Treat Me (One Night with Sole Regret 8)

Which reminded him of something Owen had said the day before. He fleetingly wondered if Owen’s plans to dump Lindsey on his mom had worked out.

They continued around the zoo. Amanda shared interesting facts about all the animals. Julie insisted on shoving a twenty into every collection box. Feeling a bit light in the wallet but full in the heart, Jacob wandered the small zoo, having to stop every so often to dig sharp stones out of his sandals.

The tortoise exhibit had low walls, and Amanda said it was okay for Julie to touch the hard shell of a roaming creature when it got close.

“Why is there so many turtles here?” Julie asked.

“These are tortoises,” Amanda said. “Turtles live in water.”

“Why do they have so many tortoises?” Jacob asked. There were over a dozen of them crawling about in their dusty pens, and he was pretty sure others were hiding out in the central shelter and thus weren’t visible.

“Tortoises live a long time—some of these are over fifty years old. So when they’re bred in captivity, it doesn’t take long to have a surplus population, and when other zoos run out of room, they send them here.”

“This turtle is as old as Grandma?” Julie said, looking up at Amanda with wide eyes. “I mean, is this tortoise as old as Grandma?”

Amanda laughed and touched her hair. “This tortoise is even older than Grandma.”

While Julie reached over the wall, trying to get a hand on the mossy green back of the land tortoise, Jacob took the opportunity to move in close to Amanda. He was enjoying her company so much. It didn’t seem fair that he couldn’t openly display his affection.

When she turned to look at him, he couldn’t resist stealing a kiss. Her hand moved to his shoulder and instead of pushing him away as he’d anticipated, she drew him closer.

“Daddy, I can’t reach him,” Julie said with a grunt of exertion.

Amanda pulled away, but not before Julie spied their unusually close proximity.

“What are you doing?” Julie asked, her slim blond eyebrows drawn together.

“Amanda . . . uh . . .” Jacob racked his brain for a plausible explanation. Amanda is utterly delicious didn’t seem like a good enough reason.

“I had something in my eye,” Amanda said, rubbing at one lid with the back of her hand.

Jacob was glad the woman was brilliant. “And I was helping her get it out.”

Julie pursed her lips and shifted them to one side. Jacob didn’t know if she’d actually seen them kissing or had just seen them standing inappropriately close.

“Can I pet the tortoise again?” she asked.

Jacob scooped her up airplane style and made zooming noises as he shifted her over the wall. She giggled, both arms extended, and managed to skim a hand along the tortoise’s back.

“Is it okay to do this?” Jacob asked Amanda as an afterthought.

Amanda nodded. “Just don’t drop her in there. Tortoises like to nibble on little girl toes.”

Making gobbling noises, Amanda grabbed the tips of Julie’s tennis shoes. Julie squealed, “He’s getting me, Daddy!”

Jacob scooped her up against his chest and squeezed. “I’ve got you. I won’t ever let anything hurt you.”

They watched a mischievous trio of bear cubs climb and tumble around their large enclosure, and Julie completely emptied Jacob’s wallet into the collection box for an aged black panther with a lame leg.

“She’s very compassionate,” Amanda said as they sat on a bench and watched Julie talk to the pacing cat, telling him everything was going to be all right.

“I think she gets that from you,” Jacob said, sneaking an arm around her back and stroking the bare skin of her shoulder with his fingertips.

“From me? How would she get that from me?” She inched closer to him on the bench until their knees touched.

“What do they call it, nature or nurture?”

Amanda lifted a questioning eyebrow at him.

“She’s around you a lot,” Jacob continued. “It’s only natural that she’s picked up some of your characteristics. She’s shaped by more than her genes.”

Amanda smiled. “You don’t think she gets her compassion from her mother?”

They shared a hearty laugh over that idea.

“What’s funny?” Julie asked, wriggling her slight form into the nonexistent space between them.

“Nothing important,” Amanda said. “Are you getting tired?”

