Flipping Love You by Erin Nicholas

18

Jill pulled up across the street from Blissfully Baked, the pie shop in her hometown of Bliss, Kansas.

It wasn’t an established business from her childhood. The shop had been started just a few years before by a man named Rudy Carmichael. Rudy had been, unbeknownst to everyone in the community, a billionaire from New York, who had been driving past Bliss when his Cadillac, Elvira, had broken down. His little bit of time in the town had convinced him to turn over a new leaf. He’d moved to Bliss, opened the pie shop, and lived the remaining months he had left before he died of cancer.

His will had stipulated that his triplet daughters had to move to Bliss and run the pie shop for a year in order to inherit their billions. So, Cori, Ava, and Brynn Carmichael had blown into town like a tornado of sass and class, and had quickly stolen the hearts of three of Bliss’s most eligible bachelors—Jill’s best childhood friend Evan, and his buddies Parker and Noah.

The three couples were now easily the six most influential and beloved people in town. And the pie shop was booming.

As she got out of her rental car, Jill couldn’t help but smile. She’d borrowed Zeke’s idea about telling everyone the news at once and had asked her mom and dad to meet her here where she could make the big announcement to them and to Evan and Cori at the same time.

Sure, her group was a lot smaller than Zeke’s, but that was good. The pie shop was a lot smaller than Ellie’s bar.

The bell above the door tinkled merrily as she stepped inside.

The pie shop also smelled like sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, and coffee rather than cayenne and beer. And the people gathered were all talking quietly at the various tables dotted throughout the bakery rather than lounging at one big family table and yelling things like, “No fucking way!”

It was such a stark contrast to walking into Ellie’s that Jill paused for just a moment on the other side of the threshold.

But as soon as Evan noticed her, he came straight toward her with a huge smile.

“Jill!”

Her name caused everyone in the room to turn and several to rise from their seats.

Evan hugged her first, then passed Jill to her mother.

“I’m so happy to see you! This is all so mysterious, though,” Holly Morris declared.

“I’m so happy to be here. I’ve missed you,” Jill told her, avoiding the subject of the mystery. For now.

She was passed person to person, hugged and exclaimed over appropriately, until she ended up in front of the bakery case facing Cori Carmichael Stone.

“Welcome home! You didn’t give me much time, but we were still able to put together a party.”

It was the first time Jill had a second to look around the bakery closely. Cori was well known for her party planning and being able to turn even the most mundane events into something fun and special.

Jill now noticed the black-and-white theme that included everything from the plates, to the paper cups they were using, to the mini cakes she had set out across the top of the bakery case.

The pie shop still did mostly pie. Their specialties were cherry, apple, and sometimes peach. Just the way that their father had done it. But they had expanded to cakes, cookies, and even macarons.

The cakes were black and white but they were shaped strangely. Until Jill peered closer.

They were shaped like penguin parts.

“What is this?”

“Watch,” Cori said with a grin. “Ruby, come here, baby.”

Jill turned to see a little girl with bright blond curls come running.

If Cori hadn’t called her Ruby, Jill wouldn’t have known which of the three-year-old blondes this was. Each Carmichael triplet had given birth to a daughter, all within two weeks of one another. They were cousins, but the little girls could have easily passed for triplets themselves.

Ruby was Cori and Evan’s daughter.

“Show Jill what we do with the cakes,” Cori told her daughter.

“Make pengens,” Ruby said. She took two mini cakes that looked like flippers and slid them next to a cake shaped like a penguin body.

“Oh my gosh,” Jill laughed. “You made penguin puzzle cakes.”

“I was trying to be creative. Honestly, I was making penguins and a flipper fell off. While I was using frosting to glue it back on, it occurred to me that we could just have all the pieces and parts be separate and people could put them together themselves.”

“Because heaven forbid we just have a square cake with a picture of a penguin on it,” Evan said dryly. But he was smiling as he slipped his arm around his wife’s waist.

“Oh, you love when I get creative,” Cori told him, giving him a not-at-all-subtle look.

“That I do.”

Ruby’s cousins, Cara and Michaela, joined Ruby at the table near the window and started putting their penguin cakes together as well.

Ava and Parker and Brynn and Noah joined their daughters while Cori and Evan stayed with Jill.

“So what’s this big news? I was shocked that you wanted to bring everybody in here,” Cori said.

