“And we stayed in touch and see each other periodically since she’s been back in the states. And it hit me the other day when I was talking to her that you two have a lot in common.”
“Fiona and I?” Charlie didn’t see that. Fiona was an exotic animal expert of some kind. She’d traveled to and lived in Zambia. She’d worked on a wildlife game preserve. And she somehow was able to procure three lemurs with only a couple of days’ notice. Charlie didn’t know much more about her than that, but all of those things set the two women apart drastically.
“Fiona doesn’t really believe in asking for permission. She follows her gut and is perpetually certain that all situations can be better. And doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“So she’s pushy and bossy?”
Griffin grinned. “Definitely. But she is also an optimist and wants to change the world. And believes she can.”
Charlie felt a warmth spread through her chest. “And that reminds you of me?”
“Yep. And, I know that the two of you together will cause me some major headaches at times, but I also think that the world better watch out once you two get together.”
Charlie stepped closer and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. “I consider that a huge compliment.”
“I seem to be getting a little better at those.”
“You are. And, in the spirit of putting everything out there, it also makes me want to kiss you even more than usual. Which, by the way, is a lot.”
Then Griffin completely shocked her by cupping the back of her head, tipping her head back, and covering her lips with his.
Right in the doorway of the veterinary clinic with Fiona just on the other side, and the potential for anyone to drive up and see them.
It was one of the sweetest kisses yet, and Charlie immediately grabbed the front of his shirt in her fists to hold him close for a little longer.
But they only truly got a few seconds before Fiona let out a shrill whistle. “Get your asses over here. Your new friends want to meet you.”
They pulled apart, their gazes lingering. Griffin captured Charlie’s hand and tugged her toward the huge purple pickup parked in front of the clinic.
It was one of the biggest trucks Charlie had ever seen. The wheels were enormous and lifted the truck at least a couple extra feet into the air. It was an extended cab and, though Charlie was no expert, even the front of the truck looked extra-large as if encasing a larger than usual engine.
It was also purple. Really purple. Like, grape soda purple.
Charlie hadn’t known Fiona long, but already she felt like that truck fit the woman’s personality. It was big, bright, colorful, and impossible to ignore.
Added to the whole picture was the huge trailer she had hooked to the back of the truck.
Again, Charlie knew very little about animal trailers or even transporting animals at all. But she was suddenly worried that lemurs were possibly bigger than she thought they were if they required that size of a trailer.
The sounds from the trailer would’ve been startling if Charlie didn’t know what Fiona had brought with her. However, it sounded as if Griffin had asked her to bring something too, and Charlie assumed that the various squeaks, chirps, growls, and barks were not all from the lemurs.
Griffin was already frowning as they stopped next to the trailer. “You brought lemurs?”
Charlie grinned. Of course, he would know the sound of a lemur.
Fiona went to the back of the trailer and pulled the main door open. “When I heard that Charlie needed some lemurs for her new animal park, I knew that Larry, Curly, and Moe would be perfect.”
Griffin moved to the back of the trailer to look inside. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. His expression was a combination of happiness and excitement and wonder.
And Charlie wanted him to look like that every day.
“You asked her for lemurs?” He turned back to Charlie.
“With some input from Tori,” Charlie said. “I was looking into what it would take to get you an elephant.”
He just blinked at her for a few seconds, then shook his head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “You told me you loved elephants.”
He took the four steps that separated them, cupped her face, pulled her up onto her tiptoes, and kissed her again. She leaned into him, ecstatic that he loved the surprise and wasn’t already saying no to keeping the lemurs and expanding the park.
He lifted his head a few seconds later and stared at her. “This is… One of the best things…”
“Hey, how about a little love for the woman who drove these guys from Florida?”
Griffin gave her a grin. “I appreciate it, Fi, but I’ll show my gratitude to you in some other way.”
“You better. Like with etouffee with shrimp and pecan pie.”
“Ellie will be happy to see you,” Griffin said with a laugh.
So this wasn’t Fiona’s first trip to Autre. She knew Charlie’s grandmother, and Charlie could only assume, the rest of the family as well.
“Are you going to show Charlie what you asked me to bring for her?”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “You did ask her to bring me something?”
“Come see.” Griffin again looked excited.
Charlie really liked that look on him.
He pulled her to the back of the trailer, and they looked inside together.
Charlie gasped as she first caught sight of the lemurs. They were, in fact, bigger than she’d expected. Of course, she knew from her reading that they were part of the primate family. They did remind her a little bit of monkeys as they climbed up the side of the cage and swung from bars overhead. They were also very vocal. They were going to give the otters some competition for the loudest exhibit.
“Wow, they’re really beautiful,” she said.
Griffin grinned down at her. “This is the best surprise.”
Yeah, now she wanted to get him an elephant too.
“And those are for you.” He pointed.
“Hedgehogs!” She grinned up at him. “I wondered if we were going ahead with that.”
“Hedgehogs will be great,” he said. “And then there’s him.”
Charlie lifted her gaze and looked past the lemurs into the back, darker part of the trailer. And gasped.
“No,” she said softly. “Really?”
