Chapter Nine

The following few days were incredibly busy, and Marshall took back every disparaging thought he’d had about the ABL’s perceived inefficiency. These Bunnyguards knew their stuff.

By Wednesday morning, all the kits and their mothers were off the island, and by Friday, one hundred animals had been captured, sexed, and medically assessed, including the remaining two original wasically wabbits that had started it all.

Sixty-two males and thirty-eight females had been captured by Friday morning. Gus had deemed twenty of the females pregnant, and they’d already been transported to community carers in the surrounding area. Which left eighty rabbits hopping happily around the bunny farms in their shaded, segregated enclosures, being fed and watered and generally doted on by two dozen bunny lovers.

Gus had hoped the remaining bunnies would be rescued over the next few days, including Thumper, who remained elusive. There’d been multiple reported sightings of the rabbit, but he’d, thus far, evaded capture.

He was like a ghost—growing more and more legendary each day.

Marshall had barely seen Gus since Monday, which was probably better for his equilibrium anyway. Between helping with the rescuing and talking the vet students through the medical and pregnancy checks once the rabbits had started to roll in, she’d been kept busy. And he didn’t see that slowing anytime soon.

He suspected she was relieved to be as far away from him as possible. As far away from the vibe that buzzed between them whenever they got close. Absence certainly made it easier to co-exist, but if she thought ignoring it would make it go away, then she was sorely mistaken.

This kind of chemistry didn’t go away. It could be ignored, sure. But it just built and built like a thunder storm, heavy and ominous, complete with flashing tongues of lightning, always crackling away in the background.

It never just fizzled out.

And watching Gus this past week had built that storm a little more. She was efficient and thorough. Gentle and soothing with the bunnies and a patient teacher and enthusiastic mentor for the vet students. She was thoughtful and friendly and approachable at all times.

Just watching her in her element, going about her day, increased his admiration for her tenfold. She was nothing like the kind of woman who usually rang his bell, yet he was drawn to her in a way he couldn’t explain.

Sure, she was gorgeous, but she didn’t fawn or flirt or seek him out. She didn’t laugh overly loud at his jokes or ask his opinion. She didn’t flash him secretive smiles or find a hundred different ways to be near him.

She just…did her job. And it was sexy as fuck.

He knew one thing for sure. They may have signed a contract for the term of four weeks that he had every intention of honoring—if she could, he sure as hell could—but if she thought for a second he wouldn’t collect on his incentive at the end of that time, then she was in for a shock. He was going to kiss the holy hell out of her and a lot more than that, too, if she was up for it.

What that might mean for them beyond the island, he didn’t know. But they weren’t done. Not by a long shot.

“Marshall?” The woman in question stormed into the cabin on Saturday morning, frowning at her cell phone, the slogan on her T-shirt declaring Show Me the Bunny. “What have you been up to?”

She glanced at him, her lips pursed in a cross little line, and his groin pulled tight just thinking about kissing that mouth into submission. He drew in a steadying breath as his brain automatically went to what he’d been up to in the shower this morning. He didn’t really think she’d be ripping him a new one in front of everyone for jerking off, but her mouth often made him lose the place in the conversation.

“Why do I have an email from the publicity officer at the Denver shelter wanting a quote from me for the media about our unusual Facebook posts? What the hell have you done?”

Relief and guilt intermingled to make him irritable. “I haven’t done anything.”

“All you have to do is put the individual rabbit stats up,” she continued, ignoring his denial. “You don’t even have to go looking for them—I give them to you.”

“I have been. I’ve just been…creative with the rest of the post.”

Due to his terrible rabbit-rescuing skills and, in fact, his general lack of animal handling and knowledge, Marshall had been given the job of managing the Facebook posts for each of the rabbits they were putting up for adoption.

Once the bunnies had been checked by Gus and given a name, one of the Bunnyguards brought the animal to the cabin, where Marshall took a picture, using his phone. He was getting quite good at it now, having found the perfect spot against a wall where he’d draped one of his grandfather’s old royal-blue velvet blankets as a backdrop. Natural light poured in from the window above and, surprisingly, most of the bunnies had sat docilely through their photo shoot with very few escape attempts.

Then, Marshall loaded each individual picture to the ABL’s page with a post that always included the stats Gus had insisted accompany every picture, because the public had to be fully informed about each animal. Which was fair enough, but was there anything wrong with a bit of embellishment?

“Creative?” Her eyebrows almost hit her hairline.

“Sure. Look.” Marshall had the ABL page already up as he spun the laptop around so Gus could see. “This one’s Stella, who Chris brought to me earlier.”

She approached the table, and Marshall’s breath hitched as she leaned in and read out loud over his shoulder.