“Sometimes there are things that happen that you need to make a big deal out of,” Jill said, thinking fondly of the Landrys.

She was getting used to that way of thinking. There was never a dull day in Autre.

A few months ago if someone had told her she’d be living in a town where chaos could erupt at any moment, she would have told them that sounded like a nightmare, but now, she was seeing it for what it was. The Landrys lived life loud, boldly, and fully. And, to their credit, when someone didn’t want to share in the loud boldness, they didn’t push. They let everyone be who they were and do things the way they needed to.

However, they did insist everyone live life fully.

Jill didn’t know if she would ever really feel like she was doing the mom thing right. She didn’t know if she would ever completely love it or would want to do it more than once. But she did know that her child would have a very full family experience. Her child would be fully loved, fully protected, and fully supported. And that was what really mattered. It might not all come from Jill—in fact, it wouldn’t all come from Jill—but that was okay.

“So how are things going? I can’t believe you’re back visiting already,” Evan said as he and Cori and Jill took chairs at the table where Jill’s mom and dad were sitting. “You just got to Louisiana with the penguins. And I know you’ve been stressed about how things are going with them. I’m surprised you would leave them already.”

“Yeah, you haven’t even finished decorating the house,” Cori said. “All that gorgeous furniture and decor I ordered for you is just sitting in that front room on a stripped down, unfinished wood floor beside unpainted walls.”

She had unwrapped one chair and a lamp, but then she’d started spending her off time at Zeke’s and…she’d basically forgotten about the chair and lamp. And everything else.

Jill nodded. “Yeah, things haven’t been going exactly according to plan. But I have a lot of help there. In fact, do you guys want a little tour of where the penguins and I are spending our time now?”

Her mother perked up. “A tour?”

“Yes. I mean, you should definitely come to Louisiana for a visit. The family there, the Landrys, own a swamp boat tour company and this petting zoo that’s turning into an animal park. There’s also a restaurant and bar that serves home-cooked authentic Cajun food. It’s quite the tourist experience. But today they’re taking the penguins on a little parade around the animal park. They’re introducing them to the other animals. We thought it would be a good enrichment activity to give them some additional stimulation. They are live streaming it as it happens. I thought maybe you guys would enjoy watching it with me.”

It had been Donovan and Charlie’s idea, of course, to do the parade today. Jill suspected it had something to do with her not being there, as a matter of fact.

She knew that Donovan thought she was being overly cautious with the penguins. He wouldn’t have done the parade if she had absolutely shut it down, of course. She had agreed to this. But she didn’t think it was a coincidence that today was the day he decided the penguins should go for the walk.

Charlie had texted her that it was going to happen and Naomi had agreed to live stream it. Of course, that wasn’t just for Jill’s benefit. They could’ve simply done that by video call or recorded it for her.

The livestream would go up online to reach out to the people following the park. Charlie felt it was a great way to give the community and their patrons a glimpse of the penguins since they were not being allowed to visit them in person.

“I’d love to see them,” her mother said.

“Absolutely. It’ll be cool to see some of the people you’re spending time with now,” Evan said.

Jill gave him a look. She had told him and Cori about Zeke. Well, that she was hooking up with the hot guy who lived next door. Who also happened to be her contractor.

Jill pulled her laptop out of her bag and set it in the middle of the table. She logged in and pulled up the channel where the livestream would be happening.

They’d already started. She knew Naomi was behind the camera. Jordan was in front of it and was already introducing what everyone was going to be seeing.

Jordan already did a number of talks for the park, educating people about the various animals and talking about the special needs that many of them had.

“There they are!” She pointed at the screen. “That’s Magellan,” she said, indicating the penguin in the lead. He was waddling along the path looking side to side. He seemed curious and she couldn’t help but smile.

“They are going to take them to meet the lemurs and the sloth. I think they’re going to also take them by the flamingos. I don’t know if they’ll go over to the otters and alpacas today or not. But we also have some red pandas that have recently joined the park and there are porcupines and hedgehogs, and a bunch of goats and other barnyard animals for them to watch and interact with.”

They watched for a little while, listening to Jordan’s explanations of what was going on. Jill supplemented Jordan’s narrative with the penguin names and who each of the humans were.

It was strange how hard her heart thumped when Zeke came on screen.

He looked amazing.

