Page 20 of SEAL’S Baby Surprise (Lanes #2)

AUSTIN

Julia is excited about having had Lee visit school. She has to tell me all about the book they read, the new kid whose mom looks like a dad, and the picture book that had words in it that she could read.

Lee is quiet and thoughtful. I wonder what Mrs. Hubbard had said to my mermaid, but figure that if she wants to tell me she will.

I also feel some type of way about our conversation earlier.

I hadn’t lied about needing to get some work done.

Lee is making me happier than I have been in years, but she is a major distraction.

It is hard to keep my mind on moving funds around and looking at investments when she is sitting in her chair with a sketch pad, or out on the sand doing stunts or meditating.

She likes to meditate standing on her head, which is pretty darned cute because it gives gravity a whole different way to work on a body. Especially when she does it in a bikini that is mostly not there.

While I am taking my lunch break, I spot something that would be fun for us all and might make up for the day spent apart.

Julia and Lee have had a big day, so I cook hamburgers, make salad, and declare that I’m bushed so everyone will go to bed without a fuss. Ark goes out on patrol at bedtime.

Now that he’s met the poodle baby at the Turners’, he likes going up that way to check on everyone. And he makes it a point to come back by and check on Pops, then he goes up and checks on the Hubbards and their neighbors.

He’s trained not to eat anything that doesn’t come from me, so I feel pretty safe relying on him as a neighborhood watch. If there’s anything I need to know, his bellow will rouse everyone.

After a peaceful night, I let Lee and Julia wake up naturally to sunrise, and the smell of brewing coffee and hot chocolate. I’m feeling good about the work I did yesterday, and I’m looking forward to the surprise I have planned.

While the two of them tuck into oatmeal stuffed with dried fruit and nuts, then topped up with turbinado sugar and oat milk, I say casually, “The farmer’s market is having a carnival and cook-off today.”

“Really, Daddy?” Julia asks, her eyes wide with excitement.

“I’ve never been to a carnival,” Lee says, looking almost as excited as Julia.

“Then you’re in for a treat,” I say. “According to the handbills, they do it at least once a year, sometimes more often. There will be rides, plus displays of specialty foods along with samples of just about everything. On top of that, there will be art of all kinds, and even a couple of fashion shows.”

“That sounds splendid!” Lee says.

“Will there be horses?” Julia asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “We’ll have to go see.”

We leave Ark in Pops’ care — or Pops in Ark’s care, depending on how you look at it — and set off for the fair. Ark has gotten pretty good about not barking, but I’m not sure how he would behave in a crowd, especially when other animals would be involved.

The usual farmer’s market has been on the square in the village.

But with all the carnival attractions, it is way too big, so it is being held in the baseball field out beyond the village, beside the road that goes into the city and up toward the mountain area where the grape vineyards and orchards are located.

The first things we see as we walk out from the village and into the fairgrounds are the stalls of fresh fruit and vegetables lined up like old-time English market stalls.

Lee gets excited when she sees all that fresh stuff, but I tell her let’s buy stuff on the way home.

We don’t want to carry things while we look.

Next up is a row of artists — painted canvas, decorated milk cartons, welded scrap metal…you name it, there is an art piece there somewhere representing a style or era.

We spend a lot of time going through all the art; then we wander into an area with the street food vendors just in time for lunch.

We have turkey legs, cream cheese and walnut sandwiches, funnel cakes topped with peach preserves and ice cream, washed down with some of the best root beer ever. I’d forgotten just how good street vendor food can be if you don’t have to eat it every day.

I watch as Julia explores biting into a turkey leg. “Now I’m like that guy in the painting,” she says. “I’ve got a great big, drumstick!” She waves the bone around to show it off.

Lee dodges the waving turkey leg, then giggles as Julia bites into it.

Meanwhile, she savors her cream cheese and walnut sandwich. “This is so good,” she says. “I never dreamed that vegan could taste this good. How do they make the cream cheese?”

“It’s from cashew butter,” a passing waiter says. “Did you notice the tree nut warning on the menu? And on the door outside? Most people who have allergies are alert to those things, but sometimes they miss them.”

“I didn’t,” Lee says, “but I don’t have any allergies. Do you, Austin or Julia?”

I shake my head no. I’d gotten off lucky in that department. Julia can be picky, but she doesn’t have any food allergies.

