If your book is going to share a name with a song from 80s overlord, Phil Collins, you must know I'm jumping on it. Come along with me today for this fantastic excerpt from Susan Buchanan's latest feel-good read.
New volunteer Kat has been allowed to look after the sloths on her own for the first time and Dexter has just returned and said she’s doing a great job.
As Dexter adjusts his position, trying to feed the sloth whilst wriggling around to move the cushion into place behind him, I hold out a hand and do it for him.
‘That better?’
‘Much,’ he says. ‘I should have thought to do that before I picked Zoom up.’
Ah, so it’s Zoom he’s holding. I smile. ‘So, how am I doing so far?’ God, did that sound needy, or flirtatious? I was aiming for funny, but not sure I carried it off.
‘Well, you’ve risen to every challenge we’ve set you so far, and some we haven’t – like the mucking out of cages.’ He grins, and a tiny dimple forms on the left side of his mouth. How come I haven’t noticed that before? I’ve known him for nearly a week, and it’s quite clear that, against my better intentions, I’m into him.
‘I suppose. And everyone’s been really friendly.’ Everyone except Roisin, who has barely exchanged two words with me. Maybe a perpetual scowl is her de facto expression.
‘Yeah, they’re a good bunch. It’s just like one big happy family here.’
I nod, thinking again of Roisin, but then of how welcoming everyone else has been, particularly Mariangeles and Federica, who have me howling with laughter all the time.
Zoom wriggles in Dexter’s arms.
‘Hey, little guy, where do you think you’re going?’ Dexter says as he readjusts the sloth so he doesn’t slip from his grasp. Zoom is so cute. His fur is cream whereas the majority of the other baby sloths are brown. I wonder if this is a genetic thing or if it’s age-related. Perhaps they grow darker as they age. Certainly few of them seem to have the typical facial markings which make them look friendly and permanently happy.
Dexter’s such a natural with the animals. You can tell he’s been doing this a while. Makes me think he’d be good with babies, too. Hello? What the heck was that? Did I just imagine Dexter as the future father of my children? Stop right there, please, brain. I know we almost had a moment, or perhaps a missed opportunity the other night, but that’s all it was. It would become incredibly complicated to get involved with my boss in the first week and be so far from home if it all went, to coin a rather inelegant phrase, tits up.
His smile disarms me. Nobody’s teeth should be allowed to sparkle like that. And my stomach shouldn’t drop like that at the sight of those lips. I feel like I’ve come down the steep incline of a rollercoaster. My throat’s suddenly dry and I resist the urge to lick my lips in case he thinks I want to eat him for dinner.
We sit for a few minutes in companionable silence, with only the noise of our breathing and that of the sloths for company, the air thick with expectation, then Dexter asks me what I’d like to do in my first few months in Costa Rica. My cheeks heat. I can’t tell him that.
‘I’d really just like to explore. There are so many national parks with such varied wildlife in them, I don’t know where to start.’
Dexter cradles the sleeping Zoom in the crook of his arm. ‘I was overwhelmed when I first came here, felt humbled somehow when faced with the half a million different types of animals there are here.’
I can relate to that. Already what I’ve seen makes me feel like that sometimes, and I’ve barely scraped the surface.
‘A few months ago, I went back to the Osa Peninsula, to Corcovado National Park. We should go there one day, too. It’s incredible. I even saw a tapir.’
I try to suppress the sudden intake of breath I take as my brain homes in on his use of ‘we’.
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