The woman sitting on the braided rug in front of the ugly plaid couch that had probably been in that cabin longer than Chase had been alive was nothing like the nerdy alligator scientist he’d been obsessing about. This woman was softer. More open. Not preoccupied with research reports about giant lizards that skulked around the bayou. She was here with him, her eyes lit up over the Christmas decorations that had been thrown haphazardly in the boxes.
He was even more obsessed now.
He set the box on the coffee table and joined her on the floor. “You have good family Christmas memories then?” he asked.
“Oh, definitely.” She smiled as she pulled a stuffed snowman from the box. “I miss home a lot but especially this time of year.” She held the snowman up. “It’s funny to me they have snowman decorations. There’s no snow here.”
He smiled. “Maybe that’s why they have the decorations.”
She laughed. “Maybe.” Then she sighed. “I do miss the snow this time of year.”
“Where’s home?”
“Minnesota.”
“Oh. Yeah, you’re used to snow.” He chuckled.
“Yeah. And cold.” She looked down at her dress. “Could never wear this back home this time of year.”
“Bet you’re pretty cute in a hat and mittens, too, though,” he said.
She looked mildly surprised. “Thanks.”
And now he wanted to see her in a hat and mittens. Making a snowman. Or maybe ice skating. And he didn’t even know how to ice skate.
“Do you ice skate?” he asked.
“Of course.” She laughed lightly. “Everyone in Minnesota knows how to ice skate.”
He loved her laugh. “I thought maybe you were here because home wasn’t happy,” he said honestly.
Bailey shook her head. “Oh no. This is actually the first year I haven’t been home. Last year it worked out. This year was my turn to be on call for work.”
Chase could admit that he didn’t really know what she did in her job. Chase had only been in Autre for two weeks this past summer and he’d spent a lot more time partying than he had concerned about climate change.
The woman in front of him could change that.
It was a strange realization. Usually when he was into a woman, it was about taking her out and having fun and, of course, getting naked. This woman made him want to know about her fascination with alligators and the initiatives to slow coastal erosion.
Huh.
“What kind of calls might you get?” he asked, reaching into one of the boxes and pulling out a set of wooden reindeer. They had clearly been cut and painted by hand and Chase wondered about who had made them and if he showed them to the Landrys if they’d smile nostalgically the way Bailey had over the mugs.
“Hurt animals, animals where they shouldn’t be, people doing things to animals that they shouldn’t be.” She gave him a look. “You know, someone deciding to make a wild animal a pet.”
Right. Like otters.
“Surely it’s quieter around Christmastime.”
“The alligators are less active in the colder weather,” she said, pulling a strand of lights out of another box. “So there are fewer nuisance alligator reports, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a chance at all. And there are lots of other animals. But it’s one of the things I like about working down here in Louisiana. There’s more outdoor activity year-round than in Minnesota.”
“People hunt and ice fish and things like that up there, right?”
“Sure,” she agreed.
“So you could have stayed and worked in Minnesota. What brought you south?”
She grinned. “There are no alligators in Minnesota.”
He couldn’t help it. He laughed. He’d never met anyone who actually loved alligators. “What is with you and the gators? Seriously.”
Bailey set down the stuffed, probably handsewn, cloth wreath she held. “Alligators have been around for millions of years,” she said. “In fact, prehistoric skeletons look almost identical to current day skeletons. That means they’re even older than we’ve believed and relatively unchanged. That is amazing. The fact that this species has survived so many periods on earth and yet hasn’t changed that much is just so cool.”
He shook his head.
“What?” she asked.
“How is you being all worked up over big lizards so damned hot?” he asked.
Her eyes went round. “It’s hot?”
Chase shrugged. “It is. I can’t explain it except to say that you look fucking gorgeous when you’re all excited. Even if it is about alligators.”
Her cheeks got pink and she ducked her head. “I know it’s weird. Alligators aren’t sexy.”
“Passion is, though,” he said. He waited until she looked up at him. “I think that’s it. It’s true passion because it would be pretty hard to fake being that into alligators.”
“Most guys don’t think like that.”
“Most guys are kind of stupid.”
She gave him a small smile. Chase couldn’t remember the last time he dated a woman who had a true passion. And shoes sales didn’t count. He couldn’t come up with one. Of course, he could also admit that he hadn’t spent a lot of time talking about hopes and dreams with the women he’d dated in the most recent past.
“So what are you passionate about?” she asked. “Medicine, I would guess?”
No one had ever asked him that before. He thought about that, wanting to give her an actual answer. “Doing something that makes someone’s life better,” he finally said.
She tipped her head. “Where does that come from?”
He liked that she didn’t scoff or roll her eyes or say something like “of course.” He knew he came off confident, even cocky a lot of the time, and that he clearly didn’t mind the spotlight, but he liked that Bailey took his answer seriously. “My sister. She had a stroke when she was ten.”
Bailey’s surprise was obvious. “Wow. As a kid?”
He nodded. “It’s more common than people think. She’s older than me, so honestly, I only remember little bits. Her in the hospital. My mom being scared. My mom being really overprotective of her. Juliet pushing back against that. Our older brothers are a lot older, so Juliet and I were kind of stuck together a lot anyway, but once she had some physical deficits I could more easily keep up with her, so we did a lot together. Skiing, skating, swimming. And I was there to be sure she was okay and help her if she needed. She learned to compensate for everything really effectively, but I was that extra level of security. It always made my mom feel better if I was there with her. So it made me feel important. I was her crutch, I guess. I do remember going along to a lot of doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions. I watched her get stronger and recover in real time. I want to help other people that way.”
“That’s what made you want to go into medicine?” she asked.
He recognized that look of fascination on her face. He loved that she felt that way about his story.
“I like the idea of helping people overcome things that happen to them.”
Bailey just looked at him for a long moment. Then she said, “That’s really great.”