But why was he annoyed with her? She was going to do what he just asked her to do. It was cleaning two big dog kennels, but she hadn’t blinked an eye when he told her what the job was.
He faced Maddie, Sawyer, and Tori as Charlie headed down the hallway behind him. All three of them were wearing knowing grins.
He sighed.
There was no way they could really know what was going on between him and Charlie or, more specifically, what had gone on between him and Charlie, but they were clearly picking up on something.
“Charlie is our cousin,” Sawyer said to Griffin. “We’re just helping her out with a job. Temporarily. Probably.”
That probably sent a shot of dammit through Griffin. He nodded. “I know who she is.”
“They met at our wedding,” Tori said.
Sawyer looked at Griffin with interest. “You already know her?”
Did he know Charlie? Well, he hadn’t known her name was Charlie. But he supposed overall that was a small detail. Charlotte “Charlie” Landry being here, though, was a big deal.
“We met,” Griffin said. “Talked outside the reception for a little while.”
That wasn’t untrue. They had talked. He wasn’t about to tell Sawyer what other things he had done to Sawyer’s younger cousin. He wasn’t sure Sawyer really wanted to know.
He was also going to stop thinking about things he had done to Sawyer’s younger cousin in the barn. Because that was over now.
Charlie was back, and she was his new assistant and, more than that, she was a Landry. He could not get involved with the Landrys. Especially one who walked into his clinic and turned everything upside down in the space of about fifteen minutes.
It wasn’t his business, exactly, but he was the vet for Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild.
“Since when are you interested in expanding the petting zoo?” he asked Sawyer. He’d heard nothing about it.
Sawyer shrugged. “I guess as of now.”
“All of this really is just Charlie’s idea, and none of you had any input into it?” Griffin asked.
“Well, we did talk about bringing her on as a marketing consultant for us,” Sawyer said. “And Charlie is… a dynamo.” He shrugged. “Charlie takes everything and makes it ten times bigger. We probably should have expected this.”
“You should have expected it,” Maddie said. “I haven’t been around her as much since we were teens.”
“I’m new to the Charlie Show too,” Tori said. “This is on you, Sawyer.”
The Charlie Show.
Griffin wasn’t sure if that should make him feel better or worse. Better, because he wasn’t the only one susceptible to her charms. Worse, because he didn’t stand a chance, and it seemed no one else could slow her down either.
Within an hour of being here, she’d instituted a program to text updates and photos to puppy owners, implemented a jungle tour theme at the petting zoo, and brought hedgehogs into his life.
The jungle theme wasn’t a reality at the moment, but he fully expected to see kids running around with plastic jungle hats, collecting stickers, and asking four million questions in the petting zoo within a couple of weeks.
He did like hedgehogs though.
“But you’re the owners, and she’s only here temporarily, right?” Griffin asked. “Surely you can pull this idea back.”
“Why would we do that?” Tori asked. “She’s expanding the business. Exactly what we need to do. And I think this sounds fun.”
Sure, fun. Tori had never worked in a place where animals were used to entertain people and make money. Yes, he’d worked at zoos. He’d wanted to work at zoos. He’d still be at a zoo if he hadn’t let his temper get the better of him, in fact.
But as a vet, he cared for the animals. He helped them stay healthy or get healthy when they weren’t. He’d specifically worked to help increase the population of endangered tigers in the propagation program at the National Zoo. To work, propagation programs needed secure places where the animals could be protected. In the U.S., that meant zoos and preserves, so he hadn’t had a lot of choices. Whether he liked it or not, the current state of the planet, saving many animals from extinction, meant keeping some in captivity.
But that was different than coming up with ways for people to ogle animals and, worse, invade enclosures and handle animals for their own entertainment.
Unfortunately, Maddie was nodding her agreement with Tori. Griffin sighed internally. Charlie had already won them over. Of course, this was her family, and it was possible that they would have been on board no matter what.
He had a feeling that they hadn’t been actually looking for a marketing consultant or to expand the business. Charlie showing up here, unemployed, meant now they suddenly had a marketing consultant whether they—or he—liked it or not. And she was going all in.
But even if they hadn’t been family, Griffin knew Charlie would have won them over easily. She had a way about her. Maybe with anyone else, her presentation would’ve taken twenty minutes to convince them versus the ten that she’d given Sawyer, Maddie, and Tori, but it was clear that these three were on board.
And Griffin couldn’t really object. He was technically an employee of theirs. His partnership was in the vet clinic with Tori. Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild hired him and Tori to take care of their animals.
It was a little more complicated since Tori was married to one of the partners. It wasn’t like they would’ve hired anyone else. And the petting zoo was made up mostly of her own animals.
Still, Griffin was a partner in the Autre Animal Hospital, and if one of their clients took on more animals, then Griffin would take on the care of those animals.
Charlotte Landry had been back in Autre for a few hours, and already she was complicating his life. Not just by being gorgeous and completely kissable and now off-limits, which was a problem all on its own, but now she was going to make his job harder.
The goats loved attention, so it was not as difficult for him to imagine opening the little barnyard to a more interactive setup. The alpacas would be okay too. The otters performed for audiences, and he knew that they would be ecstatic to be fed fish by tourists all day long. But they would have to rotate which otters were on display so that he didn’t end up with a bunch of fat, sassy otters who would only show off for fish all day.
However, there were plenty of animals that shouldn’t have to be subjected to that. The potbellied pig, Hermione, would not like the visitors. She was shy and easily over-stimulated. They’d need to find her another place to be during petting zoo hours.
Griffin knew where his line was with all of this, and he wouldn’t hesitate to hold it. Not even with big blue eyes blinking up at him, looking at him like he was amazing.
Yeah, the look on her face when he’d been interacting with Andre and Brownie had given him a hot kick to the gut.
Charlie looked at him like he was a rock star. Or a big piece of chocolate cake. Or both. Dammit.
And Tori, Sawyer, and Maddie clearly liked this idea.
That meant he couldn’t shoot it down entirely.
Tori had given him a job when he was jobless and trusted him completely as she began relinquishing more and more of the practice to him. Besides that, he really liked her. He also liked and respected Sawyer, Maddie, Josh, and Owen, and everyone else who worked with Boys of the Bayou. The Landrys were an amazing family, and he was getting close to counting them as friends.