The Doctor's Secret Son

Fine. She could do this. She’d dealt with worse situations. At least, she thought she had, even if she couldn’t think of any.

The otters were playing and that went a long way to lightening Joss’s mood. When one swam near the thick glass wall that allowed seeing his underwater antics, Joss’s eyes grew big.

“Look,” he exclaimed, pointing excitedly.

“I think he likes you,” Chrissie praised when the otter seemed to be checking Joss out as much as the little boy was checking out him.

“He probably recognizes me from when I came before.”

“Maybe so.” She turned to Trace. “Cute, huh?”

His gaze met hers and something flickered that put an entirely different nervous energy in her belly.

“Adorable,” he said, bending to Joss’s level to eye the otter next to their son.

After watching the otters for a while longer, they slo

wly made their way through the different exhibits.

They hung out in the butterfly area for a while. A large monarch landed on Trace’s finger.

“Look,” Trace breathed in an excited whisper, as if he was afraid if he made too much noise the butterfly would take flight.

“It’s beautiful,” Chrissie said.

The butterfly seemed to have taken up residence on Trace’s finger, not minding one bit when Trace knelt and offered the butterfly to Joss.

The boy regarded the butterfly with longing. “Do you think he’ll fly off if I hold him?”

“Only one way to find out.” Trace gently transferred the butterfly to Joss’s stretched-out finger.

Chrissie held her breath during the transfer, praying the butterfly cooperated, and amazingly it did, resting on Joss’s finger while he did his best to keep his hand still.

A proud Joss looked up at her and grinned. “Take my picture.”

Heart melting, Chrissie got out her cell phone and snapped a couple of shots of Joss holding the butterfly. Trace stood to the side watching.

“Step in behind Joss so I can get your picture with him and the butterfly,” she suggested, elated when Trace complied. A little dazed, too, at the thought she was about to take a photo of her son with his father.

With shaky hands, she snapped several pictures of a smiling Joss holding a butterfly and a smiling Trace standing behind him with his hand on Joss’s shoulder. No matter what happened, she’d treasure the photos and believed someday Joss would, too.

Sharing his butterfly must have won Trace more than a few brownie points because Joss lost his scowl for the rest of the morning. He still wouldn’t hold Trace’s hand but at least he was showing some of his normal enthusiasm for the trip and had become talkative, telling Trace about the different exhibits.

“I don’t see the alligator,” Trace said, scratching his head and pretending not to see the alligator that was beneath the water in a river exhibit.

“Right there.” Joss pointed against the glass in the direction the alligator rested.

Trace bent down to Joss’s level. “Where?”

“Right there.” Joss tapped the thick clear wall separating the viewing area from the exhibit. “You have to see him. He’s huge.”

“Now I see him. Thank you,” he told the little boy as he looked in the right direction. “I’d hate to have missed seeing him.”

“He has big teeth,” Joss pointed out, even though you couldn’t see much as the alligator’s mouth was closed.

“The better to eat me with,” Trace teased, chomping his teeth.

“Trace,” Savannah laughed.