He was dressed in jeans and work boots, as always, but he was also wearing sunglasses and a Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild t-shirt. The black cotton clung to his chest and shoulders, and made the ink on his tanned arms stand out. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail and the sun glinted off the gold hoop in his ear.

He looked sexy and happy and suddenly she couldn’t wait to get back to Autre.

He was herding two penguins in front of him. They, of course, seemed to want to go in two different directions. Because the camera kept panning from Jordan to the penguins and because the penguins were scattered in different directions, it was difficult to see them all at once. At the moment she could only see five. The most she’d seen on screen at one time was seven. But she knew that Donovan, Zeke, Griffin, and Zander were all helping with the penguin herding. Jordan was also there and she knew that not only was Naomi behind the camera, but Charlie would be keeping a close watch over the entire proceeding.

“This is amazing,” her mother said. “It looks like a lot of fun. It seems much more laid back and casual than things were at the zoo.”

“Oh, it’s definitely that.”

“Do you like that?” her mother asked.

“Because I want two beaks!”

“No! You have to share!”

“I don’t want any flippers!”

They all pivoted to look to where the little girls were sitting as cake flippers went flying.

Cori shook her head. “Ruby, you have to share the beaks.” She dropped her voice to a mutter for the adults only. “The effing things those girls find to fight about is insane.”

Jill grinned. “They’re insane or they’re driving you insane?”

“Honestly? I’d be insane if I wasn’t doing this with Ava and Brynn. And the guys. I realize it’s hilarious and ridiculous that it takes six adults to raise three little girls but, I can’t imagine doing it any other way.”

Jill felt the urge to say, “Aw.” But caught herself just before saying it out loud. Evan and Cori would think she’d lost it. “Aw” was definitely not a Jill word.

At least it hadn’t been before. But she also wanted to tell them about the games I Love Them, But… and Mine’s Bigger Than Yours. Cori and Evan had a built-in support group here and Jill knew they’d love it.

She smiled, thinking about her support group waiting back home.

Yes, home.

In Louisiana.

One of the girls suddenly shrieked loudly and grabbed another’s penguin cake. That one—Jill thought it was Cara—shrieked even louder and then yelled, “You’re yucky!”

“Oh my gosh!” Evan exclaimed. “Cori, did you see what that penguin just did?”

Cori gave Jill a look. “Sometimes you just have to be even louder than they are.” Then she pivoted on her chair. “Wow, yes! These penguins are so cool!” Cori pulled her phone from her pocket and typed in the web address of the live stream. She took it over to her daughter and nieces. “Look, you guys! Penguins!” The little girls all leaned in to look.

“I like that one!” One of the girls pointed at the screen. As if she hadn’t just been screaming about cake.

“No, I like that one!” the cake-grabber yelled.

“Well, I certainly don’t like all the very loud talking,” Parker informed them all. Loudly.

One of the little girls sighed heavily at that. Jill pressed her lips together. In that moment, it was clear that was Ava’s daughter, Michaela.

“Oh, my goodness,” Holly said. “I can barely hear myself think.”

Which was funny. Three months ago, Jill would have thought this was all incredibly, annoyingly loud as well. Now it seemed…well, still loud. But tolerable.

Hanging out with the Landrys was training her for motherhood in many ways.

“I think we should all get even louder,” Noah announced, scooping one of the girls up, making her gasp and giggle as he propped her on one shoulder, then grabbed another, putting her up on his other shoulder. “But we should go outside to be loud. Let’s go be loud penguins outside. We’ll have our own parade.” Which was also funny. Noah was easily the quietest of these three guys.

“Yes!” all three girls said at once.

Loudly.

The girls and their dads exited the building with Brynn tagging along with the Autre penguin parade still on Cori’s phone.

Cori turned her attention on a customer who’d just come in and Ava headed to answer the bakery’s phone.

“Do you like it?” Holly asked again.

Jill focused on her mom.

“Do I like what?”

“The animal park.”

“Oh. Yes. I actually like it a lot. It’s nice to have free rein. And to be able to do whatever I want.”

Her dad, who’d been very quiet up to this point, looked at her thoughtfully. “Is that really true?”

“Of course. You know that I didn’t always agree with the zoo director and the Board of Directors in Omaha.”

“But it’s a lot to do all alone.”

It was.

Her gaze flickered back to the laptop screen.

But she wasn’t alone.

