“Knock, knock!” someone sang out by the door. Who the hell? I hopped off Jake so he could go to the door. Yikes, I totally forgot that this house was right dab in the middle of this rescue. Anyone could see us through a window. I needed to be more careful about that, maybe head upstairs or get some pretty curtains.
When Jake opened the door, he gestured for our guest to come inside.
“Rayne!” I bounced up and ran to hug my preggy bestie. She and Arson were here.
“What are you guys doing here?” I beamed. They looked so cute with their matching black hair and green eyes. Oh, their baby was going to be a cutie.
“I hadn’t heard back from you today and wanted to check in on you, plus this place sounded cool. Jake said we could come by anytime, so I thought now was as good as any.” She smiled while looking around. A crashing noise startled Rayne and me, as Casey jumped up onto the table to the right of us and then dashed off, Binksie slowly stalking her. They never stopped!
“Good lord.” Rayne had a hand on her heart.
“Well, I’m glad you stopped by!” I hugged her again and gave Cammy Jr. a kiss.
“You’re all right?” She gestured towards Jake.
“Oh yeah, I’m just dating a millionaire, but who cares, right? Although now that I think about it… you do know I have an addiction to shoes, right?” I gave him a wink and started chatting Rayne up about everything.
“Can we give them a tour?” I pleaded with Jake.
“Yeah, let me just put Casey in her crate for a nap. Don’t want her tearing up the house while we’re out.” He had a point there. Not sure why some people thought owning a tiger would be fun. They destroyed everything. He walked off and grabbed the cub, placing her in her pen. She would be out in no time. Together, we all walked around, and I took the lead on the tour when I could. I was excited to share all the stuff I had learned. Everyone at the rescue knew everything already so I couldn’t impress them.
“This is Koda, the bear. He’s a retired circus bear. He had a pretty hard life, kept in a small cage, forced to do stunts, and travelling constantly. But he’s pretty happy now. He likes to laze around his habitat and enjoy the fresh air.” I pointed to the big bear that was hanging out in some water, enjoying the summer breeze. We kept walking. Rayne enjoyed seeing the wolves the most—something about her inner animal being a wolf.
I could think of myself as a house cat. I wasn’t about to kill creatures to eat, I liked to be petted sometimes, and I loved naps. Yep, my inner animal was a house cat.
We walked around the rescue, saying hi to all the people and animals we passed.
Rayne cried a couple of times when hearing about some of the animals’ stories. I didn’t like it either. Humans were really terrible when it came to animals. One of the facts that Jake stated, and it hit me pretty hard, was that there were more tigers in backyards than in the wild. I hated people at that moment. Both Rayne and I were pretty upset about that, but we ventured on. The young lions we passed were rescues from cub petting, just like Casey, but instead of getting sick, they just got too big and were going to be “canned.” Which meant they were going to be sold to the exotic hunting industry to be used in canned hunts where the hunter pays to hunt a fenced area for a guaranteed kill. Horrible. I just wanted to snatch all those animals that were still out there and bring them here, where they would be safe.
When we made it to the gift shop, I went straight to the kids’ section and bought Cammy Jr. some cute animal outfits. Patty, the crazy lady at the desk, greeted me sweetly, and wrapped up the outfits for me.
“Okay, I think I’m good.” Rayne plopped down so much stuff on the table, I was a little worried how she carried it all over.
“Rayne, good gracious!” She had picture frames, T- shirts, stuffed animals, a few packets to sponsor the animals, Skittles, and a wolf snow globe.
“I felt compelled, don’t judge me.” I saw Arson chatting with Jake off to the side, and gave my attention back to the mess in front of me.
“Oh and I’d like to donate, as well.” Rayne smiled.
“Okay, dear, how much would you like to donate? I see you grabbed a couple of the animal sponsors. How would you like to split that up?” She held out four animal sheets. I stared at them. Those were not cheap sheets.
“A thousand for each, please.” My eyes bugged out of my head at her answer. Holy shit, she was donating four thousand dollars! Plus everything she was buying in front of me.
“Holy hell, Rayne.” I was stunned.
“I have to help somehow. This is all I can do.” She looked at me and I saw the need to help in her eyes. After hearing all she had today, her heartstrings had officially been pulled. She wanted to give a new life to the poor creatures that had been mistreated for most of their lives.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t need to say anything else to her. What she was doing was amazing. As we said goodbye to my friends, I started thinking about things I could do to help. Maybe I could do a Wild Rescue day at the salon, with half off services, and donate the money to the rescue. Or maybe T-shirts or something. I wanted to help. This place was like my second home now. I felt it in my bones.
