Sealed With A Kiss: Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild, page 21
He had loved educating people around the world with his work on the other shows, but they were strangers and he only ever ran into a handful of them in person. Here, it was every day. The Landrys, and Naomi, Michael and Andre, even sharing this with Griffin, put all of his work on a different level.
Suddenly Naomi leaned forward, took his face in her hands, and pressed a kiss to his lips.
“You’re amazing,” she said against his mouth before leaning back.
He gave her a smile that he was sure was full of emotion that he wasn’t supposed to be feeling for her. “Ditto, goddess.”
She laughed a happy, contented laugh.
“That really was awesome,” Brent said.
“And that kiss. That’s what were talking about,” Rachel said. “Perfect. All of that was cool. The bird, the rescue, the way the bird flew off, you two at the end. Just amazing.”
Naomi’s eyes widened slightly as if she’d almost forgotten that Brent and Rachel were there.
And the kiss was on film now too.
That was part of the deal though. Donovan had to remember that. All of this was part of pitching this new show.
He didn’t think that Naomi had kissed him for the camera, but if she had, this was what he’d signed up for.
12
The next two days were also very routine. And Donovan was sure Brent and Rachel were bored to tears. But they finally got another call about a deer that was trapped in a fence.
They pulled up along the side of the road with Brent and Rachel in the backseat and it took about ten minutes for Donovan to cut the deer loose from the fence and for it to run off into the woods.
“Well, hopefully something big will happen tomorrow,” Brent said, lowering the camera with a sigh.
Donovan looked at him. “That wasn’t exciting enough for you?”
“The thing obviously wasn’t even hurt.”
“You were hoping for it to be hurt?”
“We have yet to take anything back to your rehab center. Even the seal, tiger, and zebra are doing well.”
“So, sorry to disappoint you,” Donovan said dryly.
“But you’re just feeding them and they’re just hanging out in their pens,” Brent said. “You’re not even really working with them.
“I’m waiting for them to get stronger. The zebra and tiger aren’t going to need much intervention. We’re tending to the wounds on the tiger’s paws.”
“But we already shot footage of that. We’re not going to keep showing the same stuff.”
Rachel looked up at Brent. “We just need to be a little patient. We have some time.”
“I know. Jonathan was just asking how things are going.”
“Did you tell him it’s just going to take some time? That things don’t happen every day?” Donovan asked.
“Which is something I want to talk to you about,” Brent said. “I mean I’m not saying that we should completely stage rescues, but after we talked the other day about the bear cubs, it got me thinking—”
Donovan shook his head. “We are not taking the cubs out to the woods and pretending to rescue them again,” Donovan scowled. “That’s stupid. They’ll run off and then be at risk all over again.”
“No, man, I get that. They aren’t ready to be out on their own,” Brent said. “But we were talking—”
Rachel shook her head. “I told you I didn’t think that was a good idea. I don’t think he’ll go for it.”
“Go for what?” Donovan asked. He was fairly certain he was not going to go for it. But for some reason he wanted to hear this stupid idea.
“We were talking about the penguin rescue and how you need to pull it down off of the website. We looked at it, thinking that maybe we could edit it into some of our stuff. But there are several angles of that rescue that could have been shot so much better and that would really add to things,” Brent said. He gave Naomi a look. “No offense.”
Naomi rolled her eyes. “No offense taken.”
“We want real raw footage,” Donovan told him. “The point is, she’s there like any visitor to the park would be. She’s showing them what they would see if they were there.”
Brent nodded. “And that completely works for what you guys are doing. But now we need to take it to a little higher level. So I was thinking we could restage that rescue pretty easily. You have the penguins. We could take one down there and get a net—”
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Donovan said. He turned and started walking away.
Brent hurried to catch up with him. “Now, listen. It would be in no danger.”
“I assume you’d want the alligators there.”
Brent nodded. “Well obviously, that’s what makes it exciting.”
Donovan stopped and pivoted to face the other man so quickly that Brent almost ran into him. “Those are real alligators. Wild animals. They had every intention of killing that penguin. And they would’ve attacked me and Zeke as well. We weren’t playing around.”
Brent, either stupid or completely full of himself, made the mistake of grinning. “It looked like you were having a good time though.”
Donovan started to lean in but felt Naomi’s hand on his arm.
The thing was, Brent wasn’t wrong. There had been times, in the not-so-distant past, when Donovan had put on a show or played up situations he’d been in. Sometimes risking possible injury to himself. But he’d changed. He’d…mellowed. Or something. Autre, and the animals here, and the people here, and Naomi, had showed him that there were more important things than getting “like” clicks and comments on videos.
“We’re not restaging the penguins rescue,” Naomi said calmly but firmly. “And I just got a text that Donovan is needed down at the goat barn.”
“Another goat needs rescuing?” Brent asked.
Naomi shrugged. “Yeah.” She looked up at Donovan. “One of the goats has his head stuck in a feeder.”
Donovan nodded. “Let’s go.”
