The Vet's Escape to Paradise, page 6
Hmm. Ivy watched the muscles turn to rocks in Jero’s arms as he pulled more files from the shelf. The mysterious manta almost smirked at her from his arm. There was more to all that cryptic lettering than he was letting on. The design was too intricate, the symbolism too carefully considered to be meaningless.
Again. Why did she care?
For the same reason she wanted to go to a tiny four-million-year-old island covered in albatross poop with him, she supposed. But getting closer wouldn’t do her any good. The more she cared, the harder it would be to forget him—them—when she had to.
Already Aayla was a little ray of sunshine, who brightened every room they shared. It had kind of sneaked up on her, the burst of surprise joy at hearing her unique, fresh, often hilarious take on things. Hmm. She’d never thought of her life as being anything but childfree, but Simon’s words kept coming to her unannounced now:
‘You just think you’d be a bad mother because your own mother was. Abandonment is not a hereditary disease, you know, it’s a choice. If you chose motherhood, you’d throw your all into it, like you do everything else.’
Of course, she’d always poo-pooed him, told him it wasn’t anything to do with abandonment, that she was just too busy to choose that, and too set in her ways. All of which was true, but maybe he knew her better than she thought he did.
Nuzzling Pluma’s head to her chin, she watched Jero sink into the worn leather desk chair and swing his big feet up onto the desk. She liked his leather sandals, they were nomadic and comfortable and a little worn, like Jero.
Suddenly, Simon was gone from her head.
God, that moment with the mantas the other day, that had been real.
And the other moment, when she’d stumbled on the path up to the meadow and he’d caught her, eyes full of sunset and surrounded by butterflies. A movie moment! But real. The kind of real that stole your breath and threatened to lift you clean off the floor, and proved to you that any other encounter before it was only sub-par. It had taken all her strength not to surrender to her impulses and kiss his impossibly perfect mouth...
‘Found it!’ Jero pulled a file from a box and held it up triumphantly. Ivy forced a smile. How they could live with such organised chaos was still beyond her.
‘Ivy! Papa! Did the puppies sit good when you told them to?’
Aayla all but launched herself into the room. Her nanny, a petite Ecuadorian twenty-something called Nina with hair down to her backside, was close on her heels.
‘Not yet, I think they’re waiting to sit when you tell them to,’ Ivy said, surprising herself. That had come out of her effortlessly, without thinking. It was the truth, after all. Aayla seemed to have a real gift with the animals.
Aayla whispered to them as Ivy used to whisper to Zeus. She also sat with them for hours in silence, as she’d done with Zeus. She could have sworn that dog’s big old heart used to understand every single word she did or didn’t say.
Dropping her school bag to the floor, Aayla, in jean shorts and a shirt covered in tiny clouds and rainbows, got to her knees by the box of puppies. Ivy’s heart skidded seeing Jero forget about his annoyance over the filing system, or lack thereof, instantly. He got down to her level in his scrubs and asked about her day. So sweet. And sexy, and...extraordinarily patient.
Aayla was getting assigned a pen pal, someone in her grade, but from a different country. Aayla had a papaya smoothie for lunch and her class picked the fruits for it. Aayla got top marks in 3D biology, whatever that was to a six-year-old. Aayla wanted to braid Ivy’s hair.
‘Wait, what?’ Ivy sprang from where she’d perched on the desk with Pluma, away from Aayla’s little hands. Dudders pulled on a white coat over his elephant pants and made a swift exit out to the reception area to greet the young couple walking in.
‘I know how to braid hair. I can practise on you. I like your hair, Ivy.’
How do I get out of this?
Like a gladiator on a rearing war horse, Jero made a human blockade of himself and coaxed Aayla quickly out of the storeroom after Dudders, where she was fortunately distracted by the family’s cat in a cage, and Nina the nanny.
Crisis avoided.
‘I’ll try and keep her out of your way,’ Jero said, turning back to her. His stance was uncomfortable in the doorway. Suddenly she wanted anything but.
