Sealed With A Kiss: Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild, page 13
“Well…”
“It is.” Donovan’s heart started racing. “What’s going on?”
“Okay, there is a tiger. And a zebra,” she said. “And they’re being rescued, in the sense we’re taking possession of them and moving them. But there’s an animal that’s actually stuck and needs someone to get it out. I figured since I have an experienced rescuer right here, I should take advantage of that.”
Donovan processed all of that as quickly as he could. Wow, there was a tiger. But he focused on the stuck part. “What’s stuck? And where?”
“A harbor seal pup. He’s stuck in his swimming pool.”
He hadn’t been expecting that. “Seriously?”
Fiona nodded. “There’s an animal park about twenty miles outside of town. It’s sketchy to say the least. But in addition to having a questionable status to start with, now it’s been totally wiped out with this hurricane. We’re re-homing several of the animals in Autre. Zeke is finally getting his zebra.” She shot a grin over in the direction of the youngest Landry grandson.
Donovan grinned too. Zeke was a bigger fan of penguins now that Jill had brought her colony to Autre, but he’d been hoping for zebras ever since they’d started the animal park.
“But the guy also had a seal. No one’s really sure where he got it and no one knew that he had it. He’s also not talking. But anyway, the pool collapsed in the storm on top of the seal. It can breathe but can’t move around much, and they think it has a significant gash on one flipper and they’re not sure what else. It has been without food and water since yesterday.”
Donovan made up his mind in about two seconds. “Let’s go.” Donovan grabbed her arm and started for his truck. “We’re standing around here talking about Knox when we should be there trying to get that seal out?”
“Relax,” Fiona replied, nearly jogging to keep up with his long strides. “They’re up there now breaking up the side of the pool to get him out.”
He stopped and frowned down at her. “Who is?”
“Some guys.” She shrugged. “Obviously power tools are in short supply around here with lots of people needing things cut and broken up, but these guys had the right equipment to cut through the metal and plastic.”
“No. Have them stop. We need to get there and assess the situation. They can’t just go cutting into it. And we need to be there as soon as they get the seal free. We need to be ready to treat whatever injuries he has and then get him back to Griffin immediately.”
Fiona didn’t argue. But she did tug free of his grip. “I’m bringing my truck,” she said, gesturing to the gigantic purple truck she drove all the time. It had a trailer hooked on the back. “Jeff and I will load the other animals and head to Autre. I’m texting the directions to you right now so that you can go find the seal. Then you head straight to Louisiana.”
Donovan looked around. “Just leave all these guys?”
Fiona followed his gaze. “These guys are fine, Donovan.”
Donovan’s eyes landed on Naomi. He was bringing her with him. He knew that she was enjoying this and felt like she was doing some good here. He didn’t want to take her away from that. But he could really use her with him on the road. It was only a two hour drive, but it was always better to have another pair of hands when dealing with an injured animal.
He strode toward the group. “Hey, I have an injured animal emergency. I’m heading over to help them rescue it and then taking it back to Autre. I could use someone along with me.”
Naomi straightened. “What kind of animal?”
“Harbor seal.”
Everyone’s eyes went wide.
Donovan nodded. “Long story. Some guy had it and shouldn’t have. But now it’s injured and needs a new home.”
“Go,” Sawyer said with a nod. “We’re good here.”
“Who’s going to build an enclosure?” Zeke asked, looking at Mitch.
“We’ll keep it at the rehab facility for now,” Donovan said. “It’s not going to need a lot of space for a bit.”
“We’ll get started as soon as we get back,” Zeke said.
“No problem,” Mitch said. “We’ll discuss plans on our way home.”
Donovan looked at the group. They just did what needed to be done. They met challenges head-on, backed each other up, and jumped in with their whole hearts. Being included in this group was a huge compliment.
“I’ll have a better idea of what we need by the time you get back,” he told them.
“That animal needs you a lot more than we do right now,” Owen said. “Go do your big superstar Noah thing. We’ll stick around here and play with our airboats for a little longer. We’ll meet you back home.”
“Superstar Noah thing?” Naomi asked.
“Yeah,” Owen said. “Noah was the first one to save all the animals. Sure, he just loaded them up on a boat and floated around until the flood went down. What Donovan does is a lot bigger deal than that. I mean”—Owen looked up at the sky—“like, don’t tell Noah and the big guy I said that. I’m not saying what he did wasn’t important.”
They all laughed.
Mitch clapped Owen on the shoulder. “Yeah, I think we’re all okay with you puttin’ Donovan in the same category as Noah from the Bible.”
Donovan shook his head. These people were half crazy. And still their admiration and support for what he did meant more to him than he ever would’ve imagined.
“Yeah, we’ll see you back home,” Sawyer said. “You better get going.”
Home. He liked the sound of that. It sounded right. Which was strange. He wasn’t from Autre and he wasn’t planning on staying. So nothing about the town should’ve felt like home.
But it did.
“I’m coming with you,” Naomi said.
Thank God. Donovan gave her a smile. “You sure?”
“Who knows what kind of trouble you can get into on your own with a harbor seal between here and Louisiana,” she said with a smile that definitely had touches of affection in it.
