Except… clearly it wasn’t.
Then more of what she said sunk in.
“Did you say this side of the family?”
She nodded. “My dad’s side. My mom’s side in Shreveport calls me Charlotte.”
Griffin stepped back, and Charlie’s hand dropped away from his shirt. She was watching him with a confused look.
He took a breath. “Charlotte, I have a question for you.”
Her expression said she already knew what he was about to ask. She nodded. “Okay.”
“What is your last name?”
“Landry.”
Griffin felt his whole body go cold. This was not at all how he had planned his day to go.
Not only was he obsessed with a woman for the first time in forever, but she was a Landry, the family who had gotten under his skin and made him feel attached in spite of every effort not to.
Charlie sighed, reading his expression. “I’m guessing that picking up where we left off is off the table.”
“Yes, considering I’m your new boss.”
Chapter 6
Dammit.
He was her new boss.
She had really not seen that coming.
Charlie’s thoughts were interrupted as Tori joined them.
“Hi! I see you guys have met. Sorry, I’m running a little late,” Tori said.
She was smiling at them brightly. Her long brown hair fell softly around her shoulders, and her cheeks were pink from rushing in the heat. Or maybe it was just a natural glow. She was also clearly pregnant. She was over halfway to her September due date. She looked amazing.
“Hi!” Charlie said, enfolding Tori in a hug.
Charlie loved her cousin Josh. He’d always teased her, just like the others, but he was a good guy, and she was so happy that he was so happy. She’d visited Autre a few times since Tori had moved to Louisiana from Iowa, and she really liked the other woman. She and Josh were absolutely adorable together, and everyone in the family was already head-over-heels for their baby.
“Has Griffin given you the tour?” Tori asked after they embraced.
Charlie glanced at the man she’d been surprisingly excited to see. She’d been thinking about him for two months. She’d been wearing his shirt around her apartment for two months. She’d had to wash it because of the goat smell, which had been too bad because it had washed a lot of his smell off too. Still, she liked wearing it and thinking of him.
Seeing him again had been one of the bright spots in her decision to come to Autre after her Paris plans fell apart. As was not living in Shreveport with her parents. Who had been telling her that she needed to learn to take a deep breath and not always react on pure emotion ever since she was six and threw orange Jell-O at Molly Hartman because Molly was being mean to the new kid in their class.
Curtis and Renee Landry were very disappointed in the Porsche incident and didn’t really care to know why she’d done it. She’d said she wasn’t sorry and refused to even attempt to apologize to her boss—or the woman’s asshole son—and the, “Well, Charlotte, this is the real world, and you can’t always just do whatever you want,” from her dad had been the catalyst for her calling her grandmother and asking if she could crash in Autre until she got a new job.
She hated disappointing her dad. She admired him, and his entrepreneurship was the reason she wanted to help businesses grow. But while she’d inherited his drive and outgoing personality, she did not possess his calm, just roll-with-it attitude.
Of course, Ellie had said yes and had texted Charlie’s dad to tell him to pull the stick out of his ass. See, Ellie hadn’t even needed to know why Charlie had done what she’d done to Alan’s Porsche. She’d just trusted that Charlie had a good reason.
It was funny to Charlie that her father had always been considered a bit of the black sheep of the family because he was level-headed and sophisticated and polished.
That was why Autre had always felt like such a different world. She’d loved her summers here where, as long as you weren’t hurting anyone else, anything went. You could stay out until sunrise, go barefoot all day, skinny-dip in the bayou—or jump in with all your clothes on—eat sweets for breakfast, and any and all other decadent things. She’d gotten drunk for the first time, had her first kiss, had sex for the first time, said the words “Fuck you” for the first time, and had gotten her first and only tattoo during her summers in Autre. The bayou had always been wild in her experience, and she loved it. She could say and do and be whatever she wanted when she was here.
She needed some of that right now.
Her job in marketing was fun and fulfilling. Mostly. But she’d been spending a lot of time over the past couple of years with people who wore suits every day and drank Super Food smoothies for breakfast, and hadn’t gone barefoot probably since they were kids, and had very likely never skinny-dipped.
And it showed.
She needed a break. And the bayou was the perfect place for it.
“Griffin has… shown me some things,” she finally answered Tori.
His gaze snapped to hers, and she couldn’t help but smile at how startled he looked.
“But he didn’t know I was going to be here today, so he hasn’t had a chance to go over many details,” she said, looking back to Tori.
“He knew you were going to be here.” Tori looked at Griffin. “We told you about hiring Charlie as the new assistant.”
He nodded. “No one mentioned who she was, exactly. I didn’t expect Charlie to be the woman I didn’t want to dance with at your wedding.”
Charlie snorted, his comment catching her off guard. She wasn’t sure if he’d meant to be funny just then, but he was. She grinned at him. “Hard to get rid of me.”
He just lifted a brow. “Startlingly.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. She looked back to Tori. Her cousin-in-law seemed concerned.
“Is there a problem?” Tori asked.
Yeah, there might be a problem. Charlie really wanted to pick up where they’d left off, and Griffin now seemed set against that. Except that he did want to. Which made Charlie want to convince him it was a very good idea.
