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EXCLUSIVE BONUS CONTENT
The Proposal
Leo had been planning the proposal for three weeks.
He had a ring. He had a plan. He had a backup plan. He had a backup plan for the backup plan.
What he didn’t have was the ability to execute any of them without turning into a complete disaster.
“You’re overthinking this,” Meera said, watching him pace in his office for the seventeenth time that morning. “Just ask her. She’ll say yes.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I absolutely know that. She moved across the country for you. She stayed through the Henderson drama. She bottle-fed a baby porcupine at two AM last week. The woman is clearly in love with you.”
“But what if—”
“Leo.” Meera stood up, placing both hands on his shoulders to stop his pacing. “You’ve been together for a year. You live together. You run a sanctuary together. You’ve survived expansion construction, three Henderson visits, and that incident with the escaped peacock. If she was going to run, she would have done it by now.”
“The peacock incident was traumatic for everyone involved,” Leo muttered.
“My point is: stop overthinking. Just propose. Preferably sometime this decade.”
Leo pulled out the ring box from his desk drawer—where he’d been keeping it for the past three weeks—and opened it.
The ring was perfect. Simple silver band with a small emerald (Ivy’s favorite color) flanked by two tiny diamonds. Elegant but not flashy. Unique but not impractical for someone who worked with her hands all day.
“It’s beautiful,” Meera said. “She’ll love it.”
“You think?”
“I know. Now put it away before she walks in here and ruins your big moment.”
Leo closed the box quickly and shoved it back in the drawer.
“When are you planning to do this?” Meera asked.
“Tonight. I’m taking her to dinner at that Italian place she likes. I figured I’d propose there, very romantic, candlelight and everything—”
“Boring,” Meera interrupted.
“Excuse me?”
“Leo, you’re proposing to a woman who sits in the mud with baby zebras. Who drew your logo on a napkin. Who fell in love with you in a rhino clinic at two AM. You think she wants a formal restaurant proposal?”
“I… I thought that was romantic?”
“For some people, sure. But Ivy? She’d probably prefer something more… you. More sanctuary. More real.”
Leo considered this. “So what do you suggest?”
“Where did you first realize you loved her?”
“The giraffe enclosure,” Leo said immediately. “Watching her with Zola that first morning. When she didn’t know I was there.”
“Then propose there, you absolute walnut.” Meera shook her head. “Take her to the giraffe enclosure at sunrise. Bring coffee—the good kind that you make, not her terrible version. Tell her you love her. Ask her to marry you. Done.”
“That’s… that’s actually perfect.”
“I know. I’m a genius. You’re welcome.” Meera headed toward the door, then paused. “One more thing?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t overthink it. She fell in love with you when you were a disaster. She’ll say yes even if you mess this up spectacularly.”
After Meera left, Leo sat at his desk and revised his plan.
Sunrise. Giraffe enclosure. Good coffee. Simple proposal.
He could do this.
Probably.
The next morning, Leo’s alarm went off at five AM.
He turned it off carefully, trying not to wake Ivy, who was curled up next to him, her hair a disaster, one arm thrown across his chest.
They’d been living together for six months now—first in his cabin, then in the small house they’d renovated on the sanctuary property. It had two bedrooms (one for sleeping, one as Ivy’s at-home studio), a kitchen where they argued about coffee preparation, and a porch overlooking the giraffe paddock.
It was perfect.
And in about an hour, if everything went according to plan, Leo was going to ask Ivy to make it permanent.
He extracted himself from bed carefully. Ivy mumbled something incoherent and rolled over, still asleep.
Phase one: Make coffee without waking her.
Leo crept to the kitchen and started the good coffee—the French press with the expensive beans he’d learned to appreciate. While it brewed, he got dressed, grabbed the ring box from its hiding place in his sock drawer, and tried not to panic.
“You can do this,” he whispered to himself. “You’ve performed surgery on a bald eagle. You’ve given presentations to major donors. You’ve survived Henderson. You can propose to your girlfriend.”
The coffee finished brewing. Leo poured two travel mugs, added the exact amount of milk Ivy liked (a splash, no sugar), and was about to head out when he heard his phone buzz.
A text from Tay:
EMERGENCY. Baby otter. NOW.
Leo’s stomach dropped.
He looked at the coffee. At the ring in his pocket. At the door to their bedroom where Ivy was still sleeping.
