by Ruby Loren
My mouth dropped open. I’d known there was something supremely fishy about those peacocks!
I wasn’t sure what to say to all of that, so I was glad when Claudia wished me a Merry Christmas and walked on down the stairs. I was surprised to find that I thought we were gradually becoming friends, despite not starting out that way. It just went to show, people weren’t always who you thought they were. My opinion of her had been strongly coloured by Lawrence’s words and actions. He’d pushed her towards Auryn so heavily that I had thought she was the one with those intentions.
“Hi, how are you doing?” I said, pushing open the door to Auryn’s office.
He looked up from the computer with a frown on his face. “Terrible! I completely neglected organising the Christmas party. At the moment, we have the last-minute hire of the village hall, but no way of getting enough food and drink. Everyone is going to have an awful time, and it was supposed to be a celebration of how well we’ve done!” He ran a hand through his blonde hair, making it stick up.
I thought back to an autumn village fete in France I’d attended, not so long ago.
“Ask everyone to bring something savoury and something sweet and you’ll have the food. We can buy the drinks from the supermarket, no problem. It will be great,” I promised him.
He sent out a hurried last minute email and the job was done. With the way rumours spread in the zoo, I knew that the news of the Christmas party entry requirement would spread like wildfire. We’d probably get some interesting contributions, too, as people liked to compete. I had no doubt there’d also be some culinary failures, but that was why they called it potluck!
“What sort of drinks do you think we should get?” Auryn mused.
“Wine and some fizz. Definitely no cocktails,” I told him.
“You always know the best thing to do,” Auryn told me with open admiration.
I smiled down at him and felt something tugging on my heart. It whispered that I belonged with this man, and that he would never try to take my dreams away from me. Even if I needed to travel around for years working as a consultant, I knew he would be there for me, and I for him.
For the first time, I listened to that whisper of my heart. I leant forwards and kissed Auryn.
“What was that for?” he said with a smile.
“It was for no reason at all,” I told him with one in return. “I feel ridiculous asking this but… Auryn, would you like to go out for dinner, or something, with me some time?”
He looked confused for a moment before his expression cleared and pure joy danced across his face. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Yes,” I said, making up my mind once and for all.
I waited.
“Well, do you accept?” I said, annoyed he was making me wait.
“Oh! I thought it was obvious. After all, I already jumped the gun a bit by telling you I loved you,” he said, blushing a bit.
“Thank goodness for that. I’d have felt really silly otherwise,” I said and kissed him again.
It was Christmas Eve and the zoo had shut earlier than the events team had originally planned. Auryn wasn’t as keen to milk the cash cow for every drop of its milk, and he’d decided that all of the staff needed to have some time with their families at Christmas.
Well, all of the staff except for me. I’d agreed to take on the majority of the animal care duties, with a couple of the other zookeepers popping in to help me at the end of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day. Christmas had never been that big a deal for me, so I didn’t mind doing them a good turn.
The only difference was, Auryn was coming in on Christmas Day to resume his old role as apprentice zookeeper. Then, we were going to attempt to cook Christmas Dinner round his place. We may have only just started officially dating, but I’d known Auryn for what felt like forever, and seeing as we both didn’t really have families to spend Christmas with, it had felt like the perfect way to spend the day. Lucky was going to be coming along with me, too, so no one would be left out.
As the last few customers shuffled out of the zoo, my phone rang. Jordan’s name popped up on the screen.
“Madi, just to let you know, I’ve sent all five contracts through to your email for your consideration…”
I’d managed to arrange meeting up with all of the publishing companies in the week before Christmas. It had been hectic, but I thought things had gone really well. There was one company who had really stood out for me, and I was hoping that their offer would be the right one.
“That’s great!” I told him.
“I’m actually calling because I’ve had a look at all of them and the company I think you liked best has actually made an interesting amendment to their offer.” He hesitated. “They’re not offering the most money, or perhaps even the best marketing package, but they’ve said you can carry on with your webcomic and they’ll just handle the print versions and any exclusive material they may request. I never expected that!”
“That’s amazing!” I told him, scarcely able to believe it.
“I know,” Jordan agreed. “I was thinking we should go out for dinner to celebrate. That’s the kind of thing we agents to do for our best clients,” he said and then laughed. “Only if you want to, of course. I just thought we should do something nice to commemorate it.”
“Sure,” I said.
“How about tonight?”
“I’m afraid I can’t. I’m working at the zoo until late and then I’m actually going out for dinner with Auryn, the owner of the zoo,” I told him. I’d questioned whether or not having dinner together two days in a row was normal dating practice, but Auryn had claimed we could never be normal if we tried. I’d been forced to conclude he’d had a point.
“In that case, it will have to wait until after Christmas,” Jordan said. I thought he sounded a little disappointed, but it had only been to talk about business, hadn’t it?
“I’ll look through the contracts later tonight,” I promised him. “Thank you for everything. Merry Christmas!”
I lowered my phone and looked up at the already dark sky. The clouds were coming in, and although the weather forecasters hadn’t given out any warnings, I still hoped they contained oodles and oodles of snow. I didn’t think there was anyone alive who could remember a white Christmas in South East England! Perhaps this is the year, I thought, the same as I did every year.
The clouds cleared a little, and I saw the moon already high up in the sky. In my mind, I whispered farewell to Jenna for the last time and thanked her for saving the zoo from a lot of heartache and financial difficulties.
We would never know if she’d been planning to blackmail the scammers into giving her a cut, but I liked to think I’d known Jenna fairly well, so I was going to assume that she had simply been giving them a chance to hand themselves in before she took matters further.