“No. Of course not,” Griffin told Tori, even giving her a little smile. “If you want to hire Charlotte, then that’s fine.”
Tori frowned. “But we’re partners now. I can’t hire someone you don’t want to work with. Especially because I’ll be here less, and it will just be the two of you a lot of the time.”
Charlie just crossed her arms and tipped her head, waiting for Griffin to respond to that. She was fine with it just being the two of them.
He, on the other hand, straightened his spine and cleared his throat. “It’s not that I don’t want to work with her. It will be fine.”
“But you said no to dancing with her at the wedding?” Tori asked. “Why?”
Griffin was stoically not looking at Charlie now. She also found that amusing.
“I don’t dance,” Griffin finally said. “It wasn’t anything to do with her personally.”
“Oh.” Tori didn’t seem totally convinced.
“It’s fine.” Charlie reached out to pat Tori’s arm. “Give me a couple of days, and he’ll be so glad I’m here that he won’t even believe he was once able to tell me no.” She cast him a sly glance.
He still did not meet her eyes. Because he knew very well that he hadn’t said no to her for long.
This was going to be fun.
“Dr. Foster! Brownie needs you!”
The little boy’s voice cut into their conversation, and they all turned to look at him.
“Andre,” his dad admonished. “You don’t interrupt adults talking.”
“You do when your dog needs help,” Griffin said, stepping past Tori and crouching in front of the little boy. “You do whatever you have to do to take care of the animals that need you.”
Charlie felt a little flip in her stomach as Griffin reached out and touched the boy’s upper arm.
<
br /> “We do need to get Brownie inside,” Griffin agreed. “I’m sorry we were talking about silly things when you needed me.”
Charlie figured that he’d intended the term “silly things” for her as an attempt to seem nonchalant about their conversation, but she knew better. Griffin Foster had been happy to see her. She’d seen it on his face. She might describe the situation between her and Griffin in a number of ways, but silly wasn’t one of them.
But she also felt warmer watching Griffin with the little boy. He was fully focused on Andre now and seemed genuine when he said that the dog was more important than their conversation.
He was probably right.
Andre’s eyes flickered to her.
“Hi, Andre.”
“Hi, Charlie.”
Griffin looked at her with an eyebrow up.
She shrugged. Yes, she knew his patient’s family.
Charlie glanced at the boy’s father. “Hey, Michael.”
“Hey, Charlie.” The big man gave her a grin. “How are ya?”
He was as good-looking now as he’d been in high school. He had medium brown skin and dark brown eyes, a quick smile, and a deep laugh. She’d definitely had great taste in crushes back then.
“Good.” She glanced at Griffin. Speaking of crushes, she had been really good a minute ago. Now she was feeling definite regret about not picking back up where she and Griffin had left off. “How’s Naomi?” she asked Michael.
Charlie had hung out with his younger sister during her teenage summers here. She’d also flirted with Michael a lot. And had danced with him. At least three or four times.
“Naomi’s good. Does she know you’re back?”
“Well, my grandma probably told yours,” Charlie said with a smile. “But I need to give Naomi a call. Can’t wait to catch up.”
“She’ll love that.”
Naomi had been an actress as a kid and spent most of her time in California, but she’d retired by the time she was fourteen and was just another Autre girl when Charlie had gotten to know her. Not that Charlie hadn’t been a little star-struck at first. Or very star-struck. She’d watched every episode of Naomi’s show. But the actress was very down-to-earth and had put her stardom behind her when she’d moved back to Louisiana.
Charlie had quickly gotten to know her just as Naomi, the girl with the amazing sense of humor and a family that reminded Charlie a lot of the Landrys. In good ways.
The LeClaires were loving and fun. And even better than getting to dance with a very hot and very sweet older boy, was being introduced to food like griot, the national dish of Haiti, by their mother. Monique was an amazing cook, and Charlie had never tasted better sos pwa nwa anywhere else better than when she’d tried it in Monique’s kitchen.
“How has Brownie been feeling?” Charlie heard Griffin ask Andre.
She turned to watch the man and the boy.
“He seems okay,” Andre told him seriously. “But he doesn’t want to run around as much as he used to.”
“Well, let’s get inside and fix that,” Griffin said.
There was something about his reassuring tone of voice and the way he met the little boy’s eyes as if acknowledging that, while Andre was only eight years old, he was clearly the primary caregiver to this puppy and had the most reason to be concerned.
“Okay. I really want him to feel good and be able to play with me again,” Andre said.
Charlie felt a prickling behind her eyes. Andre was clearly worried about his puppy, and Griffin was treating him with respect and giving the situation the attention it deserved.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ll do everything I can, and I promise that Brownie will be back to playing with you really soon.”
In that moment, Charlie realized that if Griffin Foster told her something was going to be okay and that he was going to do everything he could to make it right, she would believe that one hundred percent.
Griffin stretched to his feet and addressed Michael. “Do you want to come in with me, or should I take him in?”
Charlie straightened, her eyes widening. Griffin had just told Andre everything was going to be okay. But why couldn’t the boy go inside with his dog? Was something bad going to happen?