No. No, no, no. Not now.
Another text:
He’s in distress. Need you immediately. Bringing him to clinic.
Leo closed his eyes and made a decision.
The proposal would have to wait.
He texted Tay back:
On my way.
Then he left a note next to the coffee:
Emergency intake. Back soon. Don’t drink the coffee—it’ll get cold. I’ll make fresh when I get back. Love you. -L
And he ran.
Ivy woke up at six AM to find Leo’s side of the bed empty and cold.
She stretched, yawned, and padded out to the kitchen.
Two travel mugs of coffee sat on the counter, along with a note.
She read it, smiled at the “don’t drink the coffee” instruction (he knew her so well), and decided to check on the emergency.
Emergency intakes were part of sanctuary life. She’d learned to roll with them.
She got dressed, pulled her hair into a bun, and walked to the clinic.
Inside, she found controlled chaos.
Tay was holding a towel-wrapped bundle. Meera was pulling up intake forms on her tablet. And Leo was in full veterinarian mode, his hair already a disaster, his glasses crooked, completely focused on the tiny otter kit in front of him.
“What happened?” Ivy asked.
“Found him by the creek,” Tay said. “He was alone, crying. No mom in sight. He’s maybe three weeks old.”
Leo was doing a quick examination. “Mild hypothermia. Dehydrated. Probably separated from his mother during the storm last night. We need to warm him up slowly, get fluids in him, and monitor for the next forty-eight hours.”
“What can I do?” Ivy asked.
Leo looked up, and his expression softened when he saw her. “Can you prepare a heat lamp setup in the nursery? And mix up some rehydration solution? Measurements are in the cabinet.”
“On it.”
Ivy worked alongside them for the next two hours. The baby otter—whom Tay immediately named “Puddle”—stabilized once he was warm and hydrated. By eight AM, he was curled up in a heated incubator, sleeping peacefully.
“He’s going to be okay,” Leo said, pulling off his gloves. “But he’ll need round-the-clock care for at least a week.”
“I can take first shift,” Ivy offered. “I don’t have any pressing design work today.”
“Are you sure?”
“Partners, remember?” She bumped his shoulder. “Besides, he’s cute. Look at his tiny face.”
Puddle made a small chirping sound in his sleep.
“Okay, that’s illegally adorable,” Meera said. “I’m putting him on the website immediately. Donors will lose their minds.”
After Meera and Tay left, Leo and Ivy stood by the incubator, watching Puddle sleep.
“Sorry about this morning,” Leo said. “I know it’s your day off.”
“It’s fine. This is more important.” Ivy leaned against him. “Though I am curious what the emergency was that made you leave two cups of coffee on the counter.”
Leo’s face did something complicated. “I, uh… I was planning something.”
“What kind of something?”
“A… surprise. For you.”
Ivy turned to look at him. “A good surprise or a ‘we need to have a serious conversation’ surprise?”
“Definitely good. At least, I hope it’s good. It might be terrible. I’m not sure anymore.” Leo was rambling now, his stress tell—hand on the back of his neck—appearing. “It was supposed to be romantic. And thoughtful. And at sunrise by the giraffe enclosure. But then Puddle happened and now I don’t know if I should—”
“Leo.” Ivy put her hand on his arm. “What are you talking about?”
Leo took a breath. Reached into his pocket. Pulled out a small velvet box.
Ivy’s eyes went wide.
“This wasn’t how I planned it,” Leo said quickly. “I had a whole thing. Coffee at sunrise. A speech. Very romantic. But then the otter emergency happened and now we’re standing in a clinic that smells like disinfectant and there’s a baby otter snoring in the background and this is possibly the least romantic proposal setting in history—”
“Leo,” Ivy interrupted, her voice shaky. “Are you proposing to me right now?”
“I’m trying to.” He opened the box. The emerald ring caught the fluorescent light. “Ivy Quinn, you are the most real person I’ve ever met. You make me want to be honest. You make me want to be brave. You make terrible coffee and draw perfect logos and you stayed up all night to save a baby rhino with me and somewhere in the middle of all that, I fell completely in love with you.”
Ivy’s eyes were filling with tears.
“I want to be your partner in everything,” Leo continued. “In running this sanctuary. In saving animals. In arguing about coffee preparation and dealing with Henderson and figuring out how to keep a baby otter alive. I want to build a life with you. A real one. No performances. No masks. Just us.”
