The Simple Wild: A Novel(65)

“He’s keeping that thing as a pet. You know that, right?”

Dad chuckles. “Jonah found him living under his house last year. He was just a kit; guess he’d lost his family. So he started tossing him scraps of food to help him out until he moved on his way. But he never did.”

“Of course he didn’t. No one’s going to leave an all-you-can-eat buffet to starve in the wild.”

“Jonah built him a little den on the porch and he lives in there. Seems quite comfortable.”

“He was petting it today.” I cringe.

“Bandit’s a friendly enough little guy. He likes the attention.” Dad sounds like he approves of this.

“You guys do realize that raccoons carry disease, right?”

Dad waves my concern away. “Nah, he’s fine. Jonah’s friend is a vet. She gave Bandit his rabies shot. Boy, did they have a time of it. Jonah had to put a sleeping dart into him.” He pauses. “’Course, I don’t think Marie’s supposed to be vaccinating them so, as far as anyone knows . . .” He gives me a look of warning.

“Who am I going to tell?” Besides my mother, and Diana of course.

Dad shifts checker pieces around absently. “What about you? I remember you being pretty set on getting a dog, way back when. Did that ever happen?”

“No. Simon’s allergic to pretty much everything on four legs. That’s fine, though. I have too much going on in my life anyway. I had a fish one time, though. For Christmas.”

He frowns in thought. “You know, I think I remember that.”

“His name was Guppy. He was . . . a guppy.” I roll my eyes at my childish simplicity. “He lasted a week before he went for the golden flush.”

“So . . . no pets.”

“No pets.” I snort. “Not unless you count Tim and Sid.”

My dad’s eyebrows arch in question.

“These two neighborhood raccoons that have been terrorizing me forever.”

“Terrorizing you,” he echoes, amusement flickering in his gaze. “They sound like horrible creatures.”

“They are horrible! And huge. Twice the size of Bandit. And vicious.” Not that they’ve ever done more than annoy the hell out of me.

“Did you know that raccoons aren’t native to Alaska?”

“I did not know that,” I say slowly.

“Yes. They were introduced into the state in the 1930s for the fur trade.”

“That’s . . . fascinating.” I can’t keep the dryness from my tone, but it earns his soft laughter.

“Truth is, we’re more worried about the foxes, as far as rabies goes. Those little buggers are always getting into villages and attacking the dogs. Marie flies in from Anchorage once a month for a few days to run a clinic in Bangor, and Jonah usually takes her out to the villages so she can give rabies shots to the strays. She’s a bit of a crusader, that one.”

“This Marie person and Jonah sound pretty close, if she’s risking trouble to vaccinate Bandit for him,” I say casually. “Are they, like, together or something?”

My dad’s brow furrows. “No, no . . . they’re just friends. As far as I know, anyway. Though Jonah doesn’t talk about the girls he’s . . . dating.” He falters over that word, making me think that “dating” wouldn’t be the best word he’d use to describe what Jonah does with girls he’s interested in. “Of course, Agnes is convinced that Marie would like to be more, but she says that about most girls that come around him.”

“I don’t get it,” I murmur, baffled. Kayley the coffee girl . . . Marie the vet . . . even twelve-year-old Mabel has a crush on the big brute. Though I’m guessing Jonah’s a hell of a lot nicer to them than he has been with me, if that flirtatious interaction between him and Kayley is any indication.

But what I really don’t get is that twinge of something I felt when Jonah was ogling Diana in her short skirt. It’s been lingering in my stomach ever since. It feels like a shade of disappointment, but it can’t possibly be, because I don’t like Jonah that way. I’m barely tolerating him at this point.

My dad regards me peculiarly for a long moment. “You two still not getting along?”

“I think we might have turned a corner today. He’s going to help me build a website for Alaska Wild.” Maybe we’ll come out on the other end of it as friends.

That, or one of us won’t come out on the other end at all.

My dad’s eyes widen. “A website?”

By the time I’m finished explaining the reasoning, just as I explained it to Jonah earlier today, my dad’s gaze is thoughtful. “Did he ask you to do this?”

“No. I offered.”

“And that’s what you’ve been working on all evening?” He nods toward my computer.

“Yeah. I’ve already got a skeleton set up.” I climb off the couch and walk over to set my laptop where the checkers board had been. “We can play with the colors and styles, to make it better, and then all we need to do is add content and pictures.”

“I wish I had half your business sense. Would have made running Wild a lot easier.” He smiles thoughtfully. “You turned out pretty smart, kiddo.”

I feel a flutter of nostalgia in my stomach. I know that nickname isn’t reserved solely for me anymore, but it still feels like a connection to oh so long ago.