She stepped forward. “Dr. Foster, what are we going to be doing with Brownie today?”
He looked at her, clearly surprised at her interruption. She also knew, however, that he had noted the word we. Well, she was his assistant, wasn’t she?
“We’re going to be doing a minor procedure on Brownie’s leg,” Griffin said, glancing at Andre. “But it’s not a big deal. Brownie is going to be fine. He’s going to stay overnight with us tonight just to be sure though.”
Okay, a minor procedure. That seemed good. And Griffin wouldn’t lie to Andre. They weren’t going to do a puppy switch or something. She didn’t think.
“He has a bump on his leg,” Andre told her. “I’m the one who found it, and Dr. Foster said that it was really good I said something so that we can take care of it before it was a problem.”
Charlie made her eyes go round, and she crouched down in front of Andre the way Griffin had. “Wow, you are a really good puppy owner. Brownie is really lucky to have you.”
Andre nodded. “I know. Dr. Foster told me that too.”
Charlie could see in Andre’s face that he was proud of himself, but he couldn’t stop glancing at the puppy in his dad’s arms. Clearly, he was worried.
“I’ll tell you what, if your dad will give me his phone number, I can text you little notes about how Brownie is doing today, and I can send you a picture of him later.”
Andre’s eyes widened. “You could do that?”
Charlie nodded. “The only thing that I need you to do in return is to draw and color me a picture of Brownie when you’re at home today. That way, after he goes home with you again, I’ll be able to remember him. Because I think that I’m going to really want to be friends with Brownie.”
Andre nodded. “I can do that. I draw pictures of him all the time!”
Charlie smiled. “I bet you’re a really good artist too.”
“I am.”
Charlie looked up at Michael. “If you give me your number, I promise not to drunk dial you or anything.”
Michael grinned, clearly remembering the time she had drunk dialed him when she’d been eighteen, and she and Kennedy had wanted Michael and his brother Anthony to go fishing with them. At midnight.
“What’s drunk dial?” Andre asked.
Charlie grimaced and looked at Griffin, who just cocked an eyebrow. She got to her feet but said to Andre, “It’s when you accidentally call somebody really late at night and wake them up.”
Andre giggled. “You should not do that to my dad. He’s grumpy when he gets waked up.”
“All right,” Michael said, putting a hand on Andre’s head. He smiled at Charlie. “I’ll be happy to give you my number for texts.”
“Great.”
“Okay, let’s get Brownie inside.” Griffin held his arms out, and Michael shifted the puppy to Griffin.
Griffin ran a big hand over the dog’s head as he cradled the dog against his stomach. He handled it with confidence and gentleness, and Charlie couldn’t help but think of how he’d been reluctantly sweet with the goats and the rest of the menagerie that had been clustered around him on Tori’s wedding night.
Turned on by a guy who was good with animals? Check.
Turned on by a guy who was reassuring to a scared little boy? Double-check.
She watched Griffin as he carried the puppy to the side door of the clinic. Andre and Michael followed, and it wasn’t until Tori said her name that Charlie realized she’d done a full pivot to watch Griffin disappear back into the clinic.
She swung back to face Tori. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?” Tori was eyeing her closely.
Was she okay? That was a good question.
She was feeling a little discombobulated, as a matter of fac
t.
Just five days ago, she’d been in Paris, feeling pretty full of herself and good about life in general, eating croissants at a sidewalk café where she could gaze adoringly at the Eiffel Tower.
Now she was standing beside the veterinary clinic in Autre, Louisiana, about to become the assistant to the man that she had more or less had sex with in a barn two months ago and whose shirt she still wore with only panties when she was lounging around her house. Who was now her boss.
Griffin was absolutely as gorgeous and delicious as he’d been back then. And that meant the moonshine she’d shot with her cousins and the general celebratory air of the event had not been part of her attraction to Griffin.
“So Griffin takes care of the petting zoo and everything with Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild?” Charlie asked. After seeing him with the goats, it was clear he spent a lot of time with them.
Tori nodded. “Yep. I’m sticking with most of my small animal clients, but he’s taking on any new clients and the petting zoo and otters. He also handles a lot of the larger animal calls now that I’m further along.” She put a hand on her stomach. “I fully intend to practice after the baby comes, but it would be great to be more flexible and maybe more part-time.”
“Does he like working with the petting zoo?” Charlie was too interested in the guy. But it didn’t hurt to know something about her new boss, did it?
Tori smiled. “Griffin likes anything having to do with animals. It’s people he’s not as crazy about.”
That fit. Charlie didn’t know him well, but Griffin Foster wasn’t that hard to read, really. He probably shouldn’t play poker. Even the night they’d met, it had been clear that, while the goats weren’t supposed to be following him around, he was far more tolerant of them than he had been of Charlie insinuating herself into his quiet time outside the bar.
That hadn’t lasted. He’d been fine with her being in his space after a few minutes. Sure, kissing and thongs and dirty talk had a way of getting to most guys, but she truly thought he’d liked more than that about her.
Griffin didn’t strike her as “most guys.” And that was going to make her stay in Autre this time a lot more fun, she had a feeling.
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