A few hedgehogs, some snow cones, collectible stickers.
Those weren’t big things overall.
He should probably cool it a little.
But it wasn’t the snow cones he was worried about. It was how much more likable she was. Already. Watching her brainstorm and muck out a dog kennel had made him like her even more.
A couple of weeks with hedgehogs and kettle corn—because, of course, they’d have kettle corn too, right? What was a good concession stand without kettle corn? He might have to suggest that…
Yeah, he was totally screwed.
Griffin gave Gertie, the adult female otter, a stroke as she climbed over his lap. Gertie was Gus’s girlfriend, and they were hoping that she would be having pups again soon to add to the brood they were already raising that was getting more independent.
“I’m thinking about kettle corn, Gert,” Griffin said. “She’s got me thinking about kettle corn.”
Gertie squeaked her approval.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, petting her again. “This woman is going to have a merry-go-round and Ferris wheel in a month. I’d put money on it.”
* * *
“There’s the troublemaker.”
“Zander!” Charlie exclaimed as she entered the front part of Ellie’s bar, through the kitchen, five days after arriving in Autre.
She’d just pilfered some shrimp and grits from the stove for the third time since arriving in Autre and was heading in to join the family for dinner for the fifth time. There was rarely a time in Ellie’s bar when there weren’t at least three Landrys in attendance. Most nights saw a good portion of the family come together for dinner, though there were so many of them it was hard to get them all together at once.
“I can’t believe I’ve been here for five days, and this is the first time I’ve seen you!” she told her cousin.
Zander caught her up in a big bear hug, squeezing her tightly. But when he set her back on her feet and looked down at her, he shook his head.
“Why is it that you Landry girls are almost more trouble than the boys?”
She laughed. “Considering you’re one of the boys, you should know the answer to that.”
“It’s because you look and talk like a sweetheart, right? You fool everybody into thinking that you’re a lot better behaved than you really are.”
She leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Exactly.”
“Sweetheart” was not a word most people used to describe any of the Landry boys. Well, maybe Mitch. Possibly Josh. But that was definitely it. The rest of the Landry boys were a lot of things—charming, intelligent, hard-workers, smart asses, good looking, and always up for a good time—but very few of them were sweet.
Zander laughed. “So you’re profiling me based on my long hair and tattoos and liking motorcycles?”
“I’m profiling you based on your past bad behavior and the fact that you cuss like a sailor.”
“All you girls cuss like sailors and have plenty of bad behavior.”
She nodded. That was actually one of her favorite things about being in Autre and always had been. “But we’re better at hiding it.”
He wasn’t buying that. “I never witnessed much hiding when it came to you staying out late, sneaking bottles of whiskey from behind Grandma’s bar, and making out with guys down by the bayou.”
“Well, I didn’t hide it from you.” She grinned at him. “Of course, now I probably should since you’re a cop.”
One of the family’s favorite things was that Alexander, one of the wildest of the Landry bunch, had become a law enforcement officer. He’d worked in New Orleans, first as a cop right out of the academy, then moved up to detective three years later. But when the local sheriff, George, had retired, Zander was first in line to run for the position. He’d won easily.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about this cop,” Zeke, his twin brother, said as he came to join them. “He’s way more into fishing and gossiping than breaking up parties or arresting anyone.” Zeke’s long hair was pulled back in a bun, while Zander’s was loose, but it was easy to tell the two apart.
Zeke was the more mischievous one, who loved to joke and tease, and had a quick grin. Zander was more laid back. The older of the twins by three minutes, he was definitely a lot of fun, but he was quieter of the two. They both had long hair and tattoos, but Zeke had more ink and had piercings in both ears. And possibly other places Charlie didn’t know about. They also both rode motorcycles, and loved to party. Zeke did construction around the area. And accounting. Which the family found hilarious. He was the least math-geek looking guy any of them had ever met. But he was a whiz with numbers and he loved it.
“I never got arrested,” Charlie pointed out.
“Because George figured there was no way such a sweetheart would have been trespassing or drinking underage,” Zander said.
Zander had a point.
“But gossiping?” Charlie asked with a grin. Gossiping was a favorite pastime of most people in Autre and especially her family, but Zeke’s comment had her picturing Zander sitting around with the old men at the end of the bar trading fishing tales and talking about the latest couple to have a big fight at the grocery store.
“Hey, I’ve been in New Orleans for the past three days helping a cop buddy, if you must know,” Zander said.
“See, that’s a perfect story because we can’t check it,” Zeke said.
“You don’t need to be checking my stories,” Zander told him.
Charlie didn’t believe for a second that Zander had any stories that Zeke didn’t already know. She doubted he had many stories that didn’t involve Zeke, in fact. They were identical twins and had been inseparable for as long as she’d known them.
“So you’re saying that you didn’t stop into Trahan’s Tavern, and you didn’t meet up with any hot brunettes?” Zeke asked with a knowing grin.
“Well, the stop at Trahan’s might’ve been about the case. Undercover work requires a lot of different activities.”
Zeke nodded. “Undercover work.”
Zander shoved him. “Yeah, undercover work. Don’t be an asshole.”
