That was how she and Charlie were alike. Passionate and insightful. Charlie considered it the highest compliment that she was like her grandmother.
“Well, come on then,” Zeke said, grabbing Charlie’s hand and pulling her toward the big, long tables that sat at the back of the bar where the family gathered.
“Hey, Leo!” Fletcher called to their grandfather, who was sitting at the opposite end of the bar talking, as always, to the group of men gathered there. “Charlie’s going to tell us her story!”
Leo grinned and immediately got up off his stool. “I’m coming. Could use twenty bucks.”
Charlie laughed. She loved her grandfather. He was outspoken, funny, and absolutely rough around the edges, but she’d never met a more loving soul in her life.
However, there was no way Leo was going to guess what had happened in Paris. Leo thought all of his granddaughters were perfect angels. She was pretty sure deep down he knew they got into plenty of trouble, and he’d heard all of them cuss, and he’d seen each of them drunk at least once, but he always blamed the boys for being bad influences.
Which wasn’t entirely untrue.
Well, except with Kennedy. Kennedy, Josh and Sawyer’s younger sister, and the girl who’d spent the most time on the bayou was a spitfire, and everyone knew she was an instigator. But she was Leo’s very obvious favorite.
Leo was definitely one of the people Zander had been talking about when he said that the girls got away with more than the boys. Leo could be won over and wrapped around a little finger of one of his granddaughters faster than anyone.
“Wait for me,” one of Leo’s friends said, scrambling off his stool as well. “I’ve got money down too.”
Charlie looked at him with surprise. “Elias, you think you know what I did to get fired?”
“I got caught up in the moment when everyone was guessin’ and bettin’,” he said with a grin. “Happens a lot around here.”
He had a point.
She tugged her hand free from Zeke’s hold. “Well, don’t you guys move. I’ll just sit here in the middle.”
She headed for the stool in the middle of the long wooden bar. It just so happened to be right next to Griffin. Coincidentally.
Okay, not so coincidentally.
He might want to avoid her, but she didn’t want to make it easy on him.
She slid up onto the barstool and looked over at him. He’d stopped eating but was stubbornly not looking in her direction.
“Hey, boss.”
He sighed. She grinned. He had been the one to make a point of her being his assistant—especially when it came to cleaning up dog vomit and various types of animal bodily fluids—but when she called him “boss,” he always sighed.
“Charlotte,” he greeted simply.
It was different seeing him here than it was at the clinic.
He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. A dark blue shirt that stretched over his muscled shoulders and arms enticingly. He wore jeans and t-shirts a lot when he went out on calls outside of the clinic, but she didn’t really get a chance to ogle him in them. When he had somewhere to go—i.e., a great reason to get away from her—he was out the door almost too fast for her to get a good look at his ass in blue jeans.
Almost. She always made a point of watching him leave.
But when he was in the clinic, he was in scrubs. Which was also stupidly hot. They made him look so capable and in charge.
She liked this look now though.
He’d showered since she’d last seen him. His hair was still a little damp along his collar. But he hadn’t shaved. He had more than a five o’clock shadow. That was serious scruff, and she loved it.
“How’s the cow?” she asked. He’d left that afternoon to go visit a pregnant cow.
“Not pregnant anymore.”
She smiled. “Everything went okay?”
“Yep. But no need to send a video of you with a cow nose and ears or anything,” he said. “Clive doesn’t have a cell phone.”
She’d been sending the little update videos to patients for the past few days after Andre had said the one she’d sent him was so cool. After Brownie had been home for a couple of days, Michael had sent her a video showing the dog cuddled up on the couch with Andre watching cartoons. That had been one of the highlights of her week. So yes, the videos were now a permanent part of the care at Autre Animal Hospital.
She used filters to turn her into whatever animal they’d been caring for. She’d been a cat three times, a dog again, a rabbit, and a guinea pig. Which had led to her putting guinea pigs on her list of petting zoo additions.
Griffin had not only rolled his eyes, but he’d adamantly declined her invitation to be in the videos too. Still, all of the clients had commented positively on the videos, and one of the cat owners had said her daughter had wanted to bring Sally, the tabby, into their clinic because of the video Andre had shown her. And Charlie knew Griffin had loved that video of Andre and Brownie at home and that they were doing well.
In fact, right now, Charlie could swear the corner of Griffin’s mouth was trying to tip up thinking about her becoming a cow for a video.
Even that tiny bit of reaction made her want more. A lot more.
At the clinic, he was all business, purely professional, and focused on his tasks and patients as he should be. She just really wanted to be on his mind.
“Okay, but I should definitely take a congratulations gift out there. Is the appropriate baby gift for a cow a bouquet of flowers or a cake?” she asked.
“She’d eat the flowers.” He paused. “And maybe the cake too, which would be bad for her.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a human cake,” Charlie said as if that was obvious.
Finally, he turned his head to look at her. “What would you make a cow a cake out of?”
“I would think we could somehow mix grains and… alfalfa?” she guessed.
“You really would make her a cake, wouldn’t you?”
She would. If it made him look at her with that hint of wonder. Okay, a lot of the look in his eyes was you’re-kind-of-cuckoo-you-know-that? But there was a hint of wonder, and she liked that.
“Oh my God, it’s a girl? I’ll have to figure out how to make the grains pink.”
“Food coloring could be bad for her.”
“Could be? Don’t you know?”
“I’ve honestly never had an occasion to worry. I’ve never known anyone who might make a cow a pink cake to celebrate her new calf.”
“Huh. That’s weird,” she said, trying hard not to laugh. “I mean, it’s rude, really.”
He shook his head.
She smiled. She’d been doing some homework on the animals the clinic served. “I guess we can leave the pink coloring out. Maybe there are some pink flowers we could put on top.”
“And when you say ‘we,’ you mean you.”
God, she’d love to get Griffin doing something like that. That would be funny. And sweet. “You can totally help.”
“I’m not making cakes for cows.”
“Cupcakes? Like a mouthful. We could just do three or four.” She didn’t really mean any of this, of course. Though if she thought it was something their clients would like… and would talk to other people about… she’d do it.