Second Chance Girl
Page 20

“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She glanced at him. “There’s something. Are you not feeling well?”
“I’m fine. Just crap at the studio. I’ve been working on a project and it’s not going well. The last couple of days have been a challenge.”
“What does that mean? I’m the least artistic person on the planet so I have no frame of reference.”
“I can see what I want to create in my head but I can’t make it happen.”
“In glass?”
“Yes.”
“So not dishes.”
“No.” He shifted Sophie so she was leaning against him. “However, it is glass, so when I screw up, I can smash it to bits. I’ve been doing a lot of that.”
“While we lesser mortals have to live with our mistakes.”
“It’s good to be me.”
She pulled into his driveway. Mathias turned to her.
“Want to come in for a drink, maybe stay for dinner?”
Before she could express surprise, he added, “I’d like the company.”
Meaning what? He wanted to be with her or he didn’t want to be alone? Why were men so complicated?
“Um, sure.” She turned off the engine and got her bag, then followed him around to the back door. He pushed it open. Sophie led the way inside, then waited for her leash to be unsnapped. She made a beeline for the sofa in the family room, jumped up and settled right in the middle.
“I see you’ve made it clear who’s in charge,” Carol murmured as she set her bag on the end table.
“Like you’d make her sleep on the floor.”
“Probably not. She seems really comfortable. You two must be getting along.”
“She’s not so bad.” As they spoke, he walked into the kitchen and pulled out a blender. “Margaritas okay?”
She’d been thinking more of a glass of wine, but sure. “Sounds good.”
She watched as he poured ingredients into the blender, then hit the switch. When the mixture resembled a thick, icy temptation, he filled a good-sized glass and handed it to her, then got a beer out of the refrigerator for himself.
“You didn’t have to do this for me,” she said.
“It was easy.”
They settled on opposite sides of Sophie. Carol sipped her drink and found it went down way too easily. Oh, well—her house wasn’t all that far away. If she overindulged, she would simply walk home and retrieve her car in the morning.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “You seem, I don’t know, restless, I guess.” A thought occurred that stuck her like a pin, but still forced her to say, “Is the sexy bridesmaid pool too small these days?”
“I’m giving up bridesmaids.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not. But I haven’t been looking lately.”
“Why not?” Because as much as she would want his decision to be about her, she knew it wasn’t.
“Like I said, I’m working on something and it’s not coming out right. I’m frustrated by that. I can see it in my head and when I’m creating it, for a second, I know it’s okay. Then it all falls apart.”
“I have no idea what it’s like to be talented,” she admitted. “I can offer sympathy, but no real course of action. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re nice to listen.”
Nice? She held in a sigh. That was her. The nice girl. Not special, not dangerous, just pleasant. She was like having oatmeal for breakfast. A sensible choice but hardly one that got your blood racing.
“Tell me about Millie,” he said before taking a long swallow of his beer. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s healthy, but still lonely.”
“And the fund?”
She sighed. “Growing slowly. The donation cans I’ve placed around town fill up steadily, but they’re not going to get us there. My dad and uncle’s donation is great, but there’s still a long way to go. I’ve been researching different ways to raise money that get me more than a car wash or bake sale. I need to figure out some kind of fund-raiser.”
“Your goal is half a million dollars?”
He sounded more curious than appalled, which she appreciated. A couple of people had expressed amazement that she would ever consider “wasting” that much on a few giraffes.
“Yes. Some of that covers purchasing the other animals, plus transportation and the new barns.”
“That has to be complicated. Do you call UPS?”
“Actually FedEx has a wild animal division who does this kind of thing all the time.”
He stared at her. “Moves giraffes?”
“Other animals, too. How do you think zoos do their animal exchanges?”
“In the back of a pickup in the dark of night?”
She laughed. “Nope. They’re delivered.”
“Nice. Okay, so we have the purchase price, transportation, the barns. You’re going to need more giraffe chow.”
“We are. The plans for the barn are already approved. The structure’s pretty simple, so once we have the money, it will only take a few weeks to build. The different giraffes will have to be kept separate as they get to know each other. Just because they’re giraffes doesn’t mean they’re going to instinctively bond.”
“Still no boy giraffe on the horizon?”
“Not at the moment. If I get the herd established and the girls are happy, and there’s extra money, then I’ll look around for a male. Before I did that, I’d have to get the girls on birth control. We’d want them to breed, but on our terms, not theirs.”
He laughed. “Giraffe birth control? I don’t want to know what that entails.”
“I’ll admit it’s not my area of expertise, but I can do the research.”
He finished his beer, collected her half-empty glass and his bottle, went into the kitchen and freshened both, then returned to the sofa.
“What if your dad and uncle had settled somewhere else? You might not have Millie at all.”
She’d never thought of that but he was right. Happily Inc had been very welcoming to the animal preserve. “I’m glad we could be here for her.”
“She’s glad, too.” He studied her.
“What?”
“I’m picturing you in South Africa. You’d look good there. I’m less sure Violet would fit in.”
Carol told herself he hadn’t actually complimented her and not to read too much into his words.
“Violet would think of reasons why she had to go back home, during our summers, while I was looking for excuses to stay. I loved the animals, the work, the people. I learned a lot and always had an interesting topic for the ‘what I did on my summer vacation’ essay. I hated going back to New York for the school year.”
“I can’t see you living in the city.”
“I wasn’t very good at it. We were close to Central Park, so that helped. I could be outside and pretend I was somewhere else.”
“By the time you were fifteen, you knew you wanted to work with animals?”
“I did. When I was around that age, my dad and uncle inherited enough money to buy the landfill here. They’d been talking about wanting to do something different with waste management and recycling and they finally had the opportunity. My dad also wanted an animal preserve, which is where I came in.”