Flipping Love You (Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild #3) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,121
penguins on the Louisiana bayou.”
Zeke blew out a breath. “Fair enough. So you’re not breaking up with me?”
“Would that do me any good?”
“Are you asking if I would just leave you alone and be fine with the mother of my child never speaking to me again? The answer to that would be no.”
“I figured. So it’s probably better that I just forgive you for this, since I know you didn’t mean for it to happen, and give you a chance to fix it.”
“That’s very reasonable.”
“Thank you. Hey, Zeke?”
“Yeah?”
“Go find our penguin.”
She knew he noticed the “our”.
“Yes, ma’am.” His voice was a little huskier. “And, maybe hurry home?”
“I’ll be there soon.”
They disconnected and Jill sat back in her chair with a sigh.
“You’re a lot calmer than I would’ve expected.” Her mother eyed her curiously.
“I figure there’s not much I can really do. The best people are down there. They know how to get around the bayou, and when they find him, if he’s hurt, Donovan and Griffin are there.” She lifted a shoulder. “Ferdinand is in good hands. I don’t need to be there.” She thought about that with a little frown. “You know, that’s kind of a nice feeling.” It felt strange, but good, to be able to turn it over to other people and trust that it was going to be okay.
“Still,” Holly said. “When you needed your appendix out, I couldn’t perform the surgery, but I still wanted to be there in the waiting room. And I definitely wanted to be there when you opened your eyes.”
Jill looked at her, studying her mother’s face. Her mom had been a good mom. She may have given Jill some strange ideas about motherhood, but it wasn’t entirely her mom’s fault. Jill had taken from it what she wanted.
Jill had very much enjoyed being able to focus just on being a penguin expert. It had definitely been easier. A lot like doing her laundry all in one load and cereal for dinner. It was possible that she had just not let herself think about doing anything else because the way she was doing things was easy.
“I love that you’re here and I love the good news you shared,” Holly said. “But I know you want to be there when they find Ferdinand.”
“I’m sure I won’t be able to get a flight right away, anyway,” Jill said. “I’ll call and see when I can move my flight to, but it’s not a rush.”
But she did feel her heart pounding. She needed Ferdinand to be okay.
“Why don’t you just use our plane?” The question came from Ava Carmichael.
Jill looked over. It seemed that the rest of the pie shop had been listening in.
“Your plane?”
“Yeah, we have a private plane. We’re happy to fly you back to Louisiana.”
“You have a private plane?” Jill asked. Her eyes flickered to Evan, who had come back in at some point.
He chuckled. “Don’t let the blue jeans fool you. They’re still billionaires.”
Two hours later Jill landed on the small landing strip outside of Autre. Apparently, Bennett Baxter, Kennedy Landry-Baxter’s husband, also had a private plane and he landed it here often.
She called Zeke via video. He answered after only two rings.
“Hey, Kansas.”
“Hey, I just landed, can you come get me?”
“I’m so glad you’re back.”
She took her suitcase from the pilot and thanked him. Then she said to Zeke, “Yeah, come get me.”
“That’s going to be just a bit of a problem.”
Jill stopped walking. Then sighed. “Why, what’s going on?”
“I’m just a little…tied up. I’ll send Michael.”
“Have you found Ferdinand?”
“We did actually.”
Relief flooded through her.
“Is he okay?”
“We think so. A bit freaked out, but not hurt.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Zeke, let me see Ferdinand.”
Zeke grimaced. Then he switched his camera and she saw Ferdinand on the screen. In a net. And he was hanging in midair.
“Zeke, why is my penguin hanging in a net, from a tree?”
“It was Donovan’s idea to keep him up away from the alligators.”
Jill felt her heart thunk hard against her ribs. “Alligators?”
“Yeah, they had him cornered.”
“They? How many?”
“Just three.”
Jill gasped. “Three? There were three alligators stalking my penguin?”
“Honestly, that’s good. There could’ve been a lot more.”
“But he’s safe?”
“I mean, we still need to get him down now.”
Jill realized there was something strange about the perspective of what Zeke was showing her.
If Ferdinand was in a tree, why was Zeke seemingly on the same level rather than looking up…