He took the ring out of the box with slightly shaking hands.
“So Ivy? Will you marry me? Even though I’m proposing in a clinic that smells weird while a baby otter snores in the background? Even though this is nothing like the romantic sunrise proposal I planned? Even though I’m a disaster who can’t even execute a simple—”
“Yes,” Ivy said.
Leo stopped mid-ramble. “What?”
“Yes. Obviously yes. You absolute disaster.” She was crying and laughing at the same time. “Did you really think the setting mattered? Leo, you proposed to me while we were saving an animal. That’s the most us thing you could have done. That’s perfect.”
“It is?”
“It is.” She held out her left hand. “Now put the ring on before you drop it and we have to fish it out from under the incubator.”
Leo slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.
“It’s beautiful,” Ivy said, admiring it. “Emerald?”
“Your favorite color. And the diamonds represent… I don’t know, I didn’t think that far ahead. They just looked nice.”
“They represent us,” Ivy decided. “Two people on either side of the heart. Partners.”
“I like that interpretation much better than mine, which was literally just ‘shiny rocks.'”
Ivy laughed and pulled him into a kiss. It was sweet and slightly salty from her tears and perfect.
When they pulled apart, Puddle let out another small chirp, as if congratulating them.
“Our first official act as an engaged couple,” Ivy said, “is bottle-feeding a baby otter.”
“That sounds exactly right,” Leo agreed.
By lunchtime, word had spread through the entire sanctuary.
Meera appeared in the clinic doorway with champagne (the cheap kind, because this was a nonprofit) and actual champagne flutes (from where, no one knew).
“I heard congratulations are in order,” she said, trying and failing to hide her grin.
“How did you—” Leo started.
“Tay texted everyone. There’s now a betting pool on when the wedding will be. I said fall. I better be right.”
“You orchestrated this somehow, didn’t you?” Ivy accused.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I simply suggested Leo propose somewhere meaningful instead of at a boring restaurant. What happened after that was entirely his own disaster.” Meera poured champagne. “To Leo and Ivy. The most ridiculous couple I’ve ever had the pleasure of manipulating into being together.”
“We weren’t manipulated—” Leo protested.
“You absolutely were,” Meera said cheerfully. “But you’re welcome anyway. Now drink your champagne and then get back to work. That otter isn’t going to raise itself.”
That evening, Leo and Ivy sat on their porch, watching the sunset, Puddle (who’d been deemed stable enough to not need constant monitoring) sleeping in a carrier between them.
“So,” Ivy said, playing with the ring on her finger. “You had a whole sunrise proposal planned?”
“I had several proposals planned,” Leo admitted. “The sunrise one. A dinner one. One involving hiding the ring in your art supplies, but Meera said that was stupid.”
“That would have been very stupid. I would have lost it immediately.”
“That’s what she said.” Leo pulled Ivy closer. “I’m sorry it didn’t go the way I planned.”
“Are you kidding? This was perfect.” Ivy held up her hand, admiring the ring in the fading light. “You proposed to me while we were saving an animal. That’s our whole relationship in one moment. That’s who we are.”
“Disasters who save baby animals?”
“Partners who choose each other even in the middle of chaos,” Ivy corrected. “Even when things don’t go according to plan. Even when life throws baby otters at us.” She kissed his cheek. “That’s the real kind of love, Leo. The kind that happens in clinics that smell like disinfectant. The kind that survives interrupted proposals and emergency intakes and everything being slightly messy and wrong.”
“I love you,” Leo said.
“I love you too.” Ivy settled against his shoulder—their familiar position. “Now tell me about all the other proposals you planned. I want to hear every terrible, overthought detail.”
Leo laughed and told her. About the restaurant plan. About the art supply idea. About the backup plan involving getting Zola to hold a “Will You Marry Me?” sign in her mouth (Meera had vetoed that one as “logistically impossible and also insane”).
They sat on the porch until the stars came out, making plans for their future. For the wedding (small, at the sanctuary, probably officiated by Meera). For their life together (full of animals and art and coffee arguments and love).
And if their engagement story involved a baby otter emergency and a proposal in a clinic instead of at sunset by a giraffe enclosure?
Well, that was perfectly, messily, wonderfully them.
Wild at heart.
Real.
Together.
Always.
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