It was one of the sweetest kisses yet, and Charlie immediately grabbed the front of his shirt in her fists to hold him close for a little longer.
But they only truly got a few seconds before Fiona let out a shrill whistle. “Get your asses over here. Your new friends want to meet you.”
They pulled apart, their gazes lingering. Griffin captured Charlie’s hand and tugged her toward the huge purple pickup parked in front of the clinic.
It was one of the biggest trucks Charlie had ever seen. The wheels were enormous and lifted the truck at least a couple extra feet into the air. It was an extended cab and, though Charlie was no expert, even the front of the truck looked extra-large as if encasing a larger than usual engine.
It was also purple. Really purple. Like, grape soda purple.
Charlie hadn’t known Fiona long, but already she felt like that truck fit the woman’s personality. It was big, bright, colorful, and impossible to ignore.
Added to the whole picture was the huge trailer she had hooked to the back of the truck.
Again, Charlie knew very little about animal trailers or even transporting animals at all. But she was suddenly worried that lemurs were possibly bigger than she thought they were if they required that size of a trailer.
The sounds from the trailer would’ve been startling if Charlie didn’t know what Fiona had brought with her. However, it sounded as if Griffin had asked her to bring something too, and Charlie assumed that the various squeaks, chirps, growls, and barks were not all from the lemurs.
Griffin was already frowning as they stopped next to the trailer. “You brought lemurs?”
Charlie grinned. Of course, he would know the sound of a lemur.
Fiona went to the back of the trailer and pulled the main door open. “When I heard that Charlie needed some lemurs for her new animal park, I knew that Larry, Curly, and Moe would be perfect.”
Griffin moved to the back of the trailer to look inside. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. His expression was a combination of happiness and excitement and wonder.
And Charlie wanted him to look like that every day.
“You asked her for lemurs?” He turned back to Charlie.
“With some input from Tori,” Charlie said. “I was looking into what it would take to get you an elephant.”
He just blinked at her for a few seconds, then shook his head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “You told me you loved elephants.”
He took the four steps that separated them, cupped her face, pulled her up onto her tiptoes, and kissed her again. She leaned into him, ecstatic that he loved the surprise and wasn’t already saying no to keeping the lemurs and expanding the park.
He lifted his head a few seconds later and stared at her. “This is… One of the best things…”
“Hey, how about a little love for the woman who drove these guys from Florida?”
Griffin gave her a grin. “I appreciate it, Fi, but I’ll show my gratitude to you in some other way.”
“You better. Like with etouffee with shrimp and pecan pie.”
“Ellie will be happy to see you,” Griffin said with a laugh.
So this wasn’t Fiona’s first trip to Autre. She knew Charlie’s grandmother, and Charlie could only assume, the rest of the family as well.
“Are you going to show Charlie what you asked me to bring for her?”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “You did ask her to bring me something?”
“Come see.” Griffin again looked excited.
Charlie really liked that look on him.
He pulled her to the back of the trailer, and they looked inside together.
Charlie gasped as she first caught sight of the lemurs. They were, in fact, bigger than she’d expected. Of course, she knew from her reading that they were part of the primate family. They did remind her a little bit of monkeys as they climbed up the side of the cage and swung from bars overhead. They were also very vocal. They were going to give the otters some competition for the loudest exhibit.
“Wow, they’re really beautiful,” she said.
Griffin grinned down at her. “This is the best surprise.”
Yeah, now she wanted to get him an elephant too.
“And those are for you.” He pointed.
“Hedgehogs!” She grinned up at him. “I wondered if we were going ahead with that.”
“Hedgehogs will be great,” he said. “And then there’s him.”
Charlie lifted her gaze and looked past the lemurs into the back, darker part of the trailer. And gasped.
“No,” she said softly. “Really?”
“Really.”
He’d gotten her a sloth.
A sloth.
“I’ve decided that saying yes to you maybe isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
“Oh, Dr. Foster, you really shouldn’t have admitted that.”
14
Fiona cleared her throat, and Charlie realized she and Griffin had been grinning at each other stupidly for several seconds.
“So, should we take them over to their new pens?” Fiona asked.
Oh, crap. They needed a place to put these animals. Charlie hadn’t expected to have three lemurs today. She hadn’t talked to Mitch or Zeke about building new enclosures. Hell, she didn’t even know what kind of enclosures these animals actually needed.
“Oh…” She started.
“Yeah,” Griffin told Fiona. “I’ll ride with you and show you where to go.”
Charlie looked up at him in surprise. “We have a place to put them?”
He nodded. “Mitch and Zeke have been working on it for the past few days.” He shrugged. “I’m assuming they added a lemur enclosure to their plans as well.”
Charlie supposed that Tori would have let them know about the new plan. But she shook her head. “I haven’t seen any new pens down by the petting zoo.”
“They are over behind Mitch’s place.”
Charlie’s eyes widened. The land behind Mitch’s house was several acres of unused grassland that extended from the backyards of three family homes to the bayou. Mitch, Zander, and Fletcher lived in those houses, and Zeke had built his own house at the end of the dead-end road everyone now referred to as Bachelor Row—even now that Paige had made Mitch not-a-bachelor-at-all.
The land had been in the family ever since the Landrys had settled here back before Autre was even officially a town. They’d turned down at least a dozen offers over the years for the purchase of the land, dedicated to the idea of keeping the land in the family.
It was exactly where Charlie had envisioned putting Griffin’s elephant.
Obviously, elephants need a lot of space, and while the land became marshy the closer they got to the bayou, there was plenty of space on nice, firm ground that could keep several animals with the proper fencing.
Over the past couple of days, her vision for the area had become more specific, including buildings like barns and concession stands, paved pathways for people to walk, and various structures to keep a variety of animals safely.
Okay, she had envisioned an entire animal park behind her cousins’ houses.
She hadn’t told anyone that yet though.
The Landrys had done a lot of crazy things over the years, but she wasn’t sure any of them were quite this crazy.