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The young lioness let out an excited squeal, and her companion turned in the passenger seat to grin at her. They had reached a vast lake, the water so still it made a mirror for the summer sky. A cabin perched on the shore, alongside a jetty with a small boat bobbing on the end of a rope. The mountains that framed the image were capped with snow.

Their Jeep roared up to the cabin, spraying sand and pebbles. Jailbait stopped it beside the logpile and applied the handbrake.

"Typical woman driver!" The other lion grinned cheekily, running his paws through the short white thatch that served him for a mane. "None of yeh can parallel park!"

"If I hadn't taken over back in Winnipeg you'd have fallen asleep at the wheel, Conrad, so shut it!" Jailbait replied.

Conrad extricated his tall, lanky frame from the Jeep and stretched, taking a deep breath of the pure Canadian air. Jailbait's arms twined around his waist and pulled him close, her cheek against his shoulder, and he leaned down to rest his chin between her ears. The two lions stood for a long moment, ears perked to the rustle of maple leaves and the soft lapping of the waves.

"Well, best get cracking," Conrad said at last.

Brushing off Jailbait's attempts to help, he tucked a suitcase under each arm and grabbed the other two by the handles. It was only when he reached the cabin door that he realised he had no way of reaching the key in his jeans pocket.

"Allow me," smirked Jailbait, spotting his quandary. She put her paws on his hips and slid her thumb down into his pocket, hooking the key out with her claw.

She gave his bum a quick slap, skipped out of range before any retaliation could occur, and introduced Mr Key to Ms Lock. When the door resisted her advances, she gave it a powerful kick that reminded Conrad not to cross her any time soon.

Conrad had expected their new home to be dark and stuffy, but someone had visited earlier in the day to open the windows. The cosy living-room was fragrant with the scent of the maple forest around them. On the table were two glasses and a bottle of champagne in a cooler jacket, with a card propped against it.

He was careful not to let Jailbait see his face fall at the sight of the bottle, since the lioness obviously thought it a wonderfully romantic gesture. He picked up the card and read:

Wardy - the beer's at the dock! Have fun, Garn

Smiling as he crumpled the note, Conrad blessed his otter friend. Having a squadronmate who also happened to be a millionaire with property all over Canada certainly came in handy.

The pop of a cork made him turn. Jailbait, champagne froth pouring down the neck of the bottle and across her paws, rushed to fill the glasses. She passed one to Conrad and twined her arm through his before lifting her own glass to her lips.

"To us?" she asked.

"Oh, aye. Definitely." They clinked and drank.

"And to our home. Where nobody can find us." A shadow veiled her eyes for an instant, and vanished.

Conrad wrinkled his nose as the bubbles tickled it. "The thing about champagne is," he adopted a pompous, didactic tone, wagging his finger at the lioness, "you have to drink it all before it goes flat."

"Then we'd better take it into the bathroom with us."

"Are we going into the bathroom, then?" Conrad's eyes gleamed and he moved closer to Jailbait, who wrinkled her own nose and stepped back.

"We certainly are. We've been driving in these clothes all day!"

"Cheeky!" Conrad pounced and wrapped his arms around her.

"Get off!" She wriggled. "You stink!"

Far be it from Conrad to tell a lady anything so rude, but he grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and hoiked it over her head. Jailbait wore no bra, didn't need one. She stood topless and laughing, the fur on her chest ruffled from being pulled the wrong way. None too gently, she unbuttoned Conrad's shirt. Her eyes were slightly crossed and a crease of concentration appeared on her forehead. When the shirt was hanging loose, Conrad shrugged his shoulders out of it and Jailbait knelt to open his fly.

"I like this view," Conrad told her, stepping out of his jeans. Jailbait straightened up and unzipped her denim hotpants, sliding them down her flanks to reveal a familiar pair of briefs.

"Hey, are those mine?"

The tips of Jailbait's ears went pink. "I like the smell of your detergent," she said. "It reminds me of you."

Paw in paw, they raced to the bathroom.

Knowing Jailbait, and himself, the one thing Conrad had insisted on at his new home was a fully plumbed-in and operational bathroom. He didn't mind roughing it in other ways, but cats need to be clean. Eyes closed and face upturned in the hot, powerful stream from the shower, he rumbled with contentment as Jailbait soaped his chest.

