So all it had taken was Ellie, the matriarch of the family and Tori’s grandmother-in-law, to ask him—okay, she’d told him—to hire this Charlie kid. If the Landrys wanted this guy working at the clinic over the summer, then Griffin wasn’t going to say no. It was his partner’s family for one thing, and for another, Ellie had long ago won him over with her homemade pralines, her very generous pours of beer, and her blunt but affectionate advice.
Ellie thought Griffin needed to start living life. When he asked her why she thought he wasn’t living life, she’d given him a look that said she was completely insulted by the stupid question and had moved down the bar to wait on someone else. When he’d asked her how she knew that he wasn’t living life, she responded, “I’ve lived in this town for seventy-five years, have seen everyone in this town and hundreds of tourists in and out of this bar’s doors, raised five children and have eleven grandchildren—seven of whom are boys—so I’ve seen a lot of stupid in my life.”
When he’d asked if she was essentially calling him stupid, she grinned, winked, and said, “Anyone not living every day to the fullest is stupid. You take that however you want.”
Griffin hadn’t exactly put that advice into practice yet, but he heard the message, and he thought about it often. And now Ellie had asked him to hire some kid as his assistant for the summer, and he was absolutely unable to say anything but “sure.”
He didn’t need help with the veterinary work specifically. However, he did need someone who could look after the animals being kept at the clinic after surgical procedures, answer phones, do basic filing and scheduling, and be a second pair of hands. Like when he needed someone to hold down a cat, grab him another syringe, or help him chase baby rabbits that got loose in the lobby. And no, that was not just a theoretical scenario. He really could have used a second pair of hands on Tuesday when there were baby rabbits scattering in all directions.
He let himself in through the side door that led into the storage room. He heard Maddie’s voice coming from the front of the clinic but was surprised to hear another female voice answer her. He stopped in the room to hang his cap on the hook by the door and toss his duffel bag onto a chair.
“So, what did you carve into the side of his Porsche?” Maddie asked. “Because I know you didn’t just scratch a line in it with your key.”
Griffin felt his eyebrows rise. This woman had vandalized a Porsche?
There was a husky feminine laugh. “Of course not,” the other woman answered. “I wrote I have a tiny dick.”
Maddie laughed out loud, and Griffin stepped into the front of the clinic. Did he know the woman Maddie was talking to? Because if so, he was going to stay far away from her. A woman who carved insults into the side of a man’s Porsche? That was someone he didn’t want to tangle with. Of course, he’d like to think he wouldn’t do anything that would warrant that kind of response, but he wasn’t the most gallant at times.
He smiled to himself as he thought about the last time he’d even attempted to be a gentleman. It had been to spread his shirt out on a dirty barn floor for a stunning blonde to give him a blowjob. In spite of the fact that he was sure that wouldn’t get him very many points with the chivalry police, he still liked the memory. A lot. And not just the blowjob. Though, that had been one of the best of his life. It was absolutely the woman involved.
The women were leaning against the front desk. Maddie was facing his direction, and her friend was facing away. They were both trim blondes, wearing t-shirts and denim shorts. Maddie was a couple of inches shorter, and her skin was sun-kissed from working on the swamp boats with her husband, Owen, and their other partners.
The other woman’s skin was paler, and she had her long hair gathered up into a ponytail and pulled through the back of the white cap she wore. And as always happened, he thought of Charlotte. For the past two months, anytime he saw long blond hair and creamy skin and gorgeous curves, he immediately thought of the woman in the eight-hundred-dollar cocktail dress outside Ellie’s bar.
This woman’s baby blue t-shirt, cutoff denim jeans, and white canvas tennis shoes were absolutely nothing like Charlotte’s outfit. The only thing they had in common was the hair color. Still, Griffin found himself thinking about the woman who had made him laugh, flirt, and actually use the word “delightful” more than once.
It wasn’t that he never laughed or hadn’t laughed in the past two months, but he definitely hadn’t flirted, and the word delightful had definitely not crossed his lips.
Of course, he hung out with Landrys most of the time, and there were lots of words to describe them, individually and collectively, but delightful was probably not even in the top ten.
“Well, did he deserve it?” Maddie said of the way the woman had defaced the Porsche.
“Absolutely. And he had to drive that around for two days before he could get it repainted,” the woman told her.
“Was it worth getting fired over?” Maddie asked.
“Oh, I’m super pissed that I got fired for that. But I’m more pissed that he didn’t get fired.”
Maddie shrugged. “He is the boss’s son.”
Holy hell, she’d done that to her boss’s son’s car?
The woman blew out a breath. “Yeah. And now I have to pay to get the stupid thing repainted.”
“How much is that going to run you?”
“He gave me a quote for ten grand.”
Maddie’s eyebrows shot up, but Griffin wasn’t surprised. A guy who owned a Porsche would want a very well-done paint job. And to repair something like a deeply gouged I HAVE A TINY DICK message in the door, they’d have to strip the paint, buff the whole thing smooth, and then paint over it.