He needed some space from Brent and he needed a good dose of those goats. The goats made him happy, dammit. All the animals here made him happy.
He didn’t need to wrestle alligators or swim with the dolphins or rescue koalas. He needed to take care of animals that needed to be taken care of. Whether it was Australia or Africa or Autre.
At the petting zoo, it was happy chaos as usual. Naomi saw Donovan visibly take a deep breath when they stepped inside the main gate.
The petting zoo was open and there were visitors milling about, along with goats, potbellied pigs, ducks, and peacocks. The alpacas were in their own areas, but they were only separated from the main barnyard by a simple wooden fence and a few of them were just on the other side of that barrier checking out the commotion. The rabbit pen was to the right, the hedgehogs beside them, and the porcupines just beyond that.
Donovan’s grin was big and bright as he looked around and Naomi felt herself smiling in return. She hadn’t realized until that moment, but every time she saw Donovan in the petting zoo he was smiling. The multitude of small animals here were far more common than the animals he typically associated with, but he always seemed happy when he was in the ragtag zoo.
He was very rarely called to the petting zoo for any kind of actual emergency. Everything that happened with these animals was handled easily by Griffin or one of the other veterinarians or any of the many Landry boys who were used to being around the menagerie. But Donovan made a point of stopping by to see the animals often and was definitely not above helping with their feeding and general care.
Naomi knew he was happy whenever he was around any animal, but the contrast between things like black bears and potbellied pigs was stark now that Brent and Rachel were there observing.
“Jordan?” Donovan called.
“Over here!” they heard Jordan answer.
They rounded one end of a stall to find Jordan standing with one of the goats between her knees, trying to wrestle a white plastic cylinder off of his head.
She looked up at them with clear relief.
She also had spectators.
“Sleepy got his head stuck in the chicken feeder somehow,” Jordan said. She was clearly gritting her teeth. “Griffin’s on a call outside of town, Tori has Ella at some play date, and I didn’t want Jill down here wrestling goats while she’s so big with those twins.”
Donovan shook his head, striding forward. “No problem.” He grabbed onto the other end of the plastic cylinder and looked into it. “How did you do this, buddy?” he asked the goat.
The goat had gotten his head into the end of the cylinder, but his horns were keeping him from getting back out.
“I tried pulling, I even used vegetable oil to try to grease it,” Jordan said. “I think we’re gonna have to cut it off. But I definitely need an extra pair of hands for that.” She glanced around. “And that would definitely seem less traumatic for all of these people.” She lowered her voice. “You know what drama queens these goats are.”
Naomi laughed. They definitely were.
Donovan nodded. “We’re going to ruin this feeder.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
Within ten minutes, Donovan had cut through the hard thick plastic and had peeled the cylinder from around the goat’s head and neck. The little crowd cheered and the goat bleated—though it was hard to tell if it was “thanks” or “about damned time”.
Donovan examined the goat for any abrasions or cuts, but the animal seemed fine, if annoyed at having been manhandled. Jordan patted the goat’s rump and it went running off to join its friends.
Donovan straightened and wiped his hands on his jeans, grinning.
Naomi looked over at Brent and Rachel. She realized they hadn’t been filming.
Frowning, she crossed to them. “Is everything okay?”
Rachel looked at her. “Sure.”
“You didn’t film any of that.”
Brent snorted. “It was more goats. That wasn’t exactly a heart pounding rescue.”
He had a point, of course, but Naomi couldn’t ignore the flicker of annoyance she felt. She’d seen it in Donovan as well. These animals weren’t exotic, and certainly this particular instance had not been at all life-threatening for anyone, but it was still part of the everyday life of taking care of the animals in this small town. “Well, we never know when a situation could turn from seemingly easy and routine into something more dangerous.”
They both shrugged. “And you weren’t the one helping him,” Rachel said. “So we couldn’t even build on the relationship angle.”
Ah, right. Naomi glanced at Donovan. She was very used to standing back and watching him do his thing, but she was going to have to remember that they were supposed to be flirting and building an on-screen relationship every time they went out together.
Damn, being “on” like this was exhausting. How had she forgotten that?
She swallowed. Okay, she could do this. Getting close to him was no hardship. She had no trouble acting attracted to the guy.
Naomi looked around.
It was general anarchy in the barn. The goats weren’t the only animals inside of course. The doors were wide open so animals were wandering—or running at full speed, or meandering, or waddling, or trotting—in and out in all directions. So were the people.
There were some wooden cut-outs of various animals set up sporadically through the barn where kids could pose to get their photos taken. Overhead hung a paper banner that declared it to be Stan the goat’s birthday. There were bits of streamers and balloons hanging along the rafters on either side of the banner.
Stan himself was standing off to one side, minding his own business. His actual name was Satan because he could be a real dick. But the Landry ladies had insisted Satan was a mean name and had shortened it to Stan. Which was also more appropriate for a banner hanging in a public space with kids, Naomi supposed.
As Naomi studied the banner and balloons, an idea came to her. That she immediately hated.
