Page 43 of Crocodile Tears
“Be my guest.”
Careful so as not to touch her injured side, I revealed the soft curves of her torso and the lower band of her sport bra. A red-and-blue bruise bloomed just above her navel, spreading all the way up to the band on her bra. “Damn.”
“It's fine,” she assured me. “I'll just go ice it after I close up for the day.”
“You should go ice it now,” I instructed.
“I don’t take advice from TV doctors.”
“Touché.” I huffed as I studied the purpling wound. “Thank you for heroically saving me from what I thought was near death but was actually just a potential staph infection.”
Without thinking, I leaned in and kissed her bruise.You really need to stop kissing her bare skin!But I couldn’t help myself. Not when it came to Dove. Her skin pebbled with goose bumps in the wake of my lips as I lowered her shirt back down.
“You're, uh, welcome,” she said rather breathlessly.
The way she looked up into my eyes, the way she held my gaze, I could've sworn she wanted me to kiss her. But maybe I was projecting. Maybe all of this was in my head. She'd said she loathed me only a few weeks ago after all. I couldn't just kiss her.But she wasn't moving, her gaze oscillating between my eyes and my lips that had just kissed her soft, warm skin . . .
Before I could move, her radio scratched to life.
Heron's voice sounded. “Savannah to birds, I just finished up at the giraffes. Do you need any help down at the crocs?”
Dove picked up her radio. “Nah, we’re all good. We're just leaving now.”
Both Heron and Mom immediately answered her. “Who'swe?”
Dove grimaced before replying, “Sorry, just me and my empty buckets. Leaving now.”
“Roger,” Heron replied in a suspicious voice.
Dove looked at me and pointed uphill. “You're going to have to go that way and cut through the Peckish Peacock so they don't catch us together on the cameras,” she ordered.
“Ah yes, I’m well versed in evading cameras.” I nodded sagely as Dove laughed.
I was about to step through the gate when she added, “Oh, um, I was going to ask—” and hope bloomed in my chest again.
“Yeah?”
“I was thinking I could get a photo of you with our shingleback skinks tomorrow.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I could use it for my WAZA proposal for the new Almadran skink breeding program. And you could give it to Cody if he wanted to use it for anything?”
The offer showed how far the two of us had come in only a matter of weeks. I wondered if all of these little tasks and chores she was asking for my help with were because she actually needed my help or because she just wanted an excuse to spend more time together. I hoped the latter. Still, a photoshoot wasn't the offer I’d been hoping for.What am I hoping for?I didn't dare say even to myself.
“That's a great idea, director,” I said, giving her a salute as I wandered off uphill, avoiding the cameras, before any disappointment showed on my face.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dove
I discovered a new kind of heaven and hell the night of the springtime zoo gala, when I offered to babysit Simon. I wanted Hannah and Hawk to have a couple hours to walk around, have some fancy canapés, and decompress from newborn life. Hell was the three minutes that Simon woke up and started crying as I tried to quickly change his blowout diaper, only to have him immediately poop again the second I picked him back up.
But what came after was pure heaven. My sweet, pink, little nephew slept on my chest as I rocked back and forth on the deck of Hawk and Hannah’s cottage. I patted his little bum in rhythm to the rocking chair, and his chunky, little cheek melted in the warmth of my chest.
As I hummed a little tune to him, I saw the flickers of a flashlight weaving between the hedges of the path that led to the cottage.
“Did you manage to steal any desserts?” I called out to Heron, who had offered to purloin a tray of catering for me while Frankie wasn’t looking.
“I did,” the voice replied, but it wasn’t my younger sibling.
“Deacon?” I asked to the shadowed figure as it wove the last few steps to the deck and appeared into the light.