"Your turn!" Squirting soap into his paws, he wrapped his arms around her. She snuggled into his chest, water running down her muzzle, and let him rub her back and shoulders. Like a cub, she lifted her arms so he could scrub underneath them. Conrad's paws squeezed her buttocks, then lifted her up so her feet left the bathtub.

"Careful!" she squealed, locking her legs around his waist and clinging tight.

"No worries," Conrad promised. He worked his muzzle under her chin and pressed his cheek against hers. Jailbait swung her head round and locked on to his mouth, sharp teeth bumping at his lips until he opened his jaws to admit her rough, lithe tongue.

They stood there long enough for the water to run cold. Groaning a little for his back, fragile from one encounter too many with an ejector seat, Conrad set his lioness down and reached for a towel.

"I'm hungry," Jailbait announced as she dried between her toes.

"Then it will be my pleasure to cook for you, my darling!"

"You? Really?" The lioness dodged away as Conrad crumpled his damp towel in a ball and flung it at her. Bending to inspect the pile of dirty clothes on the floor, she wrinkled her nose disdainfully.

"Which case has my things?" she demanded, looking at their luggage.

Conrad finished drying his mane. "Don't get dressed," he suggested.

"What?" She sounded more excited than shocked.

"There's nobody for miles. And it's warm!"

The lioness tilted her head, considering this, then her eyes twinkled with fun and she nodded. He smiled as she skipped away from him into the sunshine. Jailbait hated to feel trapped, never stayed indoors when she could be out. She was going to love it here.

Conrad still had work to do, so he pulled his jeans back on and paused to pick up a few essential accessories before padding barefoot and bare-chested after her.

Outside, he gathered wood from under the trees and constructed a campfire on the pebble shore. Building and nursing the fire absorbed him until the twigs had crackled to nothing and the larger branches were beginning to catch the flames from the smaller one. Then he looked up.

Jailbait stood on the end of the dock, her arms raised above her head as if about to dive in. She stretched every muscle, back arched and tail sticking straight out behind her. The low sun made a glittering path across the water to her feet and tinted her fur with gold. It took every scrap of Conrad's self-control not to rush over and grab her round the waist, but he contented himself with watching - for now.

Something caught the lioness's attention, and she dropped to a crouch. "What's this?"

Conrad loped across to join her and pulled on the length of rope she'd found. "Hope it's not the plug," he grinned as his muscles knotted under the strain.

The lake gave up its prize: a crate of beer, cooled by the deep water. With a grunt of approval, Conrad opened two bottles and presented one to Jailbait.

"Aperitif," he explained. "Need to wait until the fire burns down a bit before I can cook."

"Come here." She licked the pad of her thumb and wiped a smear of ash from Conrad's muzzle before kissing his cheek. Conrad tilted his head so his mouth met hers, and laid his paw on the back of her neck. She pushed against his chest, pretending to struggle, and Conrad let himself collapse to a sitting position with the lioness astride him. She squeezed his ribs with her thighs and lowered her head to kiss him again.

For the first time in Conrad's long career as an outdoorslion, the campfire seemed to be ready too soon.

Jailbait sprang off him at the promise of food, and he dutifully positioned pots, frying-pans, cushions and a tartan rug. The smell of bacon, sausages, beans and fried bread mingled with the summer scents of maple sap and sawdust.

By the time their meal was ready, the lake had turned silver under a half-moon. The lions' eyes, huge-pupilled, reflected the firelight. Jailbait mopped her plate with the last corner of fried bread. Her tongue rolled out to clean her whiskers and stayed out as she was hijacked by a huge yawn.

"Want to go to bed?"

Jailbait's eyes went round with wanting, but she shook her head. "Not yet. Too nice out here," she said, tipping her head back to look at the velvet sky. "Have you ever seen so many stars?"

Conrad followed her gaze. Silver constellations glittered above them, like diamond necklaces.

He heard Jailbait let out her breath in a rasping purr, and he laid his cheek against hers, remembering how very young she was and how much she'd been through. He was her protector, and he was never going to hurt her.

Placing one paw behind her head and the other on her spine, he held her as she lay back on the rug. She stretched and wiggled, smiling up at him.

"Now, where did we get to before dinner?" Conrad asked. "About here?" He knelt astride the lioness, his head blotting out the moon.

Jailbait giggled.

"What?"

"Looks like dinner was the aperitif, after all!"

Conrad gave a tiny growl and lowered himself on top of her.