‘No, no, she’s fine,’ she assured him, crouching to open Pluma’s cage, feeling his eyes on her back. ‘It’s just the curls, you know. It wouldn’t braid all that well. She’d only be disappointed.’
Jero made a huffing sound, re-stuck a peeling poster to the wall behind the cages and pulled another file out for the family in Reception.
Ugh.
Ugh to that no doubt illegible and useless file in his sexy big man hands, and ugh to the excuse. Jero wasn’t blind, she’d just given him further proof of how incompetent she was when it came to stuff like that...physical contact, motherly kind of stuff.
Her friends used to laugh at her, refusing to hold their babies. Only now she was realising why she’d refused. It always felt too risky. What if she liked it? What if she wanted one? What if one arrived, and she was nothing but a disappointment?
That accidentally spoken out loud statement, when she’d told Jero how only some creatures were meant to be mothers—he’d probably thought she’d been dissing Suranne, his ex-wife, as if it were her business to be making observations like that.
Aayla’s mother wasn’t exactly beating down doors to see her, sure, but at least the girl had a father. A bloody good one at that.
‘Look, Jero...’
She was about to explain herself and tell him how sorry she was that kids had somehow fallen into the ‘strange little aliens that unnerve me’ category in her mind. But she was halted by Pluma, who was all but wrestling from her hands.
To her shock, the dozy little bird dived a foot from her crouched stance, waddled right through Jero’s legs, and out of the door towards Aayla. Aayla scooped her up lovingly in her arms and kept her away from the puppies, talking to them all as a group like a shepherdess comforting her flock.
‘What the...?’
‘Ivy, look, she loves me, and I love her.’ Aayla’s voice was gentle and soft, but she looked elated. Her happiness was infectious. The urge to explain herself shot straight from Ivy’s mind.
‘A baby blue-footed booby thinks a six-year-old girl is her mother.’ Jero scraped a hand across his head. The sleeve of his scrubs rubbed up to hers as she joined him in the doorway. Hopefully her smile hid the way her impossible heart was revving like a race car at the contact.
‘She’s never going to get rid of that bird now. They’ve bonded,’ he said, so only she could hear. She forced her eyes to stay on Aayla. His warm breath tickled her ear, rearranging her senses. She was back on that boulder-lined path in her head, pressed against him, nerve-endings fraying all over again.
‘We should make sure that doesn’t happen, really.’
She swallowed. We. Which unfortunate bonding were they talking about exactly?
‘They’re wild,’ he reminded her. ‘We don’t keep them here. You can’t keep anything with wings anywhere it doesn’t want to be.’
‘What do you think cages are for?’ she retorted, flustered.
Jero huffed a laugh. ‘Nothing needs a cage if it likes where it is,’ he said. ‘But the thing about wild creatures is, you never know when they’re going to change their mind.’
Ivy kept her mouth shut, even as his eyes on her cheek made her hot. Did he mean her?
It could never be a fling with Jero, she realised like a slap to her cheeks. Even if her mounting crush had twisted her daydreams into passionate kisses with him on windy outcrops. Wasn’t his ex a tourist, who’d left them both for another life? What was the likelihood he’d go there again, even if he wanted to? How about...zero to none?
‘So, that conservationist—her name is Dee Whitfield. She wants to know if you’re coming with us on the overnighter,’ he said now, looking at her sideways. ‘She read about your credentials; I think she’s keen for you to join us.’
Oh, so now you’re bringing it up.
Ivy felt hot under her collar now. How nice that her excellent professional reputation preceded her. That was not entirely surprising, if she did say so herself. But it was definitely best not to tempt disaster on her side, with Jero. Remote sailing, open waters, rugged island terrain, Jero’s gym-honed body with his shirt off in the sun, administering animal care, maybe some more snorkelling with exotic wildlife...it would be torture.
‘I should probably stay here,’ she forced herself to say. ‘You’ve been doing a lot of these trips without me anyway.’