“I have something to tell you both,” Jill said. She took a deep breath. “I’m going to have a baby.”

Her parents both jerked back slightly and stared. They said nothing for several long seconds.

Her mother seemed to recover first. “I see.”

Jill noted her look of disappointment. “I know you think this is going to derail everything.”

“Of course it will.” Holly shook her head. “But there’s nothing to do about it now. Will you be turning the penguins over to someone else? Will you be coming back here?”

“No.” Jill shook her head. “I’m staying in Louisiana. With the penguins. And with the baby’s father.”

Her mother frowned. Disapprovingly.

Jill knew what she was thinking. Now that Jill was pregnant and wouldn’t be able to focus everything on her career, she was going to have to focus fully on being a mom.

“That was fast,” her father said.

“I know.” It had all happened very fast. “But I’m in love with him. And he loves me too. We are definitely going to raise the baby together.” Jill reached for the laptop and turned it to face her parents more fully. She pointed at Zeke. “That’s him. Zeke. Ezekiel Landry. He owns his own construction business and he’s an accountant. And obviously, he helps me whenever I need anything.”

She smiled, watching him. He was talking to a man she didn’t recognize. He actually looked a little upset at the moment. She frowned. What was going on? No one else was supposed to be in the park right now, but it was possible someone had wandered in. In Autre, people would generally assume putting up a “We’re Closed” sign would suffice in keeping people out.

Maybe the guy had come in uninvited and gotten a little close to the penguins. It would be like Zeke to be protective. Possibly overly so. But that also made her smile.

“So you’re going to keep working with the penguins?” her mother asked.

Jill felt the knot that had been in her stomach for a week, tighten. “Yes. But not in the same way.” She swallowed. “I’m going to keep them in the animal park, but I’m pulling them out of the endangered penguins program. They’re just going to be penguins. No propagation program. No research. Just a group of penguins living a happy, protected life.”

The penguins were happy. So they wouldn’t have chicks. So what? They were safe and healthy. They shouldn’t be shipped off to another program, uprooted again, separated from their waddle. Maybe Jill had been stressing them out, but she was their human, the one they knew. And without the pressure of the program hanging over her, she could relax and then so could they.

Sure, she was potentially going to have to give a few million dollars back to A.J.’s estate but she hadn’t discussed all of this with his attorney yet. If that was the case then, she’d have to find a way to fundraise a lot of cash.

Holly actually looked sad and reached for her hand. “I’m so sorry. I…I really wanted you to have everything you wanted, Jill.”

Her mom’s words hit her. “That’s the thing. I do have what I want. I have work that matters. Just because it’s not a formal program doesn’t mean those animals don’t matter. And I have a baby on the way. And I’m in love. And I have friends and family.” She smiled at her mom. “The only thing I don’t have is a nice, simple, perfectly laid out plan.”

“You seem okay with that,” Holly said, studying her face.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Jill,” her father said.

She blew out a breath. “Yeah, Dad?”

Her father pointed at the computer screen. “I think Zeke wants to talk to you.”

Confused, Jill leaned in to look at the computer screen. Zeke’s face filled the entire thing. Clearly he had taken the camera from Naomi.

“Jill, answer your phone. We need to talk.”

She swallowed. What was he talking about? She glanced around for her phone. It was in her bag. She dug for it, pulling it from the outside pocket.

“This guy is here telling me that these are his penguins,” Zeke said. “You need to call me.”

Oh. Crap.

The guy he’d been talking to in the background was one of the investors Jill had called about the penguins? What was he doing there? The guy must’ve gotten on a plane immediately and flown to Autre.

She quickly pressed the button to wake her phone. There were three missed calls from Charlie, three missed calls from Naomi, and seven calls from Zeke. There was also a missed call from Donovan, one from Griffin or at least Griffin’s phone, and three other numbers that had to be Autre numbers.

She looked at her parents. “And I’m definitely not going to be doing this alone. Probably anything alone. At all. Maybe ever again.”

Her mom looked from the phone to her face to the computer and back to Jill. “He seems really upset.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“He thinks this means you’re leaving him?”

“No, he thinks I’m getting rid of the penguins.”

“He’s attached to them?”

“He was attached to them even before he really knew them. Just because they were important to me. But now that he’s been around them, yeah, I think he really cares about them. These people are…” Jill shook her head, laughing softly. “I have never met anyone who just embraces a new idea, a new person, a new situation with open arms and minds and hearts like these people. It’s almost like they are constantly ready for an adventure.”