But it would work. She knew television. She knew what would play well on the screen.
Okay, she could fix this too-boring-to-even-pull-a-camera-out-for situation. Probably.
She and Donovan were supposed to have talked about what they were going to script for the relationship portion of the show. They hadn’t spent a lot of time doing that, so she was going to have to take the lead here.
They couldn’t set up the animal rescues, but they could set up some of what happened on camera. And, she reminded herself, it wouldn’t be entirely fake. The feelings between them were real enough. The chemistry was real. The circumstances were just going to have to be massaged a little.
“You’re going to want to have the cameras on for this next part,” she told Brent and Rachel as she started across the barn.
She already hated this idea so much.
It was going to be so stupid. This was completely out of character for her.
But they had to make the show work.
Naomi kept telling herself that as she picked up an abandoned half-empty cup of blue raspberry slushy—which was absolutely not allowed in the animal areas and needed to be picked up anyway—from the top of a wooden barrel and headed for the far darkened corner of the barn.
She had no idea if Donovan noticed. She was hoping he was still in conversation with Jordan and distracted by all of the animals.
This is such a bad idea, this is such a bad idea, this is such a bad idea.
Naomi climbed the built-in wooden ladder that would take her from the ground to the loft overhead where they stored the additional animal feed and other supplies. When she was in the loft, still balancing the half empty blue slushy, she made her way to the wooden beams that crossed over the main part of the barn. She looked down and saw that Brent and Rachel were in fact filming. Donovan, however, was kneeling and talking to a little boy at the moment.
Awesome. Donovan had no idea what Naomi was doing. This was perfect.
There was a streamer caught on a nail on one of the beams. They always did a mass cleanup after events in the barn, of course, but it was too good a prop for her at this moment. Besides, the viewers wouldn’t care about why she was doing this when they saw the end result.
Holding the blue slushy in one hand and bracing her other hand against the wall she inched out along the rafters until she was directly over Donovan’s head. She was only about ten feet in the air. That wasn’t enough to get really hurt if she fell. Probably.
But the whole idea here was to not get hurt at all. Because Donovan was down there to save her.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped out onto the rafter and leaned over to grab the streamer, loosening it from the nail. But as she bent, she tipped the blue slushy. The melted-yet-still-pretty-cold blue liquid hit Donovan on the shoulder and splashed down the side and front of his shirt.
Jordan gasped, and Donovan leapt to his feet, swearing in spite of the little boy standing next to him.
Oops.
He immediately looked up and at that moment, Naomi grabbed the rafter and pretended to slip so that she was dangling just over his head.
“Naomi!” he yelled.
Everyone in the barn gasped and looked up.
“Donovan!” Naomi cried in a very believable oh-my-god-help-me tone, if she did say so herself.
She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She wasn’t exactly the damsel in distress type anyway and putting herself into that situation was making her feel like an idiot.
Still, she knew that Brent and Rachel were filming and it was definitely getting the attention she’d intended. This show would mean Donovan would have fulfilling work and could stay in Autre. That was worth feeling foolish. And possibly landing on her ass in front of a crowd of people and a big online audience. But she really hoped it didn’t come to that.
“Naomi! What the hell?” Donovan bellowed from below.
“Donovan, I slipped!”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath, wincing as she said, “just scared.”
“I’m right here,” he told her. “I’ve got you.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. What she could do, was drop down to the floor from this height. Though she might sprain an ankle, she would certainly live to tell the tale.
“Just let go, I’ve got you.”
She rolled her eyes. This was going exactly the way she’d intended. She should be a director, not an actor.
“I don’t know if I can.” She made her voice shake just a little.
“You can do this, I’m right here.”
God, he was such a good guy. She really didn’t need to set him up like this.
It’s for the show, it’s for the show, it’s for the show.
Naomi took a deep breath, peeled her fingers off of the rafter, and let herself fall.
Sure enough, Donovan caught her in his arms easily.
“I’ve got you,” he told her.
Another collective gasp went up around them.
Well, holy shit. That had been pretty damned chivalrous, she had to admit.
“I’m good. Thank you,” Naomi told him, looking up into his face and working to be sure she looked properly adoring.
Jordan was beside them a second later, totally ruining the five seconds of staring into each other’s eyes Naomi had planned.
“What the hell were you doing up there?” Jordan demanded.
“There was a streamer stuck up there and I didn’t want it to fall and have one of the goats eat it,” Naomi said.
“There are still a ton of streamers up there!” Jordan exclaimed.
“This one was loose. I was sure it was going to fall.” Naomi frowned, wanting her friend to really look at her and catch on that Naomi had been plotting.
But Jordan was looking at the streamers. “We could have gotten a ladder. Or I could have had Mitch climb up there later or something.”
“I’m perfectly capable of climbing up there to pull down a streamer,” Naomi told her with a frown.
Donovan was still holding her, Naomi noted. She was also aware in her peripheral vision of Brent and Rachel recording the entire exchange.
