Page 42 of A Summer Mismatch
Julia imagined an adorable little Logan working on his pronunciations. “I thought about majoring in speech therapy, but I volunteered for a summer program at the elementary school my first semester of college, and I absolutely fell in love with the students. They were such a delight.” She took another sip of water, her body cooling down as they chatted. “Did you always know you wanted to be a vet?”
“Since I was little, I was obsessed with animals, especially the kind you’d find in a zoo. I’d read up on all of them, and I used to imagine being able to get close enough to touch. I’d also bring home strays all the time: birds, dogs, cats, even a raccoon once, which is where my mom drew the line.” He laughed at the memory, and shook his head, the lines around his eyes crinkling appealingly.
“No! What did your mom do?”
“She flipped out and made me corral it back outside. She said she could deal with the domesticated animals, but not the wild ones.” He shook his head. “Looking back, I never considered that my mom was the one buying the food and the materials so I could make pens while the animals recovered, and paying for vet visits and meds when their injuries were more than I could do on my own. I never appreciated that.”
The sad tone in his voice tugged at her. She wished she could have met the woman who had raised such a wonderful man.
He shook the sadness off, and a light came back into his eyes. “I didn’t realize that being a vet didn’t mean cuddling with a lion, but I still get to spend all day taking care of animals, which is pretty amazing.”
“Do you mostly work with the elephants?”
“I work with all the animals we have, but the elephants are my specialty. There’s a small team of vets, so they’ve been filling in the gaps while I take care of Adia and Raza. I also work a lot with the monkeys, which are a ton of fun because they’re little rascals.”
“So you haven’t cuddled with a lion, but you have touched most of the animals?” she asked him.
“Most of them,” he confirmed. “I have to in order to get blood samples. But some of them are heavily sedated if they need testing done. I’d prefer not to be mauled by a panther.”
“So high maintenance,” she teased.
Their food arrived, and she called Cameron over to eat. She dug into her turkey sandwich, not caring that her bites were too big to be polite for a date. Because this wasn’t a date. It was a business meeting. To discuss her book. Even though they hadn’t broached the subject yet.
They ate in silence while the band played “Wonderful Tonight.” The dancing barrier broken by Cameron, couples now swayed to the romantic music. Longing tugged at Julia as she watched them. She wanted that. To be in someone’s arms and held so tenderly. And not just anyone’s arms. Someone she loved.
They stayed on light topics for the rest of the evening. Logan told her more anecdotes about elephants, and some about monkeys in Kenya, too—one in particular that stole his smart watch he’d saved up for and had been warned not to wear, and then smashed it against a tree while he watched, horrified, which made her laugh until her stomach hurt.
“You think that’s funny? Did I tell you about my sister’s dog, Gatsby?”
She shook her head, her cheeks hurting from smiling too wide.
“I was dogsitting last week, and Leo and Amelia warned me that we should bring Gatsby to my grandparents’ house, because he’d pee on the carpet if I left him home alone. I’d closed all the doors to the bedrooms, and thought I was fine. But when we got home that evening after being with Grandma and Grandpa all day, he’d found a way to pull the handle down on my bedroom door and peed all over my carpet. The kids were quick to say, ‘I told you so!’”
“Kids love when they get to do that,” Julia said through her laughter. “They spend their whole lives having people tell them what to do and where to be and how to act, so when they get the chance to show that they were right, they never miss a moment of reveling in that.”
“Oh, they reveled.”
“You on the other hand…”
“Spent about an hour scrubbing the carpet.”
“Ooooooh.” She winced.
“Yeah. Good thing I love animals, and Gatsby is the most loveable of dogs.”
“Good thing you’re a kind person.” She couldn’t resist leaning closer to him. “I’ve known that since the day I met you.”
“I’m glad we met.” His hand slid along the table and covered hers. Her entire body tingled. He looked down at their hands, his voice serious when he spoke. “Julia, what are we going to do?”
She turned her hand around and linked her pinky and thumb around his. She heard him catch his breath, but couldn’t look at him. Not yet.
Whatcouldthey do? Their grandparents hated each other, and the thought of going against Grandpa Horace’s wishes made her want to throw up. But this feeling swirling around inside of her like ribbons fluttering in the wind, like a bird soaring through clouds… she’d never experienced it before.
She couldn’t have both a relationship with Logan and her grandfather’s respect—and maybe even love. Grandpa’s hatred for Smitty Byrd was deep and unmovable.
It was impossible to choose.
So instead, she squeezed his hand and pulled him to his feet. “We’re going to dance.”
