The door to Shelby’s office was standing slightly ajar. I stopped outside, rapping my knuckles against the wood under her nameplate. “Can I come in?”

“That depends,” replied Shelby, yanking the door open and glaring at me. Her hair was out of its ponytail, falling to frame her face in disheveled waves. “Are you going to demand I talk like Crocodile Dundee to amuse the tourists?” Now that she was no longer on stage, her accent had faded, becoming more common and less cliché.

“I wasn’t planning to,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know I actually made it to the show today.”

“Really?” Shelby stepped back, making room for me to come into her office. It was the same size as mine, but contained what seemed like ten times as much stuff. I was constantly afraid of an avalanche when I came to visit. “Do you want a medal?”

“Not particularly.” I moved into the office. “I was doing the copperhead survey this morning in the swamp.”

“Mud and venomous snakes. Sounds like the ideal date.” There was a sharp edge to her words, and she still wasn’t smiling. I managed not to wince. Shelby was one of those people who looked miserable, almost funereal, when she wasn’t smiling. When she did, it seemed like she could outshine the sun.

She hadn’t been smiling much at me recently.

“I’m sorry I didn’t invite you,” I said. “I knew you had a show this afternoon.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” she said, after a pause that left me squirming. Finally, the corners of her mouth tipped upward, and she asked, “How’d you like it?”

I grinned. “I thought it was fantastic.”

“Good, because I thought we had some pacing issues during the conservation section,” she said, and began chattering rapidly about the structure of the tiger show, leaving me free to listen and enjoy being back in her good graces.

Shelby was possibly the most dangerous opponent I’d ever faced: brilliant, beautiful, and a biologist who knew how to wrestle a mountain lion without hurting either herself or the animal. She hit all my buttons at once. And she didn’t even know my real name, or anything else about my real life. That was part of why she was annoyed at me—I kept pulling away every time she got too close, and I was pretty sure she was getting tired of my crap.

Her talk about the tiger show was winding down. I watched her carefully, trying to decide what the appropriate next move would be. Shelby answered the question for me by crossing the room, leaning forward, and kissing me. I reacted without thinking, sliding my arms around her waist and kissing her back, pulling her against me until I could smell the faint wild traces of tiger on her skin.

When she pulled away, her smile had become something sweeter and darker, like cherry cola syrup. “Come on, Alex, what do you say? Take a girl to dinner after work?”

“I’d love to,” I said, allowing my honest regret to come through in my voice, “but I can’t. I have two school groups coming tomorrow, and I have a lot of work to do on the samples that I collected today. I’m really sorry.”

Shelby’s smile faded, replaced by a look of profound sorrow. The first few times I disappointed her, I thought I’d broken her heart. It took weeks before I realized that she was just one of those people who looked like the world was ending every time she was a little unhappy. “You and science have the best relationship. I’m not sure there’s really room in it for me.”

“Shelby—”

“You’ve canceled six dates on me, Alex, and that’s in the last month. I know we’re not official or anything, but a girl likes to know that the man she’s seeing actually wants to see her once in a while.”

“He does! I mean, I do! I’ve just been busy lately, that’s all.” My words sounded hollow even to my own ears. Maybe Shelby had a point. Maybe it wasn’t fair to either one of us for me to keep stringing her along like this. If I was just willing to admit that it was never going to work, I could save us both a lot of pain in the long run. (In the short run, however, I would be dealing with an angry Australian woman who had access to a large number of predatory cats for the rest of my tenure in Ohio.)

And I couldn’t do it. I liked Shelby. I liked feeling like there was someone in the world who didn’t give a damn about my family or our mission, and who just liked me for me. It would all fall apart eventually, but for now . . .

For now, I just wanted to enjoy it.

Shelby frowned. “You’re really sure you can’t come out with me tonight? There might be ice cream in it for you . . .”

“You have no idea how much I wish I could,” I said, shaking my head. “Can I maybe get a rain check?”

There was a brittle edge to her laughter as she said, “At this rate, we’d need a monsoon for you to pay back all the rain checks that you owe. Come on, Alex. Give me a date. I’m begging you here. Have mercy, and tell me when I’ll need my rain gear.”

I grimaced. It would take most of the night to dissect the frickens. The next night, I was supposed to be watching my cousin so that my grandparents could have their date night. But the night after that . . . “How’s the day after tomorrow?” I asked. “If you say it’s good, I promise you nothing will interfere. I’ll be all yours for the whole evening.”

“You know, I’m fairly sure I’ve heard that one before,” she said. “What can you offer to sweeten the deal?” Shelby stepped close enough to poke me in the chest. “Well?”

“Um . . . no biology homework?”

“Aw, and see, I was hoping for a bit of biology homework. The practical sort.” Shelby leaned up and kissed me, long and slow and with the kind of promise that made me truly regret the fact that I couldn’t go home with her immediately. She smiled again as she pulled away, a languid expression that she could almost have borrowed from the cats she cared for. “I’ll see you then. Don’t you dare be late. And now, you’ll be going. I need to change.”

She pushed me out of the office and into the hall, where I stood, gaping like an idiot, as she closed and locked the door behind me.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a flurry of school groups and the usual questions about the denizens of the reptile house, many of which were some variation on “can’t you make it be less boring?” Reptiles are fascinating things, but you have to be willing to spend a lot of time waiting for them to move.