“Really.”
He’d gotten her a sloth.
A sloth.
“I’ve decided that saying yes to you maybe isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
“Oh, Dr. Foster, you really shouldn’t have admitted that.”
Chapter 14
Fiona cleared her throat, and Charlie realized she and Griffin had been grinning at each other stupidly for several seconds.
“So, should we take them over to their new pens?” Fiona asked.
Oh, crap. They needed a place to put these animals. Charlie hadn’t expected to have three lemurs today. She hadn’t talked to Mitch or Zeke about building new enclosures. Hell, she didn’t even know what kind of enclosures these animals actually needed.
“Oh…” She started.
“Yeah,” Griffin told Fiona. “I’ll ride with you and show you where to go.”
Charlie looked up at him in surprise. “We have a place to put them?”
He nodded. “Mitch and Zeke have been working on it for the past few days.” He shrugged. “I’m assuming they added a lemur enclosure to their plans as well.”
Charlie supposed that Tori would have let them know about the new plan. But she shook her head. “I haven’t seen any new pens down by the petting zoo.”
“They are over behind Mitch’s place.”
Charlie’s eyes widened. The land behind Mitch’s house was several acres of unused grassland that extended from the backyards of three family homes to the bayou. Mitch, Zander, and Fletcher lived in those houses, and Zeke had built his own house at the end of the dead-end road everyone now refe
rred to as Bachelor Row—even now that Paige had made Mitch not-a-bachelor-at-all.
The land had been in the family ever since the Landrys had settled here back before Autre was even officially a town. They’d turned down at least a dozen offers over the years for the purchase of the land, dedicated to the idea of keeping the land in the family.
It was exactly where Charlie had envisioned putting Griffin’s elephant.
Obviously, elephants need a lot of space, and while the land became marshy the closer they got to the bayou, there was plenty of space on nice, firm ground that could keep several animals with the proper fencing.
Over the past couple of days, her vision for the area had become more specific, including buildings like barns and concession stands, paved pathways for people to walk, and various structures to keep a variety of animals safely.
Okay, she had envisioned an entire animal park behind her cousins’ houses.
She hadn’t told anyone that yet though.
The Landrys had done a lot of crazy things over the years, but she wasn’t sure any of them were quite this crazy.
But Griffin was telling her there were already new enclosures built for the sloth.
“The poor sloth is going to be housed out there all by himself?” Charlie asked, her heart thrumming with anticipation and excitement.
“Well, it looks like he’s going to have some lemur friends,” Griffin said.
Charlie nodded. “But you didn’t know that.” She tipped her head. “What were you thinking, Dr. Foster?”
“Just that it might be nice to have room for some expansion. The alpacas could use a little more room. And Fiona and I were talking, and she has a baby ostrich that might need a new home.”
Charlie swung to face the other woman. “What do you do?” she asked. Who had access to sloths, lemurs, and ostriches at the snap of her fingers?
“I run an animal park outside of Orlando with my boyfriend,” Fiona said with a smile. “We specialize in giraffes, but we have lots of other animals.”
Charlie knew her expression was one of shock and amazement. “You have giraffes?”
Fiona nodded. “A bunch. They are my favorite. That’s who I fell in love with in Zambia.”
Wow, Fiona was fascinating.
“You can get us more animals?”
“Oh, definitely—”
“Hang on,” Griffin interrupted. “Let’s not go crazy. How about we get the sloth and lemurs settled and see how things go.”
“But you’re willing to talk about more?” Charlie asked. Her heart was definitely pumping hard now. She was asking about more than the animals. She wondered if he realized that.
“I am.” His gaze was intense and steady. “But in regards to the animals, I’ll need a team.”
So, yes, he did know she was talking about more than the animals.
Charlie took a deep breath herself. Just a few minutes ago, she admitted to Fiona that she was committed to this idea. In large part, because of Griffin. But now, she was about to admit the same to him. That would make it even more official. And… complicated. Exactly what he’d wanted to avoid.
It would also mean she could quit sending out her resume to marketing firms and companies.
She took one more deep breath. Then said, “I’m in.”
“Okay.”
It wasn’t just the word, it was the look in his eyes and the tone in his voice that made that one simple word into a much bigger promise.
Charlie opened her mouth to respond with more, but just then, a car came screeching into the parking lot. They all whirled around.
A man jumped out of the passenger side the second the car came to a stop. “Dr. Foster!” He had a dog in his arms.
Griffin immediately shifted into professional mode and bee-lined for the man.
“What happened?” Griffin took the dog and turned toward the clinic as the man fell in step beside him.
“We just found it by the side of the road. Hit by a car, I’m sure. We were driving by and thought it was dead, but it lifted its head, and we knew we had to stop.”
The dog whined in Griffin’s arms and was clearly in distress. Charlie stood frozen to the spot in the parking lot watching them as the man pulled the door open for Griffin, and they disappeared inside.
“You need to go in?” Fiona asked.
Charlie shook herself. Yes, of course, she should go in. She was Griffin’s assistant, and obviously, he was now at work. But she didn’t really want to. This seemed next level and far beyond her ability to help.