If the guy truly was an asshole, as they were implying, he might even have a custom color that would be hard to match and that he might insist they get from the same place he had the car painted originally. He might even insist on them repainting the entire thing, so the paint job looked good.
“Well, ten grand isn’t so bad. You had your big fancy job in Paris for a couple of months at least, right?” Maddie asked.
Griffin felt his spine stiffen, and he froze in the middle of the space behind the front desk.
Paris? He knew another blonde with amazing curves who’d had a great job in Paris. And now that he thought about it, that woman would’ve definitely keyed a man’s Porsche if he pissed her off. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but for some reason, it fit.
“Yeah, but… Paris isn’t cheap. And I had a lot of cappuccino. And I might have gone a little crazy on the credit cards with shopping.”
Both women laughed.
Griffin felt his gut tighten.
This was Charlotte. It had to be. Charlotte was here. Back. In Autre.
Maddie nodded. “I can understand that. When I first moved to California, I needed a whole new wardrobe and everything. Or at least I thought I did.”
“Needless to say, I don’t have ten grand to pay the jackass off, so…” the blonde shrugged. “Here I am.”
Yep. Here she was. Not just back in the states, but in Louisiana. In Autre. In his clinic. Why was she here in the clinic? Griffin couldn’t have described how he was feeling exactly, but it felt a little like excitement and a lot like panic. He wasn’t sure why, but Charlotte being back here, sounding as if she was here to stay, at least for a period of time, made him… worry.
Yes. He was worried.
And he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and head into the nearest room with a lock on the door.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, Maddie.”
Both women straightened away from the counter and turned toward him.
His eyes were firmly on Charlotte.
Her blue eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open. Then her lips spread into a huge grin.
Not that he would’ve expected her not to recognize him. It’d only been two months. And they’d spent quite enough time in very close proximity.
“Griffin!”
&nbs
p; She looked thrilled to see him. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised by that.
Actually, he wasn’t surprised by that. He was just still reeling from the fact that she was here.
Charlotte, the woman he had been unable to get out of his head for the past two months, the woman who he’d become obsessed with in the space of about an hour, the woman who was supposed to be across an ocean from him at the moment, was now standing in front of him.
She looked amazing.
That cocktail dress from two months ago had absolutely not at all been a part of her beauty.
“Charlotte,” he greeted. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m… back.”
“You know each other?” Maddie asked.
Charlotte glanced at her. “Yeah, we met at the weddings in April.”
Griffin nodded. “Yeah. We… talked at the weddings.”
Charlotte’s eyes met his, clearly surprised. Had he paused in front of talked on purpose? Yes, he had.
He needed to be careful here. Maddie was smart. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t going to notice him making weird pauses in front of normal words or that he was acting tense around Charlotte, who was clearly a friend of hers.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Charlotte asked, stepping around the front desk and coming for him.
She grabbed his arm and started tugging him into the hallway behind the desk before he even answered.
Of course, she did.
He followed, aware that her touch on his arm was completely distracting and stupidly pleasant. No, it was much more than pleasant. He felt like he had been waiting for that touch for two months, and the feel of her skin on his again was like taking a huge lungful of fresh air after holding his breath for too long.
Stupid. Sending this woman off to Paris with nothing more than what they’d done in the barn had been the right move. In fact, they had done too much in the barn. In fact, they’d talked too much. They’d spent too much time together. He’d had too much of a taste of her, knew too many of her sounds, knew her smell too well. He was addicted to her, and he’d only spent an hour with her two months ago.
She paused for a moment, looked up and down the hall, clearly trying to figure out where they should go. Then she pulled him into the storage room. She pushed the door shut and turned to face him, still holding his arm.
“I’m so happy to see you,” she said. “I’d hoped we’d run into each other, though I didn’t expect it to be quite so soon.”
So, she clearly hadn’t come here looking for him. She didn’t know he was the vet. How would she know that? She wouldn’t unless she’d asked someone about him after they’d met at the wedding. And apparently, she hadn’t asked anyone about him.
That annoyed him.
Which was as stupid as liking her hand on his arm. He hadn’t asked anyone about her either.
“I’m shocked to see you,” he told her, honestly. No one had mentioned Charlotte was going to be back in town. Though, why would they have mentioned that to him? No one had any idea they’d even met, not to mention that he was stupidly infatuated with her.
“Yeah, this whole… situation… kind of happened fast.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Situation?” he asked. He’d overheard that she’d been fired. But was there more? “Are you okay?”
She let go of her lip to smile up at him with a sweet look. That almost made it seem as if she was a little infatuated too.
“I am. I mean, I’m going to be poor for a while, and I don’t get to look at the Eiffel Tower every morning while I have coffee, but I’ll be okay.”
“Good.” He meant that. Fuck. How? What did he mean that he really wanted her to be okay? That the idea that she wasn’t had given him a moment of I’ll make it okay. He was not that guy.
He wasn’t that guy anymore. He wasn’t a hero. He didn’t swoop in and save things anymore.
