“Thank you.” He was. It was just a fact.
“But I guess I can be comfortable in a lot of different places. Décor doesn’t matter that much. Or amenities.” She drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. “I think I actually try not to attach too much to a place. I don’t want a home because then it becomes too important.”
Okay, that was not something he’d ever heard before. “Why is that?”
She met his eyes. “Because keeping up our home and making it a place that was perfect for everyone all the time wore on my mom. It was where she felt she had to be instead of out doing what she wanted to do. Home was her work rather than where she was able to relax and be comfortable.”
Zeke frowned. “What do you mean?”
“My mom was a doctor. And she loved it. It was what she’d always dreamed of doing. She did her residency, but she didn’t really get to work before she got pregnant with my older brother. He had a lot of health issues as a baby, so she didn’t feel like she could leave him with someone else. From that point on she became a stay-at-home mom. And that’s great for some people,” Jill added quickly. “But it wasn’t what she wanted. She had four kids and everyone always praised her for how well she kept everything all together, how great we all were, how clean and organized the house always was, how she managed everything. She took pride in that because it was all she had. It became important to her that our house be this perfect place where we were all safe and happy and where we liked to bring our friends and then, by the time we all graduated and moved out and she was thinking about going back to work, my grandma got sick and Mom started taking care of her.”
Jill shrugged. “My mom was kind of bound down by home and family when she really wanted to be working instead. She always seemed tired and like she wanted more. She kept her license up and read journals all the time. But she never got to practice.”
“So when you got the chance at your dream job, you decided to focus only on that and not let home and family and all of that distract you,” Zeke said.
“Exactly.”
Zeke’s family was incredibly supportive. Whatever anyone wanted to try or do, everyone else was behind them. When Kennedy had wanted to go from swamp boat tour company receptionist to politician, they’d all joined her campaign. When Zander had gone to the police academy and then come home after only a year working in New Orleans, they’d all supported him. When Charlie had been fired from her big, fancy job in Paris and ended up back on the bayou and decided to expand the petting zoo, they’d said, “go for it.”
That was the Landry way. Love you until you fell on your ass and then haul you up, feed you, and love you even harder.
“Okay, I hear you, Kansas,” he said. And he did. A woman didn’t have to have a family. And, apparently, this woman didn’t have to be into home and family for him to want her more than he’d ever wanted anyone.
Maybe it was because he couldn’t have her.
But he really thought it was more than that.
“I didn’t mean…” She paused and bit her bottom lip. “Actually, I guess I did mean that as a warning,” she said. “You’re all really into family down here.”
“We definitely are.”
“It’s nothing personal.”
“I get it. And it doesn’t make you weird, Jill,” he felt compelled to add.
“I don’t know about that.” She gave him a little smile. “But it does make me very good with penguins.” She looked around and her smile fell. “Supposedly.”
He nudged her foot with his. “It’ll be okay.”
“You promise?”
“Maybe not. But I can tell you that ‘oh shits’ reproduce like rabbits.”
“What’s that mean?”
“That’s what Leo always says. It means if you start thinking about all the things in a project that might make you say ‘oh, shit’, you’ll find even more than you ever imagined.”
“Ooookay,” she said slowly.
“Like when I start a new building project. If I start thinking of materials not coming in on time, or one of my guys not showing up, or a ceiling beam crashing down or…there are a ton of things that could go wrong. I’d never start if I tried to have it all in place from the first day.”
“And does Leo give any advice about how to deal with it?”
“Let it happen, say ‘oh shit’, and then fix it.”
“You really don’t put measures in place to be sure that ceiling beams don’t come crashing down?” she asked.
He laughed. “Of course. But shit can still happen. And you have to just do your best to figure it out when it does.”
“I’ve never been on my own before,” she admitted. “I was the lead at the zoo with the penguins. I’m an expert. People call me all the time. But, I’ve never actually been the only one who would be saying ‘oh shit’ like I am here.”
He nudged her foot again. “But you’re not. We’ll all say, ‘oh shit’ if things don’t work out with these penguins.”
She groaned. “I don’t know if that’s better now that you say that. I don’t want a bunch of Cajuns disappointed in me too.”
“‘Oh shit’ isn’t ‘you’re shit’, Kansas. It just means ‘well, that didn’t go according to plan, here’s a beer’. Or, if it’s really bad, Leo will pull out his moonshine and it’ll take you two days to remember what went wrong.”
She actually smiled at that and Zeke felt his heart expand. He couldn’t fix things with her penguins but he could make sure she knew she had friends no matter what happened. Whether she wanted them or not.
He pushed himself to his feet. “I should probably get going. I don’t want the female penguins to get attached to me and ruin all chances of them wanting to get it on with the males.”
Jill’s gaze roamed over him as he stretched to his full height. “Good thinking.”
“And if you need any more hugs, just text me. You do have my number. Or you can just respond to one of the ten I sent you.”
“It was fourteen. And okay,” she said with a half smile.
He wanted to kiss her so fucking bad. Instead, he turned and made his way back to the penguin house. But before he ducked inside to leave he said, “By the way, naked hugging is also an option.”
She laughed and he felt his heart swell even further.
12
“Ezekiel Nathaniel Landry!”
Zeke sighed. “Do it quick,” he said to Michael.
“This is going to hurt.
“I’m aware.” Zeke gritted his teeth. “Do it. Now.”
They had a long tablecloth wrapped around Zander’s trunk to hold him still.
Michael nodded at Zander. “Okay, pull.”
Zander pulled on the cloth, Michael jerked on Zeke’s arm, and Zeke’s shoulder popped back into place.
The pain was like a streak of lightning, arcing through him. “Motherfucker.”
“Maybe I stole a dog from my neighbor’s yard and relocated it seven counties away because it would never stop barking.”