“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.
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.