I don’t need a big, private, national program. I just need you all. And so do they.”
He was staring at her. But his love for her was so obvious Jill felt like it was wrapping around her. Like a hug.
“There is another member of the private program who is feeling in over his head. He called while I was at the airport on my way home and asked if I would take his penguins. He’s got ten. And I said yes. He’s going to give me money to keep his penguins and I think I can make a very convincing pitch to A.J.’s attorney about letting me keep the money to support ours.” She squeezed his hand. “I do have the best penguin habitat of any of them after all.”
“That’s…”
“Perfect,” she filled in. “It’ll be perfect. However it all ends up.”
“Yeah.” His voice was gruff. “And there’s a chance Columbus and Magellan will find mates then, right?”
“There’s a chance. And if not, then—” She shrugged. “We’ll still have lots of penguins for everyone to look at.”
“You’re going to let everyone see the penguins now?”
“Yep. Everyone. The town. The tourists. If nothing else, we can let our penguins be educators and ambassadors for endangered species everywhere.”
He shook his head. “Damn, girl. I’m so glad I knocked you up.”
She laughed. “Me too, cher.”
He gave her a huge grin at her use of the endearment. “So…”
She lifted an eyebrow. “So what?”
“You’re really not mad?”
“About you losing my penguin and risking his life and your own?”
“Uh…yeah.”
“How can I be mad? I know if you’ll all do what you did for my penguin then you’ll definitely do it for my kid. And I suspect that you’ve probably been stuck in a tree before and it will happen again. Whether or not there’s penguin or kid involved.”
“Fair enough. And damn right I would do that for a kid. Ours or any other.”
“And here’s where you could reassure me that you will do whatever you can to keep our kid from being stuck in a tree in the first place. Particularly one surrounded by alligators.”
“Well, baby doll, we’re gonna be raising a bayou boy. There will be gators in his life.”
“Or a bayou girl.”
Zeke nodded. “Yeah, and they tend to be even more trouble than the boys.”
“Even the ones who become adopted bayou girls?”
He leaned in, cupped the back of her head, and pulled her in for a kiss. “Oh yeah. In my experience, they’re the ones who flip your world totally upside down.”
Epilogue
Four months later…
Zeke's phone vibrated in his pocket and he shifted the pouch in his arms to his left side to reach for it.
It was Jill. And it was a video call.
"Dammit."
That wasn’t, of course, how he generally felt about a call from his fiancée, but he didn’t want her to know that he was running around outside as a hurricane was approaching.
He looked around. Ellie's was the only place he could duck into to take the call. It was where he’d been headed in the first place so he started for the door. But once he answered the call inside, where nearly half the town was gathered, it was going to be hard to hide that something was up.
Of course, the sheets of torrential rain and nearly forty-mile-per-hour wind outside were pretty tough to ignore too.
He yanked the door open, slid the hood of his rain jacket off his head, and swiped the screen to connect the call.
He smiled at the love of his life. “Hey, cher. How was your meeting?”
Was he trying to distract her from the rivulets of water running down his face and the noise of the crowd behind him bringing supplies and people in from all over town?
He ran his hand over his face and cradled the pouch he held closer to his chest. Yes, he definitely was.
But he also absolutely wanted to know about how her meeting in Denver had gone. He was so grateful her doctor had cleared her to fly on the private plane to Colorado even though she was past the sixth month of her pregnancy. She was coasting through the pregnancy. She hadn’t had a bit of morning sickness or even a backache so far. Her doctor didn’t feel there was any reason to worry about the travel. And, as he’d told Jill at her checkup two days ago, they had fabulous OBs in Denver if she did need anything.
So, she was several states away as Hurricane Clare shifted course and edged up into