the bear was ushered from the front section to the separate back area so the cage could be cleaned. One of the assistants would duck in, change the straw bedding, fill the water, and back out again, then bolt and lock the cage.
Except for the day when the assistant slid the bolt but left off the lock. Anna opened her mouth, and the words were right on the tip of her tongue.You forgot the lock. I’ll get it for you.
But her hand froze on the way to picking it up when she felt the bear’s gaze on her. A gaze so intense, her skin prickled and warmed.
She met his eyes. His gaze pierced her, and not a hair on his body moved. Something pulsed between them. An understanding. A plan. A promise.
Yes, she was going out of her mind. But hell, it sure felt like that.
“Hey, Anna?” the assistant called.
Anna dropped her jacket over the lock lying beside the cage and whirled like a thief caught in the act. “Yes?”
“Time to close up. Want to help?”
“Sure,” she said, much too quickly. “Sure.”
