And that was how she looked at him. She saw possibilities for him. In him. She wasn’t going to let him hide out in Louisiana or wallow in the things that had gone wrong in the past. She was going to push him to do more, and be better, and go after his dreams.
“Okay,” Griffin told Gus. “I’m probably more like ninety percent in love with her.”
The otter told him it was about time he realized that.
“So, what do I do about it?”
Gus turned and scampered off Griffin’s lap, slipping into the river with Gertie.
Griffin sighed.
It was possible that he needed to start getting relationship advice from creatures with two legs instead of four.
Charlie was depressed.
That was something that so rarely happened, she didn’t really have good coping mechanisms for it.
She got upset. Angry. Frustrated. Sad. But depressed was very unusual.
Of course, it was also unusual for her to see a dog die.
That had really sucked. She wasn’t a Pollyanna. She knew the animals died. She’d just never seen it happen herself.
And she never wanted to see it happen again.
But worse, she never wanted to see Griffin giving his all to save an animal, only to have it not work.
He’d clearly been devastated.
Again, she was an adult, and she knew what veterinarians did. She didn’t think that this was the first time it happened to Griffin, nor would it be the last. Still, seeing the man she cared so much about and who she was trying so hard to help heal knocked down like that had been really hard.
Now, she sat in her own personal therapy session—i.e., at Ellie’s bar with a plate of homemade beignets in front of her and her crazy, loving family surrounding her.
And she was still depressed.
The beignets were delicious, the chicory coffee was strong, and her family was, well, her family.
All of that was perfect.
But Griffin wasn’t here, and she didn’t know where he was, and she had no idea what to say to him even if she found him.
Still… she wanted to find him.
She wanted to hug him. She wanted to tell him that he was amazing even if he hadn’t been able to save the dog. She wanted to tell him that no matter what happened, she would always consider him a hero.
She wanted to tell him that watching him work on the dog had actually been sexy.
But that was very inappropriate, she realized.
She was sad the dog had died. She was sad thinking about how they needed to find the family. She hurt for Griffin.
But watching him today had been sexy. She wasn’t going to admit that to anyone else because it sounded very strange, but this was the first time she’d seen him truly worked up. He’d been intensely focused, working quickly, barking orders, and clearly pouring his all into saving the dog.
There had been blood, and a sense of desperation, and definite sadness. But seeing Griffin determined and confident, yet still clearly working with emotion, had been, yes, sexy, dammit. She didn’t care how that sounded. Well, she cared enough not to say it out loud, but she wouldn’t apologize for being attracted to Griffin in those moments.
“You need a shot of something in that coffee?”
Charlie looked up at Ellie. She smiled. “Promise it will help?”
Ellie shook her head. “Nope.”
Charlie sighed. “No magic potion, huh?”
Ellie put her hand on Charlie’s head, an affectionate gesture she used with all of her grandchildren. “Some hurts just have to hurt.”
Well, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “You know what happened?”
“Sure. Pete Cochran and Billy Melancon were the ones who found the dog. They came in here for lunch.”
“Griffin tried so hard,” Charlie said. She looked down at her coffee cup. “I didn’t know what to say to him.”
“You couldn’t just say you were sorry it went sideways?” Ellie asked. “Or say that you knew he did his best?”
Charlie lifted a shoulder. “That wouldn’t have changed anything.”
Ellie stroked her hand over Charlie’s hair. It was such a familiar, comforting gesture, Charlie felt her throat tighten. “You don’t have to change things all the time, Charlie.”
Her grandmother’s words hit her and made her heart skip. “But…” She really felt like she did. “Isn’t that what we should try to do? Change things? Make them better?”
“Well, maybe you’re not looking at changing the right things,” Ellie told her.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t change the fact that dogs die. But you being there to give Griffin a big hug when it happens can change how it feels for him afterward.”
Charlie studied her grandmother’s face. “I like changing things.”
“I know. Even more, you like being the savior,” Ellie said with an affectionate smile. “You like making your mark. But maybe you need to start realizing that you make your mark in lots of ways. Maybe you didn’t send Isabelle’s attacker to jail, but you made her feel supported. Maybe Boys of the Bayou isn’t going to be worth ten million dollars, but they’re all excited, and everyone is pitching in on the new projects and having fun. And you can’t keep Griffin from never facing tough times, but you can definitely be there for him when those times come.”
Charlie let all of that sink in. Yes, she did love being the one who swooped in with her big ideas and plans, took everything to the next level, and then stepped back and saw that everyone was happier and more successful when she was done.
Yes, she’d envisioned doing that here.
But maybe Ellie was right. Maybe she was making people happier and more successful in smaller, quieter ways.
And maybe she couldn’t make everything better, but she could do her best with the things in her control.
Who was she kidding? Of course, Ellie was right.
“Thanks,” she told her grandmother. “That helps.”
And now she needed to hug Griffin. Of course, first, she needed to find Griffin. He wasn’t answering his phone, wasn’t at his house, and wasn’t down at the petting zoo barn. She’d left the clinic after the dog passed away but had gone back to see if Griffin needed her after she’d cried for about ten minutes. She’d just been overwhelmed, but she realized running out was the wrong reaction.
Griffin had been gone when she got back though. And she hadn’t seen him since. She’d been hoping he’d come to Ellie’s, possibly needing the camaraderie of the group the way she did, but she hadn’t seen him yet.
Ellie grinned at her and leaned over to kiss the top of her head before stepping away. “Good to know I’m still better than a shot of whiskey.”
“An ostrich? Really?” Tori asked Fiona.
The question pulled Charlie’s attention back to the conversation around the table.
“Yes,” Fiona said. “And I won’t tell you that this ostrich is possibly the dumbest bird I’ve ever met.”
Tori chuckled. “Ostriches aren’t really known for being all that smart.”
“But you love them anyway,” Josh said. He had his arm over the back of Tori’s chair and was playing with a strand of her hair. He tugged on it playfully. “Or you probably love them because the poor things are dumb.”