“This is Stella. She’s a two-point-five pound mini lop and is approximately three months old. She is in good health with short, dense agouti-colored fur, excellent teeth, and a good appetite. She’s friendly and inquisitive. Stella likes piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.”

Marshall felt, rather than saw, her head turn, and Gus’s astonished gaze blasted into his temples. “Are you serious?”

He turned his head, and for a second, their mouths were thrillingly close before she pulled back. “It’s funny.”

“It’s not supposed to be funny. Finding these bunnies a home is a serious matter.”

“Of course it is, but this kind of thing gets people talking.” Obviously, he was going outside standard protocol, which was making Gus nervous, but if the outcome was the same, then what was the harm in trying something new? “That’s what social media is all about, right?”

She leaned forward again, her fingers reaching for the scroll bar of the laptop. “Are there more?”

Marshall didn’t have the heart to tell her they were all like that as she read the next one. “This is Gwen.” She skimmed the stats, her lips moving but no words coming out. Her eyes bugged at the last sentence as she once again turned her head. “Gwen ain’t no hollaback girl?”

He shrugged. “Gwen didn’t look like the kind of doe that takes any shit, you know?”

“Oh God.” She rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the screen, scrolling to the next post. “This is Barry.” More lip reading and then, “Barry can’t get enough of your love, baby.”

There was a shake of her head before she went onto the next one, which was Mac. “Mac likes a good cheeseburger and cakes that are left out in the rain.” There was a moment of silence followed by a disbelieving, “Really?”

“Uh huh.” Marshall nodded as Gus took two paces away. “Let me tell you, that one was inspired. Mac’s got a pretty bland personality, hard to be upbeat about him.”

She shoved her hands on her hips. “You couldn’t just…transcribe the facts?”

“No offense, Goldilocks, but I’ve read more exciting poison labels.”

“We’re the ABL, not a dating site.”

“Of course you are. You’re matching up people with pets. And the posts are going viral, therefore more people will see them, which means more potential adopters.”

She shook her head at him and opened her mouth as if she wanted to say more, but an excited shout from just outside drew their attention.

“Gus!”

Marshall stood at the urgency in the voice and Gus had taken two steps toward the door, when Paula, one of the vet student Bunnyguards, burst through it, carrying one of the temporary cardboard boxes they used to transport the rabbits back to the clearing once they’d been caught.

She held it up triumphantly and announced, “We got Thumper.”

Marshall blinked, relieved that it hadn’t been anything serious. “Well done,” Gus said, with a little clap of her hands.

That clap was endearing as fuck.

She pushed some of the paperwork that had been gathering on the table to one side. “Put the box down here.” Paula complied eagerly, and both he and Gus gathered around the box as Paula opened the lid.

Admittedly, prior to being involved with this, Marshall’s experience with rabbits was limited to TV documentaries and cartoons, but the-take home from those was that bunnies were cute.

Not so, Thumper.

Sitting on the bottom of the box, looking up at them, had to be the ugliest rabbit Marshall had ever had the misfortune to lay eyes upon. He was large—probably five or six times bigger than the other lops they’d rescued—with a face only a mother could love.

Half an ear was missing, one eye was closed and marred with scar tissue, and his face looked squashed, like it had met a brick wall at high velocity (and lost). There was also an overbite that was well beyond cute and buck-toothed.

It was full-on Dracula bunny.

“Now there’s a face for radio,” Marshall murmured.

Paula laughed, but Gus was already reaching into the box. “Awww, shhh,” she crooned. “Don’t listen to them, big boy.”

Big boy? Typical that the first time he heard her say those words, she wasn’t referring to him.

“You’re definitely a lop, aren’t you? But are you a boy, I wonder?”

She offered her hand first, like he’d seen her do with all the rabbits. When it didn’t show any signs of anxiety or aggressiveness, she stroked it a couple of times between the ears. When it became obvious Thumper was happy to let her do that to him all day—lucky bastard—she picked him up under his arms, grunting a little at the effort.

His back left leg hung, withered and useless, and Gus inspected it visually for a moment before cradling Thumper in one arm to delve through the fur between his legs with her opposite hand. He sat there placidly as Gus burrowed, looking for evidence of gender.

Yeah, dude. I’d be lying still as a stone, too, if she was feeling me up down there.

As efficiently as he’d seen her do it before, she exposed the genitals and had her confirmation. “Oh yes, you are a boy. A big boy.”

Marshall’s eyes widened. Thumper was one well-hung buck. It was good to know that Mother Nature’s propensity for proportional anatomy extended to the animal kingdom as well as humankind.