“Louisiana is like two hours from here.” Owen said.
“Naomi is going with Donovan,” Ellie told him.
“I’m just saying, he’s not going that far away.”
“Naomi is going with Donovan,” Ellie repeated.
“But who’s gonna save the raccoons today then?” Owen asked.
Ellie put her hands on her hips and looked at Owen. “I guess maybe you have to be the raccoon rescuer today. Maybe a raccoon will kiss you since Leo got the forty bucks yesterday.”
Owen sighed. “I swear he set that up somehow.”
Donovan stifled a laugh. He didn’t know if that was true, but he’d heard all about the gorgeous, thirty-something woman with the broken leg Leo had carried from her house and who had rewarded him with a not-at-all-quick-peck-on-the-lips for his heroism yesterday.
“Yeah, well, my big muscles make it hard for me to climb in through windows,” Owen said, flexing some of those big muscles.
“You sure it’s not all the extra helpings of biscuits and gravy?” Ellie asked him.
“You wound me, El. You truly wound me,” Owen said, putting a hand over his heart, but ruining his fake pain with a grin.
Ellie didn’t look at all apologetic.
“Okay, fine, but I want the floating pineapple today,” Owen said. “Apparently that’s how you get on the news.”
Donovan and Naomi just let that go. They headed for Donovan’s truck.
“Donovan! Naomi!”
They stopped and turned as Rachel, the reporter, came rushing up.
“We heard about you going to rescue a seal! Can we tag along?”
Donovan thought about what Naomi had said last night. When he had the chance to go on camera for a good cause he should take it. This was an opportunity to talk about all of the exotic animals kept as pets that shouldn’t be. “Absolutely.”
“Wonderful!” Rachel turned and motioned to her cameraman. “I was hoping to talk you into letting us follow you around on your rescues today anyway. This is even more exciting!”
“Well, I’ll be honest with you,” Donovan told her. “I prefer rescues to not be exciting. I like it when they’re routine and they go according to plan and everything works out.”
“Oh, of course,” Rachel gushed. “But just that there is a seal and you’re going to be saving it makes this not-your-usual day.”
“It’s very safe to say that every day with Donovan is not your usual day,” Naomi said dryly.
Donovan opened his mouth to ask if that was a good thing or bad, but thought better of it. For one thing, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. For another, he thought maybe he already did know. Naomi liked her life just as it was. Which was pretty…yeah, usual.
“Aw, that’s sweet,” Rachel said. “How long have you two been together?”
Naomi straightened and Donovan winced.
“What? Oh, we’re—” Naomi said.
“Oh.” Rachel frowned. “It’s just, last night when I interrupted—”
“We’re really good friends,” Donovan jumped in. “We’ve been working closely together for a few months. I was really proud of Naomi yesterday but was also worried when I heard about the amazing rescue she pulled off. The adrenaline and the emotions and the moment just kind of caught up to us.” He gave Rachel a smile and a shrug. “Plus, she’s gorgeous. You can’t blame me for wanting to kiss her, right?”
Rachel looked back and forth between them. She slowly shook her head. “No. I can’t blame you. You guys definitely have a lot of chemistry.”
Naomi and Donovan exchanged a look and then smiled.
“Like he said, we’re good friends and yes, there’s an attraction,” Naomi said. “But we don’t want to mess that up.”
And she didn’t want it out in public. Donovan could almost hear those words tacked on to the end of her sentence.
Rachel nodded. “Okay, sorry to assume.”
“No problem. But we need to get going now. Naomi is going to come retrieve the seal with me and then we’re heading back to Autre,” Donovan said. “So you can definitely tag along and think of any other questions you’ve got for me. We’re going to want to get on the road with this animal as soon as possible.”
“You’ve got it.” Rachel turned to her cameraman and they started for their vehicle. “We’ll be right behind you.”
When she was out of earshot, Donovan blew out a breath and looked at Naomi. “That was close.”
“Well, we do have chemistry. That’s why we have to watch what we do and say.”
He nodded. “I get it. I just wish it was different.”
She gave him a small smile that had a touch of sadness to it. “Me too.”
The words I don’t have to go to the Galapagos were right on the tip of his tongue, but he bit the words back before they came out. Barely.
On their way out of Mobile to the animal park that didn’t even have a name, Naomi looked up what she could find on her phone.
“It looks like a guy who has just been collecting exotic animals. He has occasionally charged admission to school groups and other people to come look at the animals and it sounds like he had some issues with authorities on a few occasions. It looks like at some point they tried to shut him down completely and maybe they believed that they had?” She looked over at Donovan. “Even the information on the internet is pretty nonspecific.”
Donovan was scowling at the road in front of them. He was following Fiona’s grape purple pickup and the trailer she was pulling. Rachel and her cameraman were in another truck behind him.
Rachel had certainly been fine with the change of plans. Naomi was sure that rescuing a harbor seal and a zebra would make a better story than just hauling typical cats and dogs out of houses, but it didn’t hurt that Donovan was extremely good-looking and had clearly charmed the reporter.