“The ship has sailed on me not being an asshole,” Zeke said.
Charlie laughed. They could go on like this all night. “And why have I only seen you once since I’ve been back?” she told Zeke.
“I’ve been working over in Bad. Remodeling the coffee shop.”
“Bad?” Charlie asked. “I didn’t realize that you guys did anything helpful or productive over there.”
Zeke nodded. “Sure. I’ll do just about anything if the person is willing to pay enough.”
“But it’s Bad,” Charlie said. The town about twenty miles up the bayou was Autre’s biggest rival. And that extended to everything from high school football to actual business rivalries.
Charlie had always found Bad to be a fun town. The guys—known as the Bad Boys—certainly had been. Probably still were.
The name had come from a very short-lived settlement of Germans who had named the town something much longer and harder to pronounce. When they had been run out by the French settlers, they shortened the name to the first three letters only. B-A-D. Since then, the town had shown its sense of humor by leaning into the name.
All of the businesses in town had “bad” in their names. There was the Bad Egg, the town’s café. Bad Hair Days, the salon. The medical clinic was even called Bad Medicine. Charlie found it quirky and funny.
The guys from Bad also leaned into the name, and their reputations showed it.
Charlie had spent some time in the truck beds of a few Bad boys down by the river. They were definitely not the type of boys she’d bring home to her mom and dad, but they were sure fun to spend time with when it involved bonfires, loud country music, and moonshine.
The fact that Zeke, Zander, Fletcher, and even Mitch, at times, hung out with the Bad boys said a lot about her cousins’ reputations as well.
Zander’s famili
arity with the jail cell in Autre hadn’t started when he started wearing a badge. Zeke and Fletcher had similarly had experiences that made people wonder just how far that city limit of Bad, Louisiana, actually extended.
“Well, you’re at least charging them double, I hope,” Charlie said.
“I think the sweet, bubbly coffee shop owner might be a perk that makes that drive up the bayou a little easier,” Zander said.
Charlie looked at Zeke, waiting for a reaction. He just shrugged.
She laughed. “Actually, there were a couple of Bad girls…” She hesitated. The girls from Bad were known as Bad girls, but they didn’t live up to the name quite the way the boys did. Still, she knew some of the girls who had come to the parties down by the water were just as much fun as the guys—“came over for otter yoga the other day, and I’m pretty sure a couple of the moms in the crowd for the otter talk were from Bad.”
“Is this the otter talk that Fletcher did?” Zeke asked.
Charlie nodded. “He was great.”
“’Course I was.” Fletcher joined them. He was really at the bar for a refill on his beer, but he’d overheard his name.
“Oh yeah, really impressive to have a fan club full of five-year-olds and married women,” Zander said.
Fletcher leaned an elbow on the bar and looked at his younger brothers. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man who is good with little kids and animals can have his pick of women. And those kids don’t have to be that woman’s.”
Charlie wasn’t surprised by Fletcher’s adaptation of the first line of Pride and Prejudice. He was a teacher. He actually taught third grade at Autre Community School. And it was no secret that he was the most popular teacher at the school. Not only was he amazing with his third-graders, but the parents all loved him. It was true that many of the moms found him good-looking—he also wore his hair on the longer side and had a few tattoos—charming, and were attracted to how great he was with their kids, but the dads liked him just as much.
Fletcher becoming a teacher was as funny as Zander becoming a cop. But they were both very good at their jobs. And when Griffin had turned her down for doing the educational talk at the otter enclosure today, she immediately thought of Fletcher as a fill-in. It’d been a great call. There had been a bigger crowd than she expected, and several of the moms had been downright gushy about his presentation.
“So you’re telling me that you being sweet to some other lady’s kid makes you more attractive to everyone else?” Zeke asked.
Fletcher looked at Charlie, one eyebrow up. “Charlie?”
She nodded without hesitation. “Absolutely. There’s just something about a man and little kids.”
Even Griffin.
She took a moment to look around the room, wondering if he was here. He’d been avoiding her for five days. They worked together, of course. She saw him at the clinic. But he seemed to have a lot of calls outside of the clinic, and when he was in the office, they were busy with clients and animals. So they hadn’t had more than a few minutes alone, and whenever she got too close, he immediately widened the distance between them.
She found it amusing, if not frustrating. She liked the idea that if he was going to try to resist her, it would take an actual conscious effort and physical distance for him to do so.
Her gaze landed on where he was sitting at the bar. He was a few stools down and was bent over his plate of food, clearly trying to ignore everything going on around him.
She’d missed him.
The thought surprised her. She’d seen him every day. They’d spoken several times over the past few days. But she missed actually talking to him. And definitely flirting with him. And absolutely kissing him.
She hadn’t kissed him since she’d been back, and that felt like a travesty every time she thought about it.
He didn’t want things to be complicated. She understood that. She agreed with it. But she liked him, she was attracted to him, and vice versa. Yes, she thought he even actually liked her. In spite of the fact, she was kind of a pain in his ass.
“Well, speaking of people doing crazy things,” Zander said. “I need to hear the story about how you got fired, Charlie.”