Gus placed him gently on the table in front of her, feeling his bad leg, which stuck out at an awkward angle. Moving on, she stroked his fur in long, slow pats with one hand as she pulled her stethoscope out of her pocket with the other, and he watched as she performed her usual checks, her hands moving methodically over the animal.

Marshall could watch her do this forever. She was so gentle, her eyes going distant as she stared at a fixed point, obviously concentrating on what her hands could feel beneath the fur.

Christ, the whole Doctor North persona was a turn on. It was the competence thing again. Plus, to be fair, last night’s dream about her in nothing but those heels she wore in court and her stethoscope slung around her neck wasn’t helping. Not even the part where she’d grabbed his balls and asked him to cough was acting as a deterrent.

“Does he have some kind of a gland problem, do you think?” Marshall asked. He doubted rabbits suffered from any such thing, but he needed something to divert his thoughts right now.

“It could be a gland problem,” she said, pulling the stethoscope out of her ears. “I doubt he’d be getting enough food out here for it to be obesity-related.”

Marshall blinked. He’d expected her to dismiss his question as preposterous, but apparently rabbits could suffer from gland problems. And obesity?

“I’ll ask them to run some blood tests when he gets back to Denver.”

“What do you think happened to his ear and his face?” Paula asked.

Slinging the stethoscope around her neck—Christ, that was a sexy move—Gus stroked his ears a couple of times before leaning over the animal. It put her ass a little too close to his groin for his liking, and he shoved his hands in his pockets.

Getting in close to Thumper’s face, Gus inspected it for long moments, gently prodding all round. She was braver than Marshall—he didn’t trust those choppers.

“I think the ear might have happened in a fight. Probably with another buck over a female. But his face looks more traumatic in origin, his bum leg, too. Maybe something heavy fell on him when he was younger? Struck him right in the face?”

“Or maybe,” Marshall suggested, “that’s where he got hit by the ugly stick?”

She fixed him with a steely glare as she covered Thumper’s ears. “Don’t you listen to the bad man,” she told him.

Which was a terrible choice of words because it put about a dozen bad things in his head that he could do to her bent over like this, her delectable ass dangerously close to his groin. Thankfully, she straightened and Marshall relaxed a little.

“Poor bunny,” Gus said, petting Thumper in long slow strokes. “Such a shame, he seems really healthy other than his physical disabilities.”

Her voice was full of wistfulness and regret and Marshall wondered if he missed something. “A shame?”

Paula glanced at Gus then at Marshall. “People won’t adopt him,” she explained.

Marshall frowned. “Why not?”

“They only want cute bunnies,” she said.

What? Marshall glanced at Gus for confirmation and she nodded. “People are dicks,” he said. He’d known that already, but this was just the cherry on top of the dick pie.

They both laughed and Gus said, “Amen.”

“What happens if no one adopts him?” But even before the words were out, it occurred to Marshall exactly what would happen and why Gus had that tone in her voice. “You put him down?”

She shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. The ABL has a no-euthanasia policy.”

Marshall breathed a little easier.

“But he might spend the rest of his life in a shelter, which would be so incredibly sad for such a social animal.”

“You leave it to me.” Marshall patted the bunny’s head as the empathy in Gus’s voice reached right inside him and squeezed tight around his heart. “I’ll find Thumper a home.” His brain was already running through the post.

This is Thumper. He has a gland problem, a bum leg, and is facially challenged. Would suit a blind person or someone with a large pair of rose-tinted glasses. He likes big butts and he cannot lie.

Or something…

“Thanks. But don’t hold your breath.”

“It’ll be fine.” He petted the rabbit again. “Just you wait and see.”

“Don’t worry too much,” she dismissed. “There are worse places than shelters to live out your life.”

Except she’d made it sound like a prison cell. “Look…if we don’t find anyone, I’ll adopt him.”

She turned stunned eyes on him. So did Paula. “You want to adopt a bunny? You want to adopt this bunny?”

Hell no. He did not want to adopt a rabbit—he doubted Thumper had ever been a bunny—let alone one that was probably going to make him broke with all the medication he was going to need for whatever weird-ass thing was wrong with his glands and scare the bejesus out of little children.

He wanted a dog, damn it.

Marshall sighed. “If we can’t find anyone else, then sure…yeah, why not?”

Up until he’d said those words, Marshall had no idea why he’d even said them. Why would he agree to something so incredibly stupid? But then Gus looked at him with admiration and gratitude, and he felt fucking ten feet tall and bulletproof.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, her earnest gaze meshing with his. “That’s really sweet of you.”

And right then and there, Marshall would have adopted all the fucking bunnies on the island for her to keep looking at him like that. Like he’d hung the goddamn moon.