Since we are now in the prepared food area, we walk through the displays of pie, cake, cookies and preserves that have been brought in for contests.

The girls ooh and ah over lavishly decorated wedding cakes, birthday cakes, and just-for-fun cartoon cakes. I make a mental note to add “cake” to the next shopping list. I’d been getting mixes, but I certainly am not an artist with frosting.

Then we walk on through to an area where just about everything seems to be draped in fabric — quilts, dresses, scarves, and more. It seems likely that we might get stuck there, so I promise Lee and Julia they can shop on the way back.

Fortunately, I see a sign for “petting zoo” and that gets them moving again.

Julia squeals with delight when she realizes that in addition to the baby pigs, goats, and fuzzy chicks in the petting zoo, there was a whole row of horses.

“Look, Daddy, look!” she exclaims. “Can we ride them? Can we take one home?”

“I don’t think they are for sale,” I say. “They are here for contests and for the show.”

“Show?” Julia’s eyes sparkle. “Can we see?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Let’s look at the schedule.

We have missed most of the parade of horses who trotted, walked, marched, or danced around the arena, but we were in time to see children riding on fat ponies.

“Oh, I want one so much!” Julia exclaims. There is bright color in her cheeks, and I think about maybe building a gypsy cart that can be pulled by horses, but only for a minute, because I know absolutely nothing about horses other than the kind that come in internal combustion engines.

“I’ll think about it,” I say.

Julia has already figured out that bit of adult talk, so she gives me a sideways stink-eye glance, then moves on to where Lee is petting a cow. It proves to be the perfect distraction.

The cow is a dainty jersey heifer with wide, brown eyes, a pretty, dish-shaped face, and perfect horns. She closes her eyes and juts out her chin for scratchings, which Lee is happy to give her.

There is a dispenser of treats just outside her stall, so nothing would do but that we purchase one of the green cubes and feed it to the appreciative little lady.

“Me, too, Daddy,” Julia nearly dances up and down with excitement. So I give her the requisite coins, and she buys one of the green cubes. The label beside the dispenser says that it is a mixture of bran, alfalfa, and molasses — guaranteed to delight any bovine.

Julia holds the treat on the flat of her palm the way the illustration beside the dispenser indicates, and she gives a little gasp when the cow’s raspy tongue moves over her small palm.

It is a good thing I brought my phone because we take picture after picture of the animals, the crafts, and then of flowers and potted plants of every possible description.

Then we reach the carnival part, and my companions are both glad not to be carrying packages. Julia makes a beeline for the merry-go-round.

Instead of the usual horses, the steeds are fantastic creatures: unicorns, dragons, manticores, sphinxes, even a three-headed Cerberus that looks a lot like Ark.

Julia quickly claims the Cerberus, shouting, in a squeaky version of a deep male voice, “I am the guardian of the passage!” She sounds like Shirly Temple in Little Colonel, and I nearly lose it. She is so amazingly cute!

Lee gets into the spirit of Julia’s make-believe, and hops onto a manticore, calling out, “I shall guard the halls.”

Not to be left out, I mount a dragon, intoning, “I shall oversee from the air!” I am tickled to hear the theme from Cabaret as the carousel starts up, and the animals go up and down in true merry-go-round fashion.

It is so incongruous with the fantasy-themed steeds, it could not have been less apropos.

You could get a special prize if you could catch hold of a brass ring as it goes by. None of us catch it, but we have a good time whooping and shouting as we go around, all the same.

Next, Lee wants to ride the Ferris wheel. It isn’t a giant, as these things go, but from the top of it, we can see all of the farmer’s market fair, the village, the beach, and the skyline of the city on one side and the mountains on the other.

Julia rides with us, sandwiched in the middle. That is probably a good thing because at one point she’d undone her safety harness before I could stop her, trying to catch a butterfly that had landed on our car.

Lee catches her. “Don’t scare your dad like that,” she scolds.

“Or Lee,” I add, noting that my mermaid has gone a peculiar pale color under her usual golden tan.

“I’m sorry,” Julia says, “but it was so pretty!”

From the top of the Ferris wheel, Julia catches sight of the bumper cars.

“Look, look!” she exclaims. “There are people in clams, and they’re swimming around like on a beach.”

The shells are bumping against each other. “That does look like fun,” Lee says. “Like soap bubbles bumping against each other.”