Jero’s mouth twisted, then he shrugged at the floor. The opportunity hovered between them like a leaden ball on a ceiling chain, and the next five seconds in her mind went something like: I’ll go. I won’t go. Oh, why not, I’ll go. What? No, I absolutely won’t go.
This is ridiculous. Visiting one of the planet’s most isolated archipelagos is an amazing opportunity. Besides, the conservationist will be there. What could you possibly get up to in such close quarters?
‘OK, if the conservationist wants to meet me, how can I refuse? Consider me on the voyage, Captain,’ she said, before she could think any more about it.
‘I won’t be steering the yacht tonight,’ Jero replied.
Her mouth fell open. A yacht?
He offered her an infuriating smile that only made his mouth look all the more kissable. ‘I’m just kidding—we save those for the tourists. I’ll bring the seasickness pills. Don’t forget your waterproof jacket. Oh, do you have a zoom lens for your camera?’
‘Of course, why?’
‘It’s the best place for bird-watching in the Galapagos. Aayla loves telling the cruise shippers what’s what.’
‘Aayla’s coming?’ Ivy swallowed an albatross-egg-sized knot from her throat as Jero glanced at his daughter, then back at her. He looked mildly irritated by something now.
‘I just remembered, Nina’s off this weekend. She’ll have to come with us.’
Ivy forced an upbeat tone that still somehow came out kind of choked. ‘Well, this will be fun.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘ARE YOU ASLEEP YET?’ Jero was standing outside her cabin door. Her breathing caught like a kite on a washing line as she pictured him there, one hand poised to knock if she didn’t answer.
He’d already asked her if she wanted a nightcap and, while she’d wanted nothing more after such a long, exhausting day in the heat, she’d felt the chemistry bubbling up between them the second Dee, their resident conservationist, a sixty-something-year-old Brit from the Galapagos Conservation Trust, and Aayla had gone to bed. She’d refused the nightcap, but now, just as predicted, she was lying awake, trying and failing to allow the gently rhythmic bobbing of the ocean below them to lull her into sleep. Thinking about him.
‘I’m awake,’ she answered, somewhat against her will.
‘Then you shouldn’t miss this!’ he replied. ‘I’m guessing you don’t have this back in Galway.’
Intrigue won her over.
Out on the deck, Jero ushered her behind a long, protruding telescope he’d focused on the stars. No sooner had she pressed one eye to the rounded end than a barrage of shooting stars lit up the sky, right in front of her.
‘Woah!’ She staggered backwards in awe, right into him, and he laughed as his hands landed on her shoulders, then fell to her hips. Her pulse became a meteor in her veins on the spot. Jero guided her eyes back to the telescope, then wheeled it into a new position before placing his hands right back where they’d just been, over her hips. She could literally feel the heat of him against her back, making her burn. Did he have any idea what he was doing to her?
‘Did you know, you can see twice as many stars in the Galapagos as anywhere else?’ he whispered softly as she scanned the sparkly skies.
She swallowed and shook her head. Words wouldn’t find her; everything was blowing her mind in this moment.
‘It’s because we’re on the equator,’ he continued. ‘It means the constellations from both hemispheres meet in the middle. On nights like this, it looks like the heavens are literally exploding.’
Ivy caught her breath. After a long moment of silence, during which she willed her heart to stop skidding around like a bumper car, she said, ‘I wonder if my dad’s up there somewhere, orchestrating this show for us somehow. He was kind of a star when I was a kid. To me, anyway.’
‘I bet you were a pretty awesome kid, Ivy,’ he said.
She dared to turn around. Jero was looking at her, really looking at her, as if he wanted to say something else but was holding it back. They studied each other’s eyes for what felt like far too long before he looked away. Then he said, ‘I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife, do you?’
She shrugged, stepping back from the telescope. He’d snatched back the magic somehow, as if their closeness had freaked him out, too.
Dragging a hand through her hair, she watched him reposition the telescope and press his own eye to the end. ‘I should go, try and get some sleep,’ she told his back, and scuttled off to her cabin before he could respond. She slept fitfully till the seagulls woke her up at dawn.