He was so dazzled by it he almost missed the slight thunk behind them. He didn’t miss the familiar drawl. “So, this is where the party’s at?”

Marshall blinked, desperately trying to re-orientate himself. Jeremy. He dragged his gaze away from Gus and turned to find his brother regarding them speculatively.

“You made it.”

He grinned as he walked toward Jeremy, feeling as happy as he always did whenever he saw him. Maybe it was the loss of both their parents or their closeness in age or the economic hardship of their upbringing, but he and Jer had always been tight.

“Hey, bro,” Jeremy said. They embraced in a quick, one-armed, shoulder check-slash-hug thing they usually did, complete with a couple of slaps on the back.

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

“I said I was coming, didn’t I?”

Marshall shot his brother a you’re-shitting-me look. “You said you were coming to the last three Christmases as well.”

Jeremy shrugged. “Whatcha gonna do? Murder rates go up over the holidays. It’s a very stressful time of year. Brings out all kinds of homicidal tendencies.” He looked over Marshall’s shoulder and nodded at Gus. “Hey, Gus. Nice shirt.”

She glanced down at her T-shirt then back up and smiled at Jeremy. “Thanks.”

The smile almost cut Marshall off at the knees. It was sweet and open and appreciative.

And annoying as fuck.

Marshall almost growled eyes up, buddy, as his brother’s gaze lingered. He didn’t want any other guys looking at Gus like she was some kind of tasty morsel. Especially Jeremy, and he didn’t care if that made him the worst kind of Neanderthal dick. The guy who operated the boat that went back and forth to the mainland a dozen times a day always stared at her tits, and it had taken every ounce of Marshall’s self-control not to knock his ass into the lake.

He’d have no such compunction with Jeremy.

But just to prove that she was impervious to all the Dyson family charm, not just his, she said, “Marshall didn’t mention you were joining us.”

No flirty smile or batting of eyelids. Just a simple enquiry. He’d never been so damn pleased to see his brother crash and burn in his life.

“That’s because,” Marshall said, clapping a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder, “I didn’t take him seriously.”

“He’s never taken me seriously.” Jeremy’s face fell in mock disappointment. “You’d think he’d have learned by now.” But he recovered enough from his disappointment to throw a hey-baby smile in Paula’s direction. “And who do we have here?”

“Hi,” she said, stepping forward. “I’m Paula. I’m one of the Bunnyguards.”

“Marshall’s been telling me all about the Bunnyguards. Thank you for your service.”

Marshall rolled his eyes. It wasn’t like the Bunnyguards were clearing mines in Afghanistan, but Paula blushed and beamed. Jeremy closed the distance between them and extended his hand. She took it as soon as Jeremy was close enough, and he smiled at her as they shook. There was no doubt in Marshall’s mind that his brother had found a bed for the weekend.

Jeremy’s gaze shifted and snagged on Thumper, his eyes almost popping out of his head. “What in the living hell is that?”

Paula picked up the rabbit and cuddled him to her chest. “This is Thumper,” she said.

“Thumper? I think Fugly is a far more appropriate name.”

Feeling weirdly defensive of the rabbit, Marshall added, “He has a glandular problem.”

“Looks like he’s got more than that going on.”

Marshall shrugged. “Well…I doubt he’s ever going to be used in an Easter candy commercial.”

“Not unless they’re going for a bunny that’s taken up drinking, binge-eating, and bar-fighting in the off-season. On the other hand,” Jeremy considered, “if they ever decided to do a Teenage Mutant Ninja Rabbits show, he’d be top pick.”

Ordinarily, Marshall would probably have laughed. After all, Thumper did have rather unfortunate looks and he’d been equally as disparaging just prior to Jeremy arriving. But that was before he’d offered to be a last resort home for the rabbit. “He’ll be fine. He just needs some treatment.”

Jeremy cocked an eyebrow. “Can you treat ugly?”

“Dude. Lay off.” Marshall covered Thumper’s ears like he’d seen Gus do earlier. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

Jeremy laughed and shook his head like his brother had gone crazy. When he sobered, he said to Paula, “I was hoping I might get a tour. You up for that?”

Paula dumped Thumper into Marshall’s arms in two seconds flat. “Absolutely,” she said.

Jeremy smiled at her then at Marshall and Gus. “Catch you guys later.”

Within a few seconds they were both gone, leaving a bemused-looking Gus and Marshall staring at the doorway, holding the bunny.

“Wow. He doesn’t waste any time, does he?”

Marshall shook his head. “Nope.”

Flicking a glance his way, she petted Thumper on more time and said, “He looks good on you,” before sending Marshall a smile that wrapped itself around his balls.

And his heart.