Because You're Mine(30)

The skinny setter crept across the grass on his belly. His tail gave a tentative wag. Inch by inch, he approached her. Alanna barely breathed, afraid of causing him to bolt. He reached her and she laid the chicken on the grass, where he gobbled it up.

She touched the top of his head, and he flinched but didn’t pull away from the food. His skin quivered as she petted him, and she saw the tension gradually ease from his body. “Poor love. No one will hurt you here.”

Prince finished the chicken and lay quietly under her hands for several long minutes before he licked her fingers, then rose and slipped back into the night. She’d made progress. She stood and wiped her hands on her jeans.

The kitten still rubbed against her ankles. She scooped up the half-drowned scrap and cuddled it. It licked her chin and she carried it with her across the grass to the path around the lagoon. If she stayed on the path, she wouldn’t have any run-ins with the alligator.

Her bare feet hit a pebble on the flagstone and she winced, then put down the kitten to brush the rock off her foot. The kitten hunched at her feet and cried. “What’s wrong, little one?” She scooped it up.

She heard a splash in the lagoon and a loud meow from a different cat. Aiming her light through the gloom, she saw a white feline head above the water swimming furiously toward shore. A figure ran from the lagoon. Man or woman, she couldn’t tell, but she suspected whoever it was had launched the cat into the water.

The cat yowled, and the note of despair in its cry galvanized her into action. She gasped and ran for the water. Was throwing the cat into the lagoon a deliberate attempt to feed it to the gator? She glanced around for the sinister reptile but saw nothing. The cat screeched again, and it turned a plaintive gaze toward her. Surely she could save the poor thing. She dropped the kitten to the ground and rushed to save the other cat.

Wading into the water, she felt along the muddy bottom with her toes. Ick. The gooey stuff clung to her feet. She listened for the horrific roaring she’d heard last night, but only the sound of tree frogs and crickets echoed around her. Her outreached hands touched the cat, and it practically climbed her wet shirt.

Alanna clutched it close and began to wade back to the shore. She heard a sound that made her mouth go dry. A rustle, then a loud splash. She glanced back to see eyes shining above the surface of the black water as the gator swam toward her.

The shore was still five feet away, and the muck on the bottom of her feet weighed her down like an anchor. Her pulse raced. What had she been thinking? She carried precious cargo—Liam’s child.

She tried to move faster, hindered by the fact that she was clutching the cat. She spared another glance behind her. The gator was three feet away and gaining fast. She thought to hit it with the torch but knew that would do little good. All she could do was try to put one foot after the next in the muck and get to shore.

She saw Barry at the edge of the water. “Barry, help me!” Her shaking hands dropped the light. It sank into the dark waters.

“Hurry, Alanna!” He tossed something white toward the gator.

At first Alanna was confused, then she remembered that he fed the gator marshmallows. She moved as fast as she could. There was no time to look back. If she wasted a split second, the gator would take her in its jaws.

She heard those massive jaws snap and expected to feel searing pain, but the teeth hadn’t clamped on her. On her knees at the edge of the water, she crawled the last few feet out of the murky lagoon.

Barry yanked her to her feet and propelled her away from the water. The moment her toes touched the flagstone path, she wanted to collapse, but she glanced back toward the lagoon and saw the gator again, only its eyes above the water. Looking for the prey she’d nearly become.

She dropped the cat and threw her arms around Barry. “Thank God you were here, Barry. He would have eaten me for sure.”

He caught her in a fierce hug. “What were you doing out there, sugar? I could shake you.”

“The cat,” she babbled. “Someone threw the cat into the water to feed the gator, I’m thinking. I had to save it.”

“You nearly were food to Pete yourself. I couldn’t have endured it.”

His mouth swooped down and claimed hers in a kiss. The fury and passion in his lips whirled her away from noticing she was wet and dirty and frightened. She clung to him and returned his kiss. How wonderful that someone cared so much if she lived or died. Barry was someone she could depend on. He’d been there for her since the day they first met.

His hand traveled down her back to her waist, and he pressed her more tightly against him. The movement brought Alanna to her senses. She wasn’t ready for a real marriage yet. This was physical attraction, nothing more.

She tore her lips from his. “I need to draw a bath. I reek of the lagoon. Thank you for saving me, Barry.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, his eyes intense. “Don’t scare me like that again.” He dropped his arms, then put his hands in his pockets. “The cat isn’t worth your life.”

“I had to help,” she said. “I can’t explain it.”

The cat and the wet kitten still huddled at her feet, and Barry kicked at them. “Stupid cats, I’d kill them myself,” he said fiercely. “Cats are good for nothing, and you nearly died to rescue one. What were you thinking?”

Alanna watched the cats streak away and dive under the front porch. “I wasn’t thinking about the baby the way I should have been,” she admitted. Her warmth toward him evaporated. “How did you happen to see me?”