Page 2 of Crocodile Tears
"I'm sure Hawk and Hannah wouldn't mind if the baby had a couple sleepovers with me so they could get a full night's rest," Mom said, practically bouncing with excitement.
“You’d think you’d be tired after decades of rearing orphaned baby animals,” I snarked.
Mom beamed. “It just means I’m well practiced.”
“This is a human, not a baby monkey we’re talking about,” Wren reminded us.
“Close enough,” Mom and I said at once, and she laughed.
“And I’ve had seven humans of my own too,” she reminded us, as if we could ever forget.
Prickle Island Zoo was officially on “baby watch” this spring. And it wasn't baby giraffes, or kangaroo joeys, or marmosets we were on high alert for this year. This time, it was my eldest brother’s, Hawk's, partner, Hannah, who was about to pop.
We had eighteen different contingency plans for when she went into labor. I was incredibly grateful that the baby was coming outside of the busiest season. The zoo was closed outside the summer months, except for school groups and private events—a new initiative I had launched in the recent years—and for the next three weeks, we were about to be the filming location for Deacon Harrow's latest project. Still, even with a movie filming on site, the workload would be small enough that we could cover Hawk and Hannah's shifts. And Lark and her husband, Logan, were coming over for the summer to cover for Hawk and Hannah with the new baby.
It was going to be an amazing summer. All of us together at the zoo again, plus my new, little nephew.
"That baby's feet aren't going to touch the floor for the first two years of its life," Wren joked.
"If ever," I added.
"Eventually there will be more babies to hold," Mom said wistfully. “Maybe even yours.”
"Well, time to get to work," Wren said, practically leaping off the couch.
I grabbed the radio off my hip. "Roger. Go ahead."
Mom rolled her eyes. "Very slick. Your radio's still off, Dove."
I was already halfway out the door. "Sorry, Mom, got a radio call," I shouted from the doorway as Wren and I darted out.
You'd think having her three eldest children successfully shacked up would have made my mother a little more lenient on the four of us still unpaired, but no. Evelyn Lachlan was forever on the hunt for the rest of her children. She put Mrs. Bennet to shame.
As we hastened down the path to the prep kitchens, Wren said, "What in the world?"
I spotted the crowd gathered at the back gates. Five girls in their late teens stood in a tight group, peering in through the chain-link fence. They squealed when we turned the corner, but their exuberance was short-lived when they realized we were just staff members and not whoever they were searching for.
"Are they . . . fans?" Wren asked, looking at a gaggle of teen girls pressed against the gate.
“Deacon! I love you!” one shouted, and the others tittered.
I spied one exuberant girl who held a fluorescent green poster covered in cut-out images of Deacon. I ground my teeth as I was confronted by the sight of him. His coiffed flaxen hair, his deep blue eyes, his ever-present layer of stubble, his cheeky, lopsided grin as if he always had a secret . . .
“Ugh!”
So he had a Shonda Rimes level glow up between the ages of 12 and 27, so freaking what? He was still a terrible human being.
“Marry me, Deacon!” another girl squealed.
I rolled my eyes.
Of course they were here to catch a glimpse of a movie star—and grade A asswipe—Deacon Harrow. How had they even known he was coming here?
"He's not here for another few days," I shouted. “But if you come back in the summer, you can say you walked through the same zoo as Deacon Harrow.”
The group’s shoulders all collectively drooped as Wren murmured, “Always trying to sell another ticket.”
“Always trying to keep this place afloat,” I corrected.