“That’s appealing to you? The woman who buys the same shirt in every color and eats the same food over and over, because she doesn’t want to try anything new?”

Jill looked at her mom with surprise. “I don’t do it because I don’t want to try something new. It’s because I don’t want to have to worry about all the little details that I thought were silly. But I realize that even cereal and sandwiches can actually both be special.” Ellie giving her a bowl of cereal in the middle of a restaurant that was famous for the food, the ingredients Zeke had gotten for her sandwiches, Zander trading her jellies…those had mattered.

“I think that I wasn’t ready to worry about other details because I was so focused on the penguins all this time because I knew what I was doing there.” She looked from her mother to her father. “It is a lot of work when you’re doing something all by yourself. When it matters so much to get it right, but you don’t have anyone to help you. And yes, I probably had people in Omaha who would’ve cared and would’ve supported me if I’d let them in. But I didn’t. I kept myself in this little bubble where I was the only one who could do it right.”

She understood her mother. If her mom had taken being a mom as seriously as Jill had taken her passion for the penguins, it would’ve been hard to let someone else in, to trust that they would do a good job. So, even as overwhelming as it got at times, her mom took it all on herself.

“But now that I have all of these people there helping me and supporting me and wanting to be a part of it all, I realize that I can definitely care about more than one thing. Passionately. With my whole heart. There is room in my life and my heart for multiple things.”

“What made you let them in with the penguins when you didn’t let anyone in Omaha in?” her mom asked softly.

Jill smiled. “That’s the thing. I didn’t let them in. They just barged in. They don’t really care if you don’t want them to love you. They do it anyway.”

Her mom reached out and covered her hand. “I hope this is everything you dream it will be. And I hope that my…ideas about motherhood”—She took a breath and blew it out—“don’t mean that you won’t ask me for help if you need it. I probably won’t do everything the way you would want me to, but I’m very willing to pitch in.”

Jill squeezed her mom’s hand in return. “I know. I’ll call you. A lot. And I’ll be back to visit. Heck, I’m kind of hoping that once the baby is older, he or she can spend part of the summer with you guys.”

Her mom shook her head. “You know, maybe I should’ve done more of that kind of stuff. I would have been a better mom if I wasn’t doing it all a thousand percent all the time.”

“For the record, you did a great job. I mean, we might’ve gotten our wires crossed in my understanding of what being a working mom was, but I know you always loved me.”

“Very much. And, what I hear from my friends is that being a grandparent is wonderful because it’s your second chance to get things right.”

“And you can send them home when you’re tired.” Jill’s father added.

Jill’s phone had been on silent, which was why she’d missed nineteen calls from Autre. Now that she was holding it, however, she noticed when it started ringing again. And that it was Zeke’s number.

She lifted the phone to her ear. “I’m not giving the penguins away.”

“You’re damn right you’re not. I told the guy to get the hell out of here. I hope I didn’t ruin whatever this relationship is with this group you’ve got going, but dammit, Jill.”

“I did call him about it, but I changed my mind. And it doesn’t matter if you ruined the relationship. I’m done with that program. The penguins are just our penguins.”

“Good. Now get your sweet ass back down here, and let’s raise some kids and penguins together.”

“Some kids?”

“I figure the first three or four are practice. By number five, we’ll know what we’re doing.”

“We are not having five.”

“Okay, I guess, like the fried chicken, I could probably recruit some other women to pitch in.”

“You’re not as funny and charming as you think you are.”

He laughed. “Then it’s a good thing I have a washer and dryer.”

Her eyes were watery, but she nodded. “I’m going to spend one more day here with my family and friends and then I’ll be home.”

There was a beat of silence on the phone. Then he said, “You called Autre home.”

She sniffed. “I know. And I meant it.”

“Good. Now tell me that you love me.” His voice was rough.

“I love you, Zeke. Very, very much.”

“I love you too.”

“I’m so glad.” She smiled.

“And so, all of that considered, I feel like now is probably the best time to tell you that…we lost Ferdinand.”

Jill froze. “You…what?”

“We lost Ferdinand. He wandered off. Went exploring. Just like the real Ferdinand, right?”

He gave a little chuckle but Jill knew that even he didn’t believe she was going to let him off the hook that easily.