Molly wailed, "But I want to see the castle!"
Suddenly, for the first time in her life, Aoife had great sympathy for her own parents and their phrases likeI will turn this car around if you don't start behaving,which had always really annoyed her before this moment in time. "Talk to your mum about it, chicken."
"I'm not a chicken!"
"Whatage are you?" Aoife asked without quite meaning to.
"Eleven! I'll be twelve in September!"
From the way the girl was behaving, Aoife would have thought she was about eight. At the oldest. She took a breath to say something along those lines, and Mr. Mustache, whose proper name was Doug, gave her a brief, pleading look. Aoife cast her gaze upward to the increasingly cloudy skies and had a brief conversation with herself about whether dealing with the Collins was worth twelve thousand jobs and the future of the entire Shamrock Safari Wildlife Park.
For some reason, she found herself looking toward Elliott, as if he would provide her the strength to cope with it all. He was herding Molly along, but glanced up as if he sensed her gaze, and gave her the most gorgeous, rueful smile she'd ever imagined. It was as if he understood one hundred percent of what was going on in her mind, and had decided that itwasall worth it…forhersake.
Strengthened by that smile and the strange feeling that he absolutely had her back, Aoifebarelycame down on the side of 'yes,' and pulled together a smile while ignoring everything she wanted to say in favor of, "So now we're going on to see the rest of the Asian Habitat, including the Asiatic lions. You'll be very excited to hear that you're in luck because we also have an African lion visiting the park right now, so you'll have the opportunity to see the size differences between the two species."
"I thought the African lion was having a nice long nap," Elliott said with a note of panic in his voice.
"Oh, I'm sure he'll manage to wake up for us," Aoife said brightly. "I know he likes walking around in places he's not supposed to be, so it'll be grand!"
"Can Ipetit?" Molly asked breathlessly.
Aoife, after a long, somewhat disbelieving pause, said, "No, Molly."
"Mom!"
Cindy Collins had gone back to her tablet and her notes. Aoife knew she should be concerned that the executive was writing down what a terrible person Aoife was and how the wildlife park wouldn't get a cent from ColCor. However, at the moment, Aoife wasn't sure whatever strings were attached would be worth it the company's donations. It seemed likely that Ms. Collins would insist that Molly be allowed to pet whatever animals she wanted to, for example. That was a non-starter.
Aoife also couldn't quite bring herself to believe that Dr. Kelly would fire her. Not over dealing with the ill-mannered-but-wealthy potential donors, at least. Maybe for threatening to feed those donors to the lions, but she hadn't actuallymadethat threat. Not out loud, at least.
Besides, Collins wasn't listening. Molly stomped her foot and yelled, "MOM!" again.
"Yes, dear. Whatever you want, dear."
"See! My mom says I can pet the lion!"
Aoife lifted her eyes to meet Elliott's. His full mouth was pursed like he was trying to fight back a smile, or maybe a comment. In thisparticularcase, they both knew it would be safe for Molly to pet the lion. But Aoife couldn't think of a worse precedent to set, even if she tried. In fact, even though they did know it was perfectly safe, letting Molly pet a lion would probably be grounds for someone to shut the entire wildlife park down for safety violations. A toddler had been injured byatapirat a zoo while back ago, for heaven's sake. Tapirs were notoriously mellow. Lions were not!
"A friend of mine got bit by a lion," Hippie Girl said unexpectedly.
Molly's jaw fell open. "Really?"
"Yep. They were on a wildlife safari and the lion—well, lioness—stuck her head in the window and my idiot friend tried to pet her. She bit him. They had to amputate his hand," Hippie Girl said with dark glee. "Do you know what amputation is? They cut it off. It was so mangled by lion teeth that they had to cut it off because it could never heal. It bled all over everything. Great gushing spurts of blood." She made a theatrical gesture to animate the image.
Molly went so pale she turned green, then tossed her hair in weak defiance. "Nobody wants to pet a stupid lion anyway."
"Yeah, I figured you were probably smarter than my friend," Hippie Girl said very solemnly. She also caught Aoife's eye when Molly turned away, and winked.
Aoife clapped a hand over her mouth, unable to hold back laughter any other way. Molly spun toward her at the sound, and Aoife, faintly, said, "Weak stomach, chicken. The idea of all that blood spurting everywhere almost made me sick."
Molly went even greener. Apparently sick was even worse than blood. But for the next half hour or so, at least the girl stayed quiet and didn't try to pet anything or enter any enclosures. Aoife was able to give her talk uninterrupted except by questions from Doug, aka Mr. Mustache, who seemed to have done his homework on the species they were seeing today. Of course, he was the man doing ocean cleanup, so he probably had a specific interest in conservation.
Cindy Collins didn't seem to pay any attention to any of it. Her tablet dinged regularly, except at one point when they went out of signal reach, which visibly annoyed her. Elliottkept slipping behind her and making gestures and faces that indicated he was ready and willing to accidentally knock the tablet into an enclosure, or a puddle, or possibly turn into a lion and eat it. Aoife didn't really think that would improve matters, but it made her smile, and thatdidimprove matters. She wasn't sure how she'd have gotten through dealing with Cindy and Molly Collins without him.
Which was silly, since they'd only just met. Still, he was right there on her side, without hesitation or question, and he was soastonishinglyhandsome.
"All right, lads. We're going around to the back half of the park now, where we'll see a number of our free-ranging animals. They may approach you, but please do not approachthem. Interactions should only ever be initiated by the animals themselves. Molly, do you understand me?"
Molly looked like she understood all of the words, which wasn't the same thing as intending to obey them. Still, she nodded, and that was all Aoife could ask for. "Grand. Do be careful at the bridge, which is an uneven surface." Fortunately they passed it without incident, although an ostrich did poke its head over the fence to look at them curiously. There was a little ways to go before they reached another enclosure, so Aoife fell back to walk with Elliott. "I didn't really get a chance to ask if you were okay. Like, emotionally."