And was Naomi feeling a tiny stab of jealousy? Yeah, she was. One that wasn’t so tiny, actually. And she wasn’t happy about it. She and Donovan had agreed that it was a bad idea to pursue a relationship. She had given up any rights to being jealous. Still, that didn’t mean she wanted to watch a beautiful, perky blonde fawning over him all day.
Still, the work Donovan did with animal rescues was important. And if they could shine a light on some shady business practices and why not just anyone should get to own exotic animals, whether they called their business an animal park or not, this would be a great story. Apparently this guy had been around for a while, and Naomi suddenly wanted to know why no one had done a story on him owning these animals before this.
“There’s some speculation in a couple of these articles that the man who owns the animals has a friend in the mayor’s office,” Naomi said. “I suppose it’s possible he knows someone who convinced the authorities to look the other way. Or who promised to make sure he was on the up and up.”
“Fuckers,” Donovan said. “This kind of stuff happens more often than people would think. Everyone thinks they should get to be special. If they have the money they can do whatever they want. God only knows where he got these animals. And it doesn’t sound like he’s been doing a great job taking care of them.”
“Well, we’re here now. Fiona seems determined to take the animals away.”
“And making a news story out of it locally could help. Shaming him in the community might keep him from getting any more animals,” Donovan commented, glancing in his rearview mirror at the truck behind them.
Naomi rolled her eyes, but he wasn’t wrong. As long as Rachel didn’t focus only on the exciting rescue of the seal and Donovan’s tight ass in all of her shots.
Now that Fiona was aware of this guy, it would be a lot harder for him to fly under the radar too. Naomi didn’t know quite how Fiona had developed all of her contacts but her network was impressive. She’d already called a friend at the Animal Legal Defense Fund and she apparently knew people at the ASPCA as well.
One of these days Naomi and Charlie and Jordan were going to have to get Fiona liquored up on Leo’s moonshine and get her to spill some of her secrets. Naomi wasn’t sure why she thought Fiona had secrets—other than whatever was going on with her and Knox—but she was convinced that Fiona had some very interesting stories.
They pulled off the highway onto a dirt road and drove for several miles before turning into a driveway and rolling up to a huge house that looked like a very typical southern antebellum mansion.
“Well, that explains some of it,” Donovan said dryly, throwing the truck into park.
She knew exactly what he meant. This guy obviously had money.
“Rich assholes. These guys get bored and decide that fancy cars and yachts and airplanes aren’t the most interesting toys they can have. They decide living animals, actual living beings, are something they should own.”
Naomi reached over and squeezed his forearm. He looked over and when their eyes met, she gave him a soft smile.
“But we’re here now. We’re going to take these animals home with us. They’re going to be okay.”
Donovan took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right.”
“I’m glad you’re here. And Fiona. These animals obviously need you.”
“There are more animals in Mobile that need us too,” Donovan said. “And if this asshole hadn’t decided that he needed to have exotics and then wasn’t able to care for them, we could be there helping people get their family pets to safety. That’s important too.”
Naomi felt her heart flip a little at that. Donovan had done some of the most exciting things in some of the interesting places in the world with really cool animals. But he cared just as much about cats and dogs.
“But yesterday you were able to show everybody else how to handle those animals. You gave them the supplies and equipment they needed. Now, Mitch and Zeke and Sawyer and Bennett can save those animals. You’re just one guy, but because of you, now all these other guys can do even more work and save even more animals.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Dammit, girl.”
She smiled. “What?”
“You say stuff like that when we’re just pullin’ up to save a zebra and a seal and I can’t drag you over here and show you just what that means to me.”
She gave a soft laugh. “I’d tell you that I would keep that in mind for later, but we really have to stop doing that.”
“Yeah, I know.”
But as they sat just looking at each other, it didn’t feel like either of them really knew that.
Thankfully, they were interrupted before either of them made the move to kiss the other.
Fiona banged on the front of Donovan’s truck. “Come on, let’s go!”
It turned out Jeff was an Alabama Conservation Enforcement Officer and had called the sheriff and a couple of deputies who pulled in just then.
The owner of the animals wasn’t happy to see them, but he also didn’t put up a fight. For one thing, he clearly knew that he was in the wrong and that messing with Jeff and the sheriff wasn’t going to end well. Or maybe he took a look at Fiona and realized that messing with her wasn’t going to end well.
The other issue was that the harbor seal truly was stuck in the pool behind the man’s house.
It looked like he had constructed a normal swimming pool that even a human could use. However, it was above ground and the hurricane winds had collapsed one side and the seal was stuck under the debris.
The water had rushed out when the side caved in, giving the animal air to breathe, but unable to move or escape.
“So you just left all the animals outside while the hurricane came through?” Donovan asked.
The guy didn’t answer.
He’d probably been instructed by his lawyer not to.
There were a couple of guys with power tools taking the pool apart and moving the debris off of the animal as they went.
Donovan stalked over to them. “Stop! You guys gotta hold up!” he yelled over the whine of the saws.
The men shut them off. One pushed his safety glasses up. “What’s the problem?”
“You can’t see what you’re doing. You can’t just keep cutting straight through. You might hit the seal.”