I smiled and shook my head. Jenna had been made to look as though it had been her weakness for men that had one day landed her in trouble when one of the men she’d picked had done something awful to her. Instead, it had been her strengths that had got her killed. Her passion for real-life crime and knowledge of the patterns in which criminals worked had obviously allowed her to see what I would have missed, even if I’d watched the same CrimeWatch episode as she had. It was only because I’d known that the shows were mysteriously missing from her laptop and that the episode had started playing right at the point when it featured the two scammers that I’d been able to draw the parallels and figure everything out.
Although the police had taken the hard drive in as evidence, I’d managed to persuade Officer Ernesto to send me a copy of the crime novel. He’d sent it over, and in memory of Jenna, I’d read it.
It was actually pretty good. I’d already sent it to Jordan and he’d agreed to shop it round his agent friends, who specialised in crime writing. Even from beyond the grave, Jenna may still get her chance to achieve everything she’d ever dreamt of.
I shook my
self out of my thoughtful stupor. It was all well and good thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts now that everything was merry and bright, but I’d agreed to feed and care for a lot of animals, and the descending darkness meant it was going to take even longer. I’d have to get a move on if I wanted to be free in time for dinner with Auryn!
I was walking back through the emptying zoo, looking forward to reengaging with some of my favourite animals, when my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out and discovered I had a new text.
It was from Lowell.
Sorry for being so brief in my last text. I was in the middle of a job. I’m coming back to Sussex. Would you like to meet to talk things over? I miss you. X
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. All of my festive spirits fled in a rush.
My apparently not so ex-boyfriend was coming back to Sussex. And I’d just switched all of my affections and hopes over to a man whose heart I knew I couldn’t bring myself to break for a second time.
“You’d better do the right thing and fix this, Madi, or you’ll regret it forever,” I told myself, firmly. My finger hesitated on the call button before I closed down the message.
No one wanted bad news on Christmas Eve. Surely it was kinder to wait until after Christmas to have that chat with Lowell? After all, he’d left me waiting long enough…
“I will fix this… right after Christmas,” I amended and did my best to forget all about that confusing little text that had just popped up in my inbox.
“Merry Christmas indeed,” I muttered and got started on my animal feeding round.
Things were going great until I made it round to the emus and discovered Bernard the turkey was missing.
“Oh no, surely not!” I said, my mind already jumping to the worst conclusion. Had someone left it too late to order their Christmas turkey and resorted to desperate measures? I knew about the fights that occasionally occurred in the supermarkets over the last few birds.
“Bernard!” I shouted, feeling like an idiot. In spite of the turkey’s bad temper, I’d grown quite attached to him after he’d taken on the teenagers with the help of the emus.
I was still shouting for Bernard when I met Auryn on the path round the zoo and explained that the turkey was missing.
“Oh, sorry about that,” Auryn said, looking grave.
“You didn’t!” I said, shocked.
“I did,” he confirmed. “I decided to let him out during the holiday days to see if he calms down a bit. It was Leah’s idea. She said she thought that the emus weren’t ideal longterm bunk mates for him, and as we don’t really have a suitable space for him to slot in until the spring when some of our fowl will be traded with other zoos, we thought he might be okay running around loose. She would have run it by you, but you were so busy with the wonderland…” he finished, guiltily.
“But he attacks people!” I protested and then realised that the peacocks were equally as bad.
Auryn grinned. “What good is a zoo without a little animal interaction?”
I couldn’t help but grin, too, at the pure madness of this move.
“The Human Resources team are going to kill you,” I informed him, already imagining the slew of complaints that would come in.
“What was it Lawrence used to say? You can’t just bow to the will of these people! It’s all nonsense. They know what to expect when they come to the zoo. They can’t blame us for their own incompetence!” he said, mimicking the old head of the board of director’s mannerisms. “Anyway, it’ll encourage people to get more exercise!”
I shook my head. “I am definitely overdue accepting another consulting job.”
To my surprise, Auryn smiled. “Anywhere you go is fine. Just promise you’ll always come back when you can.”
I looked up into his grey eyes. “I promise. Avery Zoo will always be my home.”
“Our home,” he corrected and kissed me, right before Bernard sunk his beak into Auryn’s bum.
I collapsed into giggles when Auryn screamed and chased the turkey, threatening it with all kinds of culinary fates.
If Father Christmas happened to hear some of the words he was using, Auryn would definitely find himself on the naughty list this year.
THE END
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Books in the Series
Penguins and Mortal Peril
The Silence of the Snakes
Murder is a Monkey’s Game
The Peacock’s Poison
A Memory for Murder
Whales and a Watery Grave
Chameleons and a Corpse
Foxes and Fatal Attraction
Monday’s Murderer
Prequel: Parrots and Payback
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Ruby Loren
Also by Ruby Loren
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A Fatal Frost
Murder Beneath the Mistletoe
Winter’s Last Victim
EMILY HAVERSSON OLD HOUSE MYSTERIES
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The Leaves of Llewellyn Keep
The Snow of Severly Castle
The Frost of Friston Manor
The Heart of Heathley House
HAYLEY ARGENT HORSE MYSTERIES
The Swallow’s Storm
The Starling’s Summer
The Falcon’s Frost
The Waxwing’s Winter
JANUARY CHEVALIER SUPERNATURAL MYSTERIES
Death’s Dark Horse
Death’s Hexed Hobnobs
Death’s Endless Enchanter
Death’s Ethereal Enemy
Death’s Last Laugh
Prequel: Death’s Reckless Reaper
BLOOMING SERIES
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Abscission
Frost-Bitten
Blossoming
Flowering
Fruition