Baby Surprise for the Doctor Prince by Robin Gianna

Author:Robin Gianna
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

ENZO TURNED TO see the bird, which had doubtless just dived into the water. “It’s a cormorant. They’re everywhere out here. The lagoon’s bounty of fish and shellfish are a daily buffet.”

“It looks trapped or something.”

He looked again, then even closer. Was the bird really floundering? “Let’s go take a look.” With the oar shoved into the mud, he pushed the boat through the marshland.

“You look like a gondolier when you do that. Is that another of your many skills?”

“Is that a real question of a man who grew up here? I look exceptionally good in the striped shirt and beribboned hat.”

Her laughter faded as they drifted up close to the bird and it became clear that it truly was in distress. “Is that...? What is that on it? Oil?”

“Don’t know. Something like that.” He tried to maneuver the boat close enough to see if there was something they could do without making the bird panic, jamming the oar deep into the mud to bring the boat to a stop. “With the industrial plants at Marghera and near the causeway, chemicals from agriculture, and all the tankers and cruise ships that come by, our pollution problems have gotten worse. We’ve put in buffer strips of trees and shrubs along the edges of the lagoon to try to catch it, but it’s not a perfect solution.”

“Poor bird!” Aubrey leaned over the edge of the boat toward the bird, obviously forgetting about being afraid of the water. “What can we do?”

“It’s not completely covered in the oil, so that’s good. Probably just dived into a single gob that had fallen off a ship. It still looks fairly healthy, I think.” He glanced at her. Normally, when things like this happened, he’d get the bird on the boat and take it to one of his veterinary friends, but he knew from experience that sometimes the birds didn’t like that too well. He didn’t want to see Aubrey get splattered with the oil or, worse, pecked and injured, especially when they were on the water, which worried her.

“It won’t be healthy for long. You know as well as I do that it won’t be able to clean itself enough, or if it does the oil it eats off its feathers will make it sick.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Just because you’re a doctor and a prince and a native Venetian doesn’t mean nobody else knows as much as you, Dr. Affini,” she said with great dignity. “I volunteered off the coast of California when there was an oil slick once.”

“A woman of many talents.” He had to laugh as he said it, even as one or two of those talents that came to mind weren’t funny, they were amazing, and he shouldn’t be thinking about them. “So you won’t freak out if I bring it on board and it flaps around? We’ll have to try to secure it with something.”

“The blanket will work.” While she rummaged through the picnic bag, he

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