But she swallowed. Griffin needed someone to assist him. She finally nodded. “Yeah, I should go in.” She glanced around. “I don’t know what to do about the lemurs.”
Fiona waved that away. “No worries, I’ll call Tori or Fletcher or Mitch. We’ll get them taken care of.”
Right, Fiona knew everyone here, and obviously, knew more about lemurs than Charlie did. Still, Charlie wanted to go with the lemurs a lot more than she wanted to go into the clinic.
“Okay.” But she was still just standing looking at the clinic door.
“It’s not exactly any of my business,” Fiona said. “But you’re not a veterinary tech, are you?”
Charlie shook her head. “No. I am just the receptionist and another pair of hands here. I’m in… marketing.” That sounded so weak and stupid suddenly.
“But you want to help Griffin expand the animal park.”
“I do.”
“Well, working with animals is amazing and can be very rewarding,” Fiona said. “But it can also break your heart. Animals, like people, get hurt and sick, and sometimes they don’t recover. Exotic animals can be especially a lot of work and can be difficult to treat.”
“What are you saying?” Charlie asked though she knew.
“If you’re going to have a collection of animals, and if you’re going to support Griffin in this, you have to be prepared for the bad things that happen too.”
Charlie took a moment to really focus on the other woman. Fiona was clearly very friendly and, as Griffin had described her, an optimist. But right now, she was being completely serious and, if Charlie wasn’t mistaken, protective of Griffin.
“I just want Griffin to be happy,” Charlie said.
Fiona nodded. “I believe that. But taking this on, expanding with new animals, is going to be a big deal for him. It’s a risk. The fact that you’ve got him thinking about it in the first place is huge. But there will be times when it’s hard on him. He hates seeing animals suffer, and he hates losing them. And that will happen, of course. He knows it will be painful at times. So if he’s willing to do this, it must be because he trusts in your support.”
Charlie sucked in a little breath. Basically, Fiona was telling her that Griffin was willing to do this because of her and that if she wasn’t up to the task, now was the time to realize it. And get out.
But she was in too deep.
Not only did they already have hedgehogs, lemurs, and a sloth, and not only had Mitch and Zeke put time and resources into the new enclosures, and clearly, the Boys of the Bayou would’ve had to put money into that, but… she was also in too deep emotionally.
With Griffin.
She wanted to make him happy. She wanted to give him something that he would find rewarding and that would make him smile and feel like he had a purpose. Yes, as cliché as it sounded, she wanted to save him. She wanted him to use his passion and potential, and it seemed she had found a way.
She couldn’t bail now.
“I understand what you’re saying,” she told Fiona. “And I’m going to go inside and help Griffin right now.”
Fiona looked at her for a long moment but finally gave a little nod. “Okay. I’ll see you later.”
Charlie turned on her heel and faced the front door of the clinic again. She took a deep breath, blew it out, and headed inside to be Griffin’s assistant.
* * *
“I am so fucked, you guys.”
Griffin
was seated on one of the large boulders in the otter enclosure. It was dinner time, and he knew everyone would be gathered at Ellie’s, including Fiona. He knew he should go up there. They’d probably make him feel better.
But Charlie would probably be there. And she’d had a really bad day.
The dog that had been hit by a car along the highway hadn’t made it. It wasn’t his first, of course. Sometimes, no matter what he did, animals didn’t survive. It always tore him up a little, of course, but it was a part of being a veterinarian.
Today had been made worse because Charlie had been there.
He’d felt like a damn failure.
In every other way, Charlie made everything better. His days since she’d come to Autre had been some of the most exasperating yet fun days he’d had in a very long time. She’d brightened everything up. And not just with the new bright paint colors around the petting zoo or the colored caramel corn she’d ordered for them to sell in their pseudo-concession stand that would eventually be replaced by a much bigger, better-stocked snack shack. Not just in the various colored t-shirts she’d convinced Maddie to add to the green and white tees Boys of the Bayou had been selling. The brightness she had added was deeper than all that. She made him happy. She made him smile, laugh, and look forward to his day in a way he hadn’t in a long time.
But today, having her there as the dog slipped away had been heart-wrenching.
She hadn’t handled it well at all. Tears had been streaming down her cheeks, and the moment he said, “I’ve got this, Charlie, you can go,” she’d spun and run from the room.
There was no way he was going to make her stay and clean up. Or help him track down the owners. Or anything else involved in dealing with an animal that had died.
He’d wanted to go after her, but there was nothing he could say that would make it better. The dog had been hit by a car and died. Yes, it had been in some pain. And yes, there was a family out there who was going to be heartbroken tonight when they found out their dog had been killed.
There was nothing he could say or do to make that better.
His line of work came with a lot of joy and fun. Animals amazed him on a regular basis. But it also came with sadness. Veterinarians had one of the highest suicide rates of any of the professions, not only because it was always hard to lose a patient but because of the human beings who were devastated by those losses. Veterinarians were often blamed for not doing more or working harder and faster, and having that piled on top of already feeling like they hadn’t done enough led to a lot of stress and depression.
Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set Page 245