She stepped closer. “I got in last night. Kind of late. I thought about going to look for you in the barn but then figured maybe it was a little past your typical goat herding hours.”
That damn goat barn. He’d been right when he thought he wouldn’t be able to step inside that building without thinking about her.
“So what are you doing here? What happened to Paris?” There was a boss’s son and a Porsche, but he’d love to know the whole story.
Dammit.
He didn’t want people’s stories. He didn’t want to be involved. He wanted to keep things simple in his life, and the best way to do that, he knew from experience, was to just keep to himself.
“Oh, that… yeah, that didn’t work out.”
“You got fired. For keying the door of the boss’s son’s Porsche.”
She sighed. “You heard all that?”
He nodded. “I did. What happened? He wouldn’t dance with you?”
She looked surprised for a second, then she gave him a playful grin. “Oh, you know what happens when guys say no to dancing with me.”
He wasn’t sure if it was still the surprise of seeing her or that he’d built their time together up in his mind or what, but possessiveness slammed into him.
Which was stupid.
She’d danced with other men.
She’d done more than that with other men, he was sure.
He was the one who didn’t have random hookups. He was the one who didn’t carry condoms around just in case. He was the one who carefully weighed all of his human interactions and basically assumed the worst out of most of them.
He hadn’t expected the worst out of the interaction with her, but he should have. Not only was he clearly a bit obsessed, but it turned out he was the only one feeling that way.
“Yes, I do.” He started to step back from her.
But she grabbed the front of his shirt, keeping him close.
She peered up at him, her expression serious now. “Griffin, I was teasing you. Everything about that night was a very unique… situation.”
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and reached for the clinic’s side door with his other hand. He tugged her out of the building, letting the door slam behind them. He wouldn’t put it past Maddie to have her ear pressed to the storage room door. And for her to have already texted the rest of the Landrys with, Charlotte and Griffin are shut in the storeroom together. On purpose.
Once they were several steps away from the building, Griffin dropped his hold on her. The vet clinic was set on the edge of town, away from any other houses or businesses. It was actually behind Tori and Josh’s house and was just another building on their farm, though it had its own drive and small parking area. There were stables and pens and pastures behind it because, well, Tori had never met an animal she didn’t like, and if any four-legged creatures needed a home, they found one with her.
Griffin tucked his hands in his back pockets. “When you say it was a unique situation, you’re referring to the barn?”
Charlotte frowned slightly, and he realized that he much preferred her smiling. It was a stupid, irrelevant realization, perhaps. But Charlotte was absolutely the type of woman who needed to be smiling.
“No, not the barn. Well, not just the barn. I’ve definitely never done any of that in a barn before. But everything about that night was unusual. I actually don’t usually care if a guy doesn’t want to spend time with me. I figure it’s his loss if not.”
“I’m guessing you very rarely run across men who don’t want to spend time with you.”
She lifted a shoulder, not denying it. “There was something about you that made it particularly… bothersome. I couldn’t leave you alone. That never happens.” She stepped closer. “I don’t regret anything from that night. I was very excited to see you again when I got back. I’ve been thinking about you ever since.”
“And you’re back for how long?”
Griffin was a very smart man. He knew his feelings for this woman were unusual and possibly dangerous. But he’d been feeling them for two months. They
weren’t going anywhere.
Now she was here. She was telling him that she felt something between them too. He was not going to be able to ignore that. So, as he had in other circumstances in his life, he recognized that if he was going to fuck up, he was going to fuck up in a big way.
“Well,” she said. “I’m not exactly sure how long I’ll be here, but for a little bit.”
“For a few days?” he asked.
“For sure.”
“That’s really excellent news. Especially considering I just rented a house and moved in and no longer have a roommate.”
She smiled and stepped closer, running her hand up the front of his shirt. She smelled amazing. It wasn’t quite the same expensive perfume scent from two months ago—and the fact that he remembered that so well should have been concerning to him—but she smelled like he wanted to bury his nose in her neck and breathe deep for at least an hour.
“So what are you saying?” she asked softly.
“Maybe we should pick up where we left off.”
“Charlie!”
They were interrupted by the shout from Tori.
“Dr. Foster!” a man’s voice called right after Tori’s.
Charlotte and Griffin both pivoted to face the people approaching the clinic. Then Griffin frowned as he realized Tori was headed straight for them.
As was the man carrying a puppy with a little boy right behind him.
That was Michael LeClaire and his son, Andre. The puppy was Brownie, and he was new to the family. But he had a growth on his back leg that Griffin needed to operate on.
He and Charlotte turned back to one another.
“Dr. Foster?” she asked.
Griffin nodded. “Griffin Foster. Veterinarian.”
“Oh… Shit.”
He frowned. Then the realization hit him as well. “Charlie? Is she talking to you?”
“Yeah. This side of the family calls me Charlie.”
Charlie. That was the name of the kid who was going to be his assistant for the summer.
Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set Page 230