* * *
Isla Española was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most beautiful place Ivy had ever set eyes on. The dramatic setting was even more perfect than the prettiest parts of Santa Cruz. Her camera just couldn’t do justice to the towering black lava cliffs, the never-ending rhythmic crashing and rolling of the waves below, and the gamut of colourful seabirds swooping around them fearlessly on the wind.
Aayla did indeed know each and every one of them.
‘Look, Daddy! Another cactus finch,’ she cried out now, waving the binoculars at Jero from her place ahead of them on the grassy trail. Little Pluma, who’d come along for the ride, poked her white fluffy head out from the tiny Disney backpack that was slung over the girl’s shoulders. Ivy still couldn’t believe she’d brought the bird, but Jero was right, they’d bonded and Pluma wouldn’t have fared well, being left alone. She only ate worms from their hands now.
They were forty minutes into their walk in the area of Punta Suarez, heading towards a well-known albatross nesting ground. So far, Aayla had blown Ivy’s mind with her knowledge of the island’s habitat. Even Dee was suitably impressed, which was saying something, because Dee seemed to know everything about everything. Though maybe not as much as Jero and Aayla.
‘Oh, look, there’s a Galapagos hawk coming in. Ivy, you have to take a photo!’
Aayla was intent on capturing everything with the camera. Ivy caught Jero’s smile as he shook something off the heel of his hiking boot that looked suspiciously like a clump of lizard poop. He caught her hand as she stepped back to avoid landing in any other insalubrious debris, and narrowly missed crushing a bird’s egg that was nestled in a shrub.
Adrenaline flooded her veins at his touch. ‘Careful there.’
‘Thanks.’ She fell deep into his eyes again as he lifted his sunglasses momentarily. His loose white shirt flapped open in the breeze, framing his broad chest and the faded Texas Longhorns football shirt he’d pulled on this morning, after their swim off the boat.
It hadn’t been easy, keeping her eyes off him, or keeping away from him in the water. But she’d managed to swim on her back, metres away, grateful that Aayla and Dee had been there as a buffer. It all felt a bit too close for comfort, especially after last night.
On any other guy, that football shirt might have made her cringe. So would the baseball hat, she mused now, observing flecks the colour of Ireland’s autumn leaves in the browns of his eyes. Jero wasn’t exactly your typical football fan. He knew every shrub and flower, and every bird’s call that came at them on this path. He knew about the various marine and air currents that saw different creatures settling on different islands, and when he spoke, she listened, absorbing it all in wonder, like a child.
She’d never been anywhere as wild. It wasn’t all butterflies, birds and perfection, but to witness him and Aayla out here enjoying this purity together tugged at something deep in her chest, a kind of untethering and unravelling. She couldn’t quite put her finger on the feeling.
‘Be careful with it, but I think you should take the photo,’ she told Aayla, catching up with her on the path and switching out her binoculars for the camera.
‘Are you sure?’ Jero whispered in her ear.
‘Why not? The kid is clearly excited to learn photography,’ she replied, securing the camera around Aayla’s neck by the strap.
A delighted Aayla snapped away at the birds in the trees and Ivy pressed her eyes to the tiny lenses of the binoculars, focusing in on the rare hawk. Hopefully the gadget would hide her flushed cheeks—why did her heart turn into a raging bull every time Jero so much as brushed her ear with his breath?
‘What do we have over here?’ She looked up just as Jero put a hand on one shoulder and gently prised the binoculars from her with the other. ‘Can I see for a second?’
Suddenly Dee was squealing in excitement, squinting into her own binoculars up ahead of them. Aayla started twisting the telephoto lens of her camera in a way that did make her unsure about the loan, actually...but Jero thrust the binoculars back at her, redirecting her attention.
‘What are we looking at?’ she asked him.
‘Just the elaborate courtship rituals of the mighty albatross,’ he said through his wide grin. ‘These birds mate for life. It’s quite something to see this for yourself, look!’