Julie shook her head. “Can we ride the train now?”

“Don’t you want to feed the goats first?” From the diaper bag Amanda had been hauling around for over an hour, she pulled the three sacks of animal food they’d purchased at the main entrance.

“Yes!”

Julie was very careful to make sure each goat in the fenced corral got exactly one pellet. She giggled as their lips wiggled over her palm to collect her offering. Jacob watched closely, wondering if goats carried rabies. They sure didn’t smell very clean.

A big brown goat butted his way between his fellows and stole another goat’s pellet from Julie’s outstretched hand.

“No!” Julie shouted, waving a chastising finger at the crazed-looking animal. “That’s not yours.”

Brown-goat didn’t look the least bit ashamed, and Jacob had to admit the animal’s oblong pupils weirded him out. Did they all have bizarre eyes like that? Or just the crazy, rabid ones?

“What is it with their eyes?” Jacob asked Amanda.

She opened her mouth to answer but was cut off by Julie’s piercing scream.

Jacob’s heart slammed against his breast bone, and expecting to find his little girl with fewer fingers, he couldn’t help but laugh at what had her so upset.

Brown-goat, having identified Julie’s stash, had gone straight for the bag in her hand, biting into the brown paper and tearing off a chunk. The animal seemed satisfied with his meal until he swallowed and went back for a second bite.

“No!” Julie screamed. “You’re a stupid, stupid idiot!”

“Julie!” Amanda admonished. “That’s a terrible thing to say. You should never call anyone stupid or an idiot.”

Amanda went still and her head jerked, turning her stunned face in Jacob’s direction. She grimaced, her brows crumpled with sympathy. What the fuck? Why was she looking at him all apologetic-like?

“My mom does it,” Julie snapped, throwing the remnants of her bag into the pen.

She crossed her arms over her narrow chest, stuck out her lower lip, and stomped off toward a mesquite tree in the center of the clearing surrounded by the petting barn’s fences and the reptile shed. Brown-goat snatched up the bag and scattered the remaining tan pellets in all directions.

“Sorry,” Amanda called to Jacob’s back as he went after Julie.

Why was she sorry? Because she’d shouted? Because she’d upset Julie? Or was it because she thought stupid was his trigger word? Yes, Tina called him stupid on a regular basis, but Amanda didn’t have the same opinion of him, did she?

Jacob squatted beside Julie and watched her kick at a tree root.

“Are you mad?” he asked.

“Yes,” she grumbled.

“What about?”

“That stu—” She glanced at her Aunt Mander and adjusted her word choice. “That greedy goat taked all the food.” Her eyes welled with tears. “Now the nice goats don’t get any.”

And wasn’t that the way of the world? But that wasn’t something he wanted her to simply accept. “Do you want to feed the nice goats my bag of food?” he asked, holding his full bag of pellets out to her.

“But the stupid—I mean, that brown goat—will just take it all again.”

Jacob couldn’t resist stroking her soft hair. “I have a plan to outsmart that brown goat.”

Julie perked up, and it warmed his heart that she didn’t even question his ability to outsmart a goat. “What is it?” she whispered, obviously not wanting Brown-goat to overhear his plan.

“We’ll dump the pellets into our hands, and Aunt Mander can take the empty bag over there.” He pointed to the far end of the corral. “And make Brown-goat think she has all the food.”

Julie scrunched up her face and giggled into her tiny hands. “That’s a good trick, Daddy.”

Surprisingly, his trick worked. Brown-goat was so accustomed to being fed out of a paper bag that he was distracted by the bait long enough for Julie to make sure all the nice goats had several pellets each.

“Thank you, Daddy!” Julie said, hugging him as tightly as she could. “You saved the day.”

Smiling, he squeezed her back. He wished she would stay this size fore

ver. She’d eventually become a teenager and his ability to outsmart goats wouldn’t seem quite as heroic to her.