She focused on her cousins again. “Were we talking about people doing crazy things? I thought we were talking about Zeke remodeling a coffee shop and Fletcher being adorable with little kids. And having several not-so-secret secret admirers.”
Zander nodded. “Those are both crazy. Zeke is making a ‘quaint little coffee shop’ out of some old rundown building in Bad. And Fletcher is being adorable with kids. Who would’ve thought?”
Charlie nodded and gave a little shrug. “You’ve got a point.”
“Yeah, but Charlie fucking up some guy’s Porsche and getting fired isn’t really that crazy,” Zeke said with a grin.
Fletcher nodded. “True. But I think we need to hear about why she did it. That might be the crazy part.”
“I’ll tell you the whole story,” Charlie said. It was amusing that her cousins on this side of the family considered her a crazy, fun bayou girl. That was completely the opposite of who she was in Shreveport. Or really anywhere that didn’t have swamp water running past it. She was sophisticated, classy, well mannered, and composed everywhere else. Autre brought out another side of her. But she loved the free feeling and being unfiltered, and that she had people who would love, respect, and back her up no matter what she did.
“Hang on now,” Fletcher said. He turned to the bar. “Hey, Ellie,” he called to their grandmother.
Ellie Landry had always been known to her grandkids as Ellie rather than Grandma or Maw-Maw or any other grandmotherly nicknames. Some people thought that was strange, but it was just how it had always been here.
“Charlie is about to tell us why she trashed that poor guy’s Porsche,” Fletcher said. “You need to come over and see if you win.”
“Win? What’s she win?” Charlie asked.
Fletcher laughed. “The family’s got bets on what made you go after that guy. But we should all hear it at once to see who wins. Cash money, of course.”
Charlie shook her head. She should have known that she had to share this story at some point, and it didn’t shock her at all that her family was making a game of it. She was curious, though, about what reasons they’d all guessed for her outburst against Alan.
She looked at her grandmother as Ellie joined them at the end of the bar and passed over beers to all of them.
“You put money down on what you think I did too?”
Ellie nodded. “Absolutely. Winning twenty bucks off any of these yahoos always makes my day better.”
Charlie wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Ellie winning bets with her grandkids happened a lot.
“You don’t know you’re going to win,” Zander told her. “We all know Charlie pretty well too.”
Ellie looked at Charlie. “Maybe. Guess we’ll see.”
Charlie knew that Ellie would definitely have the closest guess. She may not have nailed all of the details of what would lead Charlie to deface an expensive sports car, but she would get pretty close.
That was partly because, despite not living in Autre full-time growing up, Charlie was a lot like her grandmother. She’d been told so over and over again, but as she’d gotten to know Ellie as an adult, she understood what people meant by that.
Ellie was fiercely loyal and protective of the people and things that mattered to her. But she was also incredibly insightful and nearly magical when it came to reading people. She always had something to say and said it as bluntly and loudly as anyone else. But she was also an observer. She knew things about her family, especially her grandchildren, that they didn’t even know.
That was how she and Charlie were alike. Passionate and insightful. Charlie considered it the highest compliment that she was like her grandmother.
“Well, come on then,” Zeke said, grabbing Charlie’s hand and pulling her toward the big, long tables t
hat sat at the back of the bar where the family gathered.
“Hey, Leo!” Fletcher called to their grandfather, who was sitting at the opposite end of the bar talking, as always, to the group of men gathered there. “Charlie’s going to tell us her story!”
Leo grinned and immediately got up off his stool. “I’m coming. Could use twenty bucks.”
Charlie laughed. She loved her grandfather. He was outspoken, funny, and absolutely rough around the edges, but she’d never met a more loving soul in her life.
However, there was no way Leo was going to guess what had happened in Paris. Leo thought all of his granddaughters were perfect angels. She was pretty sure deep down he knew they got into plenty of trouble, and he’d heard all of them cuss, and he’d seen each of them drunk at least once, but he always blamed the boys for being bad influences.
Which wasn’t entirely untrue.
Well, except with Kennedy. Kennedy, Josh and Sawyer’s younger sister, and the girl who’d spent the most time on the bayou was a spitfire, and everyone knew she was an instigator. But she was Leo’s very obvious favorite.
Leo was definitely one of the people Zander had been talking about when he said that the girls got away with more than the boys. Leo could be won over and wrapped around a little finger of one of his granddaughters faster than anyone.
“Wait for me,” one of Leo’s friends said, scrambling off his stool as well. “I’ve got money down too.”
Charlie looked at him with surprise. “Elias, you think you know what I did to get fired?”
“I got caught up in the moment when everyone was guessin’ and bettin’,” he said with a grin. “Happens a lot around here.”
He had a point.
She tugged her hand free from Zeke’s hold. “Well, don’t you guys move. I’ll just sit here in the middle.”
She headed for the stool in the middle of the long wooden bar. It just so happened to be right next to Griffin. Coincidentally.
Okay, not so coincidentally.
He might want to avoid her, but she didn’t want to make it easy on him.
She slid up onto the barstool and looked over at him. He’d stopped eating but was stubbornly not looking in her direction.